{"product_id":"a-season-in-hell-illuminations-isbn-9780679643272","title":"A Season in Hell \u0026 Illuminations","description":"Translated, edited and with an Introduction by Wyatt Mason\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“The definitive translation for our time.”\u003cbr\u003e–Edward Hirsch\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFrom Dante’s Inferno to Sartre’s No Exit, writers have been fascinated by visions of damnation. Within that rich literature of suffering, Arthur Rimbaud’s \u003cb\u003eA Season in Hell\u003c\/b\u003e–written when the poet was nineteen–provides an astonishing example of the grapple with self. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs a companion to Rimbaud’s journey, readers could have no better guide than Wyatt Mason. One of our most talented young translators and critics, Mason’s new version of A Season in Hell renders the music and mystery of Rimbaud’s tale of Hell on Earth with exceptional finesse and power. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis bilingual edition includes maps, a helpful chronology of Rimbaud’s life, and the unfinished suite of prose poems, Illuminations. With \u003cb\u003eA Season in Hell\u003c\/b\u003e, they cement Rimbaud’s reputation as one of the foremost, and most influential, writers in French literature.“It's quite likely that [the season’s] most exciting new book of verse was stamped Made in France more than a century ago. É \u003ci\u003eRimbaud Complete\u003c\/i\u003e, Wyatt Mason's bouncy new translation of the avant-garde poet's hallucinatory corpus, finds new music in the writing, revealing a classical artist.”  \u003cbr\u003e–Editor’s Choice, A-   \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eEntertainment Weekly \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“An important new rendering of a major poet.”\u003cbr\u003e–\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eLibrary Journal\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Mason's translations are confident and contemporary–muscular but without muscling in on the originals. There is no crabby diction, but neither is there that self conscious pseudo-hipness with which it's all too tempting to render Rimbaud's lolling truculence of pose. Mason's approach has been to aim for common (as distinct from middle) ground between the literalist and the free, and the decision to translate successive versions and drafts pays off too, letting English-speaking readers see the genesis of poems and trace their often substantial alterations. Mason gets Rimbaud's range across impressively.”\u003cbr\u003e–\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Times Literary Supplement\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Mason does a splendid job in arrangement and translation.”\u003cbr\u003e–\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eTampa Tribune\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Wyatt Mason's translations of Rimbaud's literary works manage, more than any others, to convey to contemporary ears the real sense of the work. Previous attempts had strained to maintain a sense of the French style or an equivalence in rhyme and form. For all their good intentions, these ideals forced the renderings into awkward locutions or pretentiously formal tropes, making Rimbaud sound as much like a biblical elder as a modern poet. Mason has finally given us an English Rimbaud we can read as we should, as if he were kin to Jack Kerouac, to Charles Bukowski, to Jim Morrison [É] his \u003ci\u003eRimbaud Complete\u003c\/i\u003e will surely live on as the standard edition.\u003cbr\u003e–\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Toronto Star\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Wyatt Mason’s [translations] capture the rigours of the original.”\u003cbr\u003e–\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eLondon Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Exceptional new translator Wyatt Mason limns the afterlife of Arthur Rimbaud's 37 chaotic years on Earth É There is no small literary excitement in this, one of the best Rimbaud translations in English and certainly the most complete.” \u003cbr\u003e–Editor’s Choice\u003ci\u003e, \u003cb\u003eBuffalo News\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A monumental achievementÉa book to treasure.”\u003cbr\u003e–\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eScotland on Sunday\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePraise for Wyatt Mason’s\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eRimbaud Complete, Volume 2: I Promise to be Good, The Letters\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Perhaps you know him only by myth: Bad boy rebel poet, possibly gay but probably bisexual, lover of the lesser poet Paul Verlaine, survivor of literary and romantic scenes worthy of Norman Mailer. [É] Wyatt Mason, in a word, detests all that; he shows us, in his straightforward translations of these letters from the second half of Rimbaud's life (ages 19 to 37), a man dedicated to factual information, a simple but elegant describer of the foreign lands [É] a man who gives up poetry to look at the world with a disciplined eye, who sleeps outdoors for the last 20 years of his life–now there's a writer you can sink your teeth into.”