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The Emergence of Social Space: Rimbaud and the Paris Commune
The 1870s in France - Rimbaud’s moment, and the subject of this book - is a decade virtually ignored in most standard histories of France. Yet it was the moment of two significant spatial events: France’s expansion on a global scale, and, in the spring of 1871, the brief existence of the Paris Commune - the construction of revolutionary urban space. Arguing that space, as a social fact, is always political and strategic, Kristen Ross has written a book that is at once history and geography of the Commune’s anarchist culture - its political language and social relations, its values, strategies, and stances.
Central to her analysis of the Commune as social space and oppositional culture is a close textual reading of Arthur Rimbaud’s poetry. His poems - a common thread running through the book - are one set of documents among many in Ross’s recreation of the Communard experience. Rimbaud, Paul Lafargue, and the social geographer Elisee Reclus serve as emblematic figures moving within and on the periphery of the Commune; in their resistance to the logic and economy of a capitalist conception of work, in their challenge to work itself as a term of identity, all three posed a threat to the existing order. Ross looks at these and other emancipator notions as aspects of Communard life, each with an analogous strategy in Rimbaud’s poetry. Applying contemporary theory to a wealth of little-known archival material, she has written a fresh, persuasive, and original book.
Central to her analysis of the Commune as social space and oppositional culture is a close textual reading of Arthur Rimbaud’s poetry. His poems - a common thread running through the book - are one set of documents among many in Ross’s recreation of the Communard experience. Rimbaud, Paul Lafargue, and the social geographer Elisee Reclus serve as emblematic figures moving within and on the periphery of the Commune; in their resistance to the logic and economy of a capitalist conception of work, in their challenge to work itself as a term of identity, all three posed a threat to the existing order. Ross looks at these and other emancipator notions as aspects of Communard life, each with an analogous strategy in Rimbaud’s poetry. Applying contemporary theory to a wealth of little-known archival material, she has written a fresh, persuasive, and original book.
170 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1988
About the author
Kristin Ross
29 books32 followersKristin Ross is a professor of comparative literature at New York University. She is the author of numerous books, including Fast Cars, Clean Bodies: Decolonization and the Reordering of French Culture and May '68 and its Afterlives.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
July 29, 2017
The book is more about Rimbaud than the emergence of social space or the Paris Commune, more literary criticism than a deeper meditation on the politics of space. I find many of Ross' points on the Paris Commune off mark, displaying a tendency to overread into the acts of the Communards (like when she says that the demolition of the Vendrome Column is an instance of the Commune's inherent 'horizontality' clashing with the old regime's 'verticality' or when the Commune's barricades are construed as 'a special kind of bricolage', etc.). These seem to stem from a cultural studies framework mixing with an overzealous imputing of anarcho-communist elements into both the Commune and Rimbaud. Nevertheless, the book's strength lies in its in depth reading of the nitty gritty of Rimbaud's verse and its intertexts (in Aime Cesaire, Bertolt Brecht, Walter Benjamin, Mallarme, Verlaine, and the various manifestoes, memoirs, slogans, and cartoons from the participants and detractors of the Paris Commune) as can only be best understood in the context of the Commune and its reconfiguration of space as a highly politicized instance.
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July 3, 2016I have only a very few observations to add to Karlo Mikhail's review.
It's quite extraordinary to read a single book that appears to be the cobbling together of contributions that two authors - one entirely unacquainted with the other - have composed.
I cannot detect - and I agree with Karlo on this point - the connections to (1) the events/culture of the Commune and (2) the discovery of social/economic geography as a field of inquiry that Ross asserts are present in Rimbaud's poetry. Of course, for example, the Communards opposed the State, hierarchy and subordination of most every kind. But I rather doubt that Rimbaud happened upon this perspective or that his objections became more intense because of his presence in Paris during the months of the PC. Graham Robb and Charles Nichols have convinced me that Rimbaud was playing tourist there - at a rather extraordinary moment, which Rimbaud found extraordinarily interesting.
I found Ross' commentary to certain of the poems that relate to her themes quite illuminating of Rimbaud's state of mind at whatever age he had achieved in 1870-71. She highlights what to my mind are significant biographical facts.
