- Born
- 20 October 1854Charleville, France
- Died
- 10 November 1891Marseille, France · aged 37
Arthur Rimbaud
He transformed French poetry as a teenager, then abandoned writing for a life of travel and trade.
Arthur Rimbaud was born in Charleville, France, in 1854. A gifted schoolboy, he wrote verse in Latin and French before sending poems to Paul Verlaine, who invited him to Paris in 1871.
The two began a turbulent relationship, living together in London and Brussels while Verlaine’s marriage collapsed. In Brussels in July 1873, Verlaine shot Rimbaud in the wrist. He was sentenced to two years in prison, with their sexual relationship also subjected to scrutiny during the proceedings.
Rimbaud published “Une saison en enfer” (A Season in Hell) in 1873. The prose poems collected as “Illuminations” appeared in book form in 1886, long after he had largely stopped writing poetry. Their shifting voices, unexpected images and challenges to conventional form influenced generations of writers.
By his early twenties Rimbaud had turned away from the literary life. He travelled widely and eventually worked as a trader in Aden and Harar in East Africa. The distance between the young poet and the later trader has become part of his enduring fascination. He died in Marseille in 1891, aged 37, after illness had led to the amputation of a leg.