Rimbaud is not a "Rebel French Poet " Pouet! Pouet !
Rebellion does not fit the Character of Rimbaud.
He is closer to malediction.
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as great a poet as he was,we can not
sugar coat the fact that in his later years,
Rimbaud was a gun runner and a slave trader.
as with the case of the great composer
Wagner,a virulent anti semite, we can only
shake our heads at the contradiction
between evil and transcendent genius.
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@Frank : " He who is without sin can cast the first stone ".
Although many of the Founding Fathers acknowledged that slavery violated the core American Revolutionary ideal of liberty, their simultaneous commitment to private property rights, principles of limited government, and intersectional harmony prevented them from making a bold move against slavery.
foundinf fathers and slaveholders :
Charles Carroll, Samuel Chase, Benjamin Franklin, Button Gwinnett, John Hancock, Patrick Henry, John Jay, Thomas Jefferson, Richard Henry Lee, James Madison, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, Benjamin Rush, Edward Rutledge, George Washington.
In his initial draft of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson condemned the injustice of the slave trade . He owned over 600 African-American people throughout his adult life and freed only seven.
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Actually, throughout the 1700’s America colonists petitioned the king to abolish slavery in the American colony. These requests were always denied as England needed the cotton. From 1770 to 1810, the colonists were preoccupied in building & forming a nation. Ironically, the British abolished slavery before the American colony in the 1830’s. Then of course the Americans went on to fight for it’s abolishment in the 1860’s. Progress moves slowly.
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I think Sylvester Stallone was mis-cast in the Rimbaud bio-pic...
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@carnack53 :)
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In his wonderful little book "The Time of the Assassins, A Study of Rimbaud" Henry Miller wrote," Is there not something just as miraculous about Rimbaud's appearance on this earth as there was in the awakening of Gautama or in Christ's acceptance of the cross, or in Joan of Arc's incredible mission of deliverance? Interpret his work as you like, explain his life as you will, still there is no living him down. The future is all his, even though there be no future.
By the way, you got it backwards: Morrison has become the Arthur Rimbaud of rock legends
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Rimbaud's poetry is one of the most powerful ever written. Jim Morrison was an admirer, all right, but I think of Emily Dickinson instead, who was writing more or less at the same time on the other side of the ocean.
Even though the themes and questions pursued by these two giants are very different, they were on the same quest, pushing poetry and language to places that very few return from. In fact, for Rimbaud there was no place else to go from there than silence.
His poems are like radioactive little objects - just knowing that they exist often suffice, one approaches them only from time to time with great prudence and great trepidation (at least I do). I usually do so only in company of students and teaching those classes are for me like attending a friend's funeral: one returns from them both devastated and exhilarated.
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I'll never forget the joy of discovering Rimbaud's poetry when I was 15 +/-. Decades and decades later I still carry his poems with me and read them, each time discovering something I had missed or saw in a different light. The greatest French poet(
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Thanks for the story, but I think the Times should revise it's "Mr" policy when it comes to historical figures. You wouldn't say "Mr Shakespeare."
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@Ambrose:
YES! Thank you!!
The NYT can be so pearl-clutching when it comes to language. It's silly and tiresome.
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“When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.”
― Mark Twain
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Good book:
"SOMEBODY ELSE Arthur Rimbaud in Africa, 1880-91."
"In 1888 Arthur Rimbaud received a letter from Paris that said: ''You have become, among a little coterie, a sort of legendary figure. . . . This little group, who claim you as their Master, do not know what has become of you, but hope you will one day reappear, and rescue them from obscurity.'' A most flattering invitation, but the reluctant messiah did not respond. He had come to think of his poems as ''rinures'' (dregs) and wanted nothing further to do with them. Besides, he was at that moment waiting in a flyspeck port on the Gulf of Aden for a shipment of percussion rifles; he had better things to do."
http://movies2.nytimes.com/books/99/10/24/reviews/991024.24downint.html
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An excellent book on Rimbaud and the connection between Jim Morrison and the French poet is: "Rimbaud and Jim Morrison: The Rebel As Poet", by Wallace Fowlie from Duke University. According to Professor Fowlie (who passed away in 1998), The Doors' lead singer always carried Mr. Fowlie’s translation of Rimbaud with him in his travels, even writing Mr. Fowlie to let him know how much the book meant to him.
