Did Rimbaud Really Know His Alphabet

Rimbaud's sonnet "Voyelles" (1872) is shown to perform an intertextual game by which the poet paradoxically evokes the future of French poetry through allusions to the biblical text of the Apocalypse. The game comes about thanks to a mistake in the proper ordering of French vowels, a mistake that valorizes the Greek alphabet over the French. At the same time, Rimbaud's theoretical views on poetry – as expressed in his "Lettre du Voyant" (1872) – suggest a parallel between future French poetry and Ancient Greek poetry such that the Greek alphabet becomes a sign in "Voyelles" of both poetic practices. (SM)