Rimbaud

I can't imagine reading him for the first time as an adult, it would probably seem petty and silly.

the graham robb biography is good, isn't it? i like the bit in Africa where he nearly founds an off-shoot school of Islamic theology, then thinks 'hang on, this will inevitably get me killed' and goes back to trading.

Sigh. I studied Baudelaire for a bit, does that count?

I started reading a book about Rimbaud in North Africa, but all I remember are footnotes quoting his letters, full of complaints about the coffee there. Brilliant. Had he been born later, he could have been an ILX regular.

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/8161/rimlettre.html

I have come to know the skies splitting with lightnings, and the waterspouts
And the breakers and currents ; I know the evening,
And Dawn rising up like a flock of doves,
And sometimes I have seen what men have imagined they saw !

i'm not that fluent in french, what do you think it should be?

I know the skies punctured in lightning bolts, the spouts
And the breakers and currents: I know the evening.
The dawn arisen like a flight of doves
And I have sometimes seen what man has only imagined seeing

Mt favorite pretentious graffiti as a teenager was:

Un soir, j'ai assis la Beauté sur mes genoux. - Et je l'ai trouvée amère. - Et je l'ai injuriée.

I also highly recommend Henry Miller's 'Time of the Assassins'.

I always felt like the translations don't work at all for Rimbaud, even though some translators have made incredible work. So I think you should read the english version to get an idea of the theme, and then let the flow of words, rhymes and colours from the French original make sense to you, even if you don't speak the language.

The first new 'work' by Rimbaud to be found in sixty years, a fairly patriotic (before he deplored 'patrouillotisme') piece called 'Bismarck's Dream - Fantasy', written for the 'Progrès des Ardennes' newspaper and published November 25, 1870 when he was sixteen under the pseudonym, Jean Baudry.

I heard about this, but hadn't found the text itself yet. Merci bien!

Il n'a pas de quoi.

Why?

"This is a computer translation of the original webpage. It is provided for general information only and should not be regarded as complete nor accurate."

It is the evening. Under his tent, full with silence and dream, Bismarck, a finger on the chart of France, meditates; from its immense pipe escapes a blue net.

Bismarck meditates. Its small hooked index walks on, on vellum, of the Rhine in the Moselle, the Moselle in the Seine; nail it striped paper around Strasbourg imperceptibly; it passes in addition to.

In Saarbrucken, Wissembourg, Woerth, Sedan, it tressaille, the small hooked finger: it cherishes Nancy, scratches Bitche and Phalsbourg, Metz line, trace on the borders of small broken lines and stops…

Triumphing, Bismarck covered with his index Alsace and Lorraine! Oh! under its yellow cranium, what a be delirious of miserly! What a delicious clouds of smoke spreads its happy pipe!

**

Bismarck meditates, Tiens! a large black spot seems to stop the frétillant index. It is Paris.

Therefore, the small bad nail, to stripe, stripe paper, of Ci, from there, with rage, finally, to stop… The finger remains there, half folded, motionless.

Paris Paris! Then, the catch as well dreamed the open eye as, gently, somnolence seizes him: its face leans towards paper; automatically, the furnace of its pipe, escaped its lips, falls down on the unpleasant black spot…

Hi! povero! while giving up its poor head, its nose, the nose of Mr. Otto de Bismarck, plunged itself in the burning furnace. Hi! povero! povero goes! in the incandescent furnace of the pipe… hi! povero! Its index was on Paris! Finished, the glorious dream!

**

It was so fine, if spiritual, if happy, this nose of old first diplomat!

Hide, hide this nose!

Eh well! my expensive, when, to divide sauerkraut royal, you return to the palate (…) with crimes of… lady (…) in the history, you will eternally carry your nose carbonized between your stupid eyes!

Here! Rêvasser was not necessary!

revasser that was the verb to translate oh stupid babel

I will certainly now eternally carry my nose carbonized between my stupid eyes.