SOURCE: Thum, Reinhard H. “Arthur Rimbaud: The Abdication of Utopia in Une Saison En Enfer.” In The City: Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Verhaeren, pp. 204-16. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 1994.

In the following excerpt, Thum discusses references to the city in Une Saison en enfer.

In Une Saison en enfer, probably Rimbaud's last work but for a few scattered poems of Les Illuminations, the poet analyzes and rejects unconditionally a state of mind and a way of thinking which began to assert themselves more and more in the early months of 1871, attitudes which form the basis for many of the poems written during and after this period. Because of their close interrelationship, the poems of Une Saison en enfer may be far better understood if one keeps the earlier works in mind as a point of departure.

The references to the city are rather scanty in Une Saison en enfer...