RIMBAUD’S ‘BARBARE’:

THE FLOATING AND REVERBERATING TEXT

Abstract

The article sets out to explore the semantic and linguistic properties of ‘Barbare’, generally
agreed to be one of Rimbaud’s most inaccessible poems and one of the most controversial
of the Illuminations among Rimbaldian scholars. It posits the dual structuring principles of
reverberation and the floating fragment as central to the composition of the poem. After a
resume of previous critical readings [Osmond, Little, Hackett, Wing et al.], the paper argues
that through its innovative use of punctuation, its emphasis of the substantive over the verb
and its internal musicality ‘Barbare’ emerges as a key example of the Rimbaldian experi-
mentation with the prose poem. A close reading of the text is undertaken in order to vindicate
this evaluation and to highlight certain other important features. In the course of the analysis
attention is paid to the sexual code possibly contained in the poem, to the piece’s con-
cluding line as an illustration of Rimbaud’s predilection for the disorientating finale, to
patterns of elemental imagery encountered in the text and to the insights provided into
‘Barbare’ by the work of Atle Kittang and Paule Lapeyre. The paper concludes that ‘Barbare’
is very representative of the Rimbaldian desire for upheaval both visionary and linguistic.

‘Barbare’ is one of a select group of prose poems in Arthur Rimbaud’s

Illuminations that are consistently designated as “mysterious” and “inac-
cessible” texts. Together with ‘Devotion and ‘Fairy’, it is frequently
contrasted with other allegedly more readable pieces from the collection,
such as the triad of fairy-tale poems that we find in ‘Conte’, ‘Royaute’
and ‘Aube’. In their 1987 edition of Rimbaud’s work Suzanne Bernard
and Andre Guyaux have this to say about ‘Barbare’:
On trouve dans cette piece, plus que le d&sir d’exprimer ou de dtcrire, un effort pour creer
une structure <<musicale>, tres sensible, avec pour double theme le rouge et le blanc. . . .’

One’s attention is usefully drawn here to the musical potential of the poem.
Rimbaud’s interest in music is widely advertised in his work in general
and in the Illuminations in particular, these prose poems being brimful of
references to musical instruments, the persona of “musicien” which he often
assumes and the ideological implications of “la nouvelle harmonic”.* More
specifically, we have the Rimbaldian theory, as adumbrated in the ‘Lettre
du voyant’, of the poet as medium through whom a multiplicity of new
chords will be played and who can justifiably lay claim to having become
an “opera fabuleux”.3 Not surprisingly, a host of commentators have iden-
tified the musical dimension of ‘Barbare’ in their readings of the poem
and, before adding to these readings in this article, it will serve our purpose
well to recapitulate the more important of these commentaries now.
In his 1976 edition of the Zlluminations, Nick Osmond approaches
‘Barbare’ as a journey towards a visionary experience “reaching to an

Neophilologus 80: 41-52, 1996.

0 1996 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.
42 Gerald Macklin

ultimate suavity in which contrary extremes of sensation are reconciled”.4

Stressing the central importance of the fusion of elemental opposites in
the poem, Osmond concludes that “this cosmic interchange makes music”.
In line with numerous other critics, he sees the concluding words “Le
pavillon . . .” as evidence that the process described is a cyclical one
which is ready to begin all over again. Roger Little concurs concerning
the text’s cyclical structure and its pattern of elemental mingling, but he
touches on a structural feature of some significance when he refers to the
title word ‘Barbare’ as “anticipating in its echoing syllables the swirling
repetitions of the text”.5 Little proceeds to focus on the poem as a possible
case study of Rimbaud’s celebrated “hallucination des mots”, stresses its
surrealist credentials and draws attention to the ambiguous attitude of the
poet to his own artefact. 6 However, it is this identification of reverber-
ating sound patterns as a key constituent of the text which we will develop
as fundamental to our own reading of it later in this study. C. A. Hackett’s
analysis usefully takes to task the many that strive to explain the poem in
terms of volcanoes, national flags and even Freudian imagery. The net effect
of such endeavours, as Hackett implies, is really to take one away from
the textual fabric and into the realm of inevitably fruitless speculation
whereas one might much more usefully consider Rimbaud’s wish “to exploit
the aesthetic possibilities of ambiguous meanings and multiple interpreta-
tions”.’ Hackett sensitively directs us to the “floating” qualities of the poem,
its effects of imprint and fade, it suspended and open ending and, of course,
its musical nature as a poem “whose function . . . is to harmonise extreme
and different elements”.8
Jean-Pierre Richard, one of the leading “thematiciens” to have written
on Rimbaud, sees ‘Barbare’ as constructing a sort of “intemporalite pro-
visoire” in which state the cherished Rimbaldian dream of chaos cannot
assert itself:
Le chaos barbare reste fig6 dans une discontinuitk pathttique: I’avenir y demeure enfermk
dans ses limbes.’

