Reading Order
Cahiers de Douai Reading Order
Les Cahiers de Douai (The Douai Notebooks, 1870) by Arthur Rimbaud are the two manuscript exercise books sent by the fifteen-year-old poet to his former teacher Georges Izambard in October 1870 — the earliest surviving substantial body of Rimbaud's verse, twenty-two poems written in a two-month creative explosion when Rimbaud ran away from home in Charleville three times and spent time in Paris and Douai. The notebooks present one of literature's most remarkable beginnings: poems that begin in accomplished imitation of Ronsard, Hugo, Leconte de Lisle, and Gautier and quickly develop, within weeks, a personal voice of savage irony, physical vividness, and political fury that has no parallel in French verse of the period. The notebooks include early masterpieces like 'Sensation,' 'Ma Bohème,' 'Le Dormeur du val,' and 'Au Cabaret vert' alongside the insurgent anti-clerical poems ('Le Mal,' 'Les Premières Communions') that show the violent iconoclasm that would define Rimbaud's mature work. As a document of adolescent literary development, the Cahiers de Douai are unequaled.
Where to start
Begin with 'Sensation' (the most famous and accessible poem, six lines of pure physical joy), 'Ma Bohème' (the wandering adolescent poet), and 'Le Dormeur du val' (the famous anti-war sonnet). Then try 'Au Cabaret vert' (physical pleasure, Flemish painting) and 'La Maline' (the servant girl, comic). The anti-clerical poems ('Le Mal,' 'Châtiment de Tartuffe') require more context but reward it.
Complete Cahiers de Douai Book List
- 1Buy
Cahiers de Douai (1870)
Arthur Rimbaud·1870·The two exercise books, most reliably presented in the Pléiade Œuvres complètes or in the GF Flammarion edition of the complete verse poems; also available in a dedicated facsimile edition (Gallimard) reproducing the original manuscripts. - 2Buy
Poésies (1895)
Arthur Rimbaud·1895·The complete posthumous collection of verse poems that includes the Douai Notebooks poems along with the later 1871 verse — the natural next step for readers who want to follow the full verse development toward 'Le Bateau ivre.' - 3Buy
Rimbaud: A Biography
Graham Robb·2000·The best modern English-language biography (Picador, 2000) — provides the essential context for the Charleville years, the three runaways, and the creation of the Douai Notebooks with superb narrative clarity. - 4Buy
Lettres du voyant (1871)
Arthur Rimbaud·1871·The letters to Izambard and Demeny that show where the adolescent Rimbaud of the Douai Notebooks was heading — from accomplished imitation to radical theoretical ambition. - 5Buy
Illuminations (1886)
Arthur Rimbaud·1886·The destination of the development begun in the Douai Notebooks — comparing the accessible early poems with the fully developed prose poetry of the Illuminations shows the extraordinary trajectory of a two-year career.
Cahiers de Douai — Frequently Asked Questions
What are the two Douai notebooks and why are they important?
Rimbaud sent two groups of manuscripts to his former teacher Izambard in October 1870 — one group of poems sent from Douai, one slightly earlier set. These have been assembled as the 'Cahiers de Douai' in modern editions. They are important for two reasons: they are the earliest substantial surviving Rimbaud texts (aged fifteen), showing the starting point of his development; and they contain several poems that are genuinely major works in their own right — 'Le Dormeur du val,' 'Ma Bohème,' 'Sensation' — rather than juvenilia of merely historical interest.
Who is Georges Izambard?
Georges Izambard (1848-1931) was a twenty-one-year-old teacher of rhetoric at the Charleville collège who became Rimbaud's first literary mentor. He recognized the precocious talent immediately, lent Rimbaud books, and received the Douai Notebooks manuscripts for safekeeping when Rimbaud was repeatedly running away from home. Izambard also received the first of the two 'Lettres du voyant' in May 1871. He later wrote memoirs about the experience (Rimbaud tel que je l'ai connu, published 1946) and preserved the manuscript poems that became the Cahiers de Douai. His role in Rimbaud's development is documented and significant.
What is 'Le Dormeur du val' about?
'Le Dormeur du val' (The Sleeper in the Valley) is a fourteen-line sonnet describing what appears to be a young soldier sleeping in a sunlit valley in full natural beauty — the poem sustains this pastoral vision through thirteen and a half lines before the last two words: 'il a deux trous rouges au côté droit' (he has two red holes in his right side). The poem is an anti-war sonnet that uses the extended irony of the idyllic description to deepen the horror of the death; it was written in October 1870, during the Franco-Prussian War.
How did Rimbaud first reach Paris?
In August 1870, aged fifteen, Rimbaud ran away from Charleville without a ticket, was arrested in Paris for fare evasion, and spent ten days in prison before Izambard paid for his release and brought him to Douai. He ran away again in October 1870 (the second stay in Douai, during which he sent the notebooks to Izambard), and again in February 1871. He arrived permanently in Paris in September 1871, on Verlaine's invitation, with 'Le Bateau ivre' in his pocket as his introduction to the literary world.
Is 'Sensation' really as simple as it seems?
'Sensation' (1870) is six lines about walking in summer fields and feeling the grain under his feet, and its simplicity is real — it is one of the most direct and joyful poems Rimbaud ever wrote, without irony or complication, just physical presence in the world. It was almost certainly written in April 1870, when Rimbaud was fifteen, and it represents a mode of pure sensory openness that would be complicated by the visionary theory and the political fury of the following months. Some readers find in its directness the endpoint of a development rather than the beginning — Rimbaud would never again be quite this unguarded.
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