And so I am very glad I struggled through what may be some of the most overwrought prose I've ever encountered in English. Think Hegel in literal translation. I laugh out loud still when her description of the rubbing of one's eyes as "ocular frottage" springs to mind. So I am also grateful to Ross for that bit of levity. I'm trying not to image any further interpretations of that expression that Ross may not have intended. Then again I'm not altogether sure that such reticence is in order. After all, the subject is Rimbaud, and Rimbaud invited us to interpret his poetry in every possible sense and from every possible perspective.
I am also happy to learn that now, finally, at my advanced age, I can actually turn pages without reading a single word that appears on any one of them. She expresses certain of her observations regarding the PC and the "emergence of social space" in parlance freighted to the point of collapse with the language of critical theory and the leftist political discourse of the 1980s. Flashbacks of certain scenes in Woody Allen's "Play It Again, Sam" come unbidden. [Ah, those were the days!] Many of her words - I suppose that's what they are - that appear to function as nouns and verbs, adjectives and adverbs do not appear in the Oxford English Dictionary - all thirteen volumes of which are always already [Yippee! I have found occasion to employ that cliche once more!] near at hand. I feel no obligation to read passages of this kind.
I hope that her book, a rendering of her dissertation, has served Dr. Ross well. Terry Eggleton's introduction - with all its high praise - must have guaranteed a grant of tenure.
Enough said. I've had great fun - perverse fun that Rimbaud would endorse, I expect - in reading this book, and I am grateful for the biographical insights that her readings of Rimbaud's poems convey.
It's quite extraordinary to read a single book that appears to be the cobbling together of contributions that two authors - one entirely unacquainted with the other - have composed.
I cannot detect - and I agree with Karlo on this point - the connections to (1) the events/culture of the Commune and (2) the discovery of social/economic geography as a field of inquiry that Ross asserts are present in Rimbaud's poetry. Of course, for example, the Communards opposed the State, hierarchy and subordination of most every kind. But I rather doubt that Rimbaud happened upon this perspective or that his objections became more intense because of his presence in Paris during the months of the PC. Graham Robb and Charles Nichols have convinced me that Rimbaud was playing tourist there - at a rather extraordinary moment, which Rimbaud found extraordinarily interesting.
I found Ross' commentary to certain of the poems that relate to her themes quite illuminating of Rimbaud's state of mind at whatever age he had achieved in 1870-71. She highlights what to my mind are significant biographical facts.
And so I am very glad I struggled through what may be some of the most overwrought prose I've ever encountered in English. Think Hegel in literal translation. I laugh out loud still when her description of the rubbing of one's eyes as "ocular frottage" springs to mind. So I am also grateful to Ross for that bit of levity. I'm trying not to image any further interpretations of that expression that Ross may not have intended. Then again I'm not altogether sure that such reticence is in order. After all, the subject is Rimbaud, and Rimbaud invited us to interpret his poetry in every possible sense and from every possible perspective.
I am also happy to learn that now, finally, at my advanced age, I can actually turn pages without reading a single word that appears on any one of them. She expresses certain of her observations regarding the PC and the "emergence of social space" in parlance freighted to the point of collapse with the language of critical theory and the leftist political discourse of the 1980s. Flashbacks of certain scenes in Woody Allen's "Play It Again, Sam" come unbidden. [Ah, those were the days!] Many of her words - I suppose that's what they are - that appear to function as nouns and verbs, adjectives and adverbs do not appear in the Oxford English Dictionary - all thirteen volumes of which are always already [Yippee! I have found occasion to employ that cliche once more!] near at hand. I feel no obligation to read passages of this kind.
I hope that her book, a rendering of her dissertation, has served Dr. Ross well. Terry Eggleton's introduction - with all its high praise - must have guaranteed a grant of tenure.
Enough said. I've had great fun - perverse fun that Rimbaud would endorse, I expect - in reading this book, and I am grateful for the biographical insights that her readings of Rimbaud's poems convey.
December 9, 2020
hell yes dude.
Kristin Ross provides a vibrant and cohesive view of the turmoil and excitement surrounding the Paris Commune, and uses Rimbaud to highlight the dynamic and revolutionary culture of the Communards.
