Bonnefoy's visionary place of poetry is a "vrai lieu," sacrificial and yet empty of shadow, an orangery closed off where the vacant self is determined at last by its watching and its waiting. Unsure of his victory, the poet grasps the red flame of the sword, the ardent blade of the most difficult speaking against the gray of a neutral prose; his Arthurian gesture is defined—like all poetry—by its risk. (p. 206)

In this poetry where the positive absence of all sound seems to mark the end of the path, where "un haut silence" seems to carry the highest value, the word can only be considered to lead not toward but through. In the particular resonance of each of Bonnefoy's texts against the others to form the profound clusters of images and the long strains resolved or unresolved of this intense and far-reaching poetry, we notice a...