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Leaves of Hypnos
A war had begun which, though most of his country was soon occupied, occupied Rene Char still more. He was about 36 then. And the poetic journal he kept of and at that time comes to us under the auspices of his Resistance code-name, Hypnos, the Greek divinity of Sleep. As for the present work, the "leaves" remind the translator of Rimbaud's from a Season in Hell, but this is no longer a private hell expatiated into a vision of the human condition, but a public hell drawn from, exceeded by, a sense of responsibility.
237 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1946
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About the author
René Char
147 books130 followersRené Char spent his childhood in Névons, the substantial family home completed at his birth, then studied as a boarder at the school of Avignon and subsequently, in 1925, a student at L'École de Commerce de Marseille, where he read Plutarch, François Villon, Racine, the German Romantics, Alfred de Vigny, Gérard de Nerval and Charles Baudelaire.
His first book, Cloches sur le cœur was published in 1928 as a compilation of poems written between 1922 and 1926. In late November 1929, Char moved to Paris, where he met Louis Aragon, André Breton, and René Crevel, and joined the surrealists. He remained active in the surrealist movement through the early 1930s but distanced himself gradually from the mid-1930s onward. Throughout his career, Char's work appeared in various editions, often with artwork by notable figures, including Kandinsky, Picasso, Braque, Miró, Matisse and Vieira da Silva.
Char was a friend and close associate of Albert Camus, Georges Bataille and Maurice Blanchot among writers, Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, Nicolas de Staël, Georges Braque and Victor Brauner among painters. He was to have been in the car involved in the accident that killed both Camus and Gallimard, but there was not enough room, and returned instead that day by train to Paris.
The composer Pierre Boulez wrote three settings of Char's poetry, Le Soleil des eaux, Le visage nuptial, and Le marteau sans maître. A late friendship developed also between Char and Martin Heidegger, who described Char's poetry as "a tour de force into the ineffable" and was repeatedly his guest at La Thor in the Vaucluse.
His first book, Cloches sur le cœur was published in 1928 as a compilation of poems written between 1922 and 1926. In late November 1929, Char moved to Paris, where he met Louis Aragon, André Breton, and René Crevel, and joined the surrealists. He remained active in the surrealist movement through the early 1930s but distanced himself gradually from the mid-1930s onward. Throughout his career, Char's work appeared in various editions, often with artwork by notable figures, including Kandinsky, Picasso, Braque, Miró, Matisse and Vieira da Silva.
Char was a friend and close associate of Albert Camus, Georges Bataille and Maurice Blanchot among writers, Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, Nicolas de Staël, Georges Braque and Victor Brauner among painters. He was to have been in the car involved in the accident that killed both Camus and Gallimard, but there was not enough room, and returned instead that day by train to Paris.
The composer Pierre Boulez wrote three settings of Char's poetry, Le Soleil des eaux, Le visage nuptial, and Le marteau sans maître. A late friendship developed also between Char and Martin Heidegger, who described Char's poetry as "a tour de force into the ineffable" and was repeatedly his guest at La Thor in the Vaucluse.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 44 reviews
January 28, 2017
Begin with the ends: of resistance, surviving its course; of repetition, seeking to avoid itself; of history, archived in fragments tossed against the sky that drift down sleepily, warily, as so many autumnal leaves.
René Char, mid-war: the occupation looks interminable and friends are dying. What's a poet to do? What's this poet been doing? What, wait: listen.
Scribbled away and hidden until the war's conclusion, these are messages secreted for the nearly-forbidden future. That's us, now. Not quite aphorisms (those would be too modern); more closely fragments like those of Char's guide, Heraclitus: think arches, their pillars long obscured and fractured but no less audacious.
Darkness returns. In hiding is to be daily at risk of discovery; Hypnos might be the god you pray to, dropping sleep in your eyes, in the eyes of those who would see you: Hypnos might be the sign of the shadows come alive.
Take notes. The madness of unreason burns bright.
174. The loss of truth, the deadweight of that organized ignominy called 'good' (evil, when not depraved but whimsical and inspired, is useful) has opened a wound in man's side that only the hope of the unformulated far horizon (a plenitude of life despaired of) makes bearable. If the absurd is to be lord and master here on earth, then I opt for the absurd, the anti-static, whatever weights the passions in my favour. I'm a man of the river-banks -- of erosion and inflammation -- for I cannot always be of the mountain stream.
René Char, mid-war: the occupation looks interminable and friends are dying. What's a poet to do? What's this poet been doing? What, wait: listen.
153. I see more clearly now the need to simplify, to have everything working together as one, when it comes to deciding whether such and such a thing needs to be done. Man is sorry to have to leave his labyrinth. The age-old myths urge him not to go.
154. The poet, inclined to exaggerate, thinks clearly under duress.
Scribbled away and hidden until the war's conclusion, these are messages secreted for the nearly-forbidden future. That's us, now. Not quite aphorisms (those would be too modern); more closely fragments like those of Char's guide, Heraclitus: think arches, their pillars long obscured and fractured but no less audacious.
183. We fight on the bridge thrown between the vulnerable individual and his ricochet at the fountainhead of formal power.
Darkness returns. In hiding is to be daily at risk of discovery; Hypnos might be the god you pray to, dropping sleep in your eyes, in the eyes of those who would see you: Hypnos might be the sign of the shadows come alive.
