So strong is the belief in life, in what is most fragile in life – real life, I
mean – that in the end this belief is lost. Man, that inveterate dreamer, daily
more discontent with his destiny, has trouble assessing the objects he has been
led to use, objects that his nonchalance has brought his way, or that he has earned
through his own efforts, almost always through his own efforts, for he has agreed
to work, at least he has not refused to try his luck (or what he calls his luck!).
At this point he feels extremely modest: he knows what women he has had, what silly
affairs he has been involved in; he is unimpressed by his wealth or his poverty,
in this respect he is still a newborn babe and, as for the approval of his conscience,
I confess that he does very nicely without it. If he still retains a certain lucidity,
all he can do is turn back toward his childhood which, however his guides and mentors
may have botched it, still strikes him as somehow charming. There, the absence of
any known restrictions allows him the perspective of several lives lived at once;
this illusion becomes firmly rooted within him; now he is only interested in the
fleeting, the extreme facility of everything. Children set off each day without
a worry in the world. Everything is near at hand, the worst material conditions
are fine. The woods are white or black, one will never sleep.
But it is true that we would not dare venture so far, it is not merely a question
of distance. Threat is piled upon threat, one yields, abandons a portion of the
terrain to be conquered. This imagination which knows no bounds is henceforth allowed
to be exercised only in strict accordance with the laws of an arbitrary utility;
it is incapable of assuming this inferior role for very long and, in the vicinity
of the twentieth year, generally prefers to abandon man to his lusterless fate.
Though he may later try to pull himself together on occasion, having felt that he
is losing by slow degrees all reason for living, incapable as he has become of being
able to rise to some exceptional situation such as love, he will hardly succeed.
This is because he henceforth belongs body and soul to an imperative practical necessity
which demands his constant attention. None of his gestures will be expansive, none
of his ideas generous or far-reaching. In his mind’s eye, events real or imagined
will be seen only as they relate to a welter of similar events, events in which
he has not participated, abortive events. What am I saying: he will judge them in
relationship to one of these events whose consequences are more reassuring than
the others. On no account will he view them as his salvation.
Beloved imagination, what I most like in you is your unsparing quality.
There remains madness, "the madness that one locks up," as it has aptly been described.
That madness or another…. We all know, in fact, that the insane owe their incarceration
to a tiny number of legally reprehensible acts and that, were it not for these acts
their freedom (or what we see as their freedom) would not be threatened. I am willing
to admit that they are, to some degree, victims of their imagination, in that it
induces them not to pay attention to certain rules – outside of which the species
feels threatened – which we are all supposed to know and respect. But their profound
indifference to the way in which we judge them, and even to the various punishments
meted out to them, allows us to suppose that they derive a great deal of comfort
and consolation from their imagination, that they enjoy their madness sufficiently
to endure the thought that its validity does not extend beyond themselves. And,
indeed, hallucinations, illusions, etc., are not a source of trifling pleasure.
The best controlled sensuality partakes of it, and I know that there are many evenings
when I would gladly that pretty hand which, during the last pages of Taine’s L’Intelligence,
indulges in some curious misdeeds. I could spend my whole life prying loose the
secrets of the insane. These people are honest to a fault, and their naiveté has
no peer but my own. Christopher Columbus should have set out to discover America
with a boatload of madmen. And note how this madness has taken shape, and endured.
It is not the fear of madness which will oblige us to leave the flag of imagination
furled.
The case against the realistic attitude demands to be examined, following the case
against the materialistic attitude. The latter, more poetic in fact than the former,
admittedly implies on the part of man a kind of monstrous pride which, admittedly,
is monstrous, but not a new and more complete decay. It should above all be viewed
as a welcome reaction against certain ridiculous tendencies of spiritualism. Finally,
it is not incompatible with a certain nobility of thought.
By contrast, the realistic attitude, inspired by positivism, from Saint Thomas Aquinas
to Anatole France, clearly seems to me to be hostile to any intellectual or moral
advancement. I loathe it, for it is made up of mediocrity, hate, and dull conceit.
It is this attitude which today gives birth to these ridiculous books, these insulting
plays. It constantly feeds on and derives strength from the newspapers and stultifies
both science and art by assiduously flattering the lowest of tastes; clarity bordering
on stupidity, a dog’s life. The activity of the best minds feels the effects of
it; the law of the lowest common denominator finally prevails upon them as it does
upon the others. An amusing result of this state of affairs, in literature for example,
is the generous supply of novels. Each person adds his personal little "observation"
to the whole. As a cleansing antidote to all this, M. Paul Valéry recently suggested
that an anthology be compiled in which the largest possible number of opening passages
from novels be offered; the resulting insanity, he predicted, would be a source
of considerable edification. The most famous authors would be included. Such a though
reflects great credit on Paul Valéry who, some time ago, speaking of novels, assured
me that, so far as he was concerned, he would continue to refrain from writing:
"The Marquise went out at five." But has he kept his word?
