A Season in Hell, the Drunken Boat, and Other Poems

Arthur Rimbaud's "A Season in Hell" is a prose poem loosely divided into nine parts. In one part of the poem the poet portrays quite transparently his own relationship with French symbolist poet Paul Verlaine. The two had a brief alcohol and drug fueled affair which finally came to end when Verlaine shot Rimbaud in the wrist in a drunken rage. "A Season in Hell," which has been referred to as a pioneering example of modern symbolism, is included in this collection along with "The Drunken Boat," a fragmented first-person narrative which vividly describes the drifting and sinking of a boat lost at sea. It is probably the best known work from the representative selection of early poems by the writer presented here in this volume. Also included in this edition is a selection of poems from Rimbaud's masterpiece "Illuminations." What is most remarkable about Rimbaud's poetry is that it was produced almost entirely between the ages of seventeen and twenty, when Rimbaud would abruptly give up writing entirely in favor of a more steady working life. His writing he contended was a product of his reckless lifestyle to which he was resolved to abandon.