The French List - (Seagull titles CHUP)
2 total works
One of the foremost poets of the French Resistance, Rene Char has been hailed by Donald Revell as "the conscience of modern French poetry." Translated by Mark Hutchinson, The Inventors is a companion volume to Char's critically acclaimed Hypnos. It gathers more than forty poems that represent a cross-section of Char's mature work, spanning from 1936 to 1988. All three genres of Char's work are represented here: verse poems, prose poems, and the abrupt, lapidary propositions for which he is best known. These maxima sententia combine the terseness of La Rochefoucauld with the probing and sometimes riddling character of the fragments of Heraclitus. The Inventors includes a brief introduction to Char's life and work, as well as a series of notes on the backstories of the works, which explain allusions that may not be immediately familiar to the English-speaking reader. These new translations stay true to the originals, while at the same time conveying much of the music and beauty of the French poems. Praise for Rene Char "Char, I believe, is a poet who will tower over twentieth-century French poetry."-George Steiner
Rene Char (1907 - 88) is considered the most important French poet of his generation. A member of the surrealists in the early 1930s, he became increasingly preoccupied by the rise of Nazi Germany and later played a key role in the French Resistance. Hypnos is both a document of unique importance in the history of the French Resistance and a classic of modern European literature. Based on a journal Char kept during his time in the Maquis, it is composed of short prose fragments that range from abrupt and sometimes enigmatic meditations in which the poet seeks out his metaphysical and moral compass bearings in the darkness of occupied France to narrative descriptions that throw into stark relief the dramatic and often tragic nature of the decisions he had to confront as the head of his Resistance cell. A tribute to the individual men and women who fought at his side, the book is also a celebration of the power of art to combat terror and to transform our lives.
Char had significant influence on the generation of French poets who came of age after World War II and was an important figure for a host of distinguished contemporaries, including Albert Camus, Julien Gracq, Edmond Jabes, Octavio Paz, Nicolas de Stael, Hannah Arendt and Martin Heidegger, as well as for younger writers like Peter Handke and Hans-Magnus Enzenberger, and the composer Pierre Boulez, who has set several of his poems to music.
Char had significant influence on the generation of French poets who came of age after World War II and was an important figure for a host of distinguished contemporaries, including Albert Camus, Julien Gracq, Edmond Jabes, Octavio Paz, Nicolas de Stael, Hannah Arendt and Martin Heidegger, as well as for younger writers like Peter Handke and Hans-Magnus Enzenberger, and the composer Pierre Boulez, who has set several of his poems to music.