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René Char 1923–28: The Young Poet s Struggle for Communication

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 December 2020

Mechthild Cranston
Mechthild Cranston*
Affiliation:
Davidson College, Davidson, North Carolina
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Abstract

The poet's struggle for communication is a common theme in five of René Char's early poems, “Cesoir” (1923), “Jouvence” (1923–25), “Sillage” (ca. 1925), “Prêt au dépouillement” (ca. 1925), and “Sur le volet d'une fenêtre” (1923–25). Char passes from “mutisme” to meaningful dialogue; he learns first to see, then to listen, and, finally, to hear. Many of his mature poems will repeat this triple apprenticeship, and they are quoted to show Char's continuous concern with the necessity for dialogue. By implication this article tries to disprove Barthes's definition of modern poetry, and hopes to lead into wider considerations of the object of contemporary poetry.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 87 , Issue 5 , October 1972 , pp. 1016 - 1022
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1972

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References

1 Le Degré zéro de l'écriture (Paris: Seuil, 1953), p. 72.

2 Pierre Berger, René Char (Paris: Seghers, 1951); Georges Mounin, La Communication poétique, précédé de Avez-vous lu Char?; André Gascht, Charme de René Char (Bruxelles: Le Thyrse, 1957); Hubert Juin “La Poésie et la fraternité” Critique, 96 (mai 1955), 409–14.

3 André Breton, Manifestes du surréalisme (Paris: Gallimard, 1963), p. 49.

4 Virginia A. La Charité, The Poetics and the Poetry of René Char (Chapel Hill : Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1958). La Charité is also interested in the problem of communication in Char's poetry, though perhaps on a different level from that examined here.

5 Bibliographie des œuvres de René Char de 1928 à 1963 (Paris: Le Demi Jour, 1964).

6 In any case, La Charité is mistaken in asserting that Georges Mounin “errs in dismissing” the poem as “un sonnet mallarméen.” What Mounin in fact said is: “Avec ce texte peut-être unique, nous ne serions pas loin du problème banal des premiers vers de tous les poètes, des sonnets savamment mallarméens que Breton fignolait en 1918” (p. 205). “Ce soir” does indeed show resemblance to poems of Mallarmé lycéen (Paris: Gallimard, 1954) and could be compared to “Rêve antique” (p. 125), “Loeda” (pp. 152–55), and the opening of “Sa tombe est fermée! . . .” (p. 165).

7 Georges Mounin also raises the question of possible précieux elements in Char's poetry (pp. 197–222).

8 “René Char et la définition du poème,” Liberté, 10, Montréal ( juillet-août 1968), 25.

9 I realize, of course, that the word col here also suggests the neck, and a collar, meanings which help to explain the word mutisme associated with col. The mountaintop in its cold and quiet solitude is not an infrequent image in Char's later poetry.

10 La Charité, p. 20.

11 A prose text first published by Georges Mounin in Les Temps Modernes, No. 137–38 (juillet-août 1957), pp. 277–78.

12 VAir et les songes: Essai sur l'imagination du mouvement (Paris: Corti, 1943), p. 217.

13 Enfance, mon amour: La Rêverie vers l'enfance dans l'œuvre de Guillaume Apollinaire, Saint-John Perse et René Char (Paris: Debresse, 1970), the last two chapters on Char.

14 Bachelard, p. 212. The italics are Bachelard's.

15 Maurice Blanchot, La Bête de Lascaux (Paris: GLM, 1958), and Jean Beaufret, “L'Entretien sous le marronnier,” L'Arc, No. 22 (été 1963).

16 In a private interview, 1970.