André Breton

Jump to: Translations

1896: born in northern France

1916: joined the Dadaist group

1921: met Freud in Vienna while studying medicine and psychiatry

1924: Surrealist Manifesto (Manifeste du Surréalisme)

1925: Second Manifesto

1926: Surrealism and Painting (Le Surréalisme et le peinture)

1928: Nadja

1941: Left Nazi-occupied France for the Caribbean and the U.S.

1946: returned to France

1961-66: worked on a second wave of Surrealism

Modernisms

-    Symbolists

-    Expressionists

-    Futurists

-    Cubists

-    Dadaists

-    Surrealists

Dadaism (ca. 1912-1924):

Tzara, Breton, Ernst, Duchamp, Richter, Arp, Huelsenbeck, Ball

-    Spontaneous art

-    Art that defies traditional definition, upsets, and confronts

-    Political agenda: vs. consumerism, bourgeois cooptation

-    Maxim: I don’t care about this petty world

Surrealism (ca. 1924-1933):

Breton, Ernst, Duchamp, Dalí, Klee, Magritte, Miró

-    Offshoot of / related to Dadaism, another international movement (Dada started with a Jewish Romanian in Switzerland [Tzara] who gathered other objectors to the war around him)

-    Literary and artistic movement in the early 20th century (mainly 1920s) that “attempts to express the workings of the subconscious and is characterized by fantastic imagery and incongruous juxtaposition of subject matter” ("Surrealism").

- Manifesto: "I believe in the future resolution of these two states, dream and reality, which are seemingly so contradictory, into a kind of absolute reality, a surreality, if one may so speak." (pt. 4, Breton, 1924)

"SURREALISM, n. Psychic automatism in its pure state, by which one proposes to express -- verbally, by means of the written word, or in any other manner -- the actual functioning of thought. Dictated by the thought, in the absence of any control exercised by reason, exempt from any aesthetic or moral concern.

ENCYCLOPEDIA. Philosophy. Surrealism is based on the belief in the superior reality of certain forms of previously neglected associations, in the omnipotence of dream, in the disinterested play of thought. It tends to ruin once and for all all other psychic mechanisms and to substitute itself for them in solving all the principal problems of life. The following have performed acts of ABSOLUTE SURREALISM: Messrs. Aragon, Baron, Boiffard, Breton, Carrive, Crevel, Delteil, Desnos, Eluard, Gérard, Limbour, Malkine, Morise, Naville, Noll, Péret, Picon, Soupault, Vitrac" (Breton).

-    Surrealism in literature is characterized by automatic writing (psychic automatism) and seemingly random juxtaposition of text and images

The Manifesto also quotes P. Reverdy: "The more the relationship between the two juxtaposed realities is distant and true, the stronger the image will be -- the greater its emotional power and poetic reality...*"

Such "Juxtaposed Realities" include:

• waking world / dream
• adult / child
  
• logic / superstition (ghosts, premonition)
• sanity / madness
  

Surrealism in Art:

•    Dream-like

•    Art that stems from the unconscious, unexpressed desires, and experimentation

•    Political agenda: vs. ‘rationality,’ conscious decision

•    Maxim: What is reality?

-    Surrealism is highly influenced by psychoanalysis and draws on the power of dreams and the power of the subconscious

-    The second Manifesto declares surrealism to be a “revolution” of the mind

Surrealism and the Occult:

(from 2nd in the Manifesto) "From childhood memories, and from a few others, there emanates a sentiment of being unintegrated, and then later of having gone astray, which I hold to be the most fertile that exists. It is perhaps childhood that comes closest to one's "real life"; childhood beyond which man has at his disposal, aside from his laissez-passer, only a few complimentary tickets; childhood where everything nevertheless conspires to bring about the effective, risk-free possession of oneself. Thanks to Surrealism, it seems that opportunity knocks a second time. It is as though we were still running toward our salvation, or our perdition. In the shadow we again see a precious terror. Thank God, it's still only Purgatory. With a shudder, we cross what the occultists call dangerous territory. In my wake I raise up monsters that are lying in wait; they are not yet too ill-disposed toward me, and I am not lost, since I fear them. Here are "the elephants with the heads of women and the flying lions" which used to make Soupault and me tremble in our boots to meet, here is the "soluble fish" which still frightens me slightly. POISSON SOLUBLE, am I not the soluble fish, I was born under the sign of Pisces, and man is soluble in his thought! The flora and fauna of Surrealism are inadmissible."

Creative Writing Exercise

On the back of your discussion questions, respond to one of the creative writing options, either individually or in pairs:

1.    Write your own Surrealist Manifesto, based on your understanding of the movement through readings and discussions.

2.    Write your own Manifesto: What principles do you hold dear? Give some thought about how you would express these in a manifesto (poetry, prose, drawing, etc.)

