This study aims to illuminate the poetic ideal and the reality of Rimbaud's poetry, particularly in the poem “The Drunken boat” and in the poetic collection Illuminations. The first impression on Rimbaud is a poet against all conventions and traditions that surrounded him both in daily and in literary life. By wanting to become a <seer(voyant)>, the poet was trying to discover the unknown world through poetry. First, this world began to be realized by the denial of the reality where the poet reside. A few years later, he suddenly said goodbye to literature and he returned to the reality that he left behind and abandoned. We may say that the ideal and the reality coexist simultaneously in Rimbaud's world, two aspects that are contradictory and complementary. In his early poems, he expresses the denial of reality that limits the poet's creative imagination, and the denial of literary conventions and traditions. In his letters called <of seer (du voyant)> Rimbaud tells us of his studies of future poetry and explains how to become a true poet; 'modern poet'. In his later poems, the poet tries to erase the frontiers that divide the real and the unreal: the universe of the Illuminations, recreated universe with new structures and harmonies composed of new elements. In Rimbaud's poetic universe, the unknown that the poet wants to reach is not solid; in other words, not eternal. After creating it, Rimbaud destroyed it Through this we may deduce that 'destruction' is the important driving force of poetic creation in the Rimbaud's literary universe. The poet understands that the world is not eternal, he reached this unknown through poetry and by remaining silent he went to seek the unknown elsewhere, but this time in real life. It is this, the "passage", a constant movement, which is one of Rimbaud's poetic features that attract us.