Rating: 
Summary: Well organized, but to say 'complete' is a ostentatious
Review: A refreshing new look at the work - I give it a high mark for effort - but the author took great pains to avoid Rimbaud's love relationship with Verlaine, and he completely disregarded the translation work of Louise Varese, which is one of the most eloquent translations that exists. The book at times gets too scientific - which appears to again be the authors attempt to avoid the fact that Arthur was an extremely eccentric, gay or bisexual creature - which to me is half the story. Where are his letters to Paul Verlaine? "Complete", I think not. But this work does fit well in a greater Rimbaud collection. It never ceases to amaze me how posthumous critics and scholars work feverishly to harness that which cannot be harnessed: the free mind.
Rating: 
Summary: Beautiful, Faithful, Poetic Translations
Review: As a native Italian speaker who speaks English as a foreign languge, I know how difficult it is to translate anything (--even a shopping list!--) into another language. I have always loved Rimbaud, and read him first in Italian, and later in French. I fell in love with Rimbaud in Italian, and wanted to read him in English after I heard about this new translation on the radio, on a show called The Connection which I think is only heard in Boston where I live. Anyway, the translator and editor Mason spoke with passion about Rimbaud and poetry and translation. As I write this 'review', I must say how surprised I am by a few of the reviews here, and how angry and condescending some people sound! Comparing a translator as talented as Mason certainly is to a 'first-year French student' I think makes clear how irrational and crazy people get about Rimbaud--a point Mason made on the radio! Anyway, Mason's translations certainly are the work of a gifted translator, are very wonderful, and capture the sound of Rimbaud, and are very careful, accurate versions. Nothing could be more personal than how you feel about a poem, except I guess how you feel about a translation of a poem (and about Rimbaud)! But I have to say that after comparing Mason's versions to some of the others in the bookstore, his seem very much the best to me. I would be suspicious of anyone who would be so dismissive as some of the 'reviewers' here of what seems to be a very successful work. If you read Mason's version of 'Drunken Boat' and think it's not a good translation, then you don't really have a very good idea of poetry, in French or English. This is a wonderful book.
Rating:
Summary: At first sceptical...
Review: At first I was sceptical of this translation. Mason sometimes veers wildly from the original French. However, the Introduction to the volume is so well-reasoned that I became convinced that this is a very fine, thoughtful piece of work. It may not be the literal French, but it is almost as close to Rimbaud's French as the English idiom can be. I also highly recommend the Treharne translations of A Season in Hell and Illuminations, although it is currently out of print.
Rating:
Summary: At first sceptical...
Review: At first I was sceptical of this translation. Mason sometimes veers wildly from the original French. However, the Introduction to the volume is so well-reasoned that I became convinced that this is a very fine, thoughtful piece of work. It may not be the literal French, but it is almost as close to Rimbaud's French as the English idiom can be. I also highly recommend the Treharne translations of A Season in Hell and Illuminations, although it is currently out of print.
Rating: 
Summary: Unsatisfactory translations
Review: First and foremost, this book is a godsend. I've been trying to piece through the Pliade edition of the Complete Poems for two years with little sucess, so having an English translation of Jugurtha & all of the other poems in prose and verse from 1866-1870 and through the rest of Rimbaud's life is nothing short of a miracle. That being said, the Fowlie translation is still the superior model for all other pieces, Louise Varese's rendering of the Illuminations being the only possible exception. Regardless of the rather lukewarm reviews that have been written of it in the past, Fowlie still shows the clearest attention to meaning and meter of all of Rimbaud's translators. While his "keeping in the spirit of Rimbaud" could certainly be called into question, at least in terms of his person, it is doubtful whether he will ever be surpassed.
