SOURCE: Argyros, Alex. “The Topography of Presence: Bonnefoy and the Spatialization of Poetry.” Orbis Litterarum 41, no. 3 (1986): 244-64.

In the following essay, Argyros considers the complex relationship between critical interpretations of Bonnefoy's verse, his own theoretical writings, and his long poem, On the Motion and Immobility of Douve.

For the most part, the poetry of Yves Bonnefoy has been read as an expression or application of Bonnefoy's numerous theoretical statements concerning the function of poetry. In other words, Bonnefoy's poetry has been understood as the practical materialization of his esthetic speculations. Critical work on Bonnefoy, consequently, has operated within the horizon of one of the fundamental binary oppositions of Western esthetics: pure idea/its reification. A variant of the mind/body dichotomy, the theory/application couplet is not a neutral concept, but participates in specific ways in the historical development of Western philosophy. As Derrida has frequently argued, the...