SOURCE: "Une Saison en enfer," in Arthur Rimbaud, New Directions, 1961, pp. 287-313.

In the following excerpt from her book-length treatment of Rimbaud's life and works, Starkie identifies three principal themes in Une Saison en enfer: sin, belief in God, and conformity to the realities of human existence. She asserts that Une Saison reveals Rimbaud's inability either to resolve the conflict between good and evil, trade personal freedom for the love of God, or compromise his idealistic principles.

With Le Bateau Ivre, Mémoire and certain poems from Illuminations, Une Saison en Enfer ranks as Rimbaud's greatest work. It contains some very lovely passages of writing which are prose poems in themselves, and could be printed as such, taken from their context.

In August 1873, after many weeks of anguish, he finished the work. We do not know how much there was still left to write when he returned wounded...