Abstract: Driven by his desire to be “absolutely modern”, Rimbaud sought for the perfect integration between antiquity, modernity persistently. During his years in middle school, Rimbaud was gifted for the study of ancient cultures, Latin poetry, but he became weary of them once he found out that they were useless in life of the modern world. From then on, while writing his poetry in French, he started a series of innovations in poetic rules, forms and, in content, took advantage of ancient texts in delivering his satires with a modern twist. In A Season of Hell, he assimilated some elements from The Odyssey in order to pursue a sort of absolute modernity through something antique. In the Illuminations, he managed to expand the meaning of language, install the absolute modernity in both poetic form, content through his adaptation of ancient myths. However, the real modernity does not appear in poetry only; it also lies in life itself. Hence one can see that Rimbaud’s move from antiquity to modernity is actually a journey from the known to the unknown, to freedom, a new dawn, ultimately to true modernity

Key words: antique, modern, poetry, Rimbaud