Poésies complètes

If one were to cite the poet who exercised the deepest influence on poetry of the early 20th century, one would have to name Rimbaud. With even more boldness than Baudelaire, he extended the field of exploration of poetry. Before him, the poetic experience was mainly the experience of literary creation. After him, poetry becomes a means of knowledge. [...] It is that he did not hesitate to communicate with the unknowable part of himself. There he discovered a great game of images, burst flowers, girls with orange lips, deluges and miracles, a game each figure of which resembles a message marked with an incomprehensible and sacred seal. From then on Rimbaud will free all the phenomena of the unconscious, prepare the ways of surrealism and create, if one wishes, a new mystery whose symbols will remain alien to the wonderful and fantastic.