Arthur Rimbaud

Rating:
Summary: Illuminating, inspiring, insurrectionary!
Review: A marvelous example of the biographical art. Enid Starkie gets right at the fury and pain and intensity of Rimbaud's fiery life, combining the detail and digressions that make biographies readable, and excellent critical insight to his poems and the life situations that shaped them. I had been reading Rimbaud for years when I came across this book and it made me go back to his poems anew, finding various translations and comparing them. Suddenly I had the key to this savage parade! Rimbaud's poems cracked open, and I realized I had barely understood his work. Rimbaud is a fascinating character, even more so when you study his life and writings in depth.

Rating:
Summary: an authoritative biography
Review: Although this is the only Arthur Rimbaud biography I've read, it seems to me very well-written and true to his life. Enid Starkie is perhaps the leading non-French expert scholar on Rimbaud and this long seminal work is very readable and comprehensive. I learned a lot about the life of the man who was one of my favorite poets in my teens. It's amazing when you consider that he wrote all his stuff before he was 20, and that he then suddenly stopped writing altogether. He became lost to literature in his quest to make money and become a successful business man (trader in Africa). One of the most intriguing things in the book is how it talks about "La Chasse Spirituelle" which Verlaine calls Rimbaud's masterpiece, and which has since been lost. I wonder what happened to this work, and it's a great pity that we will never be able to read it. One of the other many things I found interesting was that Rimbaud apparently changed his view on God when he was on his deathbed, as his relgiously devout sister Isabelle pleaded with him to be converted. The cocky and rebellious kid who tried to use alchemy and occult magic to become as powerful as God, who as a 16-year-old punk used to write (...) on the church door, was now in his late 30s a humble, broken, and resigned man who turned to God for comfort and salvation. That may have been important to the fate of his soul, but what is important to us is his written words. And even though Rimbaud only wrote for about 5 years of his life, his contribution to poetry is timeless.

(...)

Rating:
Summary: Classic Literary Biography
Review: Enid Starkie's biography of Rimbaud, published nearly forty years ago, still stands as both the definitive narrative of Rimbaud's life and a model of literary biography.

Rimbaud was a rebellious, enigmatic, brilliant, and inscrutable poet who, in just four short years between the ages of sixteen and twenty, wrote the poetry which has made him a figure of mythic proportions, not only in French literature, but in the literature and history of Modernism. Starkie, in brilliantly lucid prose and with loving attention to every detail, tells Rimbaud's life story and connects that story to the writing of the poems and the evolution of Rimbaud's views on poetry and the task of the poet.

Influenced by his studies of Kabbalah, alchemy and illuminism, and writing in the long shadow of Baudelaire's "Les Fleurs du Mal", Rimbaud precociously enunciated his attack on the then dominant Parnassian school of French poetry at the tender age of sixteen. Starkie examines Rimbaud's original aesthetic doctrine in great detail; in her words, the poet must discover a "new language . . . capable of expressing the ineffable, a new language not bound by logic, nor by grammar or syntax." In Rimbaud's words, the "Poet" must make himself a "seer" by a "long, immense and systematic derangement of all the senses."

From this initial position, Starkie brilliantly details Rimbaud's turbulent relationship with Paul Verlaine and his descent into what one reviewer has aptly described as a "perpetual roister of absinthe, hashish and sodomy." Starkie painstakingly relates Rimbaud's poetry to his experiences with Verlaine in London and Paris. In particular, Starkie convincingly demonstrates, through careful exegesis of the poems and their correspondences with Rimbaud's letters and other biographical materials, that the "Illuminations" (perhaps Rimbaud's most brilliant poems) were written over several years preceding and following "Une Saison en Enfer". Starkie then goes on to demonstrate that the latter prose poems were hardly intended to be Rimbaud's "farewell to literature in general, but only to visionary literature." In other words, "Une Saison en Enfer" represents the rejection by Rimbaud of his original mind-bending iconoclasm--the liquidation "of all his previous dreams and aspirations"--in favor of a rational and materialist aesthetics. Of course, after completing "Une Saison en Enfer", Rimbaud's life moved in completely different directions and there is, unfortunately, no existing evidence that he continued his poetic endeavor after the age of twenty.

