Gert Valentijn
Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Abstract
André du Bouchet is a great admirer of nature, a privileged place of inspiration and walking. He sought in nature a spiritual adventure that is closely related to mystical experience, except that the experience in question makes no reference to a specific faith. In fact, we often speak of “natural mysticism”. Such an experience is often presented as a disruption of the parameters of the common experience, in the sense that the boundaries of the self and the world are erased, time becomes eternity and space is experienced in all its concrete virtualities. Poetry is probably the genre that has the most intimate relationship with mystical experience. In André du Bouchet’s poetry, nature plays an important role. In his poems, the quest for presence and the poetic quest go hand in hand, and some poems express nature as a true natural mystical experience. Haiku will undoubtedly have an influence on du Bouchet’s poetic experience and his way of expressing such natural mystical experience.
Keywords
Du Bouchet (André) – Mysticism – Contemporary poetry – Nature – Haiku
DOI: 10.13131/2611-9757/9kyb-7a13
