Skip to content

Index: Dossier: A Bonnefoy Memorial

Devotions.

Monday, 19 June 2017

Yves Bonnefoy: And always to quays at night, to bars, to a voice saying I am the lamp, I am the oil.

Also filed in Poetry & Fiction, Poetry and prose in translation, Translations | Tagged , | Comments (0)

Two visits to Paris.

Monday, 19 June 2017

Anthony Rudolf: ‘Outside the door, I realised that Yves was treating his last days (as he thought, but in fact his last weeks) as something natural for a man of his age in full possession of his faculties. He was contemplating the end without fear, with curiosity. It was an extraordinary privilege to participate in the final scene of the fifth — or should that be seventh — act of a great writer and close friend, whose dying was a lesson in life to someone twenty years his junior. ‘

Also filed in In Memoriam | Tagged | Comments (0)

Three poems from Together Still.

Monday, 19 June 2017

Yves Bonnefoy: Yes, but look: the grass is crushed, where an animal has slept.
Its hideaway is like a sign. The sign is more
Than what was lost, than life going by—
Than the song on the road, late at night.

Also filed in Poetry and prose in translation | Tagged , | Comments (0)

Sonnets of Music and Memory.

Monday, 19 June 2017

Hoyt Rogers: ‘Naturally, Bonnefoy was well aware of the signal role of music in Shakespeare. His plays contain or allude to well over a hundred songs, many of which were probably performed with instruments as well as voices, as part of the entertainment. ‘

Also filed in Commentary on Art and Literature | Tagged , | Comments (0)

Paths to Speech.

Monday, 19 June 2017

Hoyt Rogers: ‘I have the impression that we never fully hear the tonal subtleties of each other’s languages. Probably I want to imagine stronger accents in French than really exist for you as a native speaker, whereas I note in your English versions that you soft-pedal the metrical beats, as though our language were as mildly accentuated as yours. Most of the time, when you find me slightly altering the semantics in a verse, I am in quest of a prosodic fit—not just ignorant of the faint modulation in meaning.’

Also filed in Translations | Tagged , | Comments (0)

Yves Bonnefoy (1923-2016), in memoriam.

Monday, 19 June 2017

Hoyt Rogers: ‘Whether we are Yves Bonnefoy’s family, friends, translators, publishers, and readers, we all join in looking back on his immense achievement with gratitude and awe. Throughout his lengthy and productive life, he selflessly refined the letter of his writings, in order to bequeath to us a lasting spiritual gold.’

Also filed in In Memoriam | Tagged | Comments (0)
The Fortnightly Review