More recently it has become fashionable to draw attention to the typo-

graphical disposition of the Illuminations and there is clearly a connection
between these impressions of a willed chaotic state and what Claude
Zissmann has designated “une forme typographique qui ne soit ni celle
de la prose ni celle de la poesie”.” This mixed typography is a reflection
of the extent to which words in ‘Barbare’ have been released from their
moorings, as it were, to drift freely in a play of new associations and rela-
tionships where euphonic considerations are just as significant as semantic
ones. This prioritizing of sound over sense is a governing factor of com-
position in many of the Illuminations, as we shall briefly illustrate in our
conclusion. Finally, in this brief review of some of the more significant
of responses to ‘Barbare’, it would be unwise to overlook the eleven page
analysis of Nathaniel Wing in his 1974 study Present Appearances: Aspects
Rimbaud’s ‘Barbare’ 43

of Poetic Structure in Rimbaud’s Illuminations.Even after twenty years, this

still stands as one of the most imaginative and perceptive readings of this
reputedly “troublesome” text.
Wing approaches ‘Barbare’ and the second and third parts of ‘Enfance’
as poems which present the reader with what he calls “acceptable contra-
dictions”.” However, he moves rapidly to underscore the musical character
of ‘Barbare’:
Refrain and semantic hyponymy underline referential contradictions and impose contextual
patterns of consistency, confering a song-like quality to the poem: the text opens only on
itself, continually repeating itself, refusing to conclude.”

For Wing the poem both transposes one to a realm far removed from that
of recognizable “civilization” and also, by virtue of its title, invites one
to consider “a mode of signifying radically different from the “civilized”
conventions of traditional language”.13 Wing highlights the function of
discontinuity in ‘Barbare’, on both a semantic and a linguistic level, which
is so pervasive as to bring the poem to “the very limits of intelligibility”.14
Here the critic takes us into the whole area of the tension between “forme”
and “informe” in Rimbaud, between integrating agents and disruptive
features or, in short, between stylistic order and linguistic chaos.15 There
can be no doubt that ‘Barbare’ is an excellent microcosm of this widespread
artistic conflict in the poet’s output, critical reaction tending to emphasise
the lack of coherence and intelligibility in the poem. It will be seen later
in this study that ‘Barbare’ does contain its own pronounced, albeit highly
unconventional, principles governing poetic composition and that these have
much to tell us in a wider sense about the nature of the Rimbaldian prose
poem. Wing correctly proceeds to draw attention to a number of impor-
tant features in the poem - its relationship to ‘Matinee d’ivresse’ and
Baudelaire’s ‘Le Poeme du hachisch” as a document on a drug-induced
state; its affective and ecstatic tone; and the way in which a musical code
and an elemental code become key components of the text. He sees a
reference to the music of the spheres in the expression “La musique,
virement des gouffres et choc des glacons aux astres” and construes the
“voix feminine” of the final section as a single voice which brings “a
calming, reconciling force “I6 into play after earlier examples of a music both
violent and intense. Finally, for Wing the text’s conclusion is not a real
conclusion but rather one that indicates an open and cyclical verbal system
and confirms ‘Barbare’ as a non-referential anti-text which “redirects the
reader’s attention to its own verbal patterns”.”
Paradoxically, it is with this truncated concluding formula “Le pavillon
. . .” that we will begin our own analysis of ‘Barbare’. This is the third
occasion that this noun has been employed in the poem, a pattern of repeti-
tion that is paralleled by numerous other recurrences - “viande saignante”
[twice], “arctiques” [three times], “musique” [twice], and “douceurs” which
appears on no fewer than four occasions. Thus ‘Barbare’ is supported by
44 Gerald Macklin