135. You don’t need to love your fellow men to be of real help to them. All you need is to wish to improve that look in their eyes when they behold someone even more impoverished than themselves, to prolong for a second some agreeable moment in their lives. Once you’ve adopted this approach, treating each root in turn, their breathing becomes more peaceful. Above all, don’t cut out the more arduous paths altogether, for after the effort comes the tearful and fruitful evidence of truth.
Take notes. The madness of unreason burns bright.
201. The way of hiding shimmers in the heat.
November 22, 2017
Η απόφαση να διαβάσω Char ήταν μάλλον τυχαία, ωστόσο έπαιξε ρόλο η συγκεκριμένη έκδοση που φλέρταρα καιρό μαζί της. Μάλλον όχι αδικαιολόγητα! Ο ποιητικός λόγος του Char είναι πολύ διαφορετικός από άλλους αφού διέπεται έντονα από το προσωπικό και ιστορικό στοιχείο. Ο Char ως μέλος της γαλλικής Αντίστασης και με βαθιά συναίσθηση του ρόλου του αντάρτη, στην ουσία ξεδιπλώνει στα Φύλλα του ένα καλοστημένο σημειωματαριο/ημερολόγιο και αφήνει τον αναγνώστη να ψηλαφήση μέρος από τη ζωή του κατά τη διαρκεια της Αντίστασης, ενώ ταυτόχρονα φωτίζει στιγμές του σημερινου κόσμου, της χώρας του (Γαλλια) και της ίδιας της Ευρώπης. Συγκίνηση προκαλουν τα ποιηματα για τις σφαγες αμάχων και αντιστασιακών, ο πόνος και η φρίκη που έζησε ο ίδιος, αλλά και άλλα -ποιηματα/αποφθέγματα- που μας παρουσιάζουν έναν ποιητή με πολύ συναίσθημα και όπου ο ίδιος μέσα από την ποιηση προσπαθεί να αντισταθεί στο κακο, στη φρίκη και στον πολεμο..σε μια καθημερινοτητα που μπορει να εξωθήσει τον καθε ανθρωπο στην τρελα και την απομονωση. Ως προς τη μεταφραση, εαν και τα ταπεινα γαλλικα μου ειναι βρεφικά, τολμω να πω οτι έχει γινει μια πολυ καλη προσπαθεια αποδοσης ενος ιδιαιτερου ποιητικου λόγου. Η δυναμη του ίδιου του λόγου κερδίζει τον αναγνώστη, που θα πρότεινα να μην διαβάσει επιδερμικα και βιαστικά ένα έργο που έχει κρυμμενους θησαυρους.
April 16, 2020
A masterpiece of a poet calling this work a masterpiece was enough for me to venture in. I've had my first exposure to Char recently as well, and honestly, with no embellishments, I adore this little book.
July 5, 2019
Read with a friend, quite lovely little fragments and entries
March 15, 2012
When World War II broke out, the poet René Char, who had made a name for himself in the 1930s with a couple of collections of surrealist verse, took part in the French Resistence. Char's campaign of subterfuge against the German occupation, which he carried out under the nom de guerre Capitaine Alexandre, pushed him to his physical and mental limits, and writing traditional poetry under the circumstances was out of the question. What he produced instead were the 237 fragments collected under the name Feuillets d'Hypnos. These reflections, meditations, aphorisms and maxims were often written in extreme cold and fatigue, under a colour reproduction tacked up on the wall of Georges de la Tour's painting "Prisonnier" (which art historians now believe to be titled "Job Reassured by his Wife").
Some of these fragments are little more than diaristic reports of the Resistance's campaign: the death of one comrade (157), the execution by the SS of another, which Char could witness from several hundred feet away but not prevent (138), and a close call where Char and his men were nearly caught by the Germans (128).
But it is when the pressure of war impacts on Char's imagination that the real poetry of this volume appears. Just to quote some of the shorter ones:
"L'éternite n'est guère plus longue que la vie." (110)
"C'est quand tu es ivre de chagrin que tu n'as plus du chagrin que le cristal." (201)
"L'acte est vierge, même répété." (46)
"Notre héritage n'est précédé d'aucun testament." (62)
"Conduire le réel jusqu'à l'action comme une fleur glissée àla bouche acide des petits enfants. Connaissance ineffable du diamant désespéré (la vie)." (3)
"Nous sommes pareils à ces poissons retenus vifs dans la glace des lacs de montagne. La matière et la nature semblent les protéger cependant qu'elles limitent à peine la chance du pêcheur."
Such a collection is the very definition of uneven, but though the majority of the fragments won't especially impress you, some will continue to resonate for long after, so it is worth getting acquainted with. And the collection has influenced later poets, such as Pia Tafdrup in her Over vandet går jeg.
The paperback edition in Gallimard's FolioPlus Classiques series is a convenient way to approach the text and learn about the fascinating context in which it was written. Char's 237 aphorisms are followed by commentary by Marie-Françoise Delecroix and Alain Jaubert. The cover shows "Prisonnier" by Georges de la Tour that was Char's companion in the writing, and Jaubert contributes a chapter about this painting and how Char discovered it. There is a discussion of Char's activities during the Resistance, the genre to which Feuillets d'Hypnos belongs, and how some other French literary figures resisted.
Some of these fragments are little more than diaristic reports of the Resistance's campaign: the death of one comrade (157), the execution by the SS of another, which Char could witness from several hundred feet away but not prevent (138), and a close call where Char and his men were nearly caught by the Germans (128).
