RIMBAUD

Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud ( 20 October 1854 – 10 November 1891) was a French poet.

 Born in Charleville, Ardennes, he produced his best known works while still in his late teens—

Victor Hugo described him at the time as "an infant Shakespeare"—

and he gave up creative writing altogether before the age of 21. 

As part of the decadent movement, Rimbaud influenced modern literature, music and art. 

He was known to have been a libertine and a restless soul, travelling extensively on 

three continents before his death from cancer just after his 37th birthday.

Rimbaud was encouraged by friend and office employee Charles Auguste Bretagne to write to Paul Verlaine.

 Rimbaud sent Verlaine two letters containing several of his poems, including the hypnotic, gradually shocking "Le Dormeur du Val" (The Sleeper in the Valley), in which certain facets of Nature are depicted and called upon to comfort an apparently sleeping soldier. Verlaine, who was intrigued by Rimbaud, sent a reply that stated, "Come, dear great soul. We await you; we desire you," along with a one-way ticket to Paris.
 Rimbaud arrived in late September 1871 at Verlaine's invitation and resided briefly in Verlaine's home.

Verlaine (far left) and Rimbaud (second to left) depicted in an 1872 painting by Henri Fantin-Latour

Verlaine, who was married to the seventeen-year-old and pregnant Mathilde Mauté, had recently left his job and taken up drinking. In later published recollections of his first sight of Rimbaud, Verlaine described him at the age of seventeen as having "the real head of a child, chubby and fresh, on a big, bony rather clumsy body of a still-growing adolescent, and whose voice, with a very strong Ardennes accent, that was almost a dialect, had highs and lows as if it were breaking."

Rimbaud and Verlaine began a short and torrid affair. Whereas Verlaine had likely engaged in prior homosexual experiences, it remains uncertain whether the relationship with Verlaine was Rimbaud's first. During their time together they led a wild, vagabond-like life spiced by absinthe and hashish.

 They scandalized the Parisian literary coterie on account of the outrageous behaviour of Rimbaud, the archetypical enfant terrible, who throughout this period continued to write strikingly visionary verse. The stormy relationship between Rimbaud and Verlaine eventually brought them to London in September 1872,^] a period about which Rimbaud would later express regret. During this time, Verlaine abandoned his wife and infant son (both of whom he had abused in his alcoholic rages). Rimbaud and Verlaine lived in considerable poverty, in Bloomsbury and in Camden Town, scraping a living mostly from teaching, in addition to an allowance from Verlaine's mother. Rimbaud spent his days in the Reading Room of the British Museum where "heating, lighting, pens and ink were free."

 The relationship between the two poets grew increasingly bitter.

The Brussels reunion went badly: they argued continuously and Verlaine took refuge in heavy drinking. On the morning of 10 July, Verlaine bought a revolver and ammunition.

By late June 1873, Verlaine grew frustrated with the relationship and returned to Paris, where he quickly began to mourn Rimbaud's absence. On 8 July, he telegraphed Rimbaud, instructing him to come to the Hotel Liège in Brussels; Rimbaud complied at once.

 That afternoon, "in a drunken rage," Verlaine fired two shots at Rimbaud, one of them wounding the 18-year-old in the left wrist.