Death as Cataclysm or Catharsis: Yves Bonnefoy’s Douve

Abstract

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.

Keywords:

• Yves Bonnefoy
• Douve
• presence
• French poetry
• corporality
• death

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Pamela A. Genova

Pamela Genova is David Ross Boyd and Presidential Professor at the University of Oklahoma. She researches French Literary Culture (nineteenth century to the twenty-first century). Publications include many articles and three books: André Gide dans le labyrinthe de la mythotextualité, Symbolist Journals: A Culture of Correspondence, and Writing “Japonisme:” Aesthetic Translation in 19^th-century French Prose; the two latter won the annual book prize of the South-Central MLA.