But it is when the pressure of war impacts on Char's imagination that the real poetry of this volume appears. Just to quote some of the shorter ones:
"L'éternite n'est guère plus longue que la vie." (110)
"C'est quand tu es ivre de chagrin que tu n'as plus du chagrin que le cristal." (201)
"L'acte est vierge, même répété." (46)
"Notre héritage n'est précédé d'aucun testament." (62)
"Conduire le réel jusqu'à l'action comme une fleur glissée àla bouche acide des petits enfants. Connaissance ineffable du diamant désespéré (la vie)." (3)
"Nous sommes pareils à ces poissons retenus vifs dans la glace des lacs de montagne. La matière et la nature semblent les protéger cependant qu'elles limitent à peine la chance du pêcheur."
Such a collection is the very definition of uneven, but though the majority of the fragments won't especially impress you, some will continue to resonate for long after, so it is worth getting acquainted with. And the collection has influenced later poets, such as Pia Tafdrup in her Over vandet går jeg.
The paperback edition in Gallimard's FolioPlus Classiques series is a convenient way to approach the text and learn about the fascinating context in which it was written. Char's 237 aphorisms are followed by commentary by Marie-Françoise Delecroix and Alain Jaubert. The cover shows "Prisonnier" by Georges de la Tour that was Char's companion in the writing, and Jaubert contributes a chapter about this painting and how Char discovered it. There is a discussion of Char's activities during the Resistance, the genre to which Feuillets d'Hypnos belongs, and how some other French literary figures resisted.
December 18, 2015
The rare moments of freedom are those during which the unconscious becomes conscious and the consciousness nothing (or a mad orchard).
January 13, 2008
Les Feuillets d'Hypnos (Leaves of Hypnos) are mostly short aphorisms written by René Char when he was fighting nazism under the cover name of "Capitaine Alexandre" in the French Resistance during WW2. Sometimes Char is hard to read, but les Feuillets are extremely direct, strong. They speak of the confrontation of death with betrayal, and of the regression to a out-of-Time mankind, guided only by lights of friendship.
July 17, 2017
I can't even describe how much I love this book--and how much I wish this copy were mine, rather than the library's. This is the major reason why I hate to check books out from the library; if I love the book, I still have to return it.
July 17, 2023
I actually read a different translation (2014) but goodreads didn't recognize it- This short journal, pensee, epigram, notes record originally written during ww2 when Char was a resistance leader is highly unusual and bracing. I cant think of any other poet's war writings that convey experience, courage, danger, poetry, liberty, honor in this nearly surrealist or invented style. almost religious in its effect.
May 4, 2015
"In the darkness of our lives, there is not one place for Beauty. The whole place is for Beauty." First published in 1946 as Feuillets d'Hypnos and hailed by poet Paul Eluard as an "absolute masterpiece," René Char's journal of the French Resistance was later translated into German by Paul Celan and into Italian by Vittorio Sereni. Mark Hutchinson's new translation of the French Surrealist poet's journal marks its first publication in English. Hypnos includes 237 equally luminous and enigmatic prose poems and aphorisms from Char's war-time journal.
October 7, 2016
I've read this in a plane in its French version and couldn't stop admiring the style and simplicity of it all. A truly magical and deep experience, speaking to the inner self of many. What would we have done in the same context? Would we be have been as magnificent and brave as Char? Would we have translated or felt beauty and resilience in the same way? A very inspiring read for all generations to come, and one of Char's best collection of poems I've ever read. Highly recommend.
June 6, 2017
It is so tempting to interpret this as a chronicle from the French Resistance. Even Rene Char comments in one entry that he must resist the urge to relate events directly. One can assume that partly this urge was practical - no paper trail in case of capture - as well as his poetics.
I found the entries to be elegant, vivid, and spare. Rene Char writes with a deep passion that feels as if it is hunting for an absolute truth amid the ambiguities of his situation.
I found the entries to be elegant, vivid, and spare. Rene Char writes with a deep passion that feels as if it is hunting for an absolute truth amid the ambiguities of his situation.
August 1, 2007
I have the Mushinsha edition of this book, which is gorgeous, as are all Mushinsha books.
September 4, 2019
"Στα σκοτάδια μας δεν υπάρχει θέση για την Ομορφιά. Όλος ο χώρος είναι για την Ομορφιά."
March 7, 2025
I’m afraid I can do no better than quoting from the poetry/fragments directly (e.g., “Light up the imagination of those who stammer when they mean to speak, who blush when they state their view. They are staunch partisans.”) Some speak directly to me — “Thrust into the unknown, which burrows deep. Force yourself to keep turning.”
Poetry in a sense is fuel for the imagination of a person or people. It is the images or fragments that give color and shape to the horizon of our world. Hypnos illuminates the forces in the world of a poet during his committed leadership with the french resistance during Nazi occupation in France.
It is the hope in the future — mirrors of personal relations — the sense of our enemy — truths discovered at an archetypal juncture — poetry of the practical abstract — and knowledge of what a given moment means for the past or future or now.
4. “We have taken stock, over every inch of our bodies, of the pain the torturer may one day exact; then, with a heavy heart, have gone out to face him.”
8. “The moment the instinct for survival gives way to the instinct for possession, reasonable human beings lose all sense of their probable lifespan and day-to-day equilibrium.”
16. “Intelligence with the angel, our prime concern. (Angel: that which, in man, keeps the word of the utmost silence, the meaning that cannot be pinned down, free from any compromise with religion.”
19. “The poet cannot remain for long in the stratosphere of the Word. He must curl up in fresh tears and push on into his own estate.”
