The Illuminations

by Keith Miller (Translator), Arthur Rimbaud

Overview

"As soon as the idea of the Flood subsided, A hare stopped in the clover and swinging flowerbells and said his prayer to the rainbow through the spider's web . . ." Arthur Rimbaud's short career as a poet came to a fiery close with The Illuminations. Innovative in their juxtaposition of images and exploration of language, the poems have inspired generations of poets. They retain their avant-garde flavor more than a century after they were first published. Five years in the making, this new translation by Keith Miller transmits the vitality and freshness of Rimbaud's voice while preserving fidelity to the originals. This dual-language edition allows readers to compare the translation with the original.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781448637294
Publisher:	CreateSpace Publishing
Publication date:	07/01/2009
Pages:	114
Product dimensions:	5.24(w) x 7.99(h) x 0.27(d)

About the Author

Arthur Rimbaud was born in Charleville, France, in 1854. He left home at the age of 14 and joined a group of writers and artists in Paris, among them Paul Verlaine. Verlaine and Rimbaud became lovers and moved to London. In 1873, Verlaine shot and wounded Rimbaud, and their affair ended. At 21, Rimbaud abandoned poetry, setting off on adventures that would take him to Egypt, Cyprus, Yemen, and Ethiopia. He died in 1891.

Table of Contents

Après le déluge / After the Flood
Enfance / Childhood
Conte / Tale
Parade / Circus Parade
Antique / Antique
Being Beauteous / Being Beauteous
Vies / Lives
Départ / Departure
Royauté / Royalty
À une raison / To a Reason
Matinee d’ivresse / Morning of Drunkenness
Phrases / Phrases
Ouvriers / Workers
Les Ponts / The Bridges
Ville / City
Ornières / Ruts
Villes (Ce sont des villes!...) / Cities
Vagabonds / Vagabonds
Villes (L’acropole officielle...) / Cities
Veillées / Vigils
Mystique / Mystic
Aube / Dawn
Fleurs / Flowers
Nocturne vulgaire / Crude Nocturne
Marine / Seascape
Fête d’hiver / Winter Festival •Angoisse / Agony
Métropolitain / Metropolitan •Barbe / Barbarian
Promontoire / Promontory
Scènes / Scenes
Soir historique / Historic Evening
Mouvement / Movement
Bottom / Bottom
H / H
Dévotion / Devotion
Démocratie / Democracy
Fairy / Fairy
Guerre / War
Génie / Genie
Jeunesse / Youth
Solde / Going Out of Business
Translator’s Afterword
Index of French Titles
Index of English Titles

What People are Saying About This

Norma Cole

“Divided as it still is among its several collectors, the manuscript of Illuminations, ‘a sheaf of loose, unnumbered sheets,’ (Félix Fénéon) was not exactly a book, and may not actually have been called Illuminations, or The Illuminations, but that is another story. In this new translation, Donald Revell becomes neo-alchemical transpositions of Arthur Rimbaud. He fancifully exhibits dreams and hallucinations, new elliptical ultrasounds ending ‘with angels of fire and ice.’ Revell’s dedicated translation presents these astonishing prose poems ‘bedecked with flags and flowers’.”

Cole Swensen

“Finally, a translation that brings Rimbaud, entire and vital, into English. In his masterful and acutely intuitive treatment of this classic, Donald Revell has caught the immediacy of tone and the jarring, often downright alarming juxtapositions and word choices that make Rimbaud's work still so unnervingly modern. Revell has made these familiar poems no longer familiar, but strange and raw—what a pleasure to be able to discover them all over again!”

Jean Valentine

“What a blessing to be given Donald Revell's revelling again in the work of Rimbaud, this time in The Illuminations, Rimbaud's ecstatic vision of life on earth and its end. His "further gospel" (following that of Jesus of Nazareth) proclaims not hope, but happiness. And all in Revell's brilliantly buoyant natural language, and, as in A Season in Hell, the gift of his risky and devoted Translator's Afterword.”

Editorial Reviews

A marriage divine.--Joy Williams, author of "State of Grace"

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 Illuminations. "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

More than a century after Arthur Rimbaud composed hisIlluminations, they are reborn in John Ashbery's magnificenttranslation. It is fitting that the major American poet since HartCrane and Wallace Stevens should give us this noble version of theprecursor of all three.--Harold Bloom

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

From the Publisher

Celebrated poet Revell (The Bitter Withy) received the 2007 PEN USA Translation Award for his ravishing take on Rimbaud's A Season in Hell. Rendered into English with utmost sympathy and flare, this bilingual edition of Rimbaud's prose masterpiece is sure to receive comparable acclaim. Considered by many to be the infamous French wunderkind's highest achievement, the book's (mostly) prose poems present the still teenage poet's acrobatic efforts to resist the stranglehold of habit, logic and bourgeois respectability: “I've strung ropes from steeple to steeple; garlands from window to window; golden chains from star to star, and I'm dancing.” Revell's version is no more or less accessible than previous translations, and dips into the contemporary idiom are thankfully infrequent and unobtrusive. What distinguishes Revell's work is its exquisite, carefully modulated musicality. His phrasing is rich and fluid (“The soft perfume of the stars and of the sky and of everything drifts down from the hilltop”) or crisp and strident (“Unsought air and unsought world. Life./ —Was that it, then?/ —And the dream grows cold”), in perfect keeping with the protean, inestimably influential original, making this among the finest of its English translations yet produced. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

I have yet to come across a better living translator working in French today, and I wholeheartedly recommend Revell's translations to francophone and English-speaking readers alike.

Prick of the Spindle Web Magazine