European Poetry

Rimbaud Complete

Name: Rimbaud Complete
Author: Arthur Rimbaud
ISBN: 9780307824103

by Arthur Rimbaud, Wyatt Mason (Translator), Wyatt Mason (Editor), Wyatt Mason (Introduction)

Available on Bookshop Write a review

Books.org participates in affiliate programs including Bookshop.org and the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. We may earn a commission from qualifying purchases made through links on this page, at no additional cost to you.

Overview

Enduring icon of creativity, authenticity, and rebellion, and the subject of numerous new biographies, Arthur Rimbaud is one of the most repeatedly scrutinized literary figures of the last half-century. Yet almost thirty years have elapsed without a major new translation of his writings. Remedying this state of affairs is Rimbaud Complete, the first and only truly complete edition of Rimbaud’s work in English, translated, edited, and introduced by Wyatt Mason.

Mason draws on a century of Rimbaud scholarship to choreograph a superbly clear-eyed presentation of the poet’s works. He arranges Rimbaud’s writing chronologically, based on the latest manuscript evidence, so readers can experience the famously teenaged poet’s rapid evolution, from the lyricism of “Sensation” to the groundbreaking early modernism of A Season in Hell.

In fifty pages of previously untranslated material, including award-winning early verses, all the fragmentary poems, a fascinating early draft of A Season in Hell, a school notebook, and multiple manuscript versions of the important poem “O saisons, ô chateaux,” Rimbaud Complete displays facets of the poet unknown to American readers. And in his Introduction, Mason revisits the Rimbaud myth, addresses the state of disarray in which the poet left his work, and illuminates the intricacies of the translator’s art.

Mason has harnessed the precision and power of the poet’s rapidly changing voice: from the delicate music of a poem such as “Crows” to the mature dissonance of the Illuminations, Rimbaud Complete unveils this essential poet for a new generation of readers.

Synopsis

Enduring icon of creativity, authenticity, and rebellion, and the subject of numerous new biographies, Arthur Rimbaud is one of the most repeatedly scrutinized literary figures of the last half-century. Yet almost thirty years have elapsed without a major new translation of his writings. Remedying this state of affairs is Rimbaud Complete, the first and only truly complete edition of Rimbaud’s work in English, translated, edited, and introduced by Wyatt Mason. Mason draws on a century of Rimbaud scholarship to choreograph a superbly clear-eyed presentation of the poet’s works. He arranges Rimbaud’s writing chronologically, based on the latest manuscript evidence, so readers can experience the famously teenaged poet’s rapid evolution, from the lyricism of “Sensation” to the groundbreaking early modernism of A Season in Hell. In fifty pages of previously untranslated material, including award-winning early verses, all the fragmentary poems, a fascinating early draft of A Season in Hell, a school notebook, and multiple manuscript versions of the important poem “O saisons, ô chateaux,” Rimbaud Complete displays facets of the poet unknown to American readers. And in his Introduction, Mason revisits the Rimbaud myth, addresses the state of disarray in which the poet left his work, and illuminates the intricacies of the translator’s art. Mason has harnessed the precision and power of the poet’s rapidly changing voice: from the delicate music of a poem such as “Crows” to the mature dissonance of the Illuminations, Rimbaud Complete unveils this essential poet for a new generation of readers.

About the Author, Arthur Rimbaud

The poetic genius of Arthur Rimbaud (1854–1891) blossomed early and burned briefly. Nearly all of his work was composed when he was in his teens, before all trace of his literary life disappeared with him into the African desert of his later years. During the century following his death at thirty-seven, Rimbaud’s work and life have influenced generations of readers and writers. Radical in its day, Rimbaud’s writing took some of the first and most fundamental steps toward the liberation of poetry from the formal constraints of its history, and now represents one of the most powerful and enduring bodies of poetic expression in human history.

Wyatt Mason studied literature at the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia University, and the University of Paris. His first translation, Pierre Michon’s Masters and Servants, was a finalist for the French-American Foundation Translation Prize. He has translated five books by Michon, including the forthcoming The Origin of the World. His current projects include a translation of Arthur Rimbaud's complete correspondence, and a new edition of Dante’s La Vita Nuova, also for the Modern Library. His writing has appeared in The Nation, the Los Angeles Times, and many other publications.

Reviews

There are no reviews yet. Log in to write one.

Editorials

Publishers Weekly

There have been no fully satisfactory translations of the brilliant modernist forerunner Jean-Nicolas-Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891): the rather flat Wallace Fowlie version (Univ. of Chicago) is the most reliable, while the error-ridden Penguin volume by Oliver Bernard and the wildly improvisational try by U.S. poet Paul Schmidt (HarperPerennial) take riskier poetic licenses, with uneven results. After Graham Robb's coarse and insensitive, yet energetic and well-received biography of the poet last year (Norton), more attention is being drawn to Rimbaud's actual writings. Mason is a translator of Pierre Michon (Masters and Servants) and Dante's Vita Nuova, and is senior editor of artkrush.com ("a Website about art," says their banner). He offers a tremendous amount of Rimbaudiana, including "schoolwork," essays and drafts, miscellaneous poems and Rimbaud's two longest works, A Season in Hell and Illuminations. The poems, unfortunately, are inexactly rendered, extending what Rimbaud wrote merely to force a rhyme (Rimbaud's couplet "My hunger, Anne, Anne/ Flee on your mule" is extended by Mason to "Flee on your mule if you can," for example), and sometimes mistranslated altogether. In the famous opening of A Season in Hell, "Bad Blood," Mason renders the French verb injurier as "to hurt" rather than "to insult" at the point when the poet has beauty across his knees. Fragmentary drafts of unpublished material, complete with crossings out, are included, along with a small-type appendix of all the poems in French, but Mason's versions do not surpass previous efforts. (Mar. 26) Forecast: Rimbaud purists will remain with Fowlie, who offers a selection of letters and French versions of the poems (which the Bernard has but Schmidt lacks). For those in search of a "complete" poet's version, Schmidt is still the choice. Yet the Modern Library imprimatur should bring readers to Mason's work, and Mason is preparing a companion volume of Rimbaud's letters for Counterpoint. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

The quintessential Symbolist po te maudit, Rimbaud has achieved a legendary, almost mythic reputation, yet he left behind a relatively small body of work, all of it written before the age of 20. The chronological arrangement in this retrospective includes all of Rimbaud's creative works, not only his most famous ones the synesthetic "Vowels," the allegorical "Drunken Boat," the psychically oneiric "Season in Hell," and all the innovative prose poems of "Illuminations" but also almost 100 of previously untranslated materials: fragments, reconstructions, lyrical juvenilia, and school compositions. Despite the editor's claim to comprehensiveness, however, the collection contains only five letters, a mere fraction of his extant correspondence. The visionary, imaginative verse precludes both a literal translation and convincing English meter; Mason fares no worse than any of his predecessors in that regard. A bilingual index of titles and first lines would have facilitated access for those unfamiliar with the sequence of composition. Nevertheless, this is an important new rendering of a major poet and is recommended for all collections. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 11/1/01.] Lawrence Olszewski, OCLC Lib., Dublin, OH Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.