Fabulous Operas, Rock ‘n’ Roll Shows: The Intoxication and Poetic Experimentation of Arthur Rimbaud and Jim Morrison

Arthur Rimbaud and Jim Morrison have a distinctive place among authors who have apparently lived legendary lives, and biographies on both Rimbaud and Morrison generally include accounts of many experiences with intoxicants of different kinds. Nonetheless, the effective function of mind-altering substances in the artistic process of either of them is still unknown. In this paper, I focus on the role and the images of intoxication in Rimbaud’s and Morrison’s respective poetic experimentations, exploring their conceptions of poetry and more generally of art, in order to establish Morrison’s actual debt to Rimbaldian ideas. Ultimately, both authors attempted to find a manner to unify the enjoyment of the ecstatic practice and its aesthetic expression by introducing into their poetry techniques and images drawn from the performing arts, such as opera in Rimbaud’s case and music, as well as cinema, in Morrison’s.