Rhetorics of transformation in Rimbaud's Illuminations.

Kerr, Greg (2010) Rhetorics of transformation in Rimbaud's Illuminations. Dix-Neuf, 14 (1). pp. 20-32. ISSN 1478-7318

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Abstract

This article considers the figure of the poet as described in the second of Rimbaud's lettres du voyant as a 'multiplicateur de progrès'. The poetic 'multiplication' to which Rimbaud refers is not intended to reflect a calculated conduct, but to suggest an uncontainable, multidirectional activity that is at variance with the uniform spatio-temporal patterns of 'Progress'. Rimbaud's Illuminations consistently reappropriate, fragment and redeploy a progressive or utopian rhetoric common to many nineteenth-century popular movements and doctrines of social reform. For Rimbaud, this rhetoric of social transformation holds a peculiar potential to solicit an economy of residual energies and the latent forces of the collectivity. It thus serves an important constitutive function in the Rimbaldian prose poem, projecting a highly suggestive vision of physical and social interaction and a miscellany of slogans, catchwords and images of social harmony that Rimbaud fragments and redeploys to catalyze the processes of imaginative ferment.

Item Type:
Journal Article
Journal or Publication Title:
Dix-Neuf
Uncontrolled Keywords:
/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/3300/3316
Subjects:
?? rhetoricrimbaudutopiailluminationsprogresstransformationsaint-simonianprose poemcultural studiesliterature and literary theorylinguistics and languagemusiclanguage and linguisticspc romance languages ??
ID Code:
34182
Deposited By:
Deposited On:
10 Sep 2010 14:49
Refereed?:
Yes
Published?:
Published
Last Modified:
15 Jul 2024 11:05