René Char
French · 1907–1988
French poet and Resistance leader whose aphoristic, lapidary verse distilled the experience of clandestine warfare into a poetics of lucidity, urgency, and ethical revolt against the intolerable.
Wikipedia ↗“La lucidité est la blessure la plus rapprochée du soleil.”
French
“Lucidity is the wound closest to the sun.”
“Le poète doit laisser des traces de son passage, non des preuves. Seules les traces font rêver.”
French
“A poet must leave traces of his passage, not proofs. Only traces make us dream.”
“Développez votre étrangeté légitime.”
French
“Develop your legitimate strangeness.”
“Comment vivre sans inconnu devant soi ? L'homme ne peut se loger que dans le déchirement.”
French
“How can we live without the unknown before us? Man can take up residence only in the tearing apart.”
“Impose ta chance, serre ton bonheur et va vers ton risque. À te regarder, ils s'habitueront.”
French
“Impose your luck, hold tight to your happiness, and go toward your risk. Gazing at you, they will grow accustomed.”
“Le poème est l'amour réalisé du désir demeuré désir.”
French
“The poem is the realized love of desire that has remained desire.”
“Nul oiseau n'a le cœur de chanter dans un buisson de questions.”
French
“No bird has the heart to sing in a thicket of questions.”