Death as Cataclysm or Catharsis

One of Bonnefoy’s best known poetic works, the 1953 Du mouvement et de l’immobilité de Douve, is also one of his most elusive, a complex piece presenting subtle juxtapositions of metaphysical inquiry, linguistic experimentation, and artistic innovation. Of the many engaging aspects of this substantial poem, the motif of the human body represents a central tenet. Intricately related to Bonnefoy’s subtle notion of présence—the interiorization of external reality though the infinite dynamics of art—the human body emerges as a living incarnation of that exquisite, unnamable state to which Bonnefoy’s poetry aspires. The systems continually at work in a biological organism—and its constant movement towards the definitive gesture of death—present the writer’s holistic view of the complex human form

Aesthetics · Art · Catharsis · Epistemology · Gesture · Incarnation · Linguistics · Literature · Metaphysics · Motif (music · Poetry · Theology · French Literature and Critical Theory · French Literature and Poetry · Literary Analysis and Cultural Studies · Philosophy

• On Bonnefoy's Poetry

  Mario Maurin•Yale French Studies•1958

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