SOURCE: Duvick, Randa J. “‘Rouler aux blessures’: Feminine Figures in Rimbaud's Illuminations.” Nineteenth-Century French Studies 24, nos. 3 & 4 (spring-summer 1996): 406-16.

In the following essay, Duvick examines Rimbaud's representations of woman as a link to nature and as the vehicle for poetic creation.

Those critics who have considered the role or roles played by feminine figures in Rimbaud's Illuminations¹—“notre mère de beauté” of “Being Beauteous,” “Elle” of “Métropolitain,” “Léonie Aubois d'Ashby” of “Dévotion,” “la Sorcière” of “Après le déluge,” for example—have often stressed these figures' enigmatic nature. Following the lead of André Breton, who characterized the women of the Illuminations as “ces mystérieuses passantes” (Œuvres 536), writers have shown themselves to be intrigued by the presence of characters who seem both to invite and to block identification by the reader. It is perhaps for this reason that, although the numbers of masculine...