In several respects Le Météore du 13 août is typical of char’s work, particularly of the collection Furor and Mystery, in which it appeared in 1947.

In general terms, the poem is a series of images that must be understood on their own terms—within the context of the poem at hand. At first opaque, the individual images come into focus one by one and steadily reveal the poem as a whole.

A first glance reveals a series of oppositions: light and dark, night and day, sky and earth. With these contrasts in mind, the first line becomes more tractable: A meteor is a piece of the heavens fallen to Earth. Meteors are visible only in the dark of night, yet the meteor lights up the sky and represents “my poem’s noon.”

This connection between the poem (and poetry) is appropriate because of the brief brilliance of a single poem, but is also important because it establishes the poem as a vehicle for overcoming night and darkness.

The second section of the poem, Novae, presents a nocturnal world similarly lit by temporary, if brighter, sources of light. The night is distant but still present: “Death avoided us.” The danger of darkness is still there, as is a certain anxiety. Everything anticipates the dawn, the true end of the night, literally and figuratively: The poetic speaker jumps out of bed and speaks with children, both images of new beginning and possibilities.

After the novae fade, there comes the third section of the poem, The Moon Changes Gardens, where the brief flashes—“Demented lights, obedient to the night”—have finished and the tainted world searches for true light.

Also characteristic of char is the affinity with nature. The speaker’s bed is bordered by hawthorn, there is saxifrage outside the window, and the seeming wild men of the 14th line are “in phase with the meteor.”

But the question remains: Where is the day? This is where the central image of the poem returns as a conceit: The speaker, whom we know to be a poet, or rather his presence, must “be a meteor in your soul.” The poet is the source of enlightenment, and the poem ends as a birdsong—an age-old metaphor for poetry—ushers in the break of day.

Categories: British Literature, French Literature, Literature, World Literature

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