Bernard Mathieu describes "A Season in Hell" as "a terribly enigmatic poem", and a "brilliantly near-hysterical quarrel between the poet and his 'other'." He identifies two voices at work in the surreal narrative: "the two separate parts of Rimbaud's schizoid personality—the 'I' who is a seer/poet and the 'I' who is the incredibly hard-nosed widow Rimbaud's peasant son. One voice is wildly in love with the miracle of light and childhood, the other finds all these literary shenanigans rather damnable and 'idiotic'."