Sunday 21 April 2013

Arthur Rimbaud: A poet makes himself a visionary...



"A poet makes himself a visionary through a long, boundless, and systematized disorganization of all the senses. All forms of love, of suffering, of madness; he searches himself, he exhausts within himself all poisons, and preserves their quintessences. Unspeakable torment, where he will need the greatest faith, a superhuman strength, where he becomes all men the great invalid, the great criminal, the great accursed--and the Supreme Scientist! For he attains the unknown! 

Because he has cultivated his soul, already rich, more than anyone! He attains the unknown, and if, demented, he finally loses the understanding of his visions, he will at least have seen them! So what if he is destroyed in his ecstatic flight through things unheard of, unnameable: other horrible workers will come; they will begin at the horizons where the first one has fallen."

Arthur Rimbaud

Between 1871 and 1873 Rimbaud attained the unknown. He was that visionary with all senses disorganized which he himself described, the ultimate poet, having seen all visions. And with great talent he managed to put those visions on paper for future ecstasy of poetry lovers, of those longing to see the other side of reality or explore other realities. Which even if they are only product of the mind and human culture, they are no less magic and fascinating. 

Rimbaud: a true magician of the art of poetry, a master of revealing parallel universes; a great artist of language, who turned his visions into words with impressive skill. Setting in stone intangible spiritual marvels. But something happened in 1873. Suddenly (at 19!), he abandoned his talent altogether, his splendid art, and turned himself into a vulgar inhabitant of planet Earth. He had to earn a living, true, and there is little to do about that, we agree. But where did all that magic go? It simply vanished for good, to never return. There is not a glimpse of poetry in his future letters and writings, only arid material stuff. In the name of God, what happened? 

3 comments:

  1. He realised that his poetry cannot change the world, even his environment, and just stopped writing.

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  2. what is the date of the paint representation ?

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  3. December 1871, a colorized version. Rimbaud was 17.

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