This article deals with the reception of Arthur Rimbaud’s poetry and his biographic legend by the poets of the last decades of 19th and the first decades of the 20th century, though, in fact, its earliest phase belongs to the literary period of pre-Modernist, anti-Romantic reaction (which described itself by the name Positivism, epitomized by the novels of Bolesław Prus). The process of Rimbaud’s reception proceeded in two dimensions, on the intergenerational level and in dialogue between poets and translators. Interestingly, it acted as a veritable catalyst of changes in the poetics of writers across the spectrum, from the old school (Józef Weyssenhof and Eliza Orzeszkowa) to the modernist avant-garde. The influence of Rimbaud was by no means uniform and went beyond the usual names like Zenon Przesmycki (Miriam), Julian Tuwim or Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz. This article casts its net widely to include representatives of three generations, among them some of the less acclaimed authors.