Arthur Rimbaud

About

Born in northeastern France, Arthur Rimbaud (1854–1891) is widely considered the quintessential French poet . His escape at age sixteen to join the Paris Commune and his tumultuous affair with Paul Verlaine (culminating in a gunshot wound in a Brussels hotel) are the stuff of literary legend. His writings and actions over a mere five years revolutionized attitudes toward art, life, and sexuality . Rimbaud abandoned poetry at the age of twenty, and in his final decade he struggled to find success as a trader and gun-runner in Africa. He died of cancer at thirty-seven, having seen almost none of his work in print.