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Rimbaud

Arthur Rimbaud · French poet (1854-1891) · 1854–1891

Appears in 143 videos · 271 passages, 115 of them in depth.

What Dominique Pagani says

Dominique Pagani often returns to "Je est un autre" ("I is another"). He reads it as the formula of the split subject: the conscious self is only a small part of the subject, and the deliberate grammatical error heralds the unconscious1. He reads "Conte" closely: the prince whom nothing resists illustrates the Hegelian theory of abstract desire and the fury of destruction. The poem closes on "la musique savante manque à notre désir" ("learned music is lacking to our desire")2. For him, "Mouvement" is a hymn to industrial modernity, in which a young couple preserves "l'ancienne sauvagerie" (the "ancient savagery")3. He cites the Lettre du voyant, which judges all of poetry: Baudelaire is the first of the seers there, but his form is judged petty, and the Romantics are strangled by the "old form"4. From Une saison en enfer, he retains the passage from rebel to revolutionary: there is no escaping, one must "greet beauty", and the work ends with the march of peoples5.

  1. 1#2.6 Entre crise et guerre : Philosopher ?1 Aug 2017 · 39:19
  2. 2#2.4 Entre crise et guerre : Philosopher ?10 Mar 2016 · 1:19:44
  3. 3#5.4 Introduction / Nature ou Paysage ?25 Jan 2019 · 1:07:27
  4. 4Griaule (Marcel)18 Oct 2017 · 25:38
  5. 5La maladie, le malheur, le mal20 Sept 2024 · 1:28:11

Summary produced automatically from 150 of the passages below, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the moment in the session.

Portrait: RimbaudWho is this?

Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud (UK:, US: ; French: ; 20 October 1854 – 10 November 1891) was a French poet known for his transgressive and surreal themes and for his influence on modern literature and arts, prefiguring surrealism. Born in Charleville, he started writing at a very young age and excelled as a student, but abandoned his formal education in his teenage years to run away to Paris amidst the Franco-Prussian War. During his late adolescence and early adulthood, he produced the bulk of his literary output. […]

