French poetry 101 – René Char

[foudebassan]

"Le poète se reconnaît à la quantité de pages insignifiantes qu'il n'écrit pas" (You recognise a poet by the number of insignificant pages he does not write) is a quote extremely revelative of René Char (1907-1988).

He was extremely secretive about his private life. Before world war two, he was close to the surrealist group, and published a series of poems and articles. When the war broke out, he fought in the Résistance – really fought, with blood on his hands, unlike most of his contemporaries who tended to practise passive/aggressive behaviour instead. The poems he wrote during that period, Feuillets d'Hypnos, could I suppose be read as a war diary. That could also be a big mistake – Char’s poetry is not militant, not in a political sense at least. It is the poet’s answer to the absurdity and gratuitous cruelty of the world, a mysterious transposition of reality into the realm of beauty. “Dans nos ténèbres, il n’y a pas une place pour la Beauté. Toute la place est pour la Beauté,” (in our obscurity, there is not one place for Beauty. All the place is for Beauty) he writes at the very end of Feuillets d’Hypnos.

Today’s poem is:

Donnerbach Mühle

Hiver 1939

Novembre de brumes, entends sous le bois la cloche du dernier sentier franchir le soir et disparaître,

le voeu lointain du vent séparer le retour dans les fers de l’absence qui passe.

Saison d’animaux pacifiques, de filles sans méchanceté, vous détenez des pouvoirs que mon pouvoir contredit; vous avez les yeux de mon nom, ce nom qu’on me demande d’oublier.

Glas d’un monde trop aimé, j’entends les monsters qui piétinent sur une terre sans sourire. Ma soeur vermeille est en sueur. Ma soeur furieuse appelle aux armes.

La lune du lac prend pied sur la plage où le doux feu vegetal de l’été descend à la vague qui l’entraîne vers un lit de profondes cendres.

Tracée par le canon,
- Vivre, limite immense –
La maison dans la forêt s’est allumée:
Tonnerre, ruisseau, moulin.



(Donnerbach Mühle

Winter 1939

November of fogs, hear under the wood the last path’s bell pass through the evening and disappear,

the faraway wish of the wind separate the return in shackles of passing absence.

Season of pacific animals, of girls without meanness, you hold the powers that my power contradicts; you have the eyes of my name, this name I am asked to forget.

Tolling bell of a too-loved world, I hear the monsters trampling on a smile-less earth. My ruby sister is sweating. My furious sister calls to the arms.

The moon of the lake sets foot on the beach where summer’s sweet vegetal fire climbs down from the wave that take it towards a bed of deep ashes.

Traced by the canon
- To live, immense limit –
The house in the forest lit up:
Thunder, stream, mill.)



Note the free verse – this is no prose, but it is not classical verse either.
The historical context is present, and is very much the subject of the poem, but the focus is elsewhere – it is on the words themselves, on the way they transform the grim reality into another truth.
Every other word here is a metaphor. Winter and November could be the end of civilisation, passing absence could be the immobile front lines, waiting for Hitler to finish his business in Scandinavia. The girls without meanness are girls easy to get to bed. The furious sister could be the muse – the book’s title is “Fureur et mystère”, Fury and Mystery. “Thunder, stream, mill” is the literal translation of the title, though Donnerbach is a proper noun. And one cannot help but wonder whether the mill stands for the poetic effort itself.

And it won’t have escaped your attention that the title itself is in German.




After the war, Char went back to his native village, which he only left on rare occasions. He published more hermetic poems, but always refused to interpret them in the rare interviews he consented to. When he died in 1988, it was already clear that had become the major poet of the twentieth century, standing head and shoulders above the rest.

Dominique de Villepin, soon to be the ex-PM and a poet too, used one of Char's poems (Le Requin et la mouette) as the title of one of his books.



Next time, which will also be the last time, a lighter touch with a funny poem.

Comments

[zafania.livejournal.com]

your soon to be expm is a poet? thats so much cooler than a pm who played ina crappy band, tonys got no style, wanker

[foudebassan.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but he's a lousy PM and Blair isn't!

[shiv5468.livejournal.com]

That is sarcasm, isn't it? Of course, Blair is a lousy PM

[foudebassan.livejournal.com]

No, you can't get worse than Villepin even if you try.

[shiv5468.livejournal.com]

Oh yes you can.

Did Villepin take you into a war in Iraq?

[foudebassan.livejournal.com]

No, he merely made unemployment worse despite saying the contrary, prostituted gaullism into anticapitalism, sabotaged middle and long term research, and left Sarkozy free to begin what can turn into a civil war. I'd take Blair any time, Iraq war or not.

[shiv5468.livejournal.com]

Best thing to do with Gaullism...

Blair prostituted ideas of social justice, for spin, the rule of law, for spin, reduced us to a police state, sold us to America, lied, cheated, and whilst one expects that from a politician, he seemed to be taking that to extremes.

[foudebassan.livejournal.com]

Well, we didn't have much of a social justice/rule of law to begin with, so I'll be fair and say Villepin didn't harm them. He didn't sell us to America either, but our probable next president is just itching to do it.

[shiv5468.livejournal.com]

Which is odd, because surely he can see how badly that ends? Or does he think French troops should have a crack at a spot of torture?

By the way, once you move into digs will you have computer access?

[foudebassan.livejournal.com]

But all the other politicians keep away from Bush, so he feels all daring and transgressive by doing it and that's what counts.

Nope, only at work.

[shiv5468.livejournal.com]

And it's in a month's time that your contract finally ends?

[foudebassan.livejournal.com]

Yes, why the questions?

[shiv5468.livejournal.com]

So that when you disappear off line I don't get all worrited.

[foudebassan.livejournal.com]

Don't worry about that, I'm too addicted to disappear.

[shiv5468.livejournal.com]

Any sniffs of a job?

[zafania.livejournal.com]

blair is trying very very ahrd indeed.

where are you moving too if you're moving out of your flat, or are you giognt o stay with the folks?

[foudebassan.livejournal.com]

Nah, I'm heading to temporary quarters a lot closer to where I work.

[zafania.livejournal.com]

but that menas you wont see mr prety hair on the bus and you haven't chatted him up yet, have you?

*tsks*

[foudebassan.livejournal.com]

Nope... We work at the same place though, there's always the canteen.

[zafania.livejournal.com]

just try not to slop soup donw your blouse while you stare mesmerised at the pretty pretty

[foudebassan.livejournal.com]

I will, aunty Zaffy

[zafania.livejournal.com]

it is however perfectly acceptable to trip him up so that he spills cold water all over you, but make sure to wear a sheer blouse wiht no bra before you ambush him.

and then make sure he dabs you dry with a towel

[foudebassan.livejournal.com]

Why a towel?

[zafania.livejournal.com]

to clear up the worst of it before he finsihes the job wiht his tongue - cos you wouldn't want his tongue to get tired too quickly, now would you?

[foudebassan.livejournal.com]

Your words of wisdom are an unending source of inspiration to us all.

[shiv5468.livejournal.com]

I liked that one too.

[foudebassan.livejournal.com]

I think he's my favourite poet.