The Inventors: And Other Poems (The French List)

The Inventors: And Other Poems (The French List)

<div>One of the foremost poets of the French Resistance, René Char has been hailed by Donald Revell as “the conscience of modern French poetry.” Translated by Mark Hutchinson, <I>The Inventors</I> is a companion volume to Char’s critically acclaimed <I>Hypnos</I>. 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 <I>maxima sententia</I> combine the terseness of La Rochefoucauld with the probing and sometimes riddling character of the fragments of Heraclitus.<BR><BR><I>The Inventors</I> 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.<BR><BR> Praise for René Char<BR> “Char, I believe, is a poet who will tower over twentieth-century French poetry.”—George Steiner</div>