An Analytical Study of René Char and His Influences

Rene Char (1907-1988) was a poet-resistance fighter born in L’Isle sur la Sorgue in the south of France. His work reflects the beauty of his native landscape, and yet his metaphorical language remains inaccessible. His elliptical and aphoristic writing style can be described as intense, hermetic and dense. Char, however did not become a noteworthy poet without inspiration by others. The way Char expressed his thoughts and emotions was influenced by such primogenitors as Victor Hugo, Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Eluard. This article analyzes of the origins of Char’s work and how he found his own style. The origins of Char’s work may be found in his interpretation of Romantic poets, about whom he wrote a prose text, Recherche de la base et du sommet, published in 1955. In particular, Char criticized Victor Hugo and at the same time recycled and built upon his writing style. Char’s descriptions of the natural world may have been influenced by Rimbaud. In 1956, Char paid homage to Rimbaud in his preface to Illumination in which he brought attention to Rimbaud’s depictions of nature. Char’s inspiration for his use of metaphorical language may also be found here. Finally, the influence of the surrealist movement on Char’s writing is also notable. His early poems attracted Eluard, who recruited him into the surrealist movement. Char left the surrealist movement after five years, however, in order to invent his own writing style. Char arrived at this style by building on other poet’s working through his own creative process. In his mature style, he wrote poems in which he defined other poems; that is to say, he arrived at his own unique form of rhetoric by describing the poetry of other famous poets.