Rimbaud

Rimbaud is the enfant terrible of French literature, the precocious genius whose extraordinary poetry is revolutionary in its visionary, hallucinatory content and its often liberated forms. He wrote all his poems between the ages of about fifteen and twenty-one, after which he turned his back on family, friends, and France to roam the world. In his final years he was a trader in the Horn of Africa. Out of this brief, colorful life and wilderness of sensory poetry, a mythic Rimbaud has been created. One of the greatest French poets of all times, Rimbaud has become an enduring icon of youth, rebellion, and freedom—though behind the myth of the man lies a poetic adventure of high ambition and painful rigor, poignant yet heroic. This bilingual edition provides all of Rimbaud's poems, with the exception of his Latin verses and some small fragments. It also includes some of his prose pieces, chosen because they offer a commentary on his poetic concerns.

About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Arthur Rimbaud: Rimbaud was born at Charleville in northern France in 1854. He was already a poet by the age of fifteen. In 1871 he began his stormy affair with Paul Verlaine, travelling with him to London in 1872. He gave up writing poetry after completing A Season in Hell at the age of nineteen. After travelling widely in Europe, he left for Aden via Cyprus and Egypt and worked there as a trader and gun-runner. He died in Marseilles in 1891 from complications after a tumour had resulted in a leg amputation.
Oliver Bernard: Born in 1925, Oliver Bernard is a poet and translator who has lived in Norfolk for over thirty years. His publications include Poems (1983), Apollinaire: Selected Poems (Penguin, 1965; Anvil, 1986 and 2004) and Verse &c. (2001), also published by Anvil. He has worked as an advisory teacher of drama. A volume of autobiography, Getting Over It (1991), described his Soho days in the company of poets and artists in the mid twentieth century.