In ["Argument"] Char makes clear what is to him the nature of poetry, that is, those aspects which underlie understanding the poems. These convictions have to do with the poet's vocation—how a poet sees the world about him, and, especially, the kind of statement he makes concerning the human condition of which he is a necessary part. These three concerns are obviously interdependent; the poem can be read, however, as a progressive development from one to another, working always towards a poetic theory.

Char is in the tradition of the poet-seers, poets like Jouve or Rimbaud, for example, who believe that a poet's vocation is to express a moment of apocalyptic vision and to experience a profound spiritual insight. Char is unlike Jouve in that the latter poet works from a condition of darkness, from a traditional consideration of the dark night of the soul, into a state of illumination which endows that darkness with form and which gives a tangible body to forces once perceived as incoherent. Char, though working from our world into another, from the "world before" (l'avant-monde) into a present one, begins with light; the forces at work in his poetry function, in the words of one critic, like "fire on fire." Further, the world in which Char operates is similar to that described in Les Illuminations, one of a dreadful and hidden catastrophe…. For Char, a poet must seek to initiate the reader into such a world that he might understand not so much its history but its incoherence, its constant change, its chaos and diversity; the clarity of vision which results emphasizes, for both reader and poet, discovery and "harvest," a realization of change which is a condition of freedom.

Thus Char amplifies a description of the poet's calling to include a meaning of freedom which a poet teaches a reader. Char protests against any force, even light, which would deprive man of his liberty and against all those who would deny him its validity and presence. The initial statement of "Argument" is that "man flees from asphyxiation." This verse indicates that the poet's role, for Char, is to urge man continually to fight any tyranny which would choke him, any restriction in his choice of action that would enclose his attempt to find meaning in the world, any preconceived notion—even of liberty itself—that would terminate a possibility of his becoming his own self-defined identity. The meaning of freedom does not imply, for Char, a traditional Cartesian view of self-evident self-awareness; the implication in Cartesian freedom where being and existing are in the conscious mind alone would limit a poet, in Char's belief, to a closed world of perception. Nor would Char accept, as against Cartesian argument, a Freudian structure of uninhibited, unconscious thought, with either a resultant fantasy or a deformed view of the "real world." (Here Char's poetic is to be distinguished from the freedom of the Surrealists.) For Char it is impossible to speak of man's awareness of himself and of his search for freedom in terms of the unconscious opposing the conscious. To claim the rights of the former alone or to infer poetic value in such a dichotomy would impose tyranny; the tyranny is one of a closed view of a universe which Char is convinced must be seen, that is, conceived of, as poetically and essentially fluid in character.

In this fluidity of vision, which operates on both a moral level of freedom and on an esthetic one of poetic vocation, Char neither denies nor accepts Cartesian and Freudian statements. Rather he would search for a unity within the complexity of an entire given situation; he would seek a situation where his becoming his own self-defined freedom would be possible…. Char seeks an open situation, one where all "given" cases are available, one from which he can derive a unity of convictions concerning the poet's role, the value of poetry and the significance of liberty. As man flees a closed situation (asphyxia) on a moral level of action, so does a poet on an esthetic level of writing verse.

In this search for a fluid, open, situation (where both freedom and poetry are possible), a search which makes up the basis of a poet's calling, Char distinguishes between the poet and the non-poet. The non-poet seeks to sustain the various functions of life based on means which, in themselves, are not dependent on the imagination…. The non-poet works within a limited space. In the initial poem of Le Poème pulvérisé (also entitled "Argument") …, Char describes this non-poet: Les hommes d'aujourd'hui veulent que le poème soit à l'image faite de si peu d'espace et brûlée d'intolérance. Char's imagination works always within a limit of the possible terms of the spatial or realistic data; he finds in this spatial situation an inexhaustible source of poetic order. (pp. 789-92)

A fluid situation where a poet can fulfill his vocation of freedom is also one of premonition (l'homme qui s'épointe dans la prémonition). This premonition results from a spiritual crisis which leads to an esthetic that proves, as had written Baudelaire, an infallibility of the poetic production. The crisis does not derive from romantic inspiration, a sudden overwhelming, as a flooding of a river, in a disarray of emotions and observations. The crisis is, to be sure, similar to platonic furor. This furor, however, works precisely in terms of an open, spatial, concept which does not deny a pole of consciousness in favor of a pole of unconsciousness (a choice which romantic inspiration cannot resolve); or, in terms already discussed above, a rejection of a Cartesian world view in favor of a Freudian one. Char writes that a belief in the value of poetry can and must, especially in crisis, allow both positions; by allowing both extremes Char can posit a wider range of poetic production (as the Cubist painters found a wider range by allowing both realism and abstraction). In a more open, fluid, working area than would be available through either realism or through abstraction, a poet can find, first, an infallibility of change. He can then find a meaning to this change because two concepts work simultaneously and open up further possibilities of vision. (pp. 792-93)