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On October 19, 2019 (the eve of Arthur Rimbaud’s birthday) at the Municipal Theatre in Charleville-Mézières we will celebrate “Les Rimbaud du Cinema,”
an awards ceremony honoring independent films and filmmakers from all over the world. This is the event’s first year. It was founded by French filmmaker Manuel Sanchez (Les Arcandiers, La dorMeuse Duval).
Les Rimbaud du Cinema’s aim is to give visibility to the unknown cinema, to offer attention to films that are ignored from the lack of funds and distribution opportunities necessary to compete against mainstream studios. We celebrate Rimbaud’s rebellious spirit and commitment to “free freedom.”
We welcome all supporters of independent cinema to join our organization and/or attend the event. (Seating is limited so make arrangements to attend soon.) Serbian filmmaker Emir Kusturica will be present and will receive the first “Les Rimbaud du Cinema Award of Honor.” You can find more info online at lesrimbaudducinema.fr or on our Facebook page.
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Charleville- Mezieres is also famous for le Festival Mondial des Theatres de Marionnettes.
I performed there in 1985 ?
And the famous NY grand Bread and Puppet is performing there this year soon !
( I worked with them once a long time ago ...)
" The Honey Let's Go Home Opera " .
https://breadandpuppet.org/bread-and-puppet-in-france
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Try this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahara_Blue by Hector Zazou.
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There are so many artists and writers who are only appreciated after they are dead. Try appreciating them while they are alive.
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@ana
I appreciate them while they're alive; but they'll never get worshipped till after their deaths (And that's a tiny group, I will add).
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'Don’t worry, you won’t be bothered by the grave of Arthur Rimbaud — no one visits it.”' Don't worry period, there are a clandestine group of individuals content to perform your work for you. At the c.Montmartre, a woman in her sixties carries a brush, bucket & dish.soap & dutifully cleans the tombstones of the unappreciated actors & actresses of French cinema; Truffaut has his own devotees.
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“It’s not really his poetry that interests me, it’s his story.” I wonder how many millennials like the one that was quoted actually know they are "relating" to a person who was also a slave trader and gun smuggler?
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@Diego Rimbaud didn't trade slaves, that's a myth (apologies Bob).
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@Crafty Pilbow
There may be some disagreement on this among his biographers, but it is definitely not a "myth." Enid Starkie believed that he was and more recently scholars like Graham Robb don't.
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@Diego What in God's name does that have to do with the poetry he wrote when he was 17-21? Moralism is endless in its self-indulgent righteousness.
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Rimbaud's wrote beautiful poetry I learned to love in French class years ago.
Didn't know much about the poet or his tragic life.
Only his lines spoke for him, simply, musically.
Heartbreaking to learn he suffered not only very young but also with his painful death, only 37, to rest forever where he was unhappy.
His lines inspired by his pain live on, felt in French song and poetry he influenced.
RIP
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Perhaps a production of Christopher Hampton's 1968 play, TOTAL ECLIPSE, should be produced in Charleville.
It's one version of the Rimbaud/Verlaine relationship....
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Highly recommend "Disaster Was My God" by Bruce Duffy, a beautifully written novel based on the life of Rimbaud. Very
invocative and insightful.
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At 16 everyone thinks their hometown is stupid.
At 17 everyone is seriously unserious. Or un-seriously serious.
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@SC
Like the song says, "Happiness is Waco in your rear view mirror at eighteen."
My Dad always substituted his home town in the line.
