Introduction

Abstract

The introduction explores how Bonnefoy rejects the conception of poetry as an act of representation or a subversion of linguistic codes in his early work but nonetheless struggles to find the right performative medium. Analysing a change that occurs in his poetry with the publication of Dans le leurre du seuil in 1975, it examines how he comes to perceive of writing as an inherently scenic exploration of the interactions that occur between linguistic, corporeal, and material forces in any gesture of communication. It also investigates how the philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy develops a similar conception of textual performance when he conceives of the act of writing in ontological terms, as a way of actively experimenting with the dynamics of relation that bring existence into being.