In line with the problem of how reality is apprehended and seized and the question whether reality is understood through an extension of mind (entendement) or through a description of the role of the subconscious in understanding, Char would still insist upon the idea that to apprehend the world, a poet must see the given moment, the phenomenological moment which lies between conscious and subconscious. The phrase qui déboise dans son silence intérieur implies neither an inner act of a Cartesian sort which would seek a complete grasp through reason; nor would it indicate an act dependent upon subconscious past associations. A poet must bring himself into involvement with a visual world. (p. 793)

Therefore to write poetry is a process; a poet must present this process because—if it has value—it must consist (as it does for Char) in an affirmation of the outgoing nature of reality. This reality is one of a total experience wherein each individual can find beauty and freedom. This reality is further more than an act of the mind (as it is for Descartes, where the mind gathers together and intellectualizes experience and gives it truth as it becomes part of the mind). The mind, for Char, is truly poetic, is an over-all totality of metamorphoses: le répartit en théâtres. There is little passivity of a purely receptive sort in Char (or in Mallarmé, whom he at times resembles). For both poets it is the progressive nature of the poetic experience which counts, a gradual act of spreading the mind towards the object and a gradual bringing of objects toward the mind. This experience is in a very real way an act of theatre, with the stage as the mind and the audience as a phenomenal world that both gives sense to, and receives meaning from, the 'theatrical' image.

If it is a poet's vocation to understand and solve the problem of reality and to re-define the conditions of reality a poet must set forth, he must also have a belief in poetic vision. For Char, this vision is a redefinition of experience; seeing is thought of as a process of freedom…. This opening up is a process because a sensual perception is transferred to the intellectual and an intellectual abstraction is transferred to a sensory achievement available to others. That the perception and the abstraction are not contradictory is made possible by the poet's senses as they are poetically active.

Underlying such a process is a vision of change, the unifying force of life. Transhumance means the bringing down of cattle from the Alps in winter and taking them up in the spring. So is the verbe according to Char, moved and driven according to needs to conform to the hidden laws of life and the varied aspects of the world about him that are imposed by the poet's eye according to his unique and individual perceptions…. Char does not pose this dilemma of artistic creation; his attention remains in a more open and fluid field of a vision of change and movement. Nor would he seek to find in and through art (the verbe), in the words of one critic, "an intimation of immortality," as does Proust; Char does not discover in poetry, as would Valéry in La Jeune Parque, a means of awakening from the unconscious into the conscious where both lucidity of consciousness and simple pleasures are in vain (le néant). Char's concern with the verbe does not consist in posing questions of poetic achievement; of suffering, with its dichotomy of acceptance and rejection that must be resolved; or a view of the world as a becoming one thing and denying another. Char accepts the world of change as such and not, as in Christian belief, because it is a means whereby intentions are tested and motives purified.

Underlying this use of the verbe is a notion of light, the light where poetic vision and poetic creation occur. Light does not refute dark; for the stage set is, for Char, an interplay of dark and light in which the poet's voyage of exploration takes place…. For Rimbaud light is the théâtre or scène wherein a procession of disassociation and re-integration of images takes place. Light, for Char, rather than making clear a transformation of an object, holds the object; the light in Char is so intense that it appears dark and obscure. The images of his poetry are held, visibly, in such a flood of intense light that the order (économie) of the world is overwhelmed. The reader's eye is not accustomed to see so exclusively an object which constitutes an analogy corresponding to a truth a poet is seeking and therefore knowing.

Further, a vision of light does not change the properties of an object so that it appears to become another; nor does it involve an interchange of poet and object, as in Eluard, who wrote in Cours naturel: "Mille images de moi multiplient ma lumière," where it is a question of the metamorphoses of the individual poet through a vision of light. For Char, rather than a succession of possible meanings of an object or of possible meanings of an individual poet, the reader receives an impression of obscurity, so much is he used to an impurity of the visual object; Char uses this intensity of light, whose intensity tends to blind the reader or blur the form of the object, to clarify through breaking down pre-conceived notions of time and space which surround an object. It is the role of vision, and therefore a poetic devoir, to shatter these relationships; a poem becomes, through light, pulverized. Rather than a statement, a poem is a state of dialogue between light and dark, a dialogue which permits Char to distinguish the real world from the false. From such acts of distinction, which are in fact deeds (gestes), Char can proceed to define values.

