Jean-Nicholas-Arthur Rimbaud was born on October 20, 1854 at Charleville in provincial France. His family was abandoned by their father and forced into poverty. Madame Rimbaud showed little affection to her children, instead she focused her ambitions on her two sons. Forbidden to play with the other boys, Rimbaud immersed himself in his studies. Stimulated by a yearning for more in life, he became a gifted student.
In 1870, restless and
despondent over the loss of his favorite teacher, Georges Izambard, who had left
to fight in the Franco-Prussian War, Rimbaud ran away from home to Paris.
In 1871, Rimbaud met Paul
Verlaine-who was twenty years older-and moved into his household. After two to
three weeks he left, and stayed in a room that was rented for his use by Verlaine.
Verlaine and Rimbaud got closer and closer while Verlaine and his wife's relationship
grew farther and farther apart.
Eventually, Verlaine left
his wife and he and Rimbaud moved to London. If their friendship was controversial,
their sexual relationship was downright scandalous. But Verlaine nor Rimbaud ever
acknowledged the charge of homosexuality made about them by their friends and relations.
By 1873, Rimbaud was disenchanted
about his relationship with Verlaine. When Rimbaud stated that he was going to
leave for Paris, Verlaine, angered, fired two shots at him. One bullet wounded
the boy's left wrist. Later police were called and Verlaine was sent to prison
for eighteen months.
During his relatively
brief life, Rimbaud moved about considerably in a geographical sense, at a time
in French history (about 1870-1890) when the French people did little travelling.
Rimbaud's journey's were at first vagabond flights that did not go far beyond
his home in Charleville. He went to Paris, Brussels, and London, in the space
of four years, between the ages of sixteen and twenty, and this was when he produced
the whole of his literary work.
Before his twentieth birthday,
Rimbaud quit writing. His life became an epic, and he literally lived the voyages
he had written about as voyages of his mind and his imagination. During the last
ten years of his life, 1880-1890, Rimbaud lived and worked under bad conditions
for various business firms in Africa and Asia. He wandered Europe before eventually
becoming a trader and gunrunner in Africa. The last year of his life, 1891, was
a period of intense physical suffering due to a tumor on his right knee. He finally
returned to Marseilles in June and his leg was amputated. His sister Isabelle
accompanied him to Marseilles and nursed him there until his death on November
10, at age 37. He was buried in Charleville, where today his grave is visited
by many of his readers from every country.
Rimbaud's literary style
has influenced almost all modern forms of literature. He has also been cited as
an inspiration by songwriters and poets like Jim Morrison, Bob Dylan, Patti Smith,
and Jim Carroll.