How did Rimbaud die?
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Arthur Rimbaud, the emblematic French poet of the 19th century, died in Marseille on November 10, 1891, at the age of 37. Rimbaud’s premature death was caused by a serious and painful illness: bone cancer. Located precisely in the right knee, the disease brought a particularly tragic end to the literary genius who had become a mythical figure.
Indeed, after a turbulent life marked by incessant travel, brutal breaks with his entourage and a perpetual quest for elsewhere, Rimbaud had settled in Harar, Abyssinia (now Ethiopia), where he led the adventurous life of a merchant-explorer. It was in this remote region of Africa, in February 1891, that he first felt a sharp pain in his knee. The condition of his leg soon worsened, causing him unbearable suffering and forcing him to leave Harar hastily for treatment.
On his return to France in May 1891, Rimbaud was hospitalized in Marseille at the Hôpital de la Conception. The medical diagnosis was clear: he was suffering from an advanced cancerous tumor, called synovial carcinoma, which was eating away at the joint and bone of his right leg. To prevent the disease from spreading, doctors had no choice but to amputate his leg above the knee. The operation took place on May 27, 1891. Despite this radical treatment, the cancer continued to progress inexorably and metastasized.
Physically and morally weakened by intense pain and loss of mobility, Rimbaud was nevertheless determined to resume his travels. In the last months of his life, he expressed a feverish desire to leave Marseille and return to Africa. His correspondence bears witness to this obsessive desire, but also to his growing suffering and despair in the face of an illness he deemed incurable.
The poet lived out his last days in isolation and distress. His sister, Isabelle Rimbaud, came to his bedside and accompanied him to the end. Doctors tried in vain to relieve his pain with various treatments, but Rimbaud’s health deteriorated rapidly.
On November 10, 1891, after months of agony, Arthur Rimbaud finally succumbed to complications from cancer. He died in an austere hospital room in Marseille, far from the Africa that had fascinated him and the native Ardennes he had fled. His premature death left behind an intense but brief body of poetic work, which was to have a profound influence on 20th-century French and world literature.
Paradoxically, Arthur Rimbaud’s tragic death contributed to his legendary aura. The brevity of his life, his tumultuous existence and his painful end shaped the image of a cursed, rebellious and rebellious poet, today inseparable from his literary legend. Thus, the way Rimbaud died, carried off by a merciless cancer in almost total solitude, becomes a powerful symbol of the existential suffering he so intensely expressed in his poetic work.
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How did Rimbaud die?
Answer
The poet Arthur Rimbaud died in Marseille on November 10, 1891, at the age of 37, as a result of bone cancer that led to the amputation of his leg.