Arthur Rimbaud (Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud, 1854-1891), the French poet known for his transgressive and surreal themes, has had a significant influence on modern literature. He occupies a unique place in world literature. 

He began writing at a very young age and abandoned his formal education in his teenage years to move to Paris.

Rimbaud was a restless soul, and engaged in a violent romantic relationship with fellow poet Paul Verlaine.

He produced the bulk of his literary output and ceased writing literature at the age of 20. It was after completing his last major work, Illuminations.

He is described as an uncompromising, antisocial adolescent genius who, by age sixteen, could parody the style of most well-known poets.

He died young from cancer just after his thirty-seventh birthday.

Read here one of his poems, first in the original French language and also its English translation - 

-Moi, je suis, débraillé comme un étudiant, 

Sous les marronniers verts les alertes fillettes: 

Elles le savent bien; et tournent en riant, 

Vers moi, leurs yeux tout pleins de choses indiscrètes.

Je ne dis pas un mot: je regarde toujours 

La chair de leurs cous blancs brodés de mèches folles: 

Je suis, sous le corsage et les frêles atours, 

Le dos divin après la courbe des épaules.

J'ai bientôt déniché la bottine, le bas….

- Je reconstruis les corps, brûlé de belles fièvres. 

Elles me trouvent drôle et se parlent tout bas…

- Et mes désirs brutaux s'accrochent à leurs lèvres

(As for me, I follow, dishevelled like a student, the lively little girls under the green chestnut trees: they know it very well, and turn towards me, laughing, their eyes full of indiscreet things.

I say not a word: I keep on looking at the flesh of their white necks embroidered with stray curls: I follow, beneath the bodice and the flimsy finery, the heavenly back below the curve of the shoulders.

Soon, I've hunted out the ankle boots; the stockings reconstruct their bodies, burning with fine fevers. They find me peculiar and whisper to each other, and my brutal desires clutch at their lips.)