\u003cbr\u003e–\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Los Angeles Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“The book is fascinating for the voice it revealsÉthe postpoetic Rimbaud, the man glimpsed in bracingly cold letters sent to his family. [É] Mason’s translation is crisp and lively, and his clear-eyed introduction is essential reading for anyone besotted with the image of the poet as tragic figure.”\u003cbr\u003e–\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eTime Out New York\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Mason, the American translator who last year published Rimbaud's collected poems in English [unveils] an Apollonian craftsman, one who took infinite pains to achieve perfection of expression [É]. Mason's an agile, skillful translator.” \u003cbr\u003e–\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003ePublisher's Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Thanks to Wyatt Mason’s masterly translations, Rimbaud has, after a century and a half, recovered his gift.”\u003cbr\u003e–\u003cb\u003eAskold Melnyczuk\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Modern Library’s \u003ci\u003eRimbaud Complete\u003c\/i\u003e, translated and edited by Wyatt MasonÉincludes all of Rimbaud’s poetry as well as uncollected writings ranging from Latin school compositions to fragments of poems reconstructed by his acquaintances. This is now joined by \u003ci\u003eI Promise to Be Good: The Letters of Arthur Rimbaud\u003c\/i\u003e, the largest sampling of the poet’s correspondence yet to appear in English.” \u003ci\u003e–\u003cb\u003eThe New Yorker\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“Mason's elegant translations flow smoothly off the page.”  \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e–\u003cb\u003eLibrary Journal\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“Wyatt Mason’s translation of Rimbaud’s letters is a swashbuckler of a book, nothing less than a resurrection of a remarkable like. As such, it is worth companion to Mason’s fine translation of the poems. No admirer of Rimbaud will want to be without it.”\u003cbr\u003e–\u003cb\u003eArthur Goldhammer\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“The letters themselves are bizarre, twisted, and oddly welcoming. [É] Mason's introduction is invaluable. It grounds the details from Rimbaud's letters in a concrete narrative, filling in gaps without the benefit of other people's return letters, the other half of Rimbaud's conversations. Mason acts as conductor, whispering into our ears through footnotes that treat their subject playfully and respectfully at the same time.”\u003cbr\u003e–\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eSan Francisco Bay Guardian\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eWyatt Mason is a contributing editor of Harper’s magazine, where his essays regularly appear. He also writes for The London Review of Books and The New Republic. The Modern Library has published his translations of the complete works of Arthur Rimbaud in two volumes. His translations of Dante’s Vita Nuova\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003eand Montaigne’s Essais are in progress.ENGLISH\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Long ago, if my memory serves, life was a feast where every heart was  open, where every wine flowed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    One night, I sat Beauty on my knee. —And I found her bitter. —And I hurt  her.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I took arms against justice.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I fled, entrusting my treasure to you, o witches, o misery, o hate.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I snuffed any hint of human hope from my consciousness. I made the muffled  leap of a wild beast onto any hint of joy, to strangle it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Dying, I called out to my executioners so I could bite the butts of their  rifles. I called plagues to suffocate me with sand, blood. Misfortune was  my god. I wallowed in the mud. I withered in criminal air. And I even  tricked madness more than once.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    And spring gave me an idiot’s unbearable laughter.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Just now, having nearly reached death’s door, I even considered seeking  the key to the old feast, through which, perhaps, I might regain my  appetite.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Charity is the key. —Such an inspiration proves I must have been dreaming.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “A hyena you’ll remain, etc. . . .” cries the demon that crowns me with  merry poppies. “Make for death with every appetite intact, with your  egotism, and every capital sin.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Ah. It seems I have too many already: —But, dear Satan, I beg you not to  look at me that way, and while you await a few belated cowardices—you who  so appreciate a writer’s inability to describe or inform—I’ll tear a few  terrible leaves from my book of the damned.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e      BAD BLOOD\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    My Gallic forebears gave me pale blue eyes, a narrow skull, and bad  reflexes in a fight. I dress as barbarically as they. But I don’t butter  my hair.