30. “Archduke confides to me that it was on joining the Resistance that he found himself. Prior to that, he had been a froward and mistrustful actor in his life. Insincerity was poisoning him. Little by little, he was being overcome by a barren sadness. Today, he loves, spends out, commits himself, goes naked, provokes. I think very highly of this alchemist.”
49. “What might seem enticing about oblivion is that the most beautiful day there can be any day at all. (Cut down this branch. No swarm will ever hang from it.)”
81. “Acquiescence lights up the face. Refusal gives it beauty.”
132. “It seems that the imagination which in varying degrees haunts the mind of every living creature is quick to abandon it when the latter has only the ‘impossible’ and the ‘inaccessible’ as ultimate mission to propose. Poetry it has to be allowed, is not everywhere sovereign.”
153. “I see more clearly now the need to simplify, to have everything working together as one, when it comes to deciding whether such and such a thing needs to be done. Man is sorry to have to leave his labyrinth. The age-old myths urge him not to go.”
I think this translation and edition is great. 237 fragments, ranging wide and centered, all concise. The story of Char’s writing is told in brief as well. I’ll keep it on my keep-rereading shelf and in my back pocket for a long time to come. CF, I cherish your recommendation.
Poetry in a sense is fuel for the imagination of a person or people. It is the images or fragments that give color and shape to the horizon of our world. Hypnos illuminates the forces in the world of a poet during his committed leadership with the french resistance during Nazi occupation in France.
It is the hope in the future — mirrors of personal relations — the sense of our enemy — truths discovered at an archetypal juncture — poetry of the practical abstract — and knowledge of what a given moment means for the past or future or now.
4. “We have taken stock, over every inch of our bodies, of the pain the torturer may one day exact; then, with a heavy heart, have gone out to face him.”
8. “The moment the instinct for survival gives way to the instinct for possession, reasonable human beings lose all sense of their probable lifespan and day-to-day equilibrium.”
16. “Intelligence with the angel, our prime concern. (Angel: that which, in man, keeps the word of the utmost silence, the meaning that cannot be pinned down, free from any compromise with religion.”
19. “The poet cannot remain for long in the stratosphere of the Word. He must curl up in fresh tears and push on into his own estate.”
30. “Archduke confides to me that it was on joining the Resistance that he found himself. Prior to that, he had been a froward and mistrustful actor in his life. Insincerity was poisoning him. Little by little, he was being overcome by a barren sadness. Today, he loves, spends out, commits himself, goes naked, provokes. I think very highly of this alchemist.”
49. “What might seem enticing about oblivion is that the most beautiful day there can be any day at all. (Cut down this branch. No swarm will ever hang from it.)”
81. “Acquiescence lights up the face. Refusal gives it beauty.”
132. “It seems that the imagination which in varying degrees haunts the mind of every living creature is quick to abandon it when the latter has only the ‘impossible’ and the ‘inaccessible’ as ultimate mission to propose. Poetry it has to be allowed, is not everywhere sovereign.”
153. “I see more clearly now the need to simplify, to have everything working together as one, when it comes to deciding whether such and such a thing needs to be done. Man is sorry to have to leave his labyrinth. The age-old myths urge him not to go.”
I think this translation and edition is great. 237 fragments, ranging wide and centered, all concise. The story of Char’s writing is told in brief as well. I’ll keep it on my keep-rereading shelf and in my back pocket for a long time to come. CF, I cherish your recommendation.
July 8, 2021
Sota-aikana kirjoitettu moderni klassikko, ehkä yksi parhaista lukemistani aforismikokoelmista.
Mark Hutchinsonin oivallinen englanninkielinen käännöskin kulkee puhelimessa mukana, ja aika ajoin niihin tulee syvennyttyä...
Mark Hutchinsonin oivallinen englanninkielinen käännöskin kulkee puhelimessa mukana, ja aika ajoin niihin tulee syvennyttyä...
November 9, 2020
Θα τη χαρακτήριζα μια συλλογή με αφορισμούς παρά με ποιήματα, αλλά όπως και να έχει, είναι βαθύτατα στοχαστική.
January 20, 2022
As much as possible, teach to become effective, for the end to be attained by not beyond. Beyond is smoke. Where there is smoke there is change.
* * *
The poet's effort aims to transform old enemies into loyal adversaries, every fertile tomorrow being, especially where surges forth, entwines, declines, is decimated the whole gamut of sail where the wind of continents surrenders its heart to the wind of the deeps.
* * *
All authorities, tactics, and ingenuity cannot replace a particle of conviction in the service of truth. This commonplace I think I have improved upon.
* * *
The time seen through the image is a time lost from view. Being and time are quite different. The image sparkles eternal, when it has exceeded being and time.
* * *
The poet cannot long dwell in the stratosphere of the Word. he must coil up in new tears and push on even more into his order.
* * *
I think of that army of cowards with their appetite for dictatorship that will perhaps be seen again in power, in this forgetful country, by those who will survive this time of damned algebra.
* * *
Bitter future, bitter future, a dance amongst the rosebushes....
* * *
TO THE PRUDENT: It i snowing on the marquis and there's a perpetual chase after us. You whose house does not weep, with whom avarice crushes love, in the succession of hot days, your fire is only a male nurse. Too late. Your cancer has spoken. The country of your birth has no more power.
* * *
Time is no longer seconded by clocks whose handles devour each other today on the dial face of man. Time is couchgrass; and man will become couchgrass sperm.
* * *
There exists a sort of man always ahead of his excrement.
