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...