Author Bio
PrintNot to be Understood
by René CharTranslated by Mary Ann Caws
In the course of the so dark struggle and the so dark immobility, terror blinding my kingdom, I rose from the winged lions of the harvest to the cold cry of the anemone. I came to the world in the deformity of each being’s chains. We both freed ourselves. I drew from a compatible morality an irreproachable help. Despite a thirst to disappear, I was prodigal in waiting, in valiant faith. No renouncing.
About the Author
René Char (1907-88) is one of the most important modern French poets. Admired by Heidegger for the profundity of his poetic philosophy, he was also a hero of the French Resistance and in the 1960s a militant anti-nuclear protester. Associated with the Surrealist movement for several years and a close friend of many painters?notably Braque, Giacometti and Picasso?he wrote poetry which miraculously, often challengingly, confronts the major 20th century moral, political and artistic concerns with a simplicity of vision and expression that owes much to the poet-philosophers of ancient Greece.