Rating: 
Summary: Prosy or clunky, and not as faithful as it might be
Review: First, it ought to said that, as poetry in English, this translation of Rimbaud fails utterly. Mason indicates in the introduction that he attempts to walk the line between literal and 'poetic' translation. If by this he means that he neither resorts to the kind of inanity with which Paul Schmidt destroyed Rimbaud for late 20th-century Americans, nor to the faithful but poetically unsatisfying Fowlie edition, then he's telling at least a version of the truth. But who could not, with fluent French and enough time, translate French works faithfully into prose? And yet because he is comparatively a novice writer in English of the analogous sort of poetry to that which Rimbaud wrote in French, the concessions and compromises he must make are just terrible as regards both the literal and technical aspects of the poems. Concerning the early (verse) poems, it becomes quickly clear that the translator has no skill as a versifier. Translating requires a resourcefulness bred of technical experience. I don't know if Mason writes original poems, but if so they must be of a very modern sort, which is to say contemporary (as opposed to Modernist) free verse. Of course few people now have good ears for versification, but to those who do--to those who wish a translation to convey something of the greatness, at least, of the original--the technical performance sounds woefully like that of a beginner. His rhymes are forced, his syntax is wrenched for rhymes that aren't particularly good in the first place, and his meter is extremely slack if it exists at all. This is particularly a problem as the greatness of Rimbaud's 40-some-odd early poems derives in large part from his technical genius. To take at random only one of many examples, in his translation of "Les Corbeaux," Mason translates what in English means roughly "Strange army with [your] harsh cries,/Cold winds are ravaging your nests" as "Strange armies with cries that crack/ Cold nests that winds attack." This contains the sort of forcing of rhymes that an adept poet would know to avoid. Mason has added highly unnatural demonstrative pronouns to these two very short phrases in order to get a rhyme whose first element "crack" is way off. The result is an ugly fragment. Of course crows' cries might be described as cracking, but not in this poem. The same translation ends with "Alas" which is no where in the original, and is again inserted for rhyme's sake. Falling as it does at the end of the last line, it makes the poem sound glib and world-weary. In French, the poem is certainly not glib and not exactly world-weary in the way that "Alas," as the poem's final word, makes it sound. I could go on for a page with problems I find in just this one poem. The text is filled--filled--with such clunkiness, and it makes for bad poetry _and_ bad translation of meaning. If Mason were a good, resourceful poetic translator, he would not be quite so baffled by the formal constraints. Perhaps he should have rendered a prose translation. Surely he should have worked harder at it. But I guess few are the people who know how to translate poems, and even fewer are those who can spy a bad translation.
Rating:
Summary: A quite suitable rendition
Review: First, of all I must say that this book is a godsend. I've been trying to piece my way through the Oeuvres Completes for some time now, and having Jugurtha, the Prologue and some of the other earlier texts from 1866-1870 in English is a great pleasure. Possibly the only thing necessary now is a translation of Akakia Viala and Nicolas Bataillet's 1949 "La chasse spirituelle", which is in some French editions. However, despite the wealth of new material which Mason's translation gives us, I find it is still lacking when compared to Fowlie's. The decision not to print the original French texts on the facing page was a great error, and despite some very excellent renditions of the poems (particularly Memoire), Mason still does not have Fowlie's sense to leave the poems as they are and let the words speak for themselves. However, alongside Louise Varese's translations of the prose & of course Fowlie, most probably, this will come to be seen very shortly as one of the three indespensible Rimbaud translations that we have available in English.
Rating:
Summary: rimbaud rocks!
Review: Having been an avid reader (and admirer) of Rimbaud for the past 6 years, I have to say that I prefer these translations to Fowlie's and countless others. I'd like to qualify that statement by frankly admitting that I do not like the translator. His introduction is arrogant, prickly, and self promoting. Mason seems bent on convincing us that every image ever created of Rimbaud, the passionate and vicious young poet from Charleville, are all simply projections and fantasies. While I've obviously seen this from many translators concerning many figures, Mason pulls it off with more pretentiousness than usual. "I don't want the reader to come away with his or her own Rimbaud," he says. As if that were possible:as if it were not part of the creative process to take away our own impressions of a poet or artist. Truth be told, there is very little ambiguity as regards the interpretation of Rimbaud's life: it was a vicious search for the absolute through any means necessary, sadly abandoned through poetic burn out. Mason's form of analytical pomposity is nothing other than the desire to destroy the passion inherent in Rimbaud's life and works by casting doubt on his memory and talent. That said, the translations are catastrophic and deserving of praise, "The Drunken Boat" in particular. The poems speak for themselves. In short, listen to Rimbaud, not Mason.