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The Gauls were the most inept animal-skinners and grass-burners of their  day.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    They gave me: idolatry, a love of sacrilege, and every vice: anger,  lust—glorious lust—but above all, deceit and sloth.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I find even the thought of work unbearable. Masters and workers are all  peasants. There’s no difference between a hand holding a pen and a hand  pushing a plow. An age of hands! —I’ll have no part in it. Domesticity  goes too far too fast. Begging—despite its inherent decency—pains me.  Criminals are as bad as eunuchs: so what if I’m in one piece.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    But. Who made my tongue so truthless that it has shepherded and  safeguarded my sloth this far? Lazier than a toad, I’ve gotten by without  lifting a finger: I’ve lived everywhere. There is not a family in Europe I  don’t know. —Which is to say families like mine which owe everything to  the Declaration of the Rights of Man. —I’ve known every young man of means.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e      If only I had one predecessor in French history!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    But no, none.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    It’s clear to me that I belong to a lesser race. I have no notion of  rebellion. The only time my race ever rose up was to pillage: like wolves  on carcasses they didn’t even kill.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I know French history, know the Church’s eldest daughter. Had I been a  boor, I would have journeyed to the holy land; in my head are roads  through Swabian plains, views of Byzantium, ramparts of Jerusalem; both  the cult of Mary and of pity on the cross comingle in me amidst a thousand  profane visions. —I sit like a leper on broken pots and nettles, at the  foot of walls eaten away by sun. —Later, I would have been a mercenary  bivouacking beneath German nights.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    But there’s more! I dance on the sabbath, in a red clearing with old women  and children.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I don’t remember anything prior to this earth and this Christianity. I  don’t see myself anywhere but in that past. And always alone; without  family, speaking what language? I never see myself in Christ’s councils;  nor in the councils of Lords—Christ’s delegates.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    What was I last century? I only see myself now. No more vagabonds or  nebulous wars. The inferior race has spread, everywhere—people or, as we  now say, reason: nationality and science.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Oh, science! We’ve remade the world. For body and soul—as viaticum—we have  medicine and philosophy—home remedies and cover-versions of popular songs.  Princely amusements and the games they forbade. Geography, cosmography,  mechanics, chemistry . . . !\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Science, the new nobility. Progress. The world turns. Why wouldn’t it?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Numerical visions. We close in upon the Animus. What I say is irrefutable,  oracular. I understand, and not knowing how to explain myself but in pagan  words, I’d be better off shutting my mouth.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e      Pagan blood returns! The Animus nears, why won’t Christ help me, grace my  soul with nobility and liberty. But the Gospel is gone. The Gospel! The  Gospel.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I await God, hungrily. I am an eternal member of an inferior race.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    There I am on the beaches of Brittany. Cities blaze in the night. My day  is done: I’m leaving Europe. The marine air will burn my lungs; unknown  climates will tan my skin. To swim, trample grass, hunt, and above all,  smoke; drink liquors as strong as molten metal—like our cherished  ancestors around their fires.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I’ll return with iron limbs, dark skin, an imperious gaze: my mask will  mark me as member of a powerful race. I’ll have gold: be lazy and  merciless. Women pamper fierce invalids returned from hot countries. I’ll  enter politics. Saved.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Now, though, I’m cursed: I can’t stand my country. The best I can hope for  is drunken sleep, by the shore.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e      But we don’t leave. —We take the same roads, burdened with my vice, vice  that since the age of reason has sunk its roots right into my  side—climbing skyward, beating me, toppling me, dragging me along.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The final innocence and the final humility. That does it. I won’t hump my  disgusts and deceits across the world.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    We’re off! The march, the burden, the desert, the boredom, the anger.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    What flag will I bear? What beast worship? What shrine besiege? What  hearts break? What lies tell? —And walk through whose blood?