Elected to the Collège de France in 1981, Yves Bonnefoy has been a recognized poet since his first collection, Du mouvement et de l'immobilité de Douve (1953). An essayist, art critic and translator, it was as a thinker on poetry that he proposed the teaching of" Études comparées de la fonction poétique ". In his view, poetry, unlike literature, conveys an intention to " change life ", which is also expressed by painters and sculptors. His inaugural lesson is the foundation of a critique capable of deconstructing the mirages of writing as much as affirming that" there is being ". Until 1993, he lectured to packed houses on artists and poets : Giacometti, Shakespeare, Baudelaire, Mallarmé, without abandoning poetic writing.

The Collège de France was for him a place of fulfillment, where he found a concern that was his own : directing thought and teaching towards the " partageable ", whatever the discipline. With his colleagues at the Institut d'études littéraires, which brought together several chairs of literature and the humanities, he organized numerous colloquia (including a series on " La conscience de soi de la poésie ") conducive to the confrontation of ideas.

We have no doubt that his testamentary poem " Ensemble encore " (2016) is also addressed to his friends at the Collège de France, colleagues and listeners :

My loved ones, I bequeath to you

The restless certainty with which I have lived,

This dark water pierced by reflections of gold.

For, yes, it wasn't all a dream, was it ?

Course summaries have been published under the title Lieux et destins de l'image (Seuil, 1999). His Oeuvres poétiques areincluded in the Pléiade (Gallimard, 2023).

Notice written by Odile Bombarde (Collège de France).