* * *
I write briefly. I can scarcely be absent too long. To expatiate would get obsessive. The adoration of shepherds is of no use now to the planet.
* * *
A man without faults is a mountain without crevasses. He doesn't interest me.
* * *
We are being torn apart between the avidity for knowing and the despair of having known. The goad will not renounce its sting and we our hope.
* * *
If there were not sometimes the imperviousness of boredom, the heart would stop beating.
* * *
I dream of a country festooned, benevolent, suddenly irritated by the labours of its sages while moved by the zeal of some gods, at the approaches of women.
* * *
I'm not afraid. Only I get vertigo. I must reduce the distance between the enemy and myself. Face him horizontally.
* * *
The poem is furious ascension; poetry, the sport of arid embankments.
* * *
Brighten the imagination of those who stammer instead of speaking, who blush the moment they assert something. These are steadfast partisans.
* * *
Our heritage was not preceded by any testament.
* * *
If I consent tot his apprehension that wills to life its cowardice, I at once bring into the world a host of formal friendships that fly to my aid.
* * *
I see man lost through political perversions, confusing action and expiation, calling his annihilation conquest.
* * *
What matters most in certain situations is to curb euphoria in time.
* * *
The poet, conserver of the infinite faces of the living.
* * *
The purest harvests are sown in a soil that doesn't exist. They eliminate gratitude and are owed only to spring.
* * *
You cannot reread yourself but you can sign.
* * *
The poem's line of flight. It should be within the power of each to feel.
* * *
We must surmount our rage and our disgust, we must have them shared, so as to elevate and enlarge our action as our morale.
* * *
Memory is without effect upon recollection. Recollection is powerless against memory. Happiness no longer rises.
* * *
The eyes alone are still capable of uttering a cry.
* * *
Light has been chased from our eyes. It is buried somewhere in our bones. In our turn we chase it to restore to it its crown.
* * *
I'll not write any poem of acquiescence.
* * *
You hold a match to your lamp and what is lit provides no light. It is far, far away from you, that the circle illuminates.
* * *
Between reality and its report, there is your life which magnifies reality, and this Nazi abasement which ruins its report.
* * *
We are like those toads who in the austere night of the marshes call without seeing each other, bending to their love cry all the fatality of the universe.
* * *
At all the meals taken in common, we invite freedom to have a seat. Its place remains empty but it stays set.
* * *
It seems that the imagination which haunts to varying degree the mind of every creature is hardpressed to part company with it when this latter proposes to it only "the impossible" and "the inaccessible" as its utmost mission. It must be admitted that poetry is not everywhere sovereign.
* * *
It's enthusiasm that lifts the weight of the years. It's deceit that relates the weariness of the century.
* * *
Life should begin with an explosion and end with a concordat? It's absurd.
* * *
It's a strange feeling, to determine the destiny of certain beings. Without your intervention the mediocre turntable of their lives would not otherwise have balked. Whereas here they are given to the great pathetic contingency....
* * *
I understand better today this need of simplifying, of bringing all into one, at the moment of deciding if such a thing should occur or not. Man withdraws reluctantly from his labyrinth. The millenial myths urge him not to go.
* * *
The poet, susceptible to exaggeration, evaluates accurately when on the rack.
* * *
Accumulate, then distribute. Of the mirror of the universe be the part that is densest, most useful and least apparent.
* * *
Keep with respect to others what you have promised yourself alone. That is your contract.
* * *
This is the epoch when the poet feels rising in him the meridian power of ascension.
* * *
Faithful and inordinately vulnerable, we oppose the consciousness of event to the gratuitous (another defecated saying).
* * *
Resistance is only hope. Like the moon of Hypnos full tonight in all it quarters, tomorrow vision upon the passage of poems.
* * *
The rare moments of liberty are those during which are unconscious becomes conscious and consciousness nothing (or a crazy orchard).
* * *
I pity the one who makes another pay his own debt while aggravating them with the prestige of false vacuity.
* * *
This is the hour when windows escape houses to catch fire at the end of the world where our world is going to dawn.
* * *
Are we doomed to being only the beginnings of truth?
* * *
Between the world of reality and me, there's no longer today any sad thickness.
* * *
If life could only be a disappointed sleep....
* * *
There are two ages for the poet: the age during which poetry, in all regards, mistreats him, and that when she lets herself be madly embraces. But neither is wholly defined. And the second is not sovereign.
* * *
It is when you are drunk with sorrow that you haven't any longer sorrow but its crystal.
* * *
Doubt is fund at the origin of all greatness. Historical injustice does its utmost not to mention it. Such doubt is genius. Don't compare it with the uncertain which is provoked by the crumbling of the powers of sensation.
* * *
In your conscious body, reality is in advance of a few minutes of imagination. This time never overtaken is a chasm alien to the acts of this world. It is never a simple shadow despite its odour of nocturnal clemency, of religious survival, of incorruptible childhood.
* * *
Formerly at the moment I got into bed, the idea of a death for the time being in the bosom of sleep proved pacifying, today I go to sleep to live some hours.
* * *
Man is capable of doing what he is incapable of imagining. His head ploughs through the galaxy of the absurd.
* * *
The exceptional neither intoxicates nor moves his murderer to pity. The former, alas, has eyes that are needed for killing.
* * *
Eyelids at the gates of a fluid happiness like the flesh of a shellfish, eyelids that the eye in fury cannot capsize, eyelids, how sufficient!
* * *
In the depths of our darkness there is no one place for Beauty. The whole place is for Beauty.