If the purely informative style, of which the sentence just quoted is a prime example,
is virtually the rule rather than the exception in the novel form, it is because,
in all fairness, the author’s ambition is severely circumscribed. The circumstantial,
needlessly specific nature of each of their notations leads me to believe that they
are perpetrating a joke at my expense. I am spared not even one of the character’s
slightest vacillations: will he be fairhaired? what will his name be? will we first
meet him during the summer? So many questions resolved once and for all, as chance
directs; the only discretionary power left me is to close the book, which I am careful
to do somewhere in the vicinity of the first page. And the descriptions! There is
nothing to which their vacuity can be compared; they are nothing but so many superimposed
images taken from some stock catalogue, which the author utilizes more and more
whenever he chooses; he seizes the opportunity to slip me his postcards, he tries
to make me agree with him about the clichés:
The small room into which the young man was shown was covered with yellow wallpaper:
there were geraniums in the windows, which were covered with muslin curtains; the
setting sun cast a harsh light over the entire setting…. There was nothing special
about the room. The furniture, of yellow wood, was all very old. A sofa with a tall
back turned down, an oval table opposite the sofa, a dressing table and a mirror
set against the pierglass, some chairs along the walls, two or three etchings of
no value portraying some German girls with birds in their hands – such were the
furnishings. (Dostoevski, Crime and Punishment)
I am in no mood to admit that the mind is interested in occupying itself with such
matters, even fleetingly. It may be argued that this school-boy description has
its place, and that at this juncture of the book the author has his reasons for
burdening me. Nevertheless he is wasting his time, for I refuse to go into his room.
Others’ laziness or fatigue does not interest me. I have too unstable a notion of
the continuity of life to equate or compare my moments of depression or weakness
with my best moments. When one ceases to feel, I am of the opinion one should keep
quiet. And I would like it understood that I am not accusing or condemning lack
of originality as such. I am only saying that I do not take particular note of the
empty moments of my life, that it may be unworthy for any man to crystallize those
which seem to him to be so. I shall, with your permission, ignore the description
of that room, and many more like it.
Not so fast, there; I’m getting into the area of psychology, a subject about which
I shall be careful not to joke.
The author attacks a character and, this being settled upon, parades his hero to
and fro across the world. No matter what happens, this hero, whose actions and reactions
are admirably predictable, is compelled not to thwart or upset -- even though he
looks as though he is -- the calculations of which he is the object. The currents
of life can appear to lift him up, roll him over, cast him down, he will still belong
to this readymade human type. A simple game of chess which doesn't interest me in
the least -- man, whoever he may be, being for me a mediocre opponent. What I cannot
bear are those wretched discussions relative to such and such a move, since winning
or losing is not in question. And if the game is not worth the candle, if objective
reason does a frightful job -- as indeed it does -- of serving him who calls upon
it, is it not fitting and proper to avoid all contact with these categories? "Diversity
is so vast that every different tone of voice, every step, cough, every wipe of
the nose, every sneeze...."* (Pascal.) If in a cluster of grapes there are no two
alike, why do you want me to describe this grape by the other, by all the others,
why do you want me to make a palatable grape? Our brains are dulled by the incurable
mania of wanting to make the unknown known, classifiable. The desire for analysis
wins out over the sentiments.** (Barrès, Proust.) The result is statements of undue
length whose persuasive power is attributable solely to their strangeness and which
impress the reader only by the abstract quality of their vocabulary, which moreover
is ill-defined. If the general ideas that philosophy has thus far come up with as
topics of discussion revealed by their very nature their definitive incursion into
a broader or more general area. I would be the first to greet the news with joy.
But up till now it has been nothing but idle repartee; the flashes of wit and other
niceties vie in concealing from us the true thought in search of itself, instead
of concentrating on obtaining successes. It seems to me that every act is its own
justification, at least for the person who has been capable of committing it, that
it is endowed with a radiant power which the slightest gloss is certain to diminish.
Because of this gloss, it even in a sense ceases to happen. It gains nothing to
be thus distinguished. Stendhal's heroes are subject to the comments and appraisals
-- appraisals which are more or less successful -- made by that author, which add
not one whit to their glory. Where we really find them again is at the point at
which Stendahl has lost them.
