7/28/2019 7c) S u r r e a l i s t

1/8

SurrealistWriters

Precursors:Lautramont. . . Rimbaud. . . Roussel. . . Others. . . Dada . . .Surrealists: Andr Breton . . . Dal . . . dechirico. . . Desnos . . . Duchamp. . .

Leiris . . . Peret . . . Queneau. . . dition en franais (New!)

"Everything leads us to believe that there is a certain state of mind from which

life and death, the real and the imaginary, past and future, the communicableand the incommunicable, height and depth are no longer perceived as contradictory."

-- Andr Breton, Second Manifesto of Surrealism (1929)

SURREALISM is a movement in literature and art whose effective life is generally assigned the

years 1924-1945 by historians. In 1924, Andr Breton's first Manifesto of Surrealismappeared, defining the movement in philosophical and psychological terms. Its immediatepredecessor was Dada, whose nihilistic reaction to rationalism and the reigning "morality" thatproduced World War I cleared the way for Surrealism's positive message. (Other precursors andinfluences are listed below.)Surrealism is often characterized only by its use of unusual, sometimes startling juxtapositions,by which it sought to trancend logic and habitual thinking to reveal deeper levels of meaning andunconscious associations. Thus it was instrumental in promoting Freudian and Jungianconceptions of the unconscious mind.Throughout the 1920s and '30s, the movement flourished and spread from its center in Paris toother countries. Breton controlled the group rather autocratically, annointing new members and

expelling those with whom he disagreed, in an effort to maintain focus on what he conceived asthe essential principals or the fundamental insight which Surrealism manifested (a conceptionwhich changed, to some extent, during his life).In the early '30s the group published a periodical entitled Surrealism at the Service of theRevolution (Le Surrealisme au service de la revolution, 1930-33). Communism appealed tomany intellectuals at this time and the movement flirted briefly with Moscow; but the Sovietsdemanded full allegiance and the subordination of art to the purposes of "the State." Thesurrealists sought absolute freedom and their aim was a profound psychological or spiritualrevolution, not an attempt to change society on a merely political or economic level. (The fullhistory of surrealist political involvement is quite complex and led to dissent and the formationof various factions within the movement.)

With the advent of World War II, many of the Parisian participants sought safety in New York,leaving Paris to the Existentialists. By the war's end in 1945, Abstract Expressionism hadsuperseded Surrealism as the western world's most important active art movement. "Ab Ex" grewout of both the tradition of Abstraction (exemplified by Kandinsky) and the "automatic" branchof Surrealism (exemplified by Joan Miro and Andr Masson) with Roberto Matta and ArshileGorky as key pivotal figures.But Surrealism did not die in 1945. Though the attention of the fickle art world may have shiftedaway, Breton continued to expound his vision until his death in 1966, and many others have

http://var/www/apps/conversion/tmp/scratch_1/enfranc.shthttp://var/www/apps/conversion/tmp/scratch_1/enfranc.sht

7/28/2019 7c) S u r r e a l i s t

2/8

continued to produce works in the surrealist spirit to the present day. The ongoing impact ofSurrealism cannot be underestimated and must be granted a distinct place in the history ofliterature, art and philosophy.

PRECURSORSLautramont (1846-1870)

Isidore Ducasse, the self-styled Comte de Lautramont, was the first and foremost ofSurrealism's literary precursors, inspiring them with such unexpected juxtapositions as "thechance encounter of an umbrella and a sewing machine on an operating table." Following thescientific advances of Darwin and Auguste Compte, Lautramont viewed literature and art as anattempt to confront, perhaps to solve, the "problem" that man, the "sublime ape," finds himself inthe finite world and yet innately seeks after the infinite.Born in Uruguay of French parents, Ducasse first went to Paris in 1867. It is claimed that he was

murdered by Napoleon III's secret police. Maldoror -- Les Chants, Posies, Lettres, Documents and other Curiosits -- a site

created by Michel Pierssens and Laurent Fral-Pierssens (from which the above portraithas been borrowed, with permission). (Site may be "Forbidden".)

Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891)"The poet is a true Stealer of Fire."

Symbolist author of two collections of prose poems,A Season in Hell (1873) and Illuminations

(written 1875 or earlier, published 1886). At the age of 16 he condemned all French poetry as"rhymed prose" and even rejected his hero Baudelaire for being too self-consciously artistic; inhis famous "lettre du voyant" (letter of the seer) he proposed "derangement of all the senses" asthe first step in becoming a true poet-seer. In writing "Iis another" ("JE est un autre"), Rimbaudforeshadowed the surrealist attitude toward the poet as a "modest recording machine" byproclaiming that the poet has to step aside and watch his thoughts unfold, allowing poetry todevelop on its own. At the age of 21 Rimbaud declared his writing to be a failure and abandonedit in favor of real-life adventure -- in his case, ill-fated and legendary.

Total Eclipse -- Rimbaud and Verlaine is a movie based their stormy and controversial

relationship.

Raymond Roussel (1877-1933)

Dandy and player of word games (and chess) whom Breton called "along with Lautramont, thegreatest hypnotist of modern times." His poem The View (1904) foreshadowed the New Novel;

http://tornade.ere.umontreal.ca/~piersens/maldoror.htmlhttp://tornade.ere.umontreal.ca/~piersens/maldoror.html

7/28/2019 7c) S u r r e a l i s t

3/8

two novels, Impressions of Africa (1910) and Locus Solus (1914), which he also staged atextravagant expense, and plays "The Star on the Forehead" (1924) and "The Dust of Suns"(1926) and the posthumous fragment "Documents to Serve as an Outline" (1936) employ anartificial method of composition based on phonetic distortion. Roussel is also considered apataphysician and a precursor of "the theatre of the absurd," and exerts a major influence on the

Oulipo. His major works are in print from Atlas Press (London). A neurasthenic, he overdosedon barbiturates at the age of fifty-six. Locus Solus Death and the Labyrinth: The World of Raymond Rousselby Michel Foucault is one of

the most brilliant works I have ever read!

OTHER PRECURSORS

Paul Valery (1871-1945), last of the Symbolist poets, inspired the surrealists as much byhis 20-year silence as by his poetry and the story Evening with Mr. Teste. When he brokehis silence with what they judged to be inferior new poems and clumsy revisions of oldones, the surrealists ejected him from their literary pantheon.

Alfred Jarry (1873-1907), author and playwrite famous for "Ubu Roi" (1896) and hisinvention ofPataphysics.

Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918) (French) Cubist poet, playwrite and art critic whochampioned the Cubists and invented the termsurrealism in the preface to his play "TheBreasts of Tiresias" (1917).

Stephanie Mallarme (1842-1898) Symbolist poet exemplar. Pierre Reverdy (1889-1960) wrote poems, prose poems and notes on poetic theory,

beginning just before the formation of the surrealist group and continuing to influence it

from a distance. Saint-Pol Roux (1861-1940) Symbolist poet to whom Breton dedicated his first volume

of poems and whom he called "the Master of the Image." The Marquis de Sade (1740-1814) was prized for his atheism and his extreme

openmindedness concerning the definition of love. Tiny excerpt of Sade's Justine(French).

One may well add Baudelaire to this list of precursors. Baudelaire (1821-1867) was alate Romantic and decadent who first read Poe in 1847 and translated a volume of histales (1852); he also translated Thomas De Quincey. His Flowers of Evil (1857, 1861)was banned. His art criticism was among the first written; his most notable prose workwas Artificial Paradises. Infamous for his abuse of alcohol, hashish, opium and other

substances, he suffered his first stroke at age 39 and also suffered from syphilis. His workinfluenced the Parnassians, Symbolists, Impressionists, Imagists and Surrealists.Rimbaud called Baudelaire "the first seer, king of poets, a true God!"

