Review: Rimbaud and Verlaine | Poets in The City | 1872 | scholars | French literature

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Published: 23 April 2009

Arthur Rimbaud

Scholars recall poets’ London affair

IT'S 1872: Arthur Rimbaud, the teen literary sensation, has seduced his mentor Arthur Verlaine and the pair are embarking on a lust-filled love affair.
But the whispers in Parisian parlours are such that they have to flee: Verlaine leaves his wife and young child behind and the couple elope to Camden Town.
The story of two of French literature’s greatest poets is well known: they settled for a short time in a garret in Royal College Street, wrote reams of poems, drank too much and fought bitterly.
Their London home had fallen into disrepair and lay empty for many years; it was recently bought by retired businessman and poetry lover Michael Corby.
He has renovated it and now hopes to turn the house into a cultural centre.
On Monday, leading Anglo-French academics, writers, actors and poets are meeting to celebrate the couple’s time in London and discuss how they have come to be inspirations for rock stars and gay rights activists – and raise awareness of the fate of the house the pair stayed in. Among the speakers is biographer Graham Robb, who has written extensively on Verlaine and Rimbaud.
He said: “The time in Camden Town was crucial to both of them in different ways. Verlaine was a bit of a wreck at the time.
He had been involved in the Paris Commune and was being spied on as an anarchist. He had run away with a young man who had a dubious reputation from his young wife. He was also an alcoholic. But Rimbaud managed to get him writing again and put his nose to the grindstone.”
Other guests include Sorbonne literature professor Dominique Combe, French Professor and author Martin Sorrell and author Yann Frémy.
The poets’ works will be read by actors from the Royal Shakespeare Company in both English and French.
DAN CARRIER
• Rimbaud and Verlaine. Poets In The City is at Kings Place, York Way, on April 27
at 7pm.

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