Poems. Translated by Denis Devlin and Jackson Mathews.

by René Char

The description for this book, Poems of Rene Char, will be forthcoming.



Originally published in 1976.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Genres: Poetry, France, Literature

Paperback

First published January 1, 1976

About the author

René Char spent his childhood in Névons, the substantial family home completed at his birth, then studied as a boarder at the school of Avignon and subsequently, in 1925, a student at L'École de Commerce de Marseille, where he read Plutarch, François Villon, Racine, the German Romantics, Alfred de Vigny, Gérard de Nerval and Charles Baudelaire.

His first book, Cloches sur le cœur was published in 1928 as a compilation of poems written between 1922 and 1926. In late November 1929, Char moved to Paris, where he met Louis Aragon, André Breton, and René Crevel, and joined the surrealists. He remained active in the surrealist movement through the early 1930s but distanced himself gradually from the mid-1930s onward. Throughout his career, Char's work appeared in various editions, often with artwork by notable figures, including Kandinsky, Picasso, Braque, Miró, Matisse and Vieira da Silva.

Char was a friend and close associate of Albert Camus, Georges Bataille and Maurice Blanchot among writers, Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, Nicolas de Staël, Georges Braque and Victor Brauner among painters. He was to have been in the car involved in the accident that killed both Camus and Gallimard, but there was not enough room, and returned instead that day by train to Paris.

The composer Pierre Boulez wrote three settings of Char's poetry, Le Soleil des eaux, Le visage nuptial, and Le marteau sans maître. A late friendship developed also between Char and Martin Heidegger, who described Char's poetry as "a tour de force into the ineffable" and was repeatedly his guest at La Thor in the Vaucluse.

Reviews

[Danilo Scardamaglio · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Io non vedrò la razza della nostra libertà servilmente bastarsi".
La visione poetica di Char si intreccia ad un viscerale ottimismo, un'assoluta fiducia nel destino umano. Questo non scampa il mondo dal male, che resta sostrato fondamentale ed innegabile (tant'è che l'ossimoro è cifra stilistica fondamentale), ma ne definisce un'azione tenacemente contraria e oppositiva.
D'altronde Char è pur sempre poeta partigiano: l'azione si definisce allora non solo come poetica e linguistica, ma anche nel senso fisico del termine. Questo caratterizza un'assoluta preminenza della vita attiva, spesso legata ad un'esaltazione vitalistica dell'esistenza umana che, nelle liriche più mature, scaturisce in un'esaltazione calorosa dell'amore nel suo valore più assoluto.
È in effetti poesia straordinariamente luminosa, fulgente (ed essa è intimamente legata ai luoghi natii di Char, la Provenza, e la poesia acquisisce quasi più forza quanto più si lega a questi luoghi) dove le immagine risultano vivide, nette nella loro esaltazione solare (tant'è che quando l'immagine assume un significato troppo simbolico, secondo me il verso di Char perde di forza). La voce assume spesso forma aforistica, se non addirittura, come negli ultimi esempi della raccolta (e forse nei suoi risultati migliori, più pregni di saggezza) è la poesia stessa a diventare aforisma: nella forma contratta, prosasticamente ripiegata, la voce di Char assume un'intensità straordinaria, quasi da meditazione spirituale (per quanto nasca il verso chariano da presupposti totalmente contrari). Allora si esalta la qualità maggiore della poesia si Char: la capacità di sprigionare folgorazioni di fragorosa saggezza.
(L'edizione critica secondo me è terribile: è interamente incentrata sul rapporto Caproni-Char, al punto che si dà più spazio al primo che all'autore delle poesie...)

[Kate Savage · Rating 4 out of 5]

I came to Rene Char because of the way that Albert Camus writes about him: "Char will always protest against those who sharpen guillotines. He will have no truck with prison bread, and bread will always taste better to him in a hobo’s mouth than in the prosecuting attorney’s."

Most of the time, Char's lines slipped off my brain, I couldn't get enough traction to make meaning out of them. I finished the book dissatisfied, but then I returned to the lines I had gleaned, the bits that had stuck. Now I keep coming back to them.

Like: "Every action that commits the soul, even though unawares, will have as its epilogue a repenting or a sorrow. One has to consent to that."

Or this kind of comradely love: "I keep you along with my hunk of bread, waiting for what I foresee as a day of tall rain, of green loam, which will come for those who burn, and for the stubborn."

Maybe I love Char best when he writes about his river, the Sorgue. I feel like I can trust a man who loves a river like this, believing in the river no matter how stinking and polluted.

And if nothing else, he's left me the best advice for reading: "Some leave poisons, others remedies. Difficult to decipher. You have to taste."

[Steven Godin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Chronology
Acknowledgments
Prefaces

THE HAMMER WITH NO MASTER &
FIRST MILL - poems 1927-1934

OUTSIDE THE NIGHT IS RULED &
SIGN FOR A SCHOOLCHILD'S WAY - poems 1936-1938

FUROR AND MYSTERY - poems 1938-1947

The MATINALS - poems 1947-1949

SEARCH FOR THE BASE AND THE SUMMIT - poems 1955

THE WORD AS ARCHIPELAGO - poems 1952-1960

NAKEDNESS LOST - poems 1964-1970

TALISMANIC NIGHT - poems 1972

Notes

[Philippe Malzieu · Rating 5 out of 5]

The life is indissociable of works. Char resistant to the Nazis, Char taking part in the Thor'conferences with Heiddeger, Char's poems put in music by Pierre Boulez, Char giant of almost 2 meters obstructed by its body.
It's impossible to describe poetry. Why I'm moved by Char. He employs simple words, his style is direct and limpid, he touches the heart directly



Now disappear, my escort, upright in the distance;
The softness of the number has been just destroyed.
Leave with you, my allies, my violent ones, my indices.
All involves you, obsequious unhappiness.
I love

Char is an old companion that I take on desert island

[ele (taylor’s version) · Rating 2 out of 5]

“ io vivo in fondo a lui come un relitto. a sua insaputa, la mia solitudine é il suo relitto.”
I finally finished it. I haven't given such a low score in a long time. Maybe it wasn't the right time to read it, but there was only one interesting poem and all the others instead made my arms drop because of how boring they were. I'll read it again when I'm a little older because now I really don't understand it

[Marius Ghencea · Rating 5 out of 5]

Naturale rivelazione poetica del visitatore notturno che solitario piange la grazia d'un cuore.