3.    Write Nadja’s Manifesto. What principles does she believe in? How would she express them?

Summary of the Modern Novel

Group discussion questions—answer, to the best of your abilities, your assigned question, assigning one person to take notes on your conversation, and another person to answer to the class. If you finish early, start to answer another question of your choice:
1. WOMEN--What role do women play in the Modern novel? What do Sonya, Hermine, and Nadja have in common? In what ways are they different? What model of femininity, if any, do these figures embody? Are these qualities part of the ‘modern’ condition? a gendered characteristic?

2. MEN--What do the male protagonists of the Modern novels we have read—Raskolnikov, Harry Haller, and Breton—have in common? What model of masculinity, if any, do these figures embody? Are these qualities part of the ‘modern’ condition? a gendered characteristic?

3. NOVEL--Nadja is undoubtedly an experimental novel. List the qualities of the traditional novel (as exemplified in Crime in Punishment). Then list the ways in which Nadja experiments with conventions of the novel. Can Nadja still be categorized, as its author claims, a novel?  

4. SETTING—What is the significance, if any, that the three novels are all set in the streets of a city? In what ways does this urban setting mirror the conflicts of the protagonist? Since you have it in front of you right now, make these generalizations about Nadja, but also take note of any details you can remember about Crime and Punishment and Steppenwolf.

5. NARRATIVE STYLE--Nadja cites almost incessantly from other sources: poetry by Rimbaud and Jarry; philosophy by Berkeley; paintings by Max Ernst, Paolo Ucelo (1397-1475), Chirico, and Braque; advertisements; several photographs; and finally a newspaper report. How does this affect you, the reader? Do Crime and Punishment and Steppenwolf also present a pastiche of narrative voices? In what ways is this collage of voices a Modernist aesthetic?

Translations of terms in Nadja:

13: Philemon and Baucis: "Entertained the gods Zeus and Hermes most hospitably in their humble cottage in Phyrgia. As a reward for this kindess their cottage was changed into a beatiful golden-roofed marble temple. Baucis and Philemon desired to die at the same time, and their bodies were changed into trees, an oak and a linden" (from J. E. Zimmerman, Dictionary of Classical Mythology [NY: Bantam, 1980], 40-1).

27: Couleur du Temps = color of time

Bois-Charbons = wood coal (also: drink coal)

Les Champs Magnétiques = the magnetic fields: book by Breton and Philippe Soupault published in 1920, an automatic writing piece considered the first piece of literary Surrealism

31: Cabaret du Ciel = the cabaret of heaven/sky

 Le Cimetière des Uniformes et Livrées = the cemetary of uniforms and servants

36: Théâtre Moderne = modern theater

37: pince nez = glasses clipped to edge of nose

39: La maison de mon coeur est prête / Et ne s'ouvre qu'à l'avenir. / Puisqu'il n'est rien que je regrette, / Mon bel époux, tu peux venir (Var. Amour nouveau, tu peux venir)

 = The home of my heart is ready / and opens only in the future. / Since it is not only I regret / My beautiful husband, you can come (Variation: New love, you can come)

40: Grand Guignol = melodramatic shock theater

Les Détraquées = the deranged

52: Dormeur du Val = sleeper of the vale (a poem by Rimbaud)

Oeuvres Complètes = complete works

55: Centrale Surréaliste = surealist exchange

56: Maison Rouge = red house

58: On signe ici = one signs here

cartes = cards

Humanité = humanity

59: tableau changeant = changing picture (i.e., picture that changes with your perspective on it)

60: manoir = manor

angoisse = agony

72: Les Pas Perdus = The Lost Steps, book by Breton (1917-23)

Parmi les bruyères, penil des menhirs = Among the heathers, [place of the long stones] (?)

73: Chasse de leur acier la martre et l’hermine = Drive the marten [larger than a weasel] and the ermine [type of weasel whose fur changes to white in winter] out of their steel

De leur acier = of their steel

Et mangeant le bruit des hannetons, C'havann = Eating the noise of the June bugs, C'havann

tu = familiar you

79: Poisson Soluble = soluble fish

Manifeste = Manifesto

80: "c'est moi" = that's me

86: (Latin) Urget aquas vis sursum eadem, flectit que deorsum

The force of waters presses upwards by the same route and bends downwards.

88: Troisiéme dialogue = third dialogue

89: Dauphin = crown prince AND dolphin

94: "Nouvelle France" = New France, "the customary bar" they visit

pneumatique = pneumatic (weblink: dictionary.com: probably definition #5)

98: Revue de la presse = Press review

La Révolution Surréaliste = the Surrealist Revolution

100: Rue = Street; de = of; Seine = main river running through Paris

102: camées durs = hard (stone) cameos OR tough junkies

105: la Régence = the regency

117: L'Enchantement de Nadja = the magic of Nadja

C'est l'âme des amants = it's the lovers' soul

129: Melusina: http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/melusina.html

140: processus (Latin) = advance

154: Théâtre des Deux-Masques = theater of two masks

160: Gare de Lyon = a major train station (gare) in Paris

ile du sable = island of sand

Postscript: Other French Modernist Writers

André Gide, Corydon (1924), The Counterfeiters (1926)

Marcel Proust, Remembrance of Things Past (1913-27)