Une Saison en Enfer
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French poet Arthur Rimbaud's Une Saison en Enfer (A Season in Hell) dates itself April through August 1873, but these are dates of completion. He finished the work in a farmhouse in Roche, Ardennes. It is the only work that was published by Rimbaud himself. The book had a considerable influence on later artists and poets, for example the Surrealists.
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[edit] Background
According to some sources, Rimbaud's first stay in London in late 1872 and early '73 converted him from an imbiber of absinthe to a smoker of opium. According to biographer, Graham Robb, this began "as an attempt to explain why some of his [Rimbaud's] poems are so hard to understand, especially when sober".[1]
There is a marked contrast between the hallucinogenic quality of Saison's second chapter, Mauvais Sang ("Bad Blood") and even the most hashish-influenced of the immediately preceding verses he wrote in Paris. Its third chapter, Nuit de l'Enfer (literally "Night of Hell"), then exhibits a refinement of sensibility. The two sections of chapter four apply this sensibility in professional and personal confession; and then, slowly but surely, at age 19, he begins to think clearly about his real future; the introductory chapter being a product of this later phase.
[edit] References in popular culture
The book was featured in one Law & Order episode where it plays a vital part in solving the murder crime. It also featured in the 1983 movie Eddie and the Cruisers, giving a very brief account of Rimbaud's life as an artist is given (albeit without any mention of the affair with Paul Verlaine or other pertinent historical details).
The book was referenced in the Felt song, "Sunlight Bathed the Golden Glow" from their 1984 album, The Strange Idols Pattern and Other Short Stories, with the lyric "you're reading from A Season in Hell but you don't know what it's about". Peruvian Rock Band La Liga del Sueño used part of the "Bad Blood" section as lyrics in the eponymous song "Mala Sangre" featured in their album "Mundo Cachina".
The metal band called The Ocean released a song called Une Saison en Enfer on the 2006 album called Aeolian.
The art world curator and fundraiser Bette Porter, a fictional character on The L Word, references a piece of artwork titled "A Season in Hell," supposedly one of the most important pieces of the last half-century, during a board meeting with her museum in Season 2 of the series.
[edit] Trivia
During one of her lengthy hospitalizations in Switzerland, Zelda Fitzgerald translated Une Saison en Enfer. Earlier Zelda had learned French on her own, by buying a French dictionary and painstakingly reading Raymond Radiguet's Le Bal du Comte d'Orgal.
[edit] Notes
[edit] References
- Robb, Graham (2000), Rimbaud, Picador, ISBN 0-330-48803-1
[edit] Availability online
- http://abardel.free.fr/tout_rimbaud/une_saison_en_enfer.htm
- http://abardel.free.fr/tout_rimbaud/brouillons_de_la_saison.htm
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