Written by Rimbaud at the age of 18 in the wake of his tempestuous affair with fellow poet Paul Verlaine, "A Season in Hell" has been a touchstone for anguished poets, artists, and lovers for more than a century.

Jacques Riviere knew how to accept art emotionally. No French critic was ever less a traditional pedagogue. Riviere was an intelligent French writer, who knew that the summit of the intellect is to admit affective knowledge, instinct, and intuition. The "heart," or taste, is always superior to raw intelligence. Reviere's supple metaphors are not easily rendered into English. The density of his thought, the complexity of his views, the moral and spiritual fervor that vibrates in these pages, further enhances the difficulties the skilled translator must overcome. Literary criticism is often...