Le Bateau ivre

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Le Bateau ivre (The Drunken Boat) is a verse-poem written by Arthur Rimbaud in 1871, which is considered to be revolutionary in its use of imagery and symbolism. The poem is arranged in a series of hexameter quatrains (25 in total) with an a/b/a/b rhyme-scheme. It is weaved around the delirious visions of a personified boat, lost at sea.

The poem was written in Charleville in the summer of 1871. It was the poem that Rimbaud sent to Paul Verlaine before joining him in Paris. Théodore de Banville didn't like the poem.

The poem is one of the longest of Rimbaud's oeuvre. It begins with the following quatrain:

Comme je descendais des Fleuves impassibles,

Je ne me sentais plus tiré par les haleurs :

Des Peaux-Rouges criards les avaient pris pour cibles

Les ayant cloués nus aux poteaux de couleurs.

As I was floating down unconcerned Rivers

I no longer felt myself steered by the haulers :

Gaudy Redskins had taken them for targets

Nailing them naked to coloured stakes.