Poe (1809-1849) was a sort of prophet to the Symbolists and was termed by Breton"Surrealist in adventure."

More importantly we must add: French alchemist Nicholas Flamel (c. 1330-1417);Paracelsus (1493-1541), Giodorno Bruno (1548-1600), and the Hermetic-alchemicaltradition; Hegel (1770-1831), German transcendental-idealist philosopher who

http://qsilver.queensu.ca/~4ss42/Oulipo/http://www.imaginet.fr/~werkh/rousselhttp://www.kalin.lm.com/valery.htmlhttp://hamp.hampshire.edu/~ngzF92/jarrypub/jarry.htmlhttp://hamp.hampshire.edu/~ngzF92/jarrypub/pata/physics.htmlhttp://www.wiu.edu/Apollinaire/http://www.mallarme.org/http://www.feelingsurfer.net/garp/poesie/Sade.Justine.htmlhttp://www.feelingsurfer.net/garp/poesie/Sade.Justine.htmlhttp://www.feelingsurfer.net/garp/poesie/Sade.Justine.htmlhttp://qsilver.queensu.ca/~4ss42/Oulipo/http://www.imaginet.fr/~werkh/rousselhttp://www.kalin.lm.com/valery.htmlhttp://hamp.hampshire.edu/~ngzF92/jarrypub/jarry.htmlhttp://hamp.hampshire.edu/~ngzF92/jarrypub/pata/physics.htmlhttp://www.wiu.edu/Apollinaire/http://www.mallarme.org/http://www.feelingsurfer.net/garp/poesie/Sade.Justine.html

7/28/2019 7c) S u r r e a l i s t

4/8

popularized the dialectic; latterday magician Eliphas Levi; and pioneer psychologistsPierre Janet (1859-1947) and Freud (1856-1939). Janet opposed Freudianism andinspired Breton as a medical student but dismissed Surrealism. Freud was a cigar smoker,founder of psychoanalysis and psychodynamics, and popularizer of the concept of theunconscious. His theories were unfortunately skewed by his own neuroses and by the

narrow sample of society represented by his predominantly Viennese Jewish clientele. Tohis credit, he recognized "the poets" as the true "discoverers" of the unconscious.

DADA

Tristan Tzara (1896-1963) Romanian poet and principal of Dada in Zurich, he exportedthe revolution to Paris in early 1920. Dada is viewed by some historians as a tangentialdevelopment of Symbolism that owed the most to Lautramont.

Hans/Jean Arp (1887-1966). For whom poetry and art were as natural to man asbirdsong to birds or fruit to trees. Terse factoid from Mutt's dictionary

Francis Picabia . No known Web presence. Dada Productions Modern art movements with strong Dada influence include: Fluxus, Actionism, Oulipo,

NeoDada and others with Web presences too extensive to enumerate...

ANDR BRETON (1896-1966)

"Language has been given man

that he may make surrealist use of it."

He was called the Pope of Surrealism (as well as "A Corpse") by his detractors; but more thananyone Breton must be credited with the founding of the surrealist movement and was a life-longchampion of the cause. He was author of the Surrealist Manifestoes (1924, 1929), several smallvolumes of poetry (including Earthshine [Claire de Terre, 1923] and Young Cherry TreesSecured Against Hares [1946]), the novel Nadja (1928) and further surrealist "evidence": TheMagnetic Fields (1920, with Soupault -- called the first surrealist book), The CommunicatingVessels (1932),Mad Love (1937) andArcanum 17(1944, rev. 1947).Concerning Breton's life and work, Conversations (Entretiens, 1952) with Andr Parinaud andothers is a revealing document, as are Anna Balakian's insightful Surrealism: The Road to theAbsolute (1959, 1970, 1986) andAndr Breton, Magus of Surrealism (1971) and J.H. Matthews'

1967 study. A recent, in-depth biography by Pollizotti is considered to be factual but somewhatnegatively biased.

Breton (Kalin) Breton (Mutt) Biography (Mutt) What is Surrealism?

