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Ecopoetic Adventures in Rimbaud's 'Sensation' and 'Ma Bohème'

Ecopoetic Adventures in Rimbaud's 'Sensation' and 'Ma Bohème'
Ecopoetic Adventures in Rimbaud's 'Sensation' and 'Ma Bohème'
The profusion of ecological matters in Arthur Rimbaud’s ‘Sensation’ and ‘Ma Bohème’ of 1870 draws attention to the peculiar relationship between mankind and its surroundings in the later years of the nineteenth century. The feeling of fulfilment ensuing from the teenage poet’s communion with nature in a space beyond the confines of urban industry is associated with versificatory particularities that are suggestive of personal and stylistic evolution based on a distinctive mode of enmeshment in the non-human world. Rimbaud’s rendering of a world on the cusp of the metropolis entails a quest for personal independence outside traditional constraints. The visual and tactile evocations of the narrator’s surroundings and corporeal circumstances are complemented by auditory metaphors that emblematise a transition beyond Hugolian lyricism. The present chapter contends that the ecological framework of the poems provides an insight into the peculiar identity of the countryside in the era of industrialisation and Haussmannisation. It is conjectured that the distinctive versification of the poems (several caesurae are overridden; there are multiple instances of enjambement and unsettled rhythms; rhyming richness markedly varies from stanza to stanza) embodies increasingly significant correspondences between environmental circumstances and cultural production at a moment of accelerated change in ecological and sociocultural conditions in France.
Peter Lang
Finch-Race, Daniel
65492ee3-8cfa-4a44-a08c-a44b5a02c39d
Finch-Race, Daniel A.
, Stephanie Posthumus
Finch-Race, Daniel
65492ee3-8cfa-4a44-a08c-a44b5a02c39d
Finch-Race, Daniel A.
, Stephanie Posthumus

Finch-Race, Daniel (2017) Ecopoetic Adventures in Rimbaud's 'Sensation' and 'Ma Bohème'. In, Finch-Race, Daniel A. and , Stephanie Posthumus (eds.) French Ecocriticism: From the Early Modern Period to the Twenty-First Century. (Studies in Literature, Culture, and the Environment, 1) Frankfurt am Main. Peter Lang. (In Press)

Record type: Book Section

Abstract

The profusion of ecological matters in Arthur Rimbaud’s ‘Sensation’ and ‘Ma Bohème’ of 1870 draws attention to the peculiar relationship between mankind and its surroundings in the later years of the nineteenth century. The feeling of fulfilment ensuing from the teenage poet’s communion with nature in a space beyond the confines of urban industry is associated with versificatory particularities that are suggestive of personal and stylistic evolution based on a distinctive mode of enmeshment in the non-human world. Rimbaud’s rendering of a world on the cusp of the metropolis entails a quest for personal independence outside traditional constraints. The visual and tactile evocations of the narrator’s surroundings and corporeal circumstances are complemented by auditory metaphors that emblematise a transition beyond Hugolian lyricism. The present chapter contends that the ecological framework of the poems provides an insight into the peculiar identity of the countryside in the era of industrialisation and Haussmannisation. It is conjectured that the distinctive versification of the poems (several caesurae are overridden; there are multiple instances of enjambement and unsettled rhythms; rhyming richness markedly varies from stanza to stanza) embodies increasingly significant correspondences between environmental circumstances and cultural production at a moment of accelerated change in ecological and sociocultural conditions in France.

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Ecopoetic Adventures in Rimbaud's 'Sensation' and 'Ma Bohème' (Finch-Race) - Accepted Manuscript
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Accepted/In Press date: 2017
Organisations: Modern Languages

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 406209
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/406209
PURE UUID: 4b955f9d-6d5a-472d-bc72-7ff354ba5d41

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Date deposited: 10 Mar 2017 10:42
Last modified: 15 Mar 2024 12:28

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Contributors

Author: Daniel Finch-Race
Editor: Daniel A. Finch-Race
Editor: Stephanie Posthumus

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