Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud

Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud
on Aug 21, 2019

About

Date of Birth: October 20, 1854 Best Known For: Une Saison en Enfer (extended poem) At age 15, Rimbaud's poem Les Étrennes des orphelins (The Orphans' New Year's Gift) became his first poem in print when it was published in Revue pour tous. At age 16, Rimbaud wrote Le Bateau ivre, which he sent to the poet Paul Verlaine as an introduction. A month before his 17th birthday, Rimbaud travelled to Paris at the request of Verlaine and began a brief but torrid affair with the older poet. Shortly before his 18th birthday, Rimbaud left Paris with Verlaine, who abandoned his wife and child, to move to London. When he was almost 19, Rimbaud returned to Paris; when Verlaine later joined him, the reunion did not go well, and Verlaine shot at Rimbaud in a drunken rage, hitting Rimbaud in the wrist. (As a result of the ensuing police investigation into the attempted murder as well as the two men's relationship, Verlaine received a 2-year prison sentence.) When he was 19, Rimbaud published Une Saison en Enfer, Rimbaud's first and only work published by himself. By age 20, Rimbaud had given up creative writing for good. When he was 21, he enlisted in the Dutch Colonial Army, but subsequently deserted once he got to the Dutch East Indies. (Though Rimbaud had only one published work before the age of 23, he had many other poems circulating through the French literary scene, and he was well-known, if in large part for his relationship with Verlaine.)