I started reading poetry in primary school—Victor Hugo, the romantics, and the Parnassians—they were part of the curriculum. In my grandfather’s library there were some anthologies of nineteenth-century poetry. Alfred de Vigny impressed me most; indeed I won a competition by reciting Vigny’s “Moses” with an enthusiasm that touched the examiner. In fact this poem and “La Maison du Berger” are among the most beautiful poems in the French language, unfairly neglected today.
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YB
Yves Bonnefoy
Poet, essayist and translator
France · 1923–2016
Arts and letters
About
French poet and critic, and the principal modern French translator of Shakespeare. He held the chair of comparative poetics at the Collège de France from 1981. His collections include Du mouvement et de l’immobilité de Douve and Pierre écrite.
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