Illuminations is an incompleted suite of prose poems by the French poet
Arthur Rimbaud, first published partially in
La Vogue, a Paris literary review, in May–June 1886. The texts were reprinted in book form in October 1886 by Les publications de La Vogue under the title
Les Illuminations proposed by the poet
Paul Verlaine, Rimbaud's assumed former lover. In his preface, Verlaine explained that the title was based on the English word
illuminations, in the sense of coloured plates, and a sub-title that Rimbaud had already given the work. Verlaine dated its composition between 1873 and 1875.