Illuminations

The text of Illuminations is generally agreed to consist of forty-two poems. In large part due to the circumstances surrounding the publication of the poems of Illuminations, there is no consensus as to the order in which Rimbaud intended the poems to appear. Nevertheless, certain conventions stand among the many editions of the text. For example, the various publications of Illuminations almost invariably begin with "Après Le Deluge". Despite th... more

The text of Illuminations is generally agreed to consist of forty-two poems. In large part due to the circumstances surrounding the publication of the poems of Illuminations, there is no consensus as to the order in which Rimbaud intended the poems to appear. Nevertheless, certain conventions stand among the many editions of the text. For example, the various publications of Illuminations almost invariably begin with "Après Le Deluge". Despite this ostensible controversy, a large number of scholars have declared the order of Illuminations to be irrelevant. Perhaps translator Bertrand Mathieu best distilled the major reasons for this contention, saying, "No single poem really depends on the others or counts on them to achieve its own perfections. Each is intrinsic (we don't know the exact sequence and we don't need to know it)." The collection consists overwhelmingly of prose poems, which make of up forty of the forty-two poems. The two exceptions are "Marine" and "Mouvement," which... less