Poetry Criticism | Rimbaud, Arthur - Michael Riffaterre (essay date 1990)

Michael Riffaterre (essay date 1990)

SOURCE: Riffaterre, Michael. “Sylleptic Symbols: Rimbaud's ‘Memoire’.” In Nineteenth-Century French Poetry: Introductions to Close Reading, edited by Christopher Prendergast, pp. 178-98. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.

[In the following essay, Riffaterre contends that deciphering symbols in Rimbaud's poetry has been hampered by undue attention to incidents in the poet's life, The critic instead bases his interpretation of “Memoire” on the poem's formal features.]

I

L'eau claire; comme le sel des larmes d'enfance,
L'assaut au soleil des blancheurs des corps de femmes;
la soie, en foule et de lys pur, des oriflammes
sous les murs dont quelque pucelle eut la défense;

l'ébat des anges;—Non … le courant d'or en marche,
meut ses bras, noirs, et lourds, et frais surtout, d'herbe. Elle
sombre, ayant le Ciel bleu pour ciel-de-lit, appelle
pour rideaux...

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