SOURCE: "Conclusion," in Rimbaud's Theatre of the Self, Harvard University Press, 1992, pp. 201-19.

In the following essay, Lawler examines the self-reflexive nature of Une Saison en enfer, suggesting that like all Rimbaud's work, its essential purpose is dramatic rather than descriptive or didactic. The critic also points out the influence of Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du mal on Rimbaud's depiction of a soul in anguish—though he argues that unlike Les Fleurs, Une Saison ultimately expresses belief in the possibility of deliverance.

"Bah! faisons toutes les grimaces imaginables" 'So what! let us make all conceivable grimaces'.¹ Rimbaud projected himself in a series of roles that allowed him to act out a multiple relationship with the world. Self-reflexive images, warring affections, refashioned myths: his poetry is complex representation.

The element of play was no doubt central to such a venture as it had been for the schoolboy who shone by...