French Literature Reviews - 2026

Y. Inizan, Ce que le poète dit au philosophe, Yves Bonnefoy, la pensée du poème
Philosophy, Anthropology and Ideas

Ce que le poète dit au philosophe, Yves Bonnefoy, la pensée du poème, Yvon Inizan

Yvon Inizan

Publication date: 02/05/2018
Publisher: Editions Apogée
ISBN: 978-2-84398-496-9
Number of pages: 84 p.

In Book X of The Republic, Plato denounces poetry's inability to speak the truth and banishes poets from his ideal Republic. Ever since this inaugural exile and foundational repression, the conflicted relationship between philosophy and poetry has continuously shaped the history of Western thought.
Yves Bonnefoy—the author of a masterful body of work—drew upon his poetic writing to interrogate this relationship. He titled his first collection Anti-Platon. Yet, his entire oeuvre ceaselessly invites a dialogue between these modes of writing.
What, then, does the poet say to the philosopher? Under what conditions can philosophical thought engage with poetic speech—that is, grasp its contingency and ephemerality, and perceive its power and its wound?

Yvon Inizan teaches philosophy in preparatory classes in Rennes. In 2013, he published La Demande et le don. L’attestation poétique chez Yves Bonnefoy et Paul Ricoeur with Presses universitaires de Rennes in the "æsthetica" series, featuring a preface by Yves Bonnefoy: "Le temps, le récit, la poésie" (2013).

The tension between poetry and philosophy originates in the classical tradition, most notably in Plato’s critique of the poet’s capacity to convey truth in Book X of The Republic. This historical divide has long defined Western intellectual discourse. Yves Bonnefoy, who titled his first collection Anti-Platon, drew upon his poetic writing to interrogate this relationship throughout his body of work.

Yvon Inizan, who teaches philosophy in Rennes, examines the conditions under which philosophical thought can engage with poetic speech, specifically its contingency and ephemerality. The text considers how poetic speech might be perceived by the philosopher. Readers interested in the intersection of twentieth-century French poetry and the history of metaphysics may find this inquiry into the nature of poetic thought relevant.