Through these deeds flows life (le sang des gestes); the poet's mission is to enlarge (agrandir) this life. The enlarging of life, though it is accomplished on an esthetic level, does not mean that the outlines of the poet's object-analogy are continually enlarged (in a kind of romantic display of energy one might find in Hugo). It implies a further concern with giving direction to values: it is an operation of both breadth and depth. This operation has a moral intent (devoir de toute lumière). It implies a way of existence, or a world, similar to Baudelaire's, where there is an ultimate harmony of disparate elements.

Further, an acceptance of values in a world where we tend frequently to limit our knowledge of it is difficult. For Char this difficulty is one of being…. In so far as a poem is concerned, it has, on the one had, a power of song, similar to black magic, a power to cast a spell as does Valéry's charme. On the other hand, it has a power, through beauty, to redeem; it is not only le rossignol diabolique, it is also la clé angélique. This beauty operates in a poem as a kind of secular belief, one similar to the comtemplative mystic's finding a divine will which operates in the universe and testing experience by that operation. To be, similarly, for a poet such as Char, poses a dilemma: to ascertain what is impure in the world as a whole, without refusing to affirm the beauty possible in it. And although both poet and mystic remain aware of union and non-union with the object of contemplation, a poet, and again especially a poet like Char, experiences a necessary commitment to find expression for both aspects involved in contemplation. The situation must remain open.

This is not to deny that change, metamorphosis, transformation and above all freedom can not exist. There is a light which makes clear the presence of an object; so there is a light which makes clear a moral necessity…. Char believes in a constant presence of dignity and freedom, in their meaning of renewal and transformation of life. To act on this belief is to reduce evil, to project a future hope and faith, to affirm the presence of love. This belief is also an acknowledgement of a possible fulfillment of beauty through poetry.

The keyword to all of "Argument" is aoûtement, what a poet has gathered together of metaphors and images, beliefs and commitments. Aoûtement is read on several levels. The first is esthetic, the poem itself. A poem is the result of labor, in the sense of plowing, turning the seed under the soil. There is also a moral implication: a process of becoming through a cycle of growth. Char's thought is close to Gide's, in a concern for birth and death (Si le grain ne meurt); yet perhaps Char is more concerned than Gide with the eventual, completed cycle of ripening (aoûtement in the dialect sense of harvest). Again, rather than a Gidean alternation of kinds of experience, Char would seek a simultaneous action of deprivation and growth (aoûtement is also a technical term for a kind of pruning so that a twig is hardened).

This process acts upon itself, "fire upon fire," in a paradox of search for a substantial order through a recognition of constant change. Here Char follows Heraclitus and is close to a modern understanding of change as in T. S. Eliot…. As does Eliot, Char presents poetic or existential experiences which cross each other, stand in opposition to each other, so that not only experience as a whole might come to fruition but also a morale be defined, a morale Char defines in the last stanza of "Argument": Une dimension franchit le fruit de l'autre…. Again Char's ethic is distinct from a Gidean "either-or." Char might think of himself as "transported" (déporté) from the ties that bind (as does Gide at one moment before he accepts them in order to break away again), from work (attelage), from a permanent condition of love (noces). Char constructs once more (je bats le fer) of all things that do bind (fermoirs invisibles). Implicit is a profound acceptance of life, a desire to make the world understandable, to illumine the world.

Basically, "Argument" sets forth a purity of poetic vision which makes the world immediately available and a defense of any man who has "guarded and intensified the inner flame in his life" (in the words of Heraclitus), in a constant confrontation with dilemmas of violence and peace, blindness and sight. Char is close to Rilke, when the latter poet wrote, in speaking of one purpose of the Elegies, that this purpose was "to keep life open towards death," to show the true meaning of love and other human activities, as well of pain and sorrow, within this extended whole…." Further, as with Rilke's first elegy, Char's "Argument" gives us an "intuition into the unity of life and death and into the complementaries of sorrow and joy." Char, too, attempts a reconciliation of pain and sorrow: for if poetry is to have meaning, then the world from which the poem derives, must have meaning. The world's condition, as perceived by the senses, appears to be one of chaos. Yet the activity of the poetic mind, as set forth in "Argument," is to break and shatter this chaos, so that, from the fragmented perception, intellect and intuition, which partake both of mind and spirit, will make sense. (pp. 793-99)