Really great, love the introduction by Terry Eagleton. He does his due diligence as a Marxist by doling out praise as well as chiding Ross for her insistence on more fluid and amorphous desiring masses, rather than class. This is a useful insight sure, but Ross does an incredible job of both demystifying the rambunctious and polyphonic Rimbaud and showing how an artists intention displaces itself throughout time and space, as Rimbaud's influence continues to be felt in the work of Aime Cesaire and the May '68 protests.
Kristin Ross provides a vibrant and cohesive view of the turmoil and excitement surrounding the Paris Commune, and uses Rimbaud to highlight the dynamic and revolutionary culture of the Communards.
Really great, love the introduction by Terry Eagleton. He does his due diligence as a Marxist by doling out praise as well as chiding Ross for her insistence on more fluid and amorphous desiring masses, rather than class. This is a useful insight sure, but Ross does an incredible job of both demystifying the rambunctious and polyphonic Rimbaud and showing how an artists intention displaces itself throughout time and space, as Rimbaud's influence continues to be felt in the work of Aime Cesaire and the May '68 protests.
December 27, 2022
Occasionally opaque and hard to follow, but so many fascinating insights both about the Paris Commune and about Rimbaud: ruminations on time, language, metaphor, the history and evolution of vagabondage laws, and so much more. Worth the occasional periods of incomprehension (especially if you don't know French, and therefore miss some of the finer linguistic analysis).
September 4, 2023
Phenomenal work of criticism and analysis. Highly recommend for those with even a passing interest in how poetry and literature, among other sub-fields, can intertwine with social and political history. It's a truly brilliant combination of so many different fields of study. I have zero background in linguistics but I absolutely adored how Ross made use of how unique Rimbaud was with regard to his lexical borrowings and innovations.
The excerpt regarding the verb 'bombiner' is one such example. Despite being minor within the grand scheme of Ross' work, I felt as though it was especially profound. The way Rimbaud essentially creates and transforms the word for 'buzz' for a into this unique verbiage relating to change and transformation is honestly pretty surreal, particularly when considering how his work characterized the period of tumult in which he wrote. Cesaire's innovation of 'bombiner' into a whip relating to colonialism adds to this profundity.
Learning how the study of geography essentially emerged in the mid 19th century and found its heyday in the latter part of that period in large part due to the acceleration of both capitalism and corresponding colonialism was particularly fascinating as well. Genuinely had no idea it was so recent of a field.
The presentation of work's existence being derived from a surplus of time/energy/production, while likely standard practice in other pieces of analysis, was also incredibly interesting to me personally.
The book encompasses so much, I really can't recommend it enough if anything regarding it seems interesting. The beginning is ultimately a bit denser than the middle/ending parts but it's worth it to push through.
Knowledge of French isn't entirely needed but having some background was helpful for understanding certain, mainly lexical, references.
The excerpt regarding the verb 'bombiner' is one such example. Despite being minor within the grand scheme of Ross' work, I felt as though it was especially profound. The way Rimbaud essentially creates and transforms the word for 'buzz' for a into this unique verbiage relating to change and transformation is honestly pretty surreal, particularly when considering how his work characterized the period of tumult in which he wrote. Cesaire's innovation of 'bombiner' into a whip relating to colonialism adds to this profundity.
Learning how the study of geography essentially emerged in the mid 19th century and found its heyday in the latter part of that period in large part due to the acceleration of both capitalism and corresponding colonialism was particularly fascinating as well. Genuinely had no idea it was so recent of a field.
The presentation of work's existence being derived from a surplus of time/energy/production, while likely standard practice in other pieces of analysis, was also incredibly interesting to me personally.
The book encompasses so much, I really can't recommend it enough if anything regarding it seems interesting. The beginning is ultimately a bit denser than the middle/ending parts but it's worth it to push through.
Knowledge of French isn't entirely needed but having some background was helpful for understanding certain, mainly lexical, references.