an extended play of reverberations which obviously contribute to its musical

texture and equally lend a haunting mood which is entirely appropriate to
the other worldly nature of the text as advertised in its first line. In a more
general sense, the final words “Le pavillon . . .” represent a teasing and
ambiguous finale in a collection renowned for the impact of its concluding
sequences. Whether they come in the form of single lines isolated at the
end of a poem [‘Conte’, ‘Parade’, ‘Depart’] or in moments of closure that
threaten or unnerve the reader [‘Vies I’, ‘Jeunesse IV’, ‘Soir historique’]
or in evocations of elemental apocalypse [‘Nocturne vulgaire’, ‘Angoisse’],
Rimbaud’s finales in the Illuminations constitute an area of composition
where his original and lively imagination expresses itself in a profusion
of ways.” Equally, the collection is possessed of a highly unusual system
of punctuation. Whether it be through the proliferation of dashes, the chal-
lenging deployment of italicization and capitalization, the heavily charged
exclamatory interjections or unexpected parentheses, Rimbaud’s punctua-
tion in these prose poems serves notice of their assault upon accustomed
poetic expression and seems to herald our arrival at both a new visionary
zone and a redefined code of expression. The “points de suspension” in
“Le pavillon . . .” are just the last element of punctuation in a poem
remarkable for its compression of numerous other features. In the light of
the evidence concerning the Rimbaldian reinvigoration of punctuation con-
tained in various sections of ‘Bat-bare’, it may well be unwise, or at least
somewhat restrictive, to see in these closing “points de suspension” no more
than a suggestion that the whole process is about to start over again in an
indefinite process of renewal. Rather should one look to the punctuation
in the text as one pointer, among others, to the fact that Rimbaud is here
attempting a radically new and ambitious approach to poetic composition.
We shall have some more specific remarks to make on this key area in
the early stages of our analysis and again in our conclusion.
It would be difficult to disagree with the critical consensus that the first
line of ‘Barbare’ is essentially disjunctive in its function:

Bien apri3 les jours et les saisons, et les &tres et les pays, [BemardKiuyaux, p. 2921

Nevertheless, one might usefully ask what exactly is being discarded in

this measured and balanced, not to say melodic, opening. Is it simply the
rejection of conventional understandings of space and time that is at stake
here or is a certain type of idiom or system of com%unication to be jetti-
soned as well? The change of pace, tone and vocabulary in what comes
immediately after the grammatically incomplete first line would indicate
that a departure from both familiar spatio-temporal notions and received
patterns of language is intimated:

Le pavillon en viande saignante sur la soie des mers et des fleurs arctiques; (elles n’existent
pas.) [BemardiGuyaux, p. 2921
Rimbaud’s ‘Barbare’ 45

The abruptness with which we are confronted with the noun “pavillon”,
the verbless nature of the sequence, the reverberation of nasal sounds
[“pavillon”, “viande”, “ saignante”] and the sudden switchback effect in
the parenthetical comment “(elles n’existent pas.)” represent a multiple
surprise for the reader. The reiteration of syllables in the title ‘Barbare’ is
now underscored by these early reverberations in the text proper so
that the title word at once seems capable of justification on more than a
thematic level. Indeed, when one considers that at the very end of the
piece Rimbaud makes references to volcanoes and grottoes, then it seems
incontrovertible that one of his intentions in composing the text was to repro-
duce the echoing effects of sound in cavities and hollows. Moreover, his
comment in ‘Mauvais sang’ in Une S&on en enfer, during a discussion
of his own imaginative lineage, shows how he revels in the reappropria-
tion of bourgeois vocabulary and turns negative terms into positives:

J’ai de mes an&w gaulois l’oeil bleu blanc, la cervelle Ctroite, et la maladresse dans la lutte.
Je trouve mon habillement aussi barbare que le leur. [Bemard/Guyaux, p. 2131

Just as the word “chaos” in the first part of ‘Vies’ represents a cherished
state and the noun “violence” in ‘Genie is part of the highly positive inven-
tory of the attributes ascribed to the poem’s eponymous spirit, so the title
‘Barbare’ evokes a much desired subversion on Rimbaud’s part of both
the fixtures of the real world and the tired and cliche-ridden language of
those who inhabit it.
It is noticeable how this flight from reality” is conveyed to us in a
poem that persistently eschews elaboration or the block paragraph. ‘Solde’,
‘Scenes’, ‘Devotion’ and ‘Genie’ are some other texts in the Illuminations
which seem to favour the rapidly shifting progression from insight to insight
and notation to notation, this effect being enhanced in ‘Barbare’ to the point
where grammatical and lexical laws remain unfulfilled and where eventu-
ally words themselves become disconnected from linguistic structures.
Andre Guyaux has shown how Rimbaud may be viewed as a poet of frag-
ments2’ and there is indeed a deliberately fragmentary quality in the poetic
discourse of ‘Barbare’. However the poem itself is at pains to draw to our
attention the fact that, for this fragmentation to occur, a constant effort must
be maintained to distance the writing from previously relished affective
and intellectual states:
Remis des vieilles fanfares d’hkrdisme - qui nous attaquent encore le coeur et la t&e - loin
des anciens assassins - [BemardiGuyaux, p. 2921

