Plongée poétique Rimbaud, Laforgue et Vingt mille lieues sous les mers

Both Rimbaud and Laforgue draw inspiration from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea in their foundational poems ‘Le Bateau ivre’ and ‘Préludes autobiographiques’. This article explores the thematic links with this hypotext, paying particular attention to moments of ambivalence in the novel. It is at these exceptional moments that the Vernian voyage can be compared to the aesthetic project shared by the two poets: that of founding a poetics on a lyrical subject that is no longer in control of itself.