French Literature Reviews - 2026

Y. Reboul, Rimbaud dans son temps
Writers: Biography, Letters and Memoirs

[Agrégation 2010]

Yves Reboul, Rimbaud dans son temps

Paris: Éditions Classiques Garnier, coll. "Études rimbaldiennes", 2009, 444 p.

• ISBN: 978-2-8124-0088-9
• Price: 64 €

Publisher's overview:

He has been portrayed alternately as a mystic, a Bolshevik, and a precursor to surrealism. Attention has been lavished on his mother, his adventurous life in Abyssinia, and his affair with Verlaine. It has been said that poetry could never be the same after him, often treating him like a meteor dropped from the sky. Yet from Hugo to the Paris Commune, and from Parnassus to his time in London, no one was more deeply immersed in a tumultuous era of history. Through four comprehensive chapters (including a reassessment of the Rimbaldian myth) and thirteen close readings of his poems, this book strives to restore Rimbaud to the context of his own time, dans son temps.

The study of Arthur Rimbaud has frequently been dominated by biographical legends, focusing on his volatile relationship with Paul Verlaine, his later travels in Abyssinia, or his perceived status as a solitary visionary. This volume shifts the focus toward the poet's engagement with the broader political and artistic currents of his day, exploring his connections to the Parnassian movement and his proximity to major historical events such as the Paris Commune to ground his literary output in the realities of the nineteenth century.

This work situates the poet within the intellectual and social climate of his age, moving away from the common view of him as an isolated figure detached from history. By discussing his interactions with literary trends from the influence of Victor Hugo to artistic circles in London, the text addresses the context of his time. Readers interested in the intersection of nineteenth-century French history and the evolution of poetic form may find this contextual approach relevant.