Poetry Criticism | Char, René - Michael Bishop (essay date 1994)

Michael Bishop (essay date 1994)

SOURCE: Bishop, Michael. “Char's Mysticism.” In Figuring Things: Char, Ponge, and Poetry in the Twentieth Century, edited and translated by Charles D. Minahen, pp. 175-89. Lexington, Ky.: French Forum Publishers, 1994.

[In the following essay, Bishop offers a thematic analysis of mysticism in Char's work.]

Laissons l'énergie et retournons à l'énergie.

(ES [Eloge d'une Soupçonnée] 7)¹

DIFFICULTY, REBELLION, AND INNOCENCE

In a poet whose work has to such a compelling degree stressed actuality and engagement, the difficulties and divisions of history, and the need for ethical, even political intervention à ras de terre, it may seem more than paradoxical to invite consideration of his œuvre as an “act and place” of what I have termed mysticism. Certainly, like Rimbaud—I am thinking of his brouillon from Une Saison en...

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