A Season in Hell

About this book

In this new translation of Arthur Rimbaudillustrious among the 19th-century symbolists and one of the most influential poets upon the modern mindDonald Revell captures the child-like wonder and tortured revelatory despair of these poems which changed in so many ways how we think of what a poem can say and mean. Revells choice of a most immediate vernacular gives the modern reader all the heady brilliance in Rimbauds rebelliousness. Yet as Revell explains in his essay Outrageous Innocence Innocence Outraged which is offered as afterword in this translation of A Season in Hell Rimbauds rebellious sensuality was redolent with the oracular. Revells essay offers the story of Rimbaudhis wildly creative youth his years of breaking with all traditions of morality and decorum his fame as the genius of French letters who is identified as one of the creators of free verse because of his rhythm experiments in prose poems. And Revells essay places these poems in the larger historical narrative of the literature of rebellious youth that has molded much of our contemporary culture. Published with the French on facing pages this translation will open many readers to the pleasure of reading this wild child who was remembered after his death as one of the masters of French poetry.