« La chimère d’un âge perdu ». Présence du passé dans la poésie de René Char

This article explores the motif of return as a poetics of the past René Char’s most famous collection of poems : Fureur et mystère. This constant movement of return reveals the thematic importance of the past for Char. If the presence of the past can first be seen through the themes and the formal structure of the poetic writing – verbal tenses, figures of speech, images – the originality of the return in Char’s poetry lies in his revolutionary conception of time. The poet deconstructs the chronological vision of time in order to make the past present. In other words, the motif of return appears to establish the past as a mobile temporal frame which calls celebration rather than nostalgia.