It is as if the poem’s opening line, for all its insistence on the severing of
links with familiar territory in time and space, must be regularly supported
by similar statements strategically placed throughout the text. These state-
ments [there is yet another one contained in parentheses about two thirds
of the way through the proceedings] “echo” the meaning of the first line
46 Gerald Macklin

and so, in a very real sense, reinforce our awareness of ‘Barbare’ as a rever-
berating text.
Even a casual reader of the ZZZuminations, as we implied a little earlier,
will notice the heavy deployment of punctuation in the collection. Along
with ‘Devotion’, ‘Angoisse’ and ‘Nocturne vulgaire’, the poem currently
under review represents an excellent microcosm of Rimbaldian punctua-
tion in all its dynamic performing vitality.*’ In ‘Barbare’ it too serves
notice of a shift from a conventional realm of vision and expression to a
much more innovative and experimental one and its particular function
would seem to be to facilitate the fragmentation of words and phrases on
the space of the page. It may not even be too fanciful to liken its features
to the symbols on a piece of musical composition for its role is no longer
to be the deferential prop of language but to assume a much more integral
position as part of the Rimbaldian prose poem. The early stages of the piece
have already deployed dashes, parentheses and a semi-colon. This deploy-
ment reaches new levels of intensification in the middle of the text. There
is a marked acceleration, a feature that is reflected in the breathless excla-
mations such as “Douceurs! and “0 monde! and accentuated by the rapid
succession of tirets in the paragraph which begins “Les brasiers pleuvant
aux rafales de givre, -“. It is worth quoting the middle section of the
text in its entirety to illustrate the intensification of punctuation which it
contains.
Oh! Le pavillon en viande saignante sur la soie des mers et des fleurs arctiques; (elles
n’existent pas)
Douceurs!
Les brasiers pleuvant aux rafales de givre, - Douceurs! - les feux a la pluie du vent de
diamants jetee par le coeur terrestre Ctemellement carbonise pour nous. - 0 monde! -
(Loin des vieilles retraites et des vieilles flammes, qu’on entend, qu’on sent,)
[BemardEuyaux, p. 2921

The mysterious noun “douceurs” is now built into the text four times
from just before the half way stage so that one has the impression of a
new reverberation being set up to complement or perhaps replace the
echoing disjunctive expressions considered earlier. It is as if the poem’s
reverberations come along in cumulative waves, in a cycle that is appar-
ently inexhaustible until the ambiguous finale which itself does not preclude
continuation and is itself an echo.
It is highly significant that this central paragraph sees the full dissolu-
tion of grammatical norms for it dispenses with verbs and runs word up
against word in new and creative juxtapositions:
- les feux a la pluie du vent de diamants jette par le coeur terrestre Ctemellement carbonise
pour nous. - [BemardiGuyaux, p. 2921

Much has been written about patterns of elemental imagery in the

ZZluminations** and what is conspicuous here is how the newly discovered
Rimbaud’s ‘Barbare’ 47