Rating:
Summary: Damnation in the form of a rainbow
Review: Having been an avid reader (and admirer) of Rimbaud for the past 6 years, I have to say that I prefer these translations to Fowlie's and countless others. I'd like to qualify that statement by frankly admitting that I do not like the translator. His introduction is arrogant, prickly, and self promoting. Mason seems bent on convincing us that every image ever created of Rimbaud, the passionate and vicious young poet from Charleville, are all simply projections and fantasies. While I've obviously seen this from many translators concerning many figures, Mason pulls it off with more pretentiousness than usual. "I don't want the reader to come away with his or her own Rimbaud," he says. As if that were possible:as if it were not part of the creative process to take away our own impressions of a poet or artist. Truth be told, there is very little ambiguity as regards the interpretation of Rimbaud's life: it was a vicious search for the absolute through any means necessary, sadly abandoned through poetic burn out. Mason's form of analytical pomposity is nothing other than the desire to destroy the passion inherent in Rimbaud's life and works by casting doubt on his memory and talent. That said, the translations are catastrophic and deserving of praise, "The Drunken Boat" in particular. The poems speak for themselves. In short, listen to Rimbaud, not Mason.
Rating:
Summary: If you like Rimbaud, you'll want this book on your shelf
Review: I included Wyatt Masson's "Rimbaud Complete" on one of my best books of all time list ("Heavy Hitters, Inspiration, & Enlightenment") not so much because it in-itself is a "classic", but because Rimbaud's poetry is. This particular collection was difficult to give 4 stars to here because it really depends on whether or not you buy into Mason's concept of translation here. Some lines are frustratingly odd or off, but as far as I can tell, not off base, and more often than not, in tune with Rimbaud's French originals. Also, because this is the most complete collection of Rimbaud's works ever collected in English, it's hard to give it anything less than 4 stars. I really like this book because it sheds light on the translation process when you compare it to other translations (other reviewers here suggest Fowlie & Varesse; I have the Penguin ed. translated by Oliver Bernard, and a critical translation by F.C. St. Aubyn), and because it also includes all the odds and ends (schoolwork, rough drafts, incomplete writings & ideas) available that Rimbaud wrote which hadn't been translated into English until now. It really is exciting to see all his early work, as well as drafts of Season in Hell! All his personal letters are collected in volume 2 of Mason's excellent, "I Promise to be Good" (2003). There are lot's of ways to criticize this collection, and as other reviewers have pointed out, I too have found questionable translations by Mason here and there, and some words even completely left out! (a mistake, or purposeful?) In his introduction Mason discusses in detail the varieties of ways to translate Rimbaud, and states that his version "strives to find common, rather than middle, ground between the two poles represented by Fowlie and Schmidt." His focus is on presenting the poems as Rimbaud "might have written them" were he writing in English. So the rhythm and structure is usually there, while occassionally, words and meaning may alter. The French translations are tucked away in the back (so as not to infringe on Mason's pride, I guess), so you can always compare for yourself - which is the best way to learn about poetry anyway. It takes work, but it's worth it because you'll find things in these poems the critics will miss, or refuse to see in their pig-headedness (i.e. "Barbare" is a strange poem which I think ostensibly describes a sheet of music, and also, Mason for some reason doesn't translate the word: "sweats"/les sueurs; also, is "pavillon" a flag, a banner, or simply a pavillion?). "Rimbaud Complete" proves that Rimbaud belongs to no individual biographer or translator, but rather to the seekers, wanders, poets, and workers of the world searching for that "I is an other" sense of themselves, and the world around them, not readily perceived (or accepted) by your average citizen. In the end, what the poems mean to you, the reader, and how you decide to incorporate them into your life will be the most important factor in deciding whether or not to buy into the fruits of Wyatt Mason's own poetic endeavors. I for one, think this is an indispensible addition for any student of Rimbaud's life and works. PS: Rimbaud never abandoned poetry; it abandoned him. He continued on to a different sort of poetry (a poetic life of action) after 1875, becoming "somebody else" altogether...hail Rimbaud!
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