Le Bateau ivre

"Le Bateau ivre" ("The Drunken Boat") is a 100-line verse-poem written in 1871 by Arthur Rimbaud. The poem describes the drifting and sinking of a boat lost at sea in a fragmented first-person narrative saturated with vivid imagery and symbolism.

Background

Rimbaud, then aged 16, wrote the poem in the summer of 1871 at his childhood home in Charleville in Northern France. Rimbaud included the poem in a letter he sent to Paul Verlaine in September 1871 to introduce himself to Verlaine. Shortly afterwards, he joined Verlaine in Paris and became his lover.

Rimbaud was inspired to write the poem after reading Jules Verne's novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, which had recently been published in book form, and which is known to have been the source of many of the poem's allusions and images. Another Verne novel, The Adventures of Captain Hatteras, was likely an additional source of inspiration.

Summary

The poem is arranged in a series of 25 alexandrine quatrains with an a/b/a/b rhyme-scheme. It is woven around the delirious visions of the eponymous boat, swamped and lost at sea. It was considered revolutionary in its use of imagery and symbolism. One of the longest and perhaps best poems in Rimbaud's œuvre, it opens with the following quatrain:

Alcohol intoxication

Alcohol intoxication (also known as drunkenness or inebriation) is a physiological state (that may also include psychological alterations of consciousness) induced by the ingestion of ethanol (alcohol).

Alcohol intoxication is the result of alcohol entering the bloodstream faster than it can be metabolized by the liver, which breaks down the ethanol into non-intoxicating byproducts. Some effects of alcohol intoxication (such as euphoria and lowered social inhibitions) are central to alcohol's desirability as a beverage and its history as one of the world's most widespread recreational drugs. Despite this widespread use and alcohol's legality in most countries, many medical sources tend to describe any level of alcohol intoxication as a form of poisoning due to ethanol's damaging effects on the body in large doses; some religions consider alcohol intoxication to be a sin while others utilize it in sacrament.

Symptoms of alcohol intoxication include euphoria, flushed skin and decreased social inhibition at lower doses, with larger doses producing progressively severe impairments of balance, muscle coordination (ataxia), and decision-making ability (potentially leading to violent or erratic behavior) as well as nausea or vomiting from alcohol's disruptive effect on the semicircular canals of the inner ear and chemical irritation of the gastric mucosa. Sufficiently high levels of blood-borne alcohol will cause coma and death from the depressive effects of alcohol upon the central nervous system.

Boat

A boat is a watercraft of any size designed to float or plane, to work or travel on water. Small boats are typically found on inland (lakes) or in protected coastal areas. However, boats such as the whaleboat were designed for operation from a ship in an offshore environment. In naval terms, a boat is a vessel small enough to be carried aboard another vessel (a ship). Another less restrictive definition is a vessel that can be lifted out of the water. Some definitions do not make a distinction in size, as bulk freighters 1,000 feet (300 m) long on the Great Lakes are called oreboats. For reasons of naval tradition, submarines are usually referred to as 'boats' rather than 'ships', regardless of their size and shape.

Boats have a wide variety of shapes, sizes and construction methods due to their intended purpose, available materials or local traditions. Canoe type boats have a long history and various versions are used throughout the world for transportation, fishing or sport. Fishing boats vary widely in style partly to match local conditions. Pleasure boats include ski boats, pontoon boats, and sailboats. House boats may be used for vacationing or long-term housing. Small boats can provide transport or convey cargo (lightering) to and from large ships. Lifeboats have rescue and safety functions. Boats can be powered by human power (e.g., rowboats), wind power (e.g., sailboats) and motor power (e.g., propellor-driven motorboats driven by gasoline or diesel engines).

Boat (band)

Boat, usually stylized as BOAT, is an American indie rock band from Seattle, Washington. Their album Dress Like Your Idols was released in 2011 on Magic Marker Records and has received favorable reviews and notable press from major media outlets including Pitchfork Media, and AllMusic.

The band's sound has been compared to Built to Spill, The New Pornographers, and Superchunk.

Discography

Studio Albums

Personnel

References

Boat (drawing)

Boat is a set of boat-like works of mathematical art introduced by mathematical artist Hamid Naderi Yeganeh.

The work is defined by trigonometric functions. One instance is composed of 2000 line segments where for each the endpoints of the k-th line segment are:

and

References