born June 24, 1923, Tours, France
French poet.
A student of mathematics, Bonnefoy moved to Paris and came under the influence of the Surrealists . His poetry describes a thought universe brought to life by an intuition of the "real world." Among his poetry collections are In the Shadow's Light (1987), The Beginning and End of Snow (1991), and New and Selected Poems (1995). Bonnefoy, also a scholar, compiled Mythologies (1981), a dictionary of mythologies and religions. He held the chair in comparative poetics at the Collège de France from 1981 to 1994.