- pg. 1
* * *
The poet's effort aims to transform old enemies into loyal adversaries, every fertile tomorrow being, especially where surges forth, entwines, declines, is decimated the whole gamut of sail where the wind of continents surrenders its heart to the wind of the deeps.
- pg. 6
* * *
All authorities, tactics, and ingenuity cannot replace a particle of conviction in the service of truth. This commonplace I think I have improved upon.
- pg. 10
* * *
The time seen through the image is a time lost from view. Being and time are quite different. The image sparkles eternal, when it has exceeded being and time.
- pg. 13
* * *
The poet cannot long dwell in the stratosphere of the Word. he must coil up in new tears and push on even more into his order.
- pg. 19
* * *
I think of that army of cowards with their appetite for dictatorship that will perhaps be seen again in power, in this forgetful country, by those who will survive this time of damned algebra.
- pg. 20
* * *
Bitter future, bitter future, a dance amongst the rosebushes....
- pg. 21
* * *
TO THE PRUDENT: It i snowing on the marquis and there's a perpetual chase after us. You whose house does not weep, with whom avarice crushes love, in the succession of hot days, your fire is only a male nurse. Too late. Your cancer has spoken. The country of your birth has no more power.
- pg. 22
* * *
Time is no longer seconded by clocks whose handles devour each other today on the dial face of man. Time is couchgrass; and man will become couchgrass sperm.
- pg. 26
* * *
There exists a sort of man always ahead of his excrement.
- pg. 28
* * *
I write briefly. I can scarcely be absent too long. To expatiate would get obsessive. The adoration of shepherds is of no use now to the planet.
- pg. 31
* * *
A man without faults is a mountain without crevasses. He doesn't interest me.
- pg. 32
* * *
We are being torn apart between the avidity for knowing and the despair of having known. The goad will not renounce its sting and we our hope.
- pg. 39
* * *
If there were not sometimes the imperviousness of boredom, the heart would stop beating.
- pg. 41
* * *
I dream of a country festooned, benevolent, suddenly irritated by the labours of its sages while moved by the zeal of some gods, at the approaches of women.
- pg. 45
* * *
I'm not afraid. Only I get vertigo. I must reduce the distance between the enemy and myself. Face him horizontally.
- pg. 48
* * *
The poem is furious ascension; poetry, the sport of arid embankments.
- pg. 56
* * *
Brighten the imagination of those who stammer instead of speaking, who blush the moment they assert something. These are steadfast partisans.
- pg. 60
* * *
Our heritage was not preceded by any testament.
- pg. 62
* * *
If I consent tot his apprehension that wills to life its cowardice, I at once bring into the world a host of formal friendships that fly to my aid.
- pg. 66
* * *
I see man lost through political perversions, confusing action and expiation, calling his annihilation conquest.
- pg. 69
* * *
What matters most in certain situations is to curb euphoria in time.
- pg. 78
* * *
The poet, conserver of the infinite faces of the living.
- pg. 83
* * *
The purest harvests are sown in a soil that doesn't exist. They eliminate gratitude and are owed only to spring.
- pg. 86
* * *
You cannot reread yourself but you can sign.
- pg. 96
* * *
The poem's line of flight. It should be within the power of each to feel.
- pg. 98
* * *
We must surmount our rage and our disgust, we must have them shared, so as to elevate and enlarge our action as our morale.
- pg. 100
* * *
Memory is without effect upon recollection. Recollection is powerless against memory. Happiness no longer rises.
- pg. 102
* * *
The eyes alone are still capable of uttering a cry.
- pg. 104
* * *
Light has been chased from our eyes. It is buried somewhere in our bones. In our turn we chase it to restore to it its crown.
- pg. 111
* * *
I'll not write any poem of acquiescence.
- pg. 114
* * *
You hold a match to your lamp and what is lit provides no light. It is far, far away from you, that the circle illuminates.
- pg. 120
* * *
Between reality and its report, there is your life which magnifies reality, and this Nazi abasement which ruins its report.
- pg. 126
* * *
We are like those toads who in the austere night of the marshes call without seeing each other, bending to their love cry all the fatality of the universe.
- pg. 129
* * *
At all the meals taken in common, we invite freedom to have a seat. Its place remains empty but it stays set.
- pg. 131
* * *
It seems that the imagination which haunts to varying degree the mind of every creature is hardpressed to part company with it when this latter proposes to it only "the impossible" and "the inaccessible" as its utmost mission. It must be admitted that poetry is not everywhere sovereign.
- pg. 132
* * *
It's enthusiasm that lifts the weight of the years. It's deceit that relates the weariness of the century.
- pg. 139
* * *
Life should begin with an explosion and end with a concordat? It's absurd.
- pg. 140
* * *
It's a strange feeling, to determine the destiny of certain beings. Without your intervention the mediocre turntable of their lives would not otherwise have balked. Whereas here they are given to the great pathetic contingency....
- pg. 150
* * *
I understand better today this need of simplifying, of bringing all into one, at the moment of deciding if such a thing should occur or not. Man withdraws reluctantly from his labyrinth. The millenial myths urge him not to go.
- pg. 153
* * *
The poet, susceptible to exaggeration, evaluates accurately when on the rack.
- pg. 154
* * *
Accumulate, then distribute. Of the mirror of the universe be the part that is densest, most useful and least apparent.
- pg. 156
* * *
Keep with respect to others what you have promised yourself alone. That is your contract.
- pg. 161
* * *
This is the epoch when the poet feels rising in him the meridian power of ascension.