Nadja contains a title graphic, photo, brief excerpt and a few related links.

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~rmutt/dictionary/Arp.bio.htmlhttp://www.smalltime.com/nowhere/dada/http://qsilver.queensu.ca/~4ss42/Oulipo/http://www.kalin.lm.com/breton.htmlhttp://www-personal.umich.edu/~rmutt/dictionary/breton.htmlhttp://www-personal.umich.edu/~rmutt/dictionary/Breton.bio.htmlhttp://www-e815.fnal.gov/~romosan/surrealism.htmlhttp://www.gherkin.com/palimpsest/nadja.htmhttp://www-personal.umich.edu/~rmutt/dictionary/Arp.bio.htmlhttp://www.smalltime.com/nowhere/dada/http://qsilver.queensu.ca/~4ss42/Oulipo/http://www.kalin.lm.com/breton.htmlhttp://www-personal.umich.edu/~rmutt/dictionary/breton.htmlhttp://www-personal.umich.edu/~rmutt/dictionary/Breton.bio.htmlhttp://www-e815.fnal.gov/~romosan/surrealism.htmlhttp://www.gherkin.com/palimpsest/nadja.htm

7/28/2019 7c) S u r r e a l i s t

5/8

Photographs at this site

Breton with Soupault, Rigaut, Peret and Charchoune, Outside Max Ernst's first exhibitionin Paris, 1921

Breton with Eluard, Benjamin Peret and Tzara, 1922 Breton in Mexico with Diego Rivera and Trotsky, 1938

Salvador Dal (1904-1989)

Dal, best known (with Magritte) of the Surrealist painters, also wrote a novel,Hidden Faces(1945) and an important essay "The Conquest of the Irrational" (1935) on his paranoic-critical

technique.

The Official Website of The Salvador Dali Museum in St. Petersburg The collection

amassed by industrialist A. Reynolds Morse and his wife and donated to the state ofFlorida. Many of Dali's works, including in-depth analysis. Site includes an online storefull of Dali Favorites. A must-see!

The Salvador Dali museum in Paris The Salvador Dal Archives, located in New York City, is a private repository of

information about Salvador Dal, established with the approval of the artist by AlbertField.

Salvador Dali Books and Prints Salvador Dals Home Page includes chronology, photos and scans of Dal paintings.

Silverstate Fine Art Dali Pages offers limited edition prints.

Giorgio de Chirico (1888-1978)

Like Dal, de Chirico is best known for his visual work -- as a Metaphysical painter whocollaborated with the Surrealists -- but also wrote a short novelHebdomeros (1929) and various

short prose pieces (translated by John Ashbery and reprinted by Exact Change, Cambridge,1992).

The Giorgio de Chirico Metaphysical Gallery De Chirico Artwork at The Surreal Gallery

American Memory contains portraits of de Chirico by Carl Van Vechten (one of which is

shown here, cropped).

Robert Desnos (1900-1945)

http://var/www/apps/conversion/tmp/scratch_1/group2.htmhttp://var/www/apps/conversion/tmp/scratch_1/group2.htmhttp://var/www/apps/conversion/tmp/scratch_1/group.htmhttp://var/www/apps/conversion/tmp/scratch_1/trotsky.htmhttp://www.daliweb.com/http://www.musexpo.com/english/dali/http://daliarchives.com/http://var/www/apps/conversion/tmp/scratch_1/%20http://www.dalibooks.com/http://wildsau.idv.uni-linz.ac.at/~chris/Dali/http://www.dali.com/http://www.geocities.com/Athens/6163/http://www.mcs.csuhayward.edu/~malek/Chirico.htmlhttp://memory.loc.gov/http://var/www/apps/conversion/tmp/scratch_1/group2.htmhttp://var/www/apps/conversion/tmp/scratch_1/group2.htmhttp://var/www/apps/conversion/tmp/scratch_1/group.htmhttp://var/www/apps/conversion/tmp/scratch_1/trotsky.htmhttp://www.daliweb.com/http://www.musexpo.com/english/dali/http://daliarchives.com/http://var/www/apps/conversion/tmp/scratch_1/%20http://www.dalibooks.com/http://wildsau.idv.uni-linz.ac.at/~chris/Dali/http://www.dali.com/http://www.geocities.com/Athens/6163/http://www.mcs.csuhayward.edu/~malek/Chirico.htmlhttp://memory.loc.gov/

