Arthur Rimbaud
French poet and explorer Arthur Rimbaud was born in Charleville, France, on October 20, 1854, and passed away in Marseille on November 10, 1891. He developed an aesthetic doctrine that stated that a poet must become a seer, dismantle the controls and restraints on personality, and thus become the instrument for the voice of the eternal. He was the provincial son of an army captain who started writing violent, blasphemous poems by the age of 16. Paul Verlaine, with whom he had a gay relationship and led a wild, carefree life, invited him to Paris. His best poem, The Drunken Boat (1871), shows off his astounding verbal prowess and a risky use of imagery and metaphors.
He attempted to eliminate the line between reality and hallucination in Les Illuminations, a collection of mostly prose poems composed between 1872 and 1874. At the age of 19, his final poem, A Season in Hell (1873), which blends prose sections with beautiful lyrics, served as his farewell to poetry. Verlaine shot and injured Rimbaud after they had a falling-out, and their final meeting resulted in a heated argument. After giving up writing, Rimbaud began an international nomadic life as a trader and merchant, spending most of his time in Ethiopia. He passed away at the age of 37 after having his leg amputated. The Symbolist movement and poetry of the 20th century were significantly impacted by the Dionysian power of his verse and his liberation of language from the confines of form.
