SOURCE: LaCharité, Virginia A. “Beyond the Poem: René Char's La Nuit talismanique.” Symposium: A Quarterly Journal in Modern Foreign Literatures 30, no. 1 (spring 1976): 14-26.

In the following essay, LaCharité focuses attention on Char's La Nuit talismanique while exploring the relationship between Char-as-poet and Char-as-painter.

Any examination of the whole body of Char's work reveals a variety of written modes: regular verse poems (sonnet, ballade), free verse texts, prose poems,¹ aphorisms, diary notations, prefaces, essays, introductions to art catalogues, radio scenarios, theater, and ballet. One aspect which these multiple forms of written expression have in common is Char's interest in the plastic arts, for some mention of an artist² is found in all of his writings. In fact, in his aphorisms and poems Char acclaims Georges de La Tour as one of his major sources. Moreover, besides the many contemporary artists mentioned in his work, Char has written numerous verse...