language of this prose poem permits the coalition of all four elements within
a remarkably compact linguistic unit. Indeed, several commentators have,
however indirectly, drawn our attention to the rolling, wave-like nature of
this mysterious piece of expression which seems to follow its own unknown
codes and gains from its position at the very heart of the text. At this
point there is an orgasmic intensity about the proceedings and it should
be acknowledged that ‘Barbare’ lends itself extremely well to a sexual inter-
pretation. Its imagery and cadences seem to suggest rather strongly the
system of arousal, intense activity and moments of recuperative calm which
characterize the sexual act. Furthermore, the reference to “les sueurs, les
chevelures et les yeux, flottant” near the end seems to add a very human
dimension and it is hard to overlook the possibility that “les larmes blanches,
bouillantes”, usually taken to refer to volcanic lava, may denote the
ejaculated sperm. In such a reading of the poem, it is surely not too
difficult to find a meaning for the famous “pavillon en viande saignante”
as a phallic reference with the poem’s closing words “Le pavillon . . .”
conveying a state of fatigue and detumescence. The use of the scatolog-
ical term “spun&” in ‘Devotion - as well as a host of other obscene
references in the Rimbaldian corpus - would seem to add weight to such
a reading.
One of the most persuasive and insightful commentaries on ‘Barbare’ has
been given by Atle Kittang in his book Discours et jeu: essai d’analyse
des textes d’Arthur Rimbaud. Kittang sees the poem as taking its place
within a wider pattern of ludic expression in Rimbaud’s poetry. In short,
it is another example of “le jeu scriptural”. For this critic, ‘Barbare’ typifies
the Rimbaldian “refus de la communication”23 and his argument is that it
is precisely this refusal to communicate a message that makes the piece
so memorable. Kittang agrees that the poem is cyclical in nature and accepts
the general critical line that the finale is paradoxically “une reouverture
du texte”.24 Most helpful is the insistence on how ‘Barbare’ breaks with
all types of conventional grammar and syntax - a break that is seen by
Kittang as a “principe scriptural fondamentaY2’ in the piece. The triple
use of “et” in the opening line is identified as the first of many musical
echoes in a poem that is aptly summed up as “giratoire”. After the dis-
junctive introduction, says Kittang, we are now in a position to enter the
“espace propre, multidimensionnel, du jeu scriptural” where themes are
marginalized but language itself is exalted in all its multiplicity of meaning.
The noun “pavillon”, for example, can be read as a building or a flag but
both meanings are instantly rendered problematical because of the attrib-
uted qualities in the expression “en viande saignante” with its assonance
and nasal modulations. The very “illisibilite” of ‘Barbare’ is one of its
two defining features, the other being its “architecture vraiment musicale”.26
Fascinatingly, and this is where the present article finds itself most in
sympathy with Kittang, he goes on to suggest that the key driving force
behind the development of this “jeu scriptural” is not semantic but phonic
48 Gerald Macklin

as shown in a whole play of repeated sounds (e.g. “jeU”, “plEU”, “cCEUr”,

“pleuVANT”, “ diaMANT”]. Having thus established the poem’s musical
credentials, Kittang proceeds to highlight the other characteristic under
review here - namely its “floating” quality. Writing of the exclamatory final
paragraph, he observes:
Comme une replique concrete a cette triple exhortation mttapoetique, s’tlabore aussitot un
veritable flottement de cqdouceurs>>, de signifiants tpars, d’elements metonymiques ayant
perdu toute relation avec une unite signifiee quelconque, et creant ainsi, en la mimanf, une
surface liquefiee, Cclatante et chaudement Crotisee de chevelures, de larmes et d’yeux. Enfin
surgit la (woixfhinine~~, comme une condensation persomrifiee de ce flottement pdtique
doux, musical et Crotique?

One would say that as the text progresses [and that Rimbaud is fond of
reserving his most spectacular images and verbal eruptions for the later
stages of his poems is well documented] the impression of words being
detached from their familiar points de rep&-e becomes more and more accen-
tuated. Moreover, the last substantial paragraph contains no fewer than
five “et” which both strengthens the poem’s reverberations and fragments
its language into ever smaller segments.
To return to our own reading of the piece, one is struck by the way in
which Rimbaud manages to add novelty and surprise to his use of repeti-
tion. He reiterates the point made early in the poem about the escape from
former influences but uses punctuation to add freshness to it:
(Loin des vieilles retraites et des vieilles flammes, qu’on entend, qu’on sent,)
[BemardGuyaux, p. 2921

The use of parentheses is very appropriate in a poem that is constructed

on a stop-go rhythm, now projecting the reader forward into the vision
and now pulling him back into the zone that the vision seeks to obliterate.
On the printed page this parenthetical section stands out and appears as a
component on its own, it being worth stressing that ‘Barbare’ contains no
fewer than ten different paragraphs or sections of this type. The double
use of “vieilles” and the binary structure “qu’on entend, qu’on sent,” are
further examples of reverberation and almost acquire a hypnotic force in
their gentle and disarming cadence. Is this, indeed, the very effect being
sought after by Rimbaud - a mesmerizing music that numbs one’s con-
sciousness of the here and now the better to reawaken us in some more
stimulating “ailleurs”?
The poem’s elemental imagery has already been noted. Rimbaud’s
predilection for the reconciliation of opposites [creation/destruction,
“force”/“faiblesse”, the old and the new, etc.] is reflected in the way in which
he creates new amalgamations of the elements passim in his poetry. As
we approach the final stages of ‘Barbare’, he returns to this pattern of
elemental imagery and links it to yet another reverberation, this time the
suureme one of music and “la voix feminine”:
Rimbaud’s ‘Barbare’ 49

