Synopses & Reviews
First published in 1886, Arthur Rimbaud's ?the work of a poet who had abandoned poetry before the age of twenty-one?changed the language of poetry. Hallucinatory and feverishly hermetic, it is an acknowledged masterpiece of world literature, still unrivaled for its haunting blend of sensuous detail and otherworldly astonishment. In Ashbery's translation of this notoriously elusive text, the acclaimed poet and translator lends his inimitable voice to a venerated classic. W. H. Auden recognized the strong affinities between Ashbery's poetry and Rimbaud's in his 1956 introduction to Ashbery's first book, , noting that "the imaginative life of the human individual stubbornly continues to live by the old magical notions." And it is here, in the "crystalline jumble" and "disordered collection of magic lantern slides" of , as Ashbery writes in the Preface, that we can rediscover this essential lineage. "Absolute modernity" was for Rimbaud "acknowledging the simultaneity of all of life, the condition that nourishes poetry at every second. [...] If we are absolutely modern?and we are?it's because Rimbaud commanded us to be." Ashbery's idiomatic and lyrical translations of these forty-four texts convey the originality of Rimbaud's vision to English-speaking readers of a new century.
Review
"More than a century after Arthur Rimbaud composed his , they are reborn in John Ashbery's magnificent translation. It is fitting that the major American poet since Hart Crane and Wallace Stevens should give us this noble version of the precursor of all three." Harold Bloom
Review
"This is the book that made poetry modern, and John Ashbery's sizzling new translation lets Rimbaud's eerie grandeur burst into English. Finally we have the key to open the door onto these magic Illuminations, and all their 'elegance, knowledge, violence!' This is an essential volume, a true classic." J. D. McClatchy
Review
"John Ashbery has gifted us with an exquisite, untainted translation of Rimbaud; a transmission as pure as a winged dove driven by snow." Patti Smith
Review
"To translate from one language into another is to risk losing the force, the soul, of the original. But not in this instance of John Ashberry's splendid version of Rimbaud's . "Wise music is missing from our desire," he writes in his English version of the last line of "Conte" ("Tale"), losing neither the substance nor the truth of Rimbaud's great poetry." Paula Fox, author of Desperate Characters
Review
A marriage divine. --J. D. McClatchy
Review
"A marriage divine." Joy Williams, author of State of Grace
Synopsis
John Ashbery's long-awaited, virtuosic translation of Arthur Rimbaud's Illuminations is presented with the French text in parallel and a preface by its new translator. Given Rimbaud's own cavalier attitude toward his most substantial work, few would have thought the "bunch of unpaginated and untitled pages" that Rimbaud handed his former lover Paul Verlaine (who had attempted to assassinate him two years earlier) would turn out to be one of the greatest poems ever written. Yet, over time, this "collection of magic lantern slides," each an "intense and rapid dream," came to be recognized as an unparalleled masterpiece of world literature. Ashbery's rendering of all forty-four poems powerfully evokes the kaleidoscopic beauty of the original and creates "a vision of postdiluvian freshness" out of "the chaos of ice floes and the polar night."
A major literary event, Ashbery's new translation enables a new generation of English readers to enter "the splendid cities" so stunningly depicted by Rimbaud.
Synopsis
W. H. Auden recognized the strong affinities between Ashbery's poetry and Rimbaud'sIlluminations in his 1956 introduction to Ashbery's first book, Some Trees, noting that "the imaginative life of the human individual stubbornly continues to live by the old magical notions." And it is here, in the "crystalline jumble" and "disordered collection of magic lantern slides" of Illuminations, as Ashbery writes in the Preface, that we can rediscover this essential lineage. "Absolute modernity" was for Rimbaud "acknowledging the simultaneity of all of life, the condition that nourishes poetry at every second. ...] If we are absolutely modern?and we are?it's because Rimbaud commanded us to be." Ashbery's idiomatic and lyrical translations of these forty-four texts convey the originality of Rimbaud's vision to English-speaking readers of a new century.
Synopsis
"If we are absolutely modern--and we are--it's because Rimbaud commanded us to be."--John Ashbery, from the preface
About the Author
Unknown beyond the avant-garde at the time of his death in 1891, Arthur Rimbaud has become one of the most liberating influences on twentieth-century culture. Born Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud in Charleville, France, in 1854, Rimbaud's family moved to Cours d'Orléans, when he was eight, where he began studying both Latin and Greek at the Pension Rossat. While he disliked school, Rimbaud excelled in his studies and, encouraged by a private tutor, tried his hand at poetry. Shortly thereafter, Rimbaud sent his work to the renowned symbolist poet Paul Verlaine and received in response a one-way ticket to Paris. By late September 1871, at the age of sixteen, Rimbaud had ignited with Verlaine one of the most notoriously turbulent affairs in the history of literature. Their relationship reached a boiling point in the summer of 1873, when Verlaine, frustrated by an increasingly distant Rimbaud, attacked his lover with a revolver in a drunken rage. The act sent Verlaine to prison and Rimbaud back to Charleville to finish his work on A Season in Hell. The following year, Rimbaud traveled to London with the poet Germain Nouveau, to compile and publish his transcendent Illuminations. It was to be Rimbaud's final publication. By 1880, he would give up writing altogether for a more stable life as merchant in Yemen, where he stayed until a painful condition in his knee forced him back to France for treatment. In 1891, Rimbaud was misdiagnosed with a case of tuberculosis synovitis and advised to have his leg removed. Only after the amputation did doctors determine Rimbaud was, in fact, suffering from cancer. Rimbaud died in Marseille in November of 1891, at the age of 37. He is now considered a saint to symbolists and surrealists, and his body of works, which include Le bateau ivre (1871), Une Saison en Enfer (1873), and Les Illuminations (1873), have been widely recognized as a major influence on artists stretching from Pablo Picasso to Bob Dylan.Pulitzer Prize-winning poet John Ashbery has translated many French writers, including Alfred Jarry, Pierre Reverdy, and Raymond Roussel. In 2011 he was awarded the National Book Foundation's Lifetime Achievement Award.