Read the article on Wikipedia

Text: Wikipédia, CC BY-SA 4.0, excerpt · Portrait: Étienne Carjat, Public domain

Series · 13 Jun 2025OUR FORMER SAVAGERY? - An impromptu reading of an Illumination by Arthur Rimbaud
  1. 1:01IlluminationsThe Illuminations come after A Season in Hell, more occasional; full reading of "Mouvement."
  2. 3:48A young man from the Ardennes, "the man with soles of wind," he discovers the industrial revolution while walking and writes a hymn to hypermodernity.
  3. 7:16IlluminationsRereading of "Mouvement": terms of movement, the pronoun "eux" that maintains distance, allusion to Noah's ark.
  4. 11:02IlluminationsThe fall in the poem brings forth a young couple and the question of ancient savagery.
  5. 34:07He writes this at 17-18, never speaks of it again; in Ethiopia, he says he knew painters and poets, "but not a single musician."
Series · 20 May 2022Dominique Pagani - Who is hiding beneath the surfaces? Aesthetics and politics
  1. 3:01Quotation "learned music is lacking to our desire", recalled by the question.
  2. 17:55Letter of the SeerAt seventeen, he says that neither critics nor romantics have understood romanticism.
  3. 28:52A Season in HellIn "Délires I. Vierge folle", he paints a merciless portrait of himself, then concludes that there is no escape.
  4. 44:01Letter of the SeerThe romantics are strangled by the old form; Stella gives the measure of Hugo's vision.
  5. 47:46Letter of the SeerHarsh toward Hugo, he nevertheless calls Les Misérables "a true poem".
Season 6 · 29 Mar 2020#6.6 • The Logic of the Subject in the face of the reconstitution of Nazism
  1. 6:46A Season in HellThe title echoes the descent into hell of modernity.
  2. 30:10TaleThe prince who destroys every object of desire illustrates the Hegelian thesis of destructive desire, up to the fatal encounter with himself.
  3. 45:50Tale"Learned music is missing from our desire": he ends a poem on the essence of desire with a cultural value.
  4. 51:53MovementEcstasy of technical modernity and the question of the place of love in the world of calculation.
  5. 1:13:08A Season in Hell"The spiritual combat is as brutal as the battle of men"; brought back to the ground, with a duty to seek.
Season 5.2 · 25 Jan 2019#5.4 Introduction / Nature or Landscape?
  1. 9:00Distinguishes the French revolutionary from the Parisian.
  2. 22:24A Season in HellIn "Délires I," he depicts himself as possessed by the rage to escape, a sign of modernity.
  3. 1:04:59MovementFull reading of the poem as a first sample of an industrial landscape.
  4. 1:07:27MovementA hymn to science in which the vessel is a Noah's ark, but where the young couple maintains the old savagery.
  5. 1:11:55DawnFirst poet to rehabilitate nature and landscape in poetry, against Baudelaire.
Season 12 · 12 Dec 2023"I is another", or contradictory identity
  1. 8:19Letter of the Seer"Je est un autre" recalls the split of identity, typical of modernity, and announces the problematics of the unconscious.
  2. 59:04A Season in HellThe Rimbaud of revolt has died in him; he now knows how to salute beauty: an example of the murder of self.
  3. 1:28:05IlluminationsThe prince of "Conte", who wants essential satisfaction and has his wives assassinated, illustrates the fury of destruction.
Season 11 · 18 Mar 2023A SPRINGTIME OF THE PEOPLES?
  1. 34:48IlluminationsIn "Mouvement," the wild lovers appear amid an ultra-modern setting: a nomad of time and space.
  2. 42:25A Season in Hell"There is no one here and there is someone": a dialectic.
  3. 53:46IlluminationsCommented reading of "Mouvement": the dam, the conquerors of the world, the ark and the ancient savagery that is forgiven.
  4. 1:35:15A profaner and a rebel, he nonetheless says that theology is serious.
  5. 2:05:23The Drunken Boat"The exalted dawn like a flock of doves" states whiteness and elevation twice: a rigorous line.
Season 9.1 · 24 Dec 2020#10 Benefits and harms of amnesia...
  1. 5:23A Season in Hell"One must be absolutely modern": Rimbaud gives up escape to "hold the ground won."
  2. 13:21MovementFuturist hymn to a hydraulic power plant, whose fall brings forth the ancient savagery of a young couple.
  3. 31:10MovementThe text of a young man under 19 allows for taking stock of the cycle on memory.
  4. 1:17:51GeniusThe finest self-portrait of a poet; only the present and the future remain, and "love must be reinvented."
Season 5.2 · 2 May 2019#5.6 Nature or Landscape?
  1. 29:35Illuminations"Aube," the most beautiful sunrise in our literature, with a maternal relation between dawn and the child.
  2. 46:45IlluminationsSame progression in "Aube" as in Jean Paul's sunrise.
  3. 51:30IlluminationsSame terms of veil and immensity as in Jean Paul; a minuscule, dense work, more avant-garde.
  4. 1:25:48A Season in Hell"I drew the azure from the sky, which is black."
Talks · 20 Jul 2018Education: can the Beautiful be learned?
  1. 32:50A Season in HellA participant reads the prologue in which he sits Beauty on his knees, finds her bitter, and insults her.
  2. 36:36A Season in HellPagani refuses to interpret: seen up close, beauty ceases to be a spectacle and disappoints.
  3. 51:10A Season in HellAt the end, "today I know how to salute beauty": one must have renounced a thing in order truly to appreciate it.
Season 2 · 1 Aug 2017#2.6 Between crisis and war: Philosophising?
  1. 13:25TaleThe prince finds the object of his desire at the price of death.
  2. 16:28TaleThe fall "learned music is lacking to our desire" introduces the musician as a third pole.
  3. 39:19"I is an other," formula of the split subject and of the synthesis of the three stages of the self.
  4. 1:43:04The Drunken BoatThe absolute adventure turns back on itself: "I regret Europe with its ancient parapets," the same movement as in Gauguin.
  5. 2:01:17"What I loved was free freedom."
Season 5.2 · 26 Mar 2019#5.5 Nature or Landscape?
  1. 1:00:31The Drunken Boat"The yellow and blue awakening of singing phosphorescences."
  2. 1:10:29IlluminationsWith him nature makes its return, like a resurgence of original romanticism.
  3. 1:15:36DawnA poem of a magician who triggers the dawn, unveils it and embraces it in a dream: an interior landscape made of sensations.
Season 4 · 14 Jun 2018#4.9 Angélique (by Nerval)
  1. 1:01:25"I is another": a subject doubles the subject.
  2. 1:37:36A Season in Hell"One must be absolutely modern"; the work ends on the city and the marching of peoples, a collective conclusion.
  3. 1:45:24IlluminationsAfter the season in hell, "Dawn"; his departure for Ethiopia is not a renunciation of poetry.
  4. 1:48:06"Hold the ground gained": humility, not the great revolutionary night.
Season 4 · 18 Oct 2017#4.1 Angélique (by Nerval)
  1. 25:38Letter of the SeerAt 17, he judges all literature by the criterion of the seer; Baudelaire is "king of poets" but his form is petty.
  2. 37:03A Season in Hell"Spiritual combat is as brutal as the battle of men."
  3. 1:24:37A Season in HellThe "white nations rejoicing" and the march of the peoples evoke the poplars of Rousseau's tomb.
Season 2 · 1 Aug 2017#2.5 Between crisis and war: Philosophising?
  1. 0:36A Season in Hell"One must be absolutely modern" and "I is another" express the unconscious before its modeling, through a brilliant grammatical mistake.
  2. 54:34His text on a Caligula-like prince, compared with Hegel's analysis of abstract freedom.
  3. 1:09:27Letter of the SeerHe reviews all of poetry there and grants Hugo credit only for his last volumes, including Stella.
  4. 1:56:13Saw that the French romantics were strangled by the old form.
Series · 1 Feb 2016Hegel on the Beach 2/5
  1. 24:50IlluminationsUnlimited desire that need not limit itself "to lost charities."
  2. 34:50A Season in Hell"I who called myself a magus or an angel…": a Hegelian Rimbaud, brought back to earth with rugged reality to be embraced.
  3. 39:57TaleAn almost word-for-word illustration of the Hegelian theory of abstract desire and the fury of destruction.
Series · 23 Dec 2014I for Island
  1. 6:27A Season in HellA vision of the march of peoples: of tomorrows trembling in the sun of the future.
  2. 7:18Illuminations"Mouvement" describes a hydroelectric construction site and brings together past, progress, and future around a young couple on the ark.
Season 13 · 20 Sept 2024Sickness, misfortune, evil
  1. 7:57A Season in HellAnnouncement of the chapter "Adieu," written between the ages of 17 and 18.
  2. 26:52Quoted on the word that flees and flies.
  3. 1:28:11A Season in HellAfter the descent into hell, he refuses to curse life: the romantic self cancels itself and the ending announces a collective victory.
Series · 1 Jan 2015R for Reverie
  1. 7:01Cited among the great advances placed in the second state.
  2. 8:03Illuminations"Mouvement" praises an industrial futurism and then closes on a couple who withdraw: "Is it ancient savagery that one forgives?"

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