Arthur Rimbaud 20 October 1854 – 10 November 1891) was a French poet. Born in Charleville Ardennes he produced his best known works while still in his late teens.Victor Hugo described him at the time as "an infant Shakespeare"and he gave up creative writing altogether before the age of 21. As part of the decadent movement, Rimbaud influenced modern literature, music and art. He was known to have been a libertine and a restless soul, travelling extensively on three continents before his death from cancer just after his 37th birthday.
Here is a couple of quotes of Rimbaud.
The poet makes himself a seer by a long, prodigious, and rational disordering of all the senses. Every form of love, of suffering, of madness; he searches himself, he consumes all the poisons in him, ...
''Life is the farce which everyone has to perform.''
He had an incredible effect on popular music.Penny Rimbaud drummer of the band Crass changed her name to Rimbaud.The high priestess of Punk Patti Smith wrote poems to him.Richard Hell of the band Television took his surname from Rimbaud's 'Seasons In Hell' and Tom Verlaine of the same band took his name from Paul Verlaine who was the French poet with whom Rimbaud had a volatile relationship including an incident when Verlaine shot Rimbaud and wounded him in the wrist and Rimbaud had to call the police.That must have been quite galling for a Libertine and leading member of the Decadent movement to have to get the police to sort out a domestic!.Jim Morrison of The Doors was heavily into Rimbaud and described himself as 'Rimbaud in a leather jacket'.Jim really followed the Rimbaud code and believed that the palace of wisdom lay along the road of excess and tried to push on through to the other side with his outrageous behaviour and lewd and rebellious stage performances.
"Tore Down A La Rimbaud" is a song that resonates for me because it's about artistic block and lack of inspiration.
I'd been reading Arthur Rimbaud when I got the original idea, particularly "Illuminations". Is that what it's called? Actually, the idea for the song is ten or 12 years old. I sort of rewrote it last year and recorded it.
Is it fair to say the song is about writer's block?
That's what it *is* about, because at the time I got the idea, I wasn't writing anything at all. And I didn't really understand why. It was very frustrating.
Rimbaud believed that true art could only be produced through what he called "constant and systematic derangement of the senses". To this aesthetic end, he smoked a lot of hashish.
I prefer coffee, personally.
Van also mentions Rimbaud in the song Foriegn Window on the 'No Guru' album
I saw you from a foreign window
Bearing down the sufferin' road
You were carryin' your burden
You were singing about Rimbaud.
Anyway, listen to Tore Down A La Rimbaud which is all about writers block and is one of Vans finest songs and happy birthday to Arthur Rimbaud,one of the greatest poets who ever lived and was the Beat Generation of his day.
I understood that what I needed to become the first poet of this century is to experience everything in my body.
It's no longer enough for me to be one person, I decided to be everyone.
I decided to be a genius. I decided to originate the future.
You can find some nice books which i used to illustrate this article about Rimbaud in my shop here-
http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Pats-Little-Book-Shop
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