That early, tragic arc provided the blueprint for a romantically torrid artistic life, however, and his disassembling of language survived to become instrumental in the emergence of punk. Symbolically, he was the first rock ’n’ roll star.

The appeal of a 19th-century French poet to the Beats and punks of the 1970s New York scene may seem bizarre, but it’s not really. ‘A thousand dreams within me softly burn,’ wrote Rimbaud, capturing the universal affliction of being young, bright and blazing to get out into the world.