October 1, 2014
Kristin Ross writes:
For Pierre Clastres, work is the imperative of a state apparatus, and primitive societies are societies without a state: “Two axioms seem to have guided the advance of Western civilization from the outset: the first maintains that true societies unfold in the protective shadow of the state; the second states a categorical imperative: man must work.” The work model is the invention of the state in that people will only work or produce more than their needs require them when forced to. What are disparagingly called “subsistence economies,” societies where one works to satisfy one's needs and not to produce a surplus, are to be seen, according to Clastres, as operating according to a refusal of useless excess activity. Work, then, appears only with the constitution of a surplus; work begins, properly speaking, as overwork, it originates as alienated labour. Where there is no state apparatus or overproduction, there is no work model.
For Pierre Clastres, work is the imperative of a state apparatus, and primitive societies are societies without a state: “Two axioms seem to have guided the advance of Western civilization from the outset: the first maintains that true societies unfold in the protective shadow of the state; the second states a categorical imperative: man must work.” The work model is the invention of the state in that people will only work or produce more than their needs require them when forced to. What are disparagingly called “subsistence economies,” societies where one works to satisfy one's needs and not to produce a surplus, are to be seen, according to Clastres, as operating according to a refusal of useless excess activity. Work, then, appears only with the constitution of a surplus; work begins, properly speaking, as overwork, it originates as alienated labour. Where there is no state apparatus or overproduction, there is no work model.
August 26, 2024
The back cover calls this "a thrilling ride through the literature of Rimbaud". It's not. It's a dense, jargon-filled academic book. The author is a left-wing academic, somewhat vacillating between Marx and anarchism, with frequent mentions of "Situationism", a tendency which apparently originated in the French May 68 movement and which I know nothing about. Even her fellow academic, the somewhat more definitely Marxist-leaning Terry Eagleton, in his introduction to the book has to criticize her use of the common academic cliché of contrasting the good "young" Marx with the bad "mature" scientific Marx, who allegedly reduces everything to economics. Marx was first and foremost a revolutionary, and his economic works were all determined by the need to understand and abolish capitalist oppression not only to liberate the working class economically but to create a totally different and more human form of society, which is a continuation and deepening of his earliest ideas. His politico-historical writings, including his work on the Commune, belong to his "mature" period. Eagleton also points out that many of the problems she attributes to Marxism should actually be attributed to Stalinism. Leaving these questions aside, the book was interesting if not "thrilling".
The main idea of the book is to identify Rimbaud's poetry with the culture of the Paris Commune of 1871. She does say many things which were interesting about the Commune, and about Rimbaud's poetry, but I wasn't totally convinced by her parallels, especially her ideas about "social space". Of course, Rimbaud was obviously influenced by the Commune — he may or may not have actually been in Paris at the time, and he certainly supported it and wrote several poems about it; and certainly the Commune and his poetry share a common background in the experience of the Second Empire. Perhaps her best points are in the chapter which compares Rimbaud's poetry to Lafargue's The Right to Be Lazy. The book was worth reading, but except for readers with a specialized interest in the Commune or Rimbaud it will probably not be one of my top 500 books to recommend.
The main idea of the book is to identify Rimbaud's poetry with the culture of the Paris Commune of 1871. She does say many things which were interesting about the Commune, and about Rimbaud's poetry, but I wasn't totally convinced by her parallels, especially her ideas about "social space". Of course, Rimbaud was obviously influenced by the Commune — he may or may not have actually been in Paris at the time, and he certainly supported it and wrote several poems about it; and certainly the Commune and his poetry share a common background in the experience of the Second Empire. Perhaps her best points are in the chapter which compares Rimbaud's poetry to Lafargue's The Right to Be Lazy. The book was worth reading, but except for readers with a specialized interest in the Commune or Rimbaud it will probably not be one of my top 500 books to recommend.
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July 18, 2022I admire Rimbaud's writing, particularly Illuminations, but always find it obscure, like unreadable but beautiful hieroglyphs. Ross's book changes that, although not totally.
