Madness and Modernity in Rimbaud’s Une Saison en enfer

Abstract

This paper sets out to examine in detail the structure and internal development of Une Saison en enfer, Arthur Rimbaud’s diary composed in prose poetry. The paper argues that the collection articulates the experience of madness as an integral part of the author’s sojourn in a psychological Hades. At the same time it sees a journey towards a personal definition and sense of modernity as the means by which the victim ultimately extracts himself from his hell. Drawing on some of the key work on Une Saison en enfer by important Rimbaldians, the article seeks to illuminate and explain the central artistic tension in the collection between assertiveness and hesitation, certainty and doubt. Placing Rimbaud in the context of other writers who have explored alternative visions of Hell, the paper examines Rimbaud’s engagement with and rejection of traditional Western systems of belief and his fascination with oriental philosophies. The statement “Il faut etre absolument moderne” thus represents a culmination, a point of arrival, an emergence from hell.