Bonnefoy, Yves

(1923- )

   poet

   Born in Tours, Yves Bonnefoy is a critic, translator of shakespeare and Yeats, and professor at the Collège de France. He developed an intense poetic meditation on the inertia of all matter. Recognizing that words have a living effect on objects, he has confided in them the hope of a return to the innocence of the world, to be achieved by poetry. His thought, expressed in a language that suggests more than is being described, transmits also a sense of anguish. Bonnefoy's poetry, which includes Du monument et de l'immobilité de Douve (1975), Dans le Leurre du seuil (1975), Ce qui fut sans lumière (1987), and Début et fin de la neige (1991), is inseparable from his narratives (L'Arrière-pays, 1972; Rue Traver-sière, 1977) and his text-meditations on art (L'Improbable, 1959; Entretiens sur la poésie, 1990; Alberto Giacometti, 1991). With Vie errante (1933), Bonnefoy seemed to want to meld all genres into a simple and discreet poetic word.