- pg. 162
* * *
Faithful and inordinately vulnerable, we oppose the consciousness of event to the gratuitous (another defecated saying).
- pg. 164
* * *
Resistance is only hope. Like the moon of Hypnos full tonight in all it quarters, tomorrow vision upon the passage of poems.
- pg. 168
* * *
The rare moments of liberty are those during which are unconscious becomes conscious and consciousness nothing (or a crazy orchard).
- pg. 170
* * *
I pity the one who makes another pay his own debt while aggravating them with the prestige of false vacuity.
- pg. 172
* * *
This is the hour when windows escape houses to catch fire at the end of the world where our world is going to dawn.
- pg. 180
* * *
Are we doomed to being only the beginnings of truth?
- pg. 186
* * *
Between the world of reality and me, there's no longer today any sad thickness.
- pg.188
* * *
If life could only be a disappointed sleep....
- pg. 198
* * *
There are two ages for the poet: the age during which poetry, in all regards, mistreats him, and that when she lets herself be madly embraces. But neither is wholly defined. And the second is not sovereign.
- pg. 199
* * *
It is when you are drunk with sorrow that you haven't any longer sorrow but its crystal.
- pg. 200
* * *
Doubt is fund at the origin of all greatness. Historical injustice does its utmost not to mention it. Such doubt is genius. Don't compare it with the uncertain which is provoked by the crumbling of the powers of sensation.
- pg. 205
* * *
In your conscious body, reality is in advance of a few minutes of imagination. This time never overtaken is a chasm alien to the acts of this world. It is never a simple shadow despite its odour of nocturnal clemency, of religious survival, of incorruptible childhood.
- pg. 218
* * *
Formerly at the moment I got into bed, the idea of a death for the time being in the bosom of sleep proved pacifying, today I go to sleep to live some hours.
- pg. 224
* * *
Man is capable of doing what he is incapable of imagining. His head ploughs through the galaxy of the absurd.
- pg. 227
* * *
The exceptional neither intoxicates nor moves his murderer to pity. The former, alas, has eyes that are needed for killing.
- pg. 232
* * *
Eyelids at the gates of a fluid happiness like the flesh of a shellfish, eyelids that the eye in fury cannot capsize, eyelids, how sufficient!
- pg. 234
* * *
In the depths of our darkness there is no one place for Beauty. The whole place is for Beauty.
- pg. 237
November 19, 2008
I like the lyrical, but I don't like war.
January 11, 2016
My head responded with clamor of shell blast and bullet wound, and the silence of the pen and the peace that follows.
Read
January 12, 2017Solitario e molteplice. Veglia e sonno come una spada nel fodero. Stomaco degli alimenti divisi. Altitudine di cero.
May 15, 2017
Hypnoksen muistikirja on mahtava, ihastuttava, hämmentävä mutta haastava runokirja. Tämä on tekele, joka on vaatinut paljon kirjoittajaltaan, mutta myös lukijaltaan. Se on täynnä sanojen voimaa.
June 15, 2023
"In the darkness of our lives, there is not one place for Beauty. The whole place is for Beauty" (65).
A haunting and lyrical fragment of history recovered from war-torn France. Char kept notes throughout 1943-1944 while working as a part of the Resistance in the Maquis, which he buried in a cellar and later reclaimed and published in 1946. Enigmatic and piercing, these entries vary between reports of deaths and hardship, conversations with others, and philosophical musings.
"Wed, and do not wed, your home" (13).
It makes complete sense that Paul Celan was the one to translate this untraditional text into German; so much of Char's writing reminded me of Celan's ineluctable sparseness, in addition to their shared preoccupation with human suffering and resilience. Stylistically and topically, Kaminsky is another relevant (contemporary) poet; if you were transfixed by Deaf Republic, I would recommend this for further reading.
P.S. Could someone teach a course on this in-between genre of literature, please? Bluets, To Painting, etc. It seems to reach even beyond the lyric essay? Long live the fragment.
"We are like those frogs who, in the austerity of the marshes at night, call to but cannot see one another, bending the fatal arc of the universe to their cry of love" (36-37).
A haunting and lyrical fragment of history recovered from war-torn France. Char kept notes throughout 1943-1944 while working as a part of the Resistance in the Maquis, which he buried in a cellar and later reclaimed and published in 1946. Enigmatic and piercing, these entries vary between reports of deaths and hardship, conversations with others, and philosophical musings.
"Wed, and do not wed, your home" (13).
It makes complete sense that Paul Celan was the one to translate this untraditional text into German; so much of Char's writing reminded me of Celan's ineluctable sparseness, in addition to their shared preoccupation with human suffering and resilience. Stylistically and topically, Kaminsky is another relevant (contemporary) poet; if you were transfixed by Deaf Republic, I would recommend this for further reading.
P.S. Could someone teach a course on this in-between genre of literature, please? Bluets, To Painting, etc. It seems to reach even beyond the lyric essay? Long live the fragment.
"We are like those frogs who, in the austerity of the marshes at night, call to but cannot see one another, bending the fatal arc of the universe to their cry of love" (36-37).
December 11, 2017
Με έντονο το προσωπικό και ιστορικό στοιχείο ο Char μας δίνει ένα σημειωματαριο/ημερολόγιο και μας αφήνει να παρακολουθήσουμε ένα σημαντικό μέρος της ζωής του( κατά τη διαρκεια της Αντίστασης) από κοντά.