Starkie's biography captures the details of the remainder of Rimbaud's life--he died at the age of thirty-seven--with fascinating and attentive detail. And the remainder of his life, as related by Starkie, is a biography in itself--vagabond in Europe, sailor to the East Indies, gun runner and (slave?) trader in Abyssinia, and mysterious cult hero of the emerging French symbolist movement. Indeed, in 1888, more than fourteen years after Rimbaud's known literary career had ended, he received a letter from a prominent Parisian editor: "You have become, among a little coterie, a sort of legendary figure . . . This little group, who claim you as their Master, do not know what has become of you, but hope you will one day reappear, and rescue them from obscurity." Starkie scrutinizes all of these events with scrupulous attention to detail and accuracy.

This is truly a classic of literary biography! (One additional comment: Rimbaud's poetry and letters are quoted extensively in the original French. If you are not fluent in French, you should have Wallace Fowlie's English translation of Rimbaud's Complete Works and Selected Letters by your side as a reference.)

Rating:
Summary: A Classic of Literary Biography!
Review: Enid Starkie's biography of Rimbaud, published nearly forty years ago, still stands as both the definitive narrative of Rimbaud's life and a model of literary biography. Rimbaud was a rebellious, enigmatic, brilliant, and inscrutable poet who, in just four short years between the ages of sixteen and twenty, wrote the poetry which has made him a figure of mythic proportions, not only in French literature, but in the literature and history of Modernism. Starkie, in brilliantly lucid prose and with loving attention to every detail, tells Rimbaud's life story and connects that story to the writing of the poems and the evolution of Rimbaud's views on poetry and the task of the poet. Influenced by his studies of Kabbalah, alchemy and illuminism, and writing in the long shadow of Baudelaire's "Les Fleurs du Mal", Rimbaud precociously enunciated his attack on the then dominant Parnassian school of French poetry at the tender age of sixteen. Starkie examines Rimbaud's original aesthetic doctrine in great detail; in her words, the poet must discover a "new language . . . capable of expressing the ineffable, a new language not bound by logic, nor by grammar or syntax." In Rimbaud's words, the "Poet" must make himself a "seer" by a "long, immense and systematic derangement of all the senses." From this initial position, Starkie brilliantly details Rimbaud's turbulent relationship with Paul Verlaine and his descent into what one reviewer has aptly described as a "perpetual roister of absinthe, hashish and sodomy." Starkie painstakingly relates Rimbaud's poetry to his experiences with Verlaine in London and Paris. In particular, Starkie convincingly demonstrates, through careful exegesis of the poems and their correspondences with Rimbaud's letters and other biographical materials, that the "Illuminations" (perhaps Rimbaud's most brilliant poems) were written over several years preceding and following "Une Saison en Enfer". Starkie then goes on to demonstrate that the latter prose poems were hardly intended to be Rimbaud's "farewell to literature in general, but only to visionary literature." In other words, "Une Saison en Enfer" represents the rejection by Rimbaud of his original mind-bending iconoclasm--the liquidation "of all his previous dreams and aspirations"--in favor of a rational and materialist aesthetics. Of course, after completing "Une Saison en Enfer", Rimbaud's life moved in completely different directions and there is, unfortunately, no existing evidence that he continued his poetic endeavor after the age of twenty. Starkie's biography captures the details of the remainder of Rimbaud's life--he died at the age of thirty-seven--with fascinating and attentive detail. And the remainder of his life, as related by Starkie, is a biography in itself--vagabond in Europe, sailor to the East Indies, gun runner and (slave?) trader in Abyssinia, and mysterious cult hero of the emerging French symbolist movement. Indeed, in 1888, more than fourteen years after Rimbaud's known literary career had ended, he received a letter from a prominent Parisian editor: "You have become, among a little coterie, a sort of legendary figure . . . This little group, who claim you as their Master, do not know what has become of you, but hope you will one day reappear, and rescue them from obscurity." Starkie scrutinizes all of these events with scrupulous attention to detail and accuracy. This is truly a classic of literary biography! (One additional comment: Rimbaud's poetry and letters are quoted extensively in the original French. If you are not fluent in French, you should have Wallace Fowlie's English translation of Rimbaud's Complete Works and Selected Letters by your side as a reference.)