Les brasiers et les Ccumes. La musique, virement des gouffres et choc des glacons aux
astres.
0 Douceurs, 6 monde, 8 musique! Et la, les formes, les sueurs, les chevelures et les
yeux, flottant. Et les larmes blanches, bouillantes, - 6 douceurs! - et la voix feminine
arrivte au fond des volcans et des grottes arctiques.
Le pavilion. . . . (Bemard/Guyaux, p. 292)

It is as if it is from the marriage of fire and water that this unprecedented

music is created so that a poem, itself so full of melodies and reverber-
ating sound effects, actually delivers its own much awaited music in its
finale. As is the case with the pursuit of the goddess of the dawn in ‘Aube’,
with the Prince’s euphoric encounter with the Genie in ‘Conte’ and with
the brief reign of the aspirant monarchs in ‘Royaute’, the moment of
epiphany and ecstasy is of poignantly short duration. As Peter Broome
has shown, the Rimbaldian miracle is of a tantalizingly transient nature.**
‘Barbare’ also confirms in its finale that the arctic and polar regions are
among Rimbaud’s most cherished venues. This is strongly intimated in
‘Metropolitain’ where the climactic image is one of a richly illuminated
conflict in a polar setting; in ‘Devotion’ where the poet refers to “ce chaos
polaire” in the penultimate segment as he distils his own spirituality to
compensate for more trite religious posturing; and in ‘Genie whose all-
embracing finale includes “le pole tumultueux” as one of the areas from
which the saving spirit that is the Genie will be hailed. Of course, ‘Barbare’
also refers to “fleurs arctiques” and it is difficult to resist the feeling that
these are the very type of weird and exotic plant that the poPte-jongleur
of ‘Ce qu’on dit au poete a propos de fleurs’ must have in mind when he
calls for a new poetic relationship with the floral world. The finale of
‘Barbare’ is a good illustration of what Paule Lapeyre has called Rimbaud’s
“pen&e agglomerante et synth&ique”.2g Here is a sequence “rtsumant tout”30
in that it contains human elements, the musical motif, the arctic setting
and the “douceurs” that have become the poem’s central and indefinable
feature since its mid-point. Yet for Lapeyre it is the term “gouffres”, redolent
of so much Baudelairean imagery, which is paramount in these closing
stages:
Mais quand le cataclysme est passe, il reste le gouffre oi vient se precipiter I’imagination
a la fois attiree et horrifite. Ainsi, quand Rimbaud, dans ‘Barbare’, Cvoque “la voix feminine
arrivte au fond des volcans et des grottes arctiques”, c’est l’engloutissement d’un son dans
un gouffre que nous percevons. . . .3’

One agrees that this is the supreme reverberation towards which this rever-
berating text has been moving throughout. A poem that is so patently
constructed on the principle of resonance has now arrived at some point
of fruition in which its musical charge is resolved into the “voix feminine”
which stands out as a quintessential sound, albeit one that is only fleet-
ingly enjoyed. Indeed, there is a clear parallel between “Barbare” and
“Aube” in that both pieces seem to strive after some elusive female presence
50 Gerald Macklin