7/28/2019 7c) S u r r e a l i s t

6/8

Praised by Breton for his apparent ability to fall into a trance at will and orate automatic verbage.Ousted from the movement in 1929, he turned to journalism and returned to more traditional

poetic forms before his death in the war. Desnos (Kalin) large selection of poems in English and French; biographies with photos

Le site Robert Desnos - mainly French

Desnos (Mutt)

Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968)

WroteRrose Selavy, The Green Box and other texts, though he is best known as an artist (andchess player!). He has exertedprofoundinfluence on modern and avant garde art. He defied

classification but was co-opted by Furturism and Cubism ("Nude Descending a Staircase"), dadaand Surrealism.

Nadeau gives: "French. 'Benevolent technician.' Painter, writer, chess-player, founder of Dada in

New York in 1913, external member of the surrealist group from 1924."Photo: Monte Carlo Share (detail), 1924.

Michel Leiris (1901-1990)

A member of the surrealist group from 1924 to 1929, he wrote one of the first surreal novels,Aurora (1927-8); also an ethnologist and anthropologist, co-editor with Bataille ofDocumentsand with Sartre ofLes Temps Modernes. Provided indispensable biographical information on,

and critical studies of, Raymond Roussel.

Michel Leiris (Kalin).

Benjamin Peret (1899 - 1959)

"This wine which is only white to make the sun come up

because the sun runs its hands through its hair."

One of the first Parisian Dadaists and one of the founders of Surrealism, Peret has been called

"the best of the Surrealist poets" and was the most admired writer within the group. He alsowrote a novel,Death to the Pigs and to the Field of Glory (1923), short fiction and critical

essays. In addition to his surrealist work, Peret was a dedicated Communist for most of his lifeand was deported from Brazil for revolutionary activity. He also translated the Mayan Book of

Chilam Balam of Chumayelinto French.

Photo: Peret in 1925. (Also see group photo under Breton, above.)

http://www.kalin.lm.com/desnos.htmlhttp://www.cyber-espace.com/desnos/http://www-personal.umich.edu/~rmutt/dictionary/desnos.htmlhttp://www.kalin.lm.com/leiris.htmlhttp://www.kalin.lm.com/desnos.htmlhttp://www.cyber-espace.com/desnos/http://www-personal.umich.edu/~rmutt/dictionary/desnos.htmlhttp://www.kalin.lm.com/leiris.html

7/28/2019 7c) S u r r e a l i s t

7/8

Raymond Queneau (1903 - ?)

Considered a precursor to the New Novelists, he wrote the novel Le chiendent (The Bark Tree)(1933) and twenty other books of poetry and prose, including the zany Zazie dans le Metro

(1959), which was made into a film. He co-founded the Oulipo movement in France in 1960with Franois le Lionnais (OUvroir de LIttrature POtentielle - The Workshop for Potential

Literature), whose principal task is "the systematic and formal innovation of constraints for themanipulation and creation of literary text" (Stefan Sinclair). Other Oulipo writers include: ItaloCalvino, Jacques Roubaud, Georges Perec, and Harry Mathews. Stefan Sinclair and AlexanderLaurence have created a bilingual Oulipo site. Stefan's Javascript version of Queneau's poem

collator is at One Hundred Thousand Billion Poems (in English).

These are only my favorites, but there were and are many other excellent Surrealist Writers,including: Louis Aragon, Rene Daumal, Paul Eluard, Jacques Prevert, those listed below and

others...

