Poetry and War: Translating the Untranslatable

Focusing on René Char's wartime "notebook" of prose poetry from the French Resistance, Feuillets d'Hypnos (Leaves of Hypnos), this course joins a study of the Resistance to a poet's literary creation and its ongoing "afterlife" in translations around the globe. History, archival research (traditional and digital), the practice of literary translation, and a trip to France that follows in Char's footsteps as poet and Resistance leader will all be part of our exploration. We will conclude with a dramatic performance of the "notebook" in multiple languages, as created by seminar participants.