Reading Order
Une saison en enfer Reading Order
Une saison en enfer (A Season in Hell, 1873) by Arthur Rimbaud is the only work that Rimbaud himself published and oversaw as a finished book — printed in Brussels in an edition of five hundred copies, most of which he later had destroyed. Written in the summer of 1873 in the aftermath of the catastrophic relationship with Verlaine (who had just shot him in the wrist in a Brussels hotel room), it is a prose poem in nine sections that reads as both a confession and a leave-taking: Rimbaud is settling accounts with his own past, with the tradition of French poetry, with Christianity, with the belief in poetry as a path to visionary transcendence that had animated his extraordinary creative explosion of 1871-1872. The book is by turns ferociously self-lacerating and defiantly proud, full of the violence and wit that characterize all of Rimbaud's prose. The 'Alchimie du verbe' section contains his most explicit account of his own poetic method — the 'systematic derangement of all the senses,' the invention of a new kind of poetry — alongside the bitter repudiation of that method as a failure. Une saison en enfer is one of the most extraordinary farewell performances in literary history: Rimbaud was nineteen years old when he wrote it, and it was the last work of his literary career.
Where to start
Begin with 'Mauvais sang' (the first major section, which establishes the confessional and self-lacerating register of the whole), then 'Délires I: Vierge folle' (the account of the Verlaine relationship in the voice of 'la Vierge folle'), then 'Alchimie du verbe' (the crucial account of his own poetics). Then read the whole book straight through, including the short final section 'Adieu.'
Complete Une saison en enfer Book List
- 1Buy
Une saison en enfer (1873)
Arthur Rimbaud·1873·The complete text, available in the Pléiade Œuvres complètes edited by Antoine Adam, or in Wallace Fowlie's bilingual edition (University of Chicago Press). The prose-poem structure means the text runs to about thirty pages. - 2Buy
Illuminations (1886)
Arthur Rimbaud·1886·The prose poems written during the same creative period (largely 1872-73) but not published until 1886, edited by Verlaine — the visionary companion to the Season in Hell, without the autobiographical and self-critical register. - 3Buy
Poésies (1870-1871)
Arthur Rimbaud·1871·The verse poems of 1870-71, including the early Parnassian exercises, the insurgent poems of the Commune period, and the great 'Bateau ivre' — essential for understanding what Rimbaud had already achieved before the Season in Hell. - 4Buy
Lettres du voyant (1871)
Arthur Rimbaud·1871·The two letters to Georges Izambard (May 13) and Paul Demeny (May 15) that contain the account of the 'voyant' theory — 'the systematic derangement of all the senses' — and are the essential theoretical context for both Une saison en enfer and the Illuminations. - 5Buy
Rimbaud: Complete Works, Selected Letters
Wallace Fowlie (trans.)·1966·The standard bilingual scholarly edition with French text and English translation throughout; includes the full Lettres du voyant, the verse poems, Une saison en enfer, and the Illuminations with extensive notes.
Une saison en enfer — Frequently Asked Questions
Did Rimbaud really destroy the copies of Une saison en enfer?
Rimbaud paid for a print run of five hundred copies in Brussels in October 1873 and distributed a small number to friends and critics, but took the remaining copies back to his family home in Roche and almost certainly had them burned or left them to decay — the precise story is unclear. In 1901, the Belgian bookseller Léon Losseau discovered about two hundred copies in an attic in Brussels (they had been stored by the printer and never picked up), which led to the modern rediscovery of the text. Rimbaud's apparent intention to suppress the book is consistent with the finality of 'Adieu' — his farewell to literature — and the subsequent abandonment of all writing.
What is the relationship between Une saison en enfer and the Illuminations?
The two works were written during roughly the same period (1872-73), but they are fundamentally different in mode. The Illuminations are visionary, fragmented, without autobiographical framing — pure prose poetry. Une saison en enfer is confessional, self-analytical, backward-looking — Rimbaud is settling accounts with his own visionary period, explicitly calling it 'alchimie du verbe' and declaring it a failure. The standard scholarly view is that the Season was written after most of the Illuminations, as their explicit repudiation. The Illuminations were published by Verlaine in 1886, without Rimbaud's involvement, after Rimbaud had completely abandoned literature.
Who is 'la Vierge folle' in the Délires section?
'Délires I: Vierge folle' (Deliriums I: The Foolish Virgin) is a prose monologue in the voice of a speaker who has been possessed and enslaved by 'l'Époux infernal' (the Infernal Bridegroom) — a barely veiled account of Verlaine's relationship with Rimbaud from Verlaine's perspective, written by Rimbaud. The Foolish Virgin (Verlaine) describes his total subjugation to the Infernal Bridegroom (Rimbaud) in terms that blend parody, tenderness, and savage analysis. It is one of the most extraordinary pieces of writing about a literary relationship ever published, and was extraordinarily painful for Verlaine to read.
When did Rimbaud stop writing?
The exact moment is unclear, but the consensus is that Rimbaud wrote essentially nothing literary after completing Une saison en enfer in the autumn of 1873, at the age of nineteen. He may have continued revising or adding to the Illuminations into 1874-75, but this is disputed. By 1876 he had left France for a life of adventure and commerce — soldier in the Dutch colonial army in Java, trader in Cyprus and Yemen, arms dealer and coffee merchant in Abyssinia (modern Ethiopia). He died in Marseille in 1891 at thirty-seven, having been famous throughout France for a decade without knowing it. His total literary output spans roughly three years, ages sixteen to nineteen.
What does the title 'A Season in Hell' mean?
The title points to the temporary, finite nature of the experience — a season, not an eternity. The book is Rimbaud's farewell to the hellish period of the relationship with Verlaine and the attempted 'systematic derangement of the senses' that had animated his visionary poetry. 'Hell' in the book is both the Catholic hell that Rimbaud both believes in and rejects, and the particular hell of his own creative obsessions and failures. The 'Adieu' section ends with the declaration that he is done with hell — 'il faut être absolument moderne' (we must be absolutely modern) — and a farewell to beauty and the poetic vocation. It is the most personal and the most anguished of his works.
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