Other Surrealist Writer Sites

Antonin Artaud and the Sense Walter Benjamin Research Syndicate

Leonora Carrington (b. 1917), member of the surrealist group from 1938. Leonora Carrington - a site by her son Pablo Weisz-Carrington.

David Gascoyne (b. 1916) English poet whose translations introduced the Frenchsurrealists to the English-speaking world in the 1930's and 40's. Considered a member

1926-39. Philip Lamantia (b. 1927) American poet who associated with the surrealists and inspired

the Beat poets. Kenneth Patchen (1911-1972) has been provocatively called "the only true American

surrealist." (No known links.)

Other Surrealist & Related Sites

Bohemian Inkhas pages dedicated to "underground" contemporary writers. Le Groupe de Paris du Mouvement Surraliste is a contemporary French group.

Infosurr: Actualits du surralisme et de ses alentours (Paris) Magnetic Fields -- home of Aesthetic Automatism, ARTlab, EAR de Jour (a Journal of

Enactive Aesthetics Research Blue Feathers), Surrealists in Minnesota, etc. No More Words: A Non-Glossary (referenced above as Mutt), dictionary or encyclopedia

of "terse factoids" and a few short excerpts covering all the major Surrealists. La Page Oulipo is another Oulipo site, created by Bill Allombert, Estelle Souche and

Philippe Bruhat (French). Surrealism and its perspectives referring to Duchamp, perception, philosophy and

imagination in general by Evi Moechel and Pierre Petiot. The Universe (which others call the library) - (Todd Sanders, referenced above as Kalin)

Covers all the major surrealists with links to some original illustrated texts.

http://qsilver.queensu.ca/~4ss42/Oulipo/http://qsilver.queensu.ca/~4ss42/Oulipo/jscmmpe.htmlhttp://www.geocities.com/grpro_brhttp://www.wbenjamin.org/http://www.kalin.lm.com/carr.htmlhttp://members.xoom.com/lecarrington/http://www.connectotel.com/gascoynehttp://www.execpc.com/~bogartte/Lamantia.htmlhttp://www.levity.com/corduroyhttp://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/jjmeric/http://www.argyro.net/~revsurhttp://www.magneticfields.org/http://www-personal.umich.edu/~rmutt/dictionary/NoMoreWords.htmlhttp://www2.ec-lille.fr/~book/oulipo/http://www.heimatseite.com/revamp-duchamp/index.htmhttp://www.heimatseite.com/revamp-duchamp/index.htmhttp://www.kalin.lm.com/author.htmlhttp://qsilver.queensu.ca/~4ss42/Oulipo/http://qsilver.queensu.ca/~4ss42/Oulipo/jscmmpe.htmlhttp://www.geocities.com/grpro_brhttp://www.wbenjamin.org/http://www.kalin.lm.com/carr.htmlhttp://members.xoom.com/lecarrington/http://www.connectotel.com/gascoynehttp://www.execpc.com/~bogartte/Lamantia.htmlhttp://www.levity.com/corduroyhttp://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/jjmeric/http://www.argyro.net/~revsurhttp://www.magneticfields.org/http://www-personal.umich.edu/~rmutt/dictionary/NoMoreWords.htmlhttp://www2.ec-lille.fr/~book/oulipo/http://www.heimatseite.com/revamp-duchamp/index.htmhttp://www.heimatseite.com/revamp-duchamp/index.htmhttp://www.kalin.lm.com/author.html

7/28/2019 7c) S u r r e a l i s t

8/8

Surrealist Art Sites

Institutions and Organizations

Surrealist Art at the Louvre WebMuseum. The Surreal Gallery is a graphically rewarding sight.

Surrealism is alive and well...

http://metalab.unc.edu/wm/paint/glo/surrealism/http://www.mcs.csuhayward.edu/~malek/Surrealism/index.htmlhttp://metalab.unc.edu/wm/paint/glo/surrealism/http://www.mcs.csuhayward.edu/~malek/Surrealism/index.html