Rimbaud’s Hunt for Heaven

The following excerpts are taken from my book Martyrs of Art: The Poison of Idealism:

“Everything society stood for, Rimbaud opposed. Did it want him to dress appropriately? He would dress in rags, continually unshowered. Did it obligate him to work? With pride he announced he was a vagrant. Did it tell him he should eat food from the markets? He’d eat from nature, and ingest drugs. He was a savage, viciously opposed to reality. He sought Eden; he wanted to go back to God’s initial, uncontaminated garden. He knew a lonely war would have to be waged in order to get there. What he didn’t realize soon enough was that he was seeking a mirage. This is Rimbaud’s unique tragedy. The destination he fought tooth and nail for his whole life could only be entered through the doorway of death. The way he’d displaced continents in his imagination for the writing of poetry was the way he’d attempted, and failed, to displace the chronological sequence of life and the hereafter. With Rimbaud, he demanded Heaven on earth. Because of his impatience, his life on earth was hellish. Like Baudelaire, he’d tried to make his mind an artificial paradise by manipulating his senses. Their innovations were outside of the preexistent realm God had given them. They wanted to create ex nihilo. They wanted to be gods, thereby forfeiting the peace and joy which would’ve come through submission unto their Maker. They believed in God, they loved Him, but they were prodigal sons. They were not the obedient type of religious men. Spiritually, they dwelt in the darkness more than in the light. Their lives were radical, and their deathbeds were abject, like that of Anton LaVey’s.

“Rimbaud saw the Sun as the symbol of God, and of eternal life. Whenever he speaks of the Sun in his poetry, it is always as if he is straining after it. This image of the poet reaching for the Sun mirrors his struggle, his desperate hope for harmony with God. God’s unconditional love always shines down upon the man who truly seeks after it. The uncompromising mind of the Logos, and the stubborn will of sinful man, inevitably harmonize upon mutual agreement, mutual capitulation. God does not need man, but man needs God, and I’d venture to say that perhaps nobody needed God more than Rimbaud did. He was like the thief on the cross next to Christ, mocking Christ until the last possible moment. Once reality finally kicked in, he was begging Christ for forgiveness and a place in Heaven. As with Wilmot and LaVey, the facade crumbled at the very last.”

Martyrs of Art: The Poison of Idealism is available here:

https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B07FPX812S

& here:

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/brandon+r+burdette?_requestid=16676127