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What René Char has said in his "Introduction" to die Selected Works of Arthur Rimbaud (1957) is path-breaking (Wegweisendes). Out of his insight into the entirety of this poetry, he has deliberately included within die Oeuvre the poet's two letters from May 13 and 15, 1871. In the letter of Mayl5, Rimbaud himself tells us the way a poet stays "vital" (lebendig, vivant): namely, that poets yet to come survey die horizon he reached: "he arrives at the unknown (Unbekannten)]"
Are we today already well-acquainted enough with this horizon that Rimbaud has "seen"?
I shall hold off with the answer and focus on the question. Tb ask dus more clearly the poet helps us with two sentences in die above-mentioned letter:
"En Grèce. . . vers et lyres rhythment l'Action. "
["In Greece... poems and lyres turned Action into Rhythm."]
"La Poésie ne rhythmera plus l'action; elle sera en avant!"
["Poetry will no longer beat widün action; it will be before it."]*
But I must confess: many are tibe grounds for confining the interpretation of words Rimbaud has evoked to speculations in the form of questions.
Does the...