Παράλληλα μας δίνει εικόνες και από τη σημερινή κατάσταση στη Γαλλία και στην Ευρώπη. Είναι συγκινητικά τα ποιήματα που μιλούν για τις σφαγές αμάχων και αντιστασιακών,η φρίκη που έζησε. Πρέπει να ήταν ένας πολύ τρυφερός και ευαίσθητος άνθρωπος. Εμένα με τράβηξε η δίγλωσση έκδοση (γαλλικά -ελληνικά) του βιβλίου και πρέπει να πω οτι η μετάφραση ηταν θαυμάσια. Είναι μια συλλογή -ημερολόγιο-σημειωματάριο που κέρδισε μια θέση στο τραπέζι μου για να μπορώ να την επισκέπτομαι συχνά. Δεν ενδείκνυται για μια απλή, επιδερμική ανάγνωση πριν πέσεις για ύπνο.
Παράλληλα μας δίνει εικόνες και από τη σημερινή κατάσταση στη Γαλλία και στην Ευρώπη. Είναι συγκινητικά τα ποιήματα που μιλούν για τις σφαγές αμάχων και αντιστασιακών,η φρίκη που έζησε. Πρέπει να ήταν ένας πολύ τρυφερός και ευαίσθητος άνθρωπος. Εμένα με τράβηξε η δίγλωσση έκδοση (γαλλικά -ελληνικά) του βιβλίου και πρέπει να πω οτι η μετάφραση ηταν θαυμάσια. Είναι μια συλλογή -ημερολόγιο-σημειωματάριο που κέρδισε μια θέση στο τραπέζι μου για να μπορώ να την επισκέπτομαι συχνά. Δεν ενδείκνυται για μια απλή, επιδερμική ανάγνωση πριν πέσεις για ύπνο.
February 18, 2021
Maybe not in the right place of reading, maybe not thinking about it widely enough, but I thought it was just a fine book. It seemed interesting and provoking, but I felt at times a bit unmoored. Maybe, even, I am undercutting myself: I understand this book just fine, understand that it lacked an 'intention' really at all, that it was a diary, in parts, or representation of the poet-Hypnos at war, life, death and aphorism happening alongside, and that instead I just didn't really care for it so well.
I think it's a fine book, and I might even come back to it! But for whatever reason it hasn't Struck me.
I think it's a fine book, and I might even come back to it! But for whatever reason it hasn't Struck me.
November 1, 2025
It is not really a collection of classical poems, but rather a series of very short notes, thoughts, and reflections that Char wrote during World War II, between 1943 and 1944. At that time, Char was a leader of the Resistance in the south of France, and he wrote these fragments under the name Capitaine Alexandre.
This work is much more than a simple historical account of the Resistance. It shows how poetry, far from being a luxury, is a vital necessity in the face of horror. What moved me most was the way Char manages to find beauty in horror. For example, when he talks about nature as a form of resistance (as we saw with the cuckoo or the mountains). It gives an impression of fragility and strength at the same time. It's a book that makes you want to pay more attention to the little things that matter, even when everything is going wrong.
In short, Feuillets d'Hypnos showed me that even in the darkest moments of history, there is always room for lucidity, friendship, and poetry. It gave me a more concrete and human view of the Resistance.
This work is much more than a simple historical account of the Resistance. It shows how poetry, far from being a luxury, is a vital necessity in the face of horror. What moved me most was the way Char manages to find beauty in horror. For example, when he talks about nature as a form of resistance (as we saw with the cuckoo or the mountains). It gives an impression of fragility and strength at the same time. It's a book that makes you want to pay more attention to the little things that matter, even when everything is going wrong.
In short, Feuillets d'Hypnos showed me that even in the darkest moments of history, there is always room for lucidity, friendship, and poetry. It gave me a more concrete and human view of the Resistance.
January 6, 2023
René Char, un poète que j'apprécie beaucoup. Ses feuillets d'hypnose sont très intéressants, assez accessibles en ce que leur sens est compréhensible (surtout en prenant en compte le contexte de la résistance) tout en conservant une poétique particulière.
J'ai aimé comment les tonalités et les formes varient, entre tragique et optimisme, récit en paragraphes ou aphorisme en quelques vers.
Une lecture courte et agréable.
J'ai aimé comment les tonalités et les formes varient, entre tragique et optimisme, récit en paragraphes ou aphorisme en quelques vers.
Une lecture courte et agréable.
August 4, 2025
"So unreceptive has our sleep become that even the briefest of dreams cannot come galloping through to refresh it. The prospect of dying is submerged beneath an inundation of the absolute so all-engulfing that the mere thought of it is enough to lose any desire for the life we cry out for and implore. Once again, we must love one another well, must breathe more deeply than the executioner’s lungs."
October 9, 2017
Seassa oli kohtuullisia helmiä, mutta surrealistinen aforismi, jollaiseksi teoksen vallitsevaa tyyliä voisi kutsua, ei liikuta minua lainkaan. Surrealismin ymmärrän ilotulituksena ja aforismin minimalistisena veistoksena. Charin runoista suurin osa jäi siis minulle muodossaan rammoiksi minimalistisiksi ilotulituksiksi.
December 25, 2021
Remarkable…
…and a revealing glimpse into the mind and heart of a talented, educated and sensitive man caught but needing to help contribute to ending a nightmare with any means possible even though it could cost his life as well as the lives of his friends and family. Well worth the read.
…and a revealing glimpse into the mind and heart of a talented, educated and sensitive man caught but needing to help contribute to ending a nightmare with any means possible even though it could cost his life as well as the lives of his friends and family. Well worth the read.
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