Abstract: The study of gyratory and vertiginous movement in Rimbaud’s work suggests the presence of a cultural and epistemic archetype the source of which cultural anthropology traces back to the work of Virgil and certain Bambaras rituals. In the guise of Mevlevis Dervishes, a poetics of gyration is legible in Rimbaud’s work that allows us to perceive links between the West and the Orient, and to detect a poetic vision in which two symbolic and historical constants of the human condition (i.e., harmony and chaos) are articulated without ever being reconciled.