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You're gonna make me lonesome when you go...Bob Dylan
http://www.bobdylan.com/songs/youre-gonna-make-me-lonesome-when-you-go/
Situations have ended sad
Relationships have all been bad
Mine’ve been like Verlaine’s and Rimbaud
But there’s no way I can compare
All those scenes to this affair
Yer gonna make me lonesome when you go
Morrrison wasted his youth and talent...so sad
Rimbaud...a victim of his times
Vietnam Vet
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@Michael
And Morrison was a fan of Rimbaud.
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Have tip our hats to Patti Smith who always championed Rimbaud and in doing so expanded his influence and illuminated his aura.
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@Corkpop
Thank you. Before Patti, I cannot say I knew who he was. She has been a constant devotee, long before “Just Kids.”
Americans are very related to Charleville-Mezieres for a reason that the author here does not know and which is also related to Rimbaud.
" Le Charleville " , le fusil, the gun that was given by France to the insurgents and armed also the Rochambeau's army in America and won the war of Independence from the British in 1781 .
And Rimbaud was also selling guns in East Africa.
The author does not know also that Patti Smith bought the house of the mother of Rimbaud in a fetishist gesture that only Americans are capable of.
We don't recitate Rimbaud in public in France. We don't read poetry like the British do. It is considered as bad taste and not respectful to the spirit of the authors. And to poetry .
Rimbaud ignored for a long time because of his homosexuality ?
Really not true. His homosexuality was not known.
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@JPH
"We don't recitate Rimbaud in public in France. We don't read poetry like the British do."
Not exactly accurate. French composers like Faure, Debussy, Poulenc, Hahn, etc. have all set many of the greatest French poems to music. The verses of Charles d'Orléans, Hugo, Baudelaire, Verlaine and (yes, even the difficult) Rimbaud have been celebrated early on in some of the finest French art songs that are (still) very widely performed in France and elsewhere.
For a very subtle setting of Rimbaud's poem, "Sur l'onde calme et noire où dorment les étoiles", refer to the composer Gabriel Dupont's setting from 1904. It illustrates how French composers typically translate the rhythm and cadence of French poetry into music.
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@tpe64 I wrote "recitate " not sing.
Yes of course. it is another kind of creation and creativity. I am french so of course I know the songs of Leo Ferre, Brassens, Mouloudji, and others celebrating Rimbaud , Verlaine or Villon.
And the music of the early 20 th century: Faure, Poulenc etc...
That tradition of singing poetry dates from the middle ages which was a revival of the epic poems or "chants " ( La Chanson de Rolland 778 ) and later the troubadours restarted it and influenced the Italian Renaissance.
Chaucer wrote the Canterbury Tales because of Le Roman de la Rose. There was no practice of poetry and writing in forms in England like in France before that.
But we don't recitate poetry standing in front of other people in that sort of dramatic reincarnation of a creative thrill like the British or Americans do.
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@tpe64 We are not fetishists of the 'calling " in France.
We are not mystics. Poetry is not mystical.
Cashing in on the outsider driven away is ever popular.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aberdeen,_Washington
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‘“Now, sadly, it’s in some private collection,” said the mayor, Boris Ravignon.’
What a bizarre statement. It’s sad that the town doesn’t own this gun??
Talk about misplaced priorities. Celebrate Rimbaud's poetry; leave the gun out of it.
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Rimbaud was the opposite of the modern leftist. The opposite of the modern leftist is not the modern rightist. The modern leftist is the same as the modern rightist. Neither is a rebel. Neither has any nuance nor depth.
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@steven wilsonl Thank you for straightening us all out.
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@steven wilsonl. There was one rebel and two Bohemians in my high school in NYC in the class of 1960. Now you can buy your rebel or Bohemian attire on the internet or some fancy shop downtown. One's clothing or music or internet presence or hair style define the person... and that seems enough for those modern rebels.
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jim morrison is the jim morrison of poets.
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Sadly, Jim Morrison survives not as a poet but as a lead singer in a rock and roll band. He wrote and improvised lyrically the songs in their repertoire. Despite his dreams and imaginings, he did not claim a place in the poetic pantheon of the written word. He was primarily a performer, and this is how he is remembered.
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