Rating:
Summary: one of the standards of literary biography
Review: I am a literary bio junkie and this is one of the books that turned me into one. Rimbaud is an excellent subject because he led such a fascinating and contradictory life. He went from being the archetypal enfant terrible and prototypical bohemian poet to an engineer in Egypt without any interest in the Parisian literary "scene" whatsoever. Along the way was his enigmatic relationship with Verlaine and Verlaine's wife. Starkie doesn't answer all the questions we are left with regarding this singular artist. Nobody can. It's not even clear what caused his relatively early death. What Starkie does provide is an intelligently illuminated portrait of Rimbaud and provides us with the background for the well of angst into which he dipped his vituperous pen. I can't believe that Starkie's equally compelling bio of Baudelaire is not listed ........ If this book is out of print, it's criminal. It's almost a companion piece to her Rimbaud. It should also be read by anyone interested in French poetry, literary history, or great literary biography.

Rating:
Summary: This is the best biography on Rimbaud I have read
Review: It is difficult to imagine a book on Rimbaud (or anyone else, for that matter) which contains more detail than this one. In addition, it is very readable and is definitely "unputdownable". The reader follows Rimbaud from his birth place Charleville, through his life in the capitals of Western Europe (Paris, Brussels and London), to his wanderings in Africa and his final return to France.

On the downside, while I can well imagine the reason for doing so, I found it a bit disappointing that the poems and letters - which are quoted at length in the book - are not translated into English. I guess this is more a critique of my own ignorance of French than a critique of Starkie's (some would say "wise") decision to leave her primary source untranslated and, therefore, uncorrupted.

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in this youthful visionary.

Rating:
Summary: The mistakes of E. Starkie
Review: The Enid Starkie biography is a moving and remarkable work. Nevertheless , it has some serious mistakes that the readers and mainly the lovers of Rimbaud must know. Starkie stained the memory of Rimbaud accusing him of having done slaves traffic. Detailed studies have proved that this was absolutely impossible. (You can read the books of Alain Borer, Graham Robb, Charles Nicholl...)
Starkie wants to show us a rimbaud that failed in Abyssinia. It seems that he deserved a punishment for having left the poetry. The truth is that Arthur Rimbaud was an excellent trader that made a little fortune.
A few moths ago I went to Charleville. There, the Rimbaud's museum has a place where important studies about Rimbaud are shown. In spite of the Starkie's play is very well-known, it has not earned a place there.

Rating:
Summary: The mistakes of E. Starkie
Review: The Enid Starkie biography is a moving and remarkable work. Nevertheless , it has some serious mistakes that the readers and mainly the lovers of Rimbaud must know. Starkie stained the memory of Rimbaud accusing him of having done slaves traffic. Detailed studies have proved that this was absolutely impossible. (You can read the books of Alain Borer, Graham Robb, Charles Nicholl...)
Starkie wants to show us a rimbaud that failed in Abyssinia. It seems that he deserved a punishment for having left the poetry. The truth is that Arthur Rimbaud was an excellent trader that made a little fortune.
A few moths ago I went to Charleville. There, the Rimbaud's museum has a place where important studies about Rimbaud are shown. In spite of the Starkie's play is very well-known, it has not earned a place there.

Rating:
Summary: Too Fast to Live, Too Young to Die
Review: There is no doubt that Rimbaud presents a complex, almost contradictory metaphor for the life of the "Literary Voyant." He is embraced by various communities who identify with certain aspects or should I say phases of his life. I have read many essays, books, and bits and pieces on his life, poetry. As a lover of Rimbaud, I feel Starkie has captured the poet as no other. She looks into his mind and sees what others cannot see. This is the real Rimbaud, as real as we are ever going to know him. When I read this book, I always think of how Starkie closed her bio, with a little boat tossed drunkenly on the waves. Don't miss this book. It's what a literary biography should be, unbiased, thoughtful, and intelligent.