which is briefly captured at the moment of climax before slipping out of

reach again as indicated in the rather tame finales “Le pavillon . . .” and
“Au &veil il Ctait midi.“.
A number of pieces of evidence from elsewhere in the Illuminations
confirm the Rimbaldian interest in the principle of reverberation. We have
the juxtaposition of “Sodomes” and “Solymes” in ‘Nocturne vulgaire’; the
expression “Damas damnant de longueur” in ‘Metropolitain’; the widespread
deployment of anaphora as in ‘Solde’ and ‘Devotion’; the “chars charges”
of ‘Ornieres’; the echoing term “Assassins” in ‘Matinee d’ivresse’; the
juxtaposition of “demences” and “demons” in ‘Parade’; and even the
“Cclogues en sabots” in ‘Apres le deluge’ which become “eclogues in
clogs” when translated into English! Yet if the governing principle of
reverberation seems incontrovertible, one should equally attempt by way
of conclusion to clarify the significance of the term “flottant” which is
also contained in the poem’s climactic paragraph. “Barbare” is indeed a
“floating” text on a number of important levels. Firstly, the adjective would
seem to apply to the nature of the vision described in that the component
elements of “le pavillon”, the arctic flowers, the elemental forces and the
more human features near the end [“les sueurs, les yeux et les chevelures”]
swirl around each other in the piece and thus create unprecedented and
suggestive relationships. The poem has all the qualities of a drug-induced
dream or vision where banal perceptions give way to the “logique bien
imprhue” referred to in “Guerre”. Secondly, the absence of finite verbs
is instrumental in depriving the poem of any linear direction and in con-
tributing to the sense of a circular experience which is encapsulated
by the noun “virement” in the finale. Finally and more precisely, then,
“Barbare” also represents Rimbaud’s most experimental endeavour with the
language of the prose poem. It reflects a conscious attempt to cut words free
from all their accustomed moorings in syntax and grammar and to allow
them to “float” freely into new associations and hierarchies. Or perhaps
linguistic hierarchy is obliterated altogether so that each word acquires equal
status in this new lexicon. ‘Barbare’ is certainly a text that foregrounds
the noun over the verb and, on one level at least, it stands as a fascinating
compendium of substantives of varying degrees of abstraction - “pavillon”,
“assassins”, “douceurs”, “musique”, “gouffres” and so on.
Reinforcing one’s sense of a dislocation of language and of a “floating”
text is what Rimbaud has done with punctuation in the piece. Even if we
leave aside the substantial body of evidence in the Illuminations as a whole
which strongly suggests a conscious desire to redefine the role of punctu-
ation within the prose poem, the sheer volume of features of punctuation
in ‘Barbare’ is a hallmark of the piece that no reader can fail to register.
So many aspects of punctuation in this poem draw our attention to its newly
invigorated and enhanced status. The comma at the end of the opening
line after “pays” leaves one poised on the verge of some new disclosure and
immediately destabilizes conventional canons; the proliferation of dashes
Rimbaud’s ‘Barbare’ 51

[no fewer than nine tirets are found] gives ‘Barbare’ a telegrammatic rhythm
and automatically fragments the piece to create the impression of it as a
collection of floating segments: the triple use of parenthesis has a similar
effect in that it creates a stop/go tempo and produces three verbal formulae
that are in some way cut off from the rest of the text and thus rendered inde-
pendent to some extent; the half dozen exclamation marks reinforce one’s
sense of a poem that is deliberately discontinuous and shies away from
sustained and logical exposition; and the concluding “points de suspension”
underline that ‘Barbare’ has been designed to create this impression of
incompleteness, of the collapse of accustomed units of expression, of the
premeditated demolition of syntax and grammar and their “reinvention”‘*
into new and unsuspected linguistic possibilities. It is in this sense that
‘Barbare’ may best be understood as a “floating” text. It represents a vivid
example, on both a visionary and linguistic level, of the Rimbaldian pro-
clivity to throw existing structures into the melting-pot in the expectation
that some superior order will emerge.

School of Languages and Literature GERALD MACKLIN

University of Ulster
Jordanstown
Northern Ireland

Notes

1. Rimbaud, Oeuvres, edition de S. Bernard et A. Guyaux, Classiques Gamier, Paris,

1987, p. 520. All references to the poems will be taken from this edition.
2. In ‘A une raison’ from the Illuminations, Rimbaud refers to “la nouvelle harmonic”
[Bemard/Guyaux, p. 2681 as one of the gifts brought by the spirit that the poem exalts.
One feels that the entire Illuminntions is a collection full of instances of this “new harmony”
being experienced - if only for a brief while. This is true of ‘Villes’ [II], ‘Enfance’, ‘Fairy’
and many other poems.
3. In ‘Delires II’ in Une Suison en enfer, Rimbaud includes the memorable statement
“Je devins un o@ra fabuleux” in his recollections of a previous period of artistic endeavour.
This notion of the poet as a vehicle or medium through which the ineffable symphonies of
some unknown repertoire are played is seen pass&r in Rimbaud, most notably in the ‘Lettre
du voyant’.
4. Arthur Rimbaud, Illuminafions, edited by Nick Osmond, The Athlone Press, London,
1976, p. 143.
5. R. Little, Rimbaud, Illuminations, Critical Guides to French Texts, no. 29, Grant
and Cutler, London, 1983, p. 63.
6. That Rimbaud’s attitude to his own work is highly ambiguous can be ascertained from
his use of the terms “image” [‘Nocturne vulgaire’], “comedie” [‘Les Ponts’], “parade”
[‘Parade’] and “fantasmagories” [‘Metropolitain’] in the Illuminations. All of these are
labels applied to whole poems or parts of poems as a derogatory assessment of their visionary
value and artistic merit.
7. C. A. Hackett, Rimbaud: A Critical Introduction, Cambridge University Press, 1981,
p. 76.
8. Ibid. D. 77.
52 Gerald Macklin