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Better yet: steer well clear of Justice. —The hard life, simple  brutishness—lift the coffin’s lid with a withered fist, sit inside,  suffocate. Neither old age, nor danger: fear isn’t French.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I feel so forsaken I orient my instinct for perfection on any sacred  image. O self-sacrifice; o magnanimous charity! All for me, of course! De  profundis Domine—what a fool I am!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e      When I was very young, I admired hardened criminals locked behind prison  doors; I visited inns and taverns they frequented; with their eyes, I saw  the blue sky and the blossoming work of the fields; I tracked their scent  through cities. They were more powerful than saints, more prudent than  explorers—and they, they alone, were witnesses to glory and reason!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    On the roads, through winter nights, without a home, without habits,  without bread, a voice strangled my frozen heart: “Weakness or strength:  Those are your options, so strength it is. You know neither where you’re  going, nor why you’re going, entering anywhere, answering anyone. You’re  no more likely to be killed than a corpse.” By morning, I had developed  such a lost, dead expression that those I met may not have even seen me.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    In cities, mud suddenly seemed red and black, like a mirror when a lamp is  moved through an adjoining room, like treasure found in a forest. Good  luck, I cried, and I saw a sky flooded with smoke and flame; and to my  left, to my right, all the world’s riches burned like a billion  thunderbolts.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    But orgies and womanly companionship were denied me. Not one friend. I saw  myself in front of an angry mob, facing a firing squad, weeping  incomprehensible sorrows and forgiving them, like Joan of Arc: “Priests,  professors, masters: you falter bringing me to justice. I was never one of  you; I was never Christian; my race sang upon the rack; I don’t understand  your laws; I have no moral compass, I’m a beast: you falter . . .”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Yes, my eyes are shut to your light. I’m an animal, a nigger. But I can be  saved. You’re all fake niggers, you brutal, greedy maniacs. Merchant? No:  nigger. Magistrate? Nigger. General? Nigger. Emperor—you itchy old  scab—nigger. You drank Satan’s duty-free booze. —Fever and cancer thrill  you. Cripples and codgers are so decent they ask to be boiled. —The wisest  move would be to leave this continent, creeping with madness, a madness  that seeks hostages for lost souls. I set out in search of the true  kingdom of the children of Ham.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Do I really know nature? Do I know myself?—No more words. I bury the dead  in my belly. Shouts, drums, dance, dance, dance, dance! I can’t imagine a  moment when whites will arrive and I’ll tumble into the void.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Hunger, thirst, shouts, dance, dance, dance, dance!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e      Whites arrive. A cannon! I submit to baptism, dress, work.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    My heart is struck by grace. And I never saw it coming!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I’ve done nothing wrong. My days bring no burden, I’ll be spared  repentance. I won’t have to suffer the torments of a soul dead to decency,  whose harsh light rises as if from funeral tapers. The fate of the  favorite son: an early grave, blanketed with limpid tears. Of course  debauchery is as stupid as vice. Cast rot aside. But no clock will ever do  more than merely mark our hours of purest pain! Will I be carried off,  like a child, to play in paradise, forgetting all my misfortune!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Quick: are there other lives? —It’s impossible to sleep surrounded by  riches. Riches are supremely public. Only divine love grants the keys to  science. I see that nature is only a spectacle of goodness. Farewell  chimeras, ideals, mistakes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The angels’ prudent songs rise from the ship of souls: divine love. —Two  loves! I may die of earthly love, or of devotion. I’ve left souls behind  whose suffering will swell with my departure! You pluck me from the  shipwreck; are those who remain not my friends?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Save them!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Reason is born within me. The world is good. I bless life. I will love my  brothers. These are no longer idle promises of youth, nor a hope of  evading old age and death. God is my strength. I praise God.Translated, edited, and with an Introduction by Wyatt Mason [quote] --The Times Literary Supplement","brand":"Modern Library","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46300742254821,"sku":"NP9780679643272","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780679643272.jpg?v=1767720771","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/a-season-in-hell-illuminations-isbn-9780679643272","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}