Although the focus is on the Paris Commune, Ross draws on many social contexts. Marx is present, unsurprisingly (my edition of this book is from Verso), but also Bakunin, and a solid if unsurprising stable of theorists (Lukacs, Deleuze, Todorov, Jameson). Some parts of the book are very unconvincing, and its central polemic (setting up Rimbaud as a political artist, in opposition to Mallarmé and aestheticism in general) just doesn't work for me. But it's a wealth of information and thought in a compact package. Ross establishes Rimbaud's historical situation without falling into speculation or mythography, even proving that several of his poems can only be understood through very specific, documented historical references.
Ross puts "hermetic" in scare-quotes when talking about Illuminations. I can't agree with that, I think it's a book built out of paradox, impossibility, and deliberate difficulty. But parts of it are clearer now than they were before, which is enough to make the book a success to me.
Although the focus is on the Paris Commune, Ross draws on many social contexts. Marx is present, unsurprisingly (my edition of this book is from Verso), but also Bakunin, and a solid if unsurprising stable of theorists (Lukacs, Deleuze, Todorov, Jameson). Some parts of the book are very unconvincing, and its central polemic (setting up Rimbaud as a political artist, in opposition to Mallarmé and aestheticism in general) just doesn't work for me. But it's a wealth of information and thought in a compact package. Ross establishes Rimbaud's historical situation without falling into speculation or mythography, even proving that several of his poems can only be understood through very specific, documented historical references.
Ross puts "hermetic" in scare-quotes when talking about Illuminations. I can't agree with that, I think it's a book built out of paradox, impossibility, and deliberate difficulty. But parts of it are clearer now than they were before, which is enough to make the book a success to me.
August 3, 2020
An interesting and lively analysis. A good mate, I think, to her later book, Communal Luxury: The Political Imaginary of the Paris Commune.
In this text Rimbaud takes a very interesting place in the history of the concept of ‘social space’ in his affinity with its early theorists. And though Rimbaud never wrote directly about the commune, Ross animates how his involvement shines through both his poems and long-form correspondence with friends and relatives.
I must admit I haven't been very interested in Rimbaud since I was fairly young. But Ross has given a very convincing argument that he was completely unique in his time, and was not only a major contribution to symbolist poetry, was one of its biggest critics.
In this text Rimbaud takes a very interesting place in the history of the concept of ‘social space’ in his affinity with its early theorists. And though Rimbaud never wrote directly about the commune, Ross animates how his involvement shines through both his poems and long-form correspondence with friends and relatives.
I must admit I haven't been very interested in Rimbaud since I was fairly young. But Ross has given a very convincing argument that he was completely unique in his time, and was not only a major contribution to symbolist poetry, was one of its biggest critics.
August 14, 2020
Read this for the Commune, not Rimbaud and found it clear, concise, and thought provoking. Ross' Communal Luxury is one of my personal top Commune texts and while I wish her analysis here was longer, what she did present was, as typical for her, excellent. Her brief analysis of changing analyses and understandings of work as noble to work as work by some participants, in particular was a welcome change from prevailing narratives from the left and right both through the 19th c and today, about the worthiness and nobility of work.
July 25, 2020
Sort of dense prose-wise, but a lot of incredibly useful context for understanding "rebel" artists in general and Rimbaud in particular. Does require a good deal of background knowledge on the Paris commune to read productively. I particularly enjoyed its discussion of the Paris commune's usurpation of the concept of "metier", which constituted its largest transgression.
December 17, 2015
This book is a tricky read for those unfamiliar with poetry and that form of literary analysis, but its contribution to critical geography should not be underestimated. Ross draws connections between the poetry of Rimbaud and the emergence of counter-hegemonic formations of social space in a fashion that mirrors Badiou's Subject of (political) artistic Truth. She links this reading up with the works of the contemporary anarchist geographer Elisée Reclus as well as the work of Henri Lefebvre in a very compelling argument for the political construction of state space and oppositional space in 19th century France.
March 2, 2016
My fault entirely for picking up a book that is largely about Rimbaud (I enjoy his work, I'm not interested in studies of it), and really doesn't touch on the Paris Commune or theories of social space in a way I find meaningful.
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April 10, 2009So pleased that my advisor thinks I ought to mention the Paris Commune in my thesis. Now I have a good reason to finally read this book!
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June 14, 2015pretty loaded and full of surprises
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