Chahuts in Rimbaud, Seurat, and Marinetti Or, a Music-Hall of Cruelty

Two poems by Rimbaud, “Mes petites amoureuses” and “Parade,” are here deciphered through the lens of the history of music-halls and those cabaret dances that caused scandal all through the nineteenth century. This was because of their alleged obscenity as well as their link to hysteria as a centrifugal force dismantling bodies. The two Rimbaud pieces are read against two nonverbal art objects: Seurat’s painting Chahut and the futurist theory and practice of performance art.