Exposition : Ô saisons

Rimbaud's A Season in Hell is a work of rupture. The narrator confesses the failure of his literary project, his human relationships, and his connection to the religion imposed upon him at birth.

A Season in Hell is also a work that's out of print. "My fate depends on this book, for which half a dozen atrocious stories are yet to be invented," Rimbaud wrote to his high school friend, Ernest Delahaye, in May 1873 from Roche. The "Pagan Book" that Rimbaud dreamed of had a strange fate: written between April and August 1873, according to its author, between England and the Ardennes, it is the only book published by Rimbaud himself, printed in Brussels and abandoned for twenty-eight years in the cellars of the printer J. Poot. The myth of the auto-da-fé, which was believed to have been destroyed by Rimbaud himself according to Félix Fénéon and the poet's family, died out in the early days of the 20th century, with the discovery of the stockpile by the Belgian lawyer Léon Losseau in the cellars of J. Poot… The family was bewildered, bibliophiles were moved by it, and an adventure ensued between Mons and Paris, with a cascade of revelations and collapsing market values.

In partnership with Didier Decoux and the Maison Losseau, the exhibition "Ô Saisons…" focuses on setting aside the meaning of the text itself in favor of the history of this book-object, which continues to fascinate writers and artists. Drawing on period documents preserved by the Voyelles media library and the Maison Losseau, the exhibition places the work within its historical context and offers a richer understanding of its development. This overview of publications reflects how this poetic work has been reproduced in various ways, sometimes with scholarly or artistic intent, for a broad audience or for a circle of bibliophiles, following the evolution of the "spirit of the times."
relating to Rimbaud's work.