| Author Quoted | Rene Char |
| Title Quoted | Fureur et mystère / Rene Char ; pref. de Yves Berger |
| Date (Year/Month/Day) | 1966/08/18 |
| Imprint | [Paris] : Gallimard. [1967] |
| Quotation | Have had difficulties for some time with the verse of Rene Char - finding it impenetrable. Today I think I have broken through - and precisely with this short poem. Un oiseau chante sur un fil Cette vie simple à fleur de terre Notre enfer s'en rejouit. Puis le vent commence à souffrir Et les etoiles s'en avisent. O folles de parcourir Tant de fatalite profonde! Why did this click? Not just because of the birds that sing on the powerline to my house. The middle couplet, I think, affected me first. But at any rate I recognized my own kind of poetic world, which, in many French poets, I simply cannot. But this is exquisite. Though exquisite is not my kind of a word. Well, what is it then? But after this they all connect and I laugh. |
| Quotation Source | Learning to love: exploring solitude and freedom. The Journals of Thomas Merton, Volume 6, 1966-1967.; Edited by Christine M. Bochen. / [San Francisco] : HarperCollins. 1997, p. 115-16 |
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| Notes | |
| Link to Merton's Copy |
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