9. Jean-Pierre Richard, Poesie et profondeur, Seuil, 1955, p. 215.

10. C. Zissmann, Ce que r&Ye le manuscrit des Illuminations, Le bossu Bitor, Paris,
1989, p. 51.
11. N. Wing, Present Appearances: Aspects of Poetic Structure in Rimbaud’s Illumina-
tions, University, Mississippi, Romance Monographs, Inc., Mississippi, 1974, pp. 66-86.
12. Ibid. p. 76.
13. Ibid. p. 77.
14. Ibid. p. 77.
15. The balance between order and chaos is one of many such dualities seen throughout
Rimbaud’s work. It represents a strong thematic strand as, for example, in the prose poem
‘Conte’ where the Prince obliterates his environment with a view to facilitating the emergence
of a new regime. The duality is equally perceptible in the stylistic fabric of Rimbaud’s
poetry where there is a constant tension between unifying and destabilizing features, between
cohesion and fragmentation. See G. Macklin, “Aspects of the Rimbaldian Prose Poem: Pattern
and Disorder in the Illuminations”, Orbis Litterarum, 45, 1990, pp. 248-272.
16. Wing, p. 85.
17. Ibid. p. 85.
18. See G. Macklin, “A Study of Beginnings and Finales in Arthur Rimbaud’s
Illuminations”, Neophilologus, 68, 1984, pp. 22-36.
19. In ‘Delires I’ in Une Saison en enfer the Vierge folle recalls her endeavours to under-
stand the thinking of her associate the Epoux infernal. During this sequence of recollections,
she remembers how she kept vigil over her sleeping confederate while “cherchant pourquoi
il voulait tant s’tvader de la realitt” [BemardlGuyaux, p. 2.51.
20. Andre Guyaux’s Poe’tique du fragment. Essai SW les Illuminations de Rimbaud,
Editions de la Bacomriere, Neuchltel, 1985 is one of the most important critical studies to
have appeared on Rimbaud over the last twenty years. In it Guyaux posits the fragment as
the essential unit of poetic composition in the Illuminations, his approach throwing much light
onto the structural mysteries of the Rimbaldian prose poem.
21. An increasing number of critics [among them Little and Lapeyre] are beginning to
pay close attention to Rimbaud’s highly characteristic punctuation in his prose poetry. For
further suggestions on this dimension of the Illuminations see G. Macklin, “Perspectives
on the role of punctuation in Rimbaud’s Illuminations”, Journal of European Studies, XX,
1990, pp. 59-72.
22. Critics such as Richard and Whitaker have helpfully highlighted the function of
the elements in Rimbaud’s poetry. Peter Broome’s article “From Vision to Catastrophe in
Rimbaud’s Illuminations”, Forum for Modern Language Studies, 15, no. 4, October 1979, pp.
361-379 draws attention to a pattern of elemental imagery which is repeated across several
different pieces.
23. A. Kittang, Discours et Jeu. Essai d’analyse des textes d’Arthur Rimbaud, Presses
Universitaires de Grenoble, Bergen and Grenoble, 1975, p. 298.
24. Ibid. p. 299.
25. Ibid. p. 299.
26. Ibid. p. 302.
27. Ibid. p. 304.
28. See note 22.
29. P. Lapeyre, Le Vertige de Rimbaud. Cle’ dune perception poe’tique, Editions de la
Baconnibre, Neuchltel, 1981, p. 367.
30. In the ‘Lettre du voyant’ [Bemard/Guyaux, p. 3491.
31. Op. cit., p. 60.
32. In ‘Delires I’ in Une Saison en enfer the Vierge folle reports the Epoux infernal as
saying that “l’amour est a reinventer” [Bemard/Guyaux, p. 2241. This notion of reinventing
accepted ideas and definitions is one that can be reapplied endlessly in Rimbaud - to love,
to the role of women, to social and political structures, to poetic language itself.