Barbarian

     Often we think of the past with rose colored glasses.  "The 1920's must have been so fun!" or "I wish I could have lived when art was so great in the renaissance period!"  Barbarian, by Arthur Rimbaud uses repetition and harsh contrast to remind us of the difference between oft false ideas we have of the past.
     Throughout the poem we see very different ideas contrasted - soft, feminine and idealized views of the past, with harsh, grotesque views of the same past.  Words like "raw meat" sitting directly next to "silk of seas."  These images are repeated, bringing to mind very contradictory ideas of the same events.
     The author also uses repetition of words like "Bliss!"  The repeated nature of positive ideas does not remove the negative imagery "wind of diamonds," "veering of chasms" or "white tears boiling."  This is an accurate representation of how we think of the past - no matter how much we try to sugar coat and remember things differently, the pains of the past still exist,


Long after the days and the seasons, and people and countries. 
The banner of raw meat against the silk of seas and arctic flowers; 
(they do not exist). Recovered from the old fanfares of heroism,-- 
which still attack the heart and head,-- far from the old assassins. 
-- Oh! the banner of raw meat against the silk of seas and arctic flowers; 
(they do not exist).-- Bliss! Live embers raining in gusts of frost.-- 
Bliss!-- fires in the rain of the wind of diamonds
flung out by the earth's heart eternally carbonized for us.
-- O world! (Far from the old retreats and the old flames, still heard, still felt.) 
Fire and foam. Magic, veering of chasms and clash of icicles against the stars. 
O bliss, O world, O music! And forms, sweat, eyes 
and long hair floating there. And white tears boiling,-- 
O bliss!-- and the feminine voice reaching to the bottom of volcanoes 
and grottos of the arctic seas. The banner...