We are still living under the reign of logic: this, of course, is what I have been
driving at. But in this day and age logical methods are applicable only to solving
problems of secondary interest. The absolute rationalism that is still in vogue
allows us to consider only facts relating directly to our experience. Logical ends,
on the contrary, escape us. It is pointless to add that experience itself has found
itself increasingly circumscribed. It paces back and forth in a cage from which
it is more and more difficult to make it emerge. It too leans for support on what
is most immediately expedient, and it is protected by the sentinels of common sense.
Under the pretense of civilization and progress, we have managed to banish from
the mind everything that may rightly or wrongly be termed superstition, or fancy;
forbidden is any kind of search for truth which is not in conformance with accepted
practices. It was, apparently, by pure chance that a part of our mental world which
we pretended not to be concerned with any longer -- and, in my opinion by far the
most important part -- has been brought back to light. For this we must give thanks
to the discoveries of Sigmund Freud. On the basis of these discoveries a current
of opinion is finally forming by means of which the human explorer will be able
to carry his investigation much further, authorized as he will henceforth be not
to confine himself solely to the most summary realities. The imagination is perhaps
on the point of reasserting itself, of reclaiming its rights. If the depths of our
mind contain within it strange forces capable of augmenting those on the surface,
or of waging a victorious battle against them, there is every reason to seize them
-- first to seize them, then, if need be, to submit them to the control of our reason.
The analysts themselves have everything to gain by it. But it is worth noting that
no means has been designated a priori for carrying out this undertaking, that until
further notice it can be construed to be the province of poets as well as scholars,
and that its success is not dependent upon the more or less capricious paths that
will be followed.
Freud very rightly brought his critical faculties to bear upon the dream. It is,
in fact, inadmissible that this considerable portion of psychic activity (since,
at least from man's birth until his death, thought offers no solution of continuity,
the sum of the moments of the dream, from the point of view of time, and taking
into consideration only the time of pure dreaming, that is the dreams of sleep,
is not inferior to the sum of the moments of reality, or, to be more precisely limiting,
the moments of waking) has still today been so grossly neglected. I have always
been amazed at the way an ordinary observer lends so much more credence and attaches
so much more importance to waking events than to those occurring in dreams. It is
because man, when he ceases to sleep, is above all the plaything of his memory,
and in its normal state memory takes pleasure in weakly retracing for him the circumstances
of the dream, in stripping it of any real importance, and in dismissing the only
determinant from the point where he thinks he has left it a few hours before: this
firm hope, this concern. He is under the impression of continuing something that
is worthwhile. Thus the dream finds itself reduced to a mere parenthesis, as is
the night. And, like the night, dreams generally contribute little to furthering
our understanding. This curious state of affairs seems to me to call for certain
reflections:
1) Within the limits where they operate (or are thought to operate) dreams give
every evidence of being continuous and show signs of organization. Memory alone
arrogates to itself the right to excerpt from dreams, to ignore the transitions,
and to depict for us rather a series of dreams than the dream itself. By the same
token, at any given moment we have only a distinct notion of realities, the coordination
of which is a question of will.* (Account must be taken of the depth of the dream.
For the most part I retain only what I can glean from its most superficial layers.
What I most enjoy contemplating about a dream is everything that sinks back below
the surface in a waking state, everything I have forgotten about my activities in
the course of the preceding day, dark foliage, stupid branches. In "reality," likewise,
I prefer to fall.) What is worth noting is that nothing allows us to presuppose
a greater dissipation of the elements of which the dream is constituted. I am sorry
to have to speak about it according to a formula which in principle excludes the
dream. When will we have sleeping logicians, sleeping philosophers? I would like
to sleep, in order to surrender myself to the dreamers, the way I surrender myself
to those who read me with eyes wide open; in order to stop imposing, in this realm,
the conscious rhythm of my thought. Perhaps my dream last night follows that of
the night before, and will be continued the next night, with an exemplary strictness.
It's quite possible, as the saying goes. And since it has not been proved in the
slightest that, in doing so, the "reality" with which I am kept busy continues to
exist in the state of dream, that it does not sink back down into the immemorial,
why should I not grant to dreams what I occasionally refuse reality, that is, this
value of certainty in itself which, in its own time, is not open to my repudiation?
Why should I not expect from the sign of the dream more than I expect from a degree
of consciousness which is daily more acute? Can't the dream also be used in solving
the fundamental questions of life? Are these questions the same in one case as in
the other and, in the dream, do these questions already exist? Is the dream any
less restrictive or punitive than the rest? I am growing old and, more than that
reality to which I believe I subject myself, it is perhaps the dream, the difference
with which I treat the dream, which makes me grow old.
2) Let me come back again to the waking state. I have no choice but to consider
it a phenomenon of interference. Not only does the mind display, in this state,
a strange tendency to lose its bearings (as evidenced by the slips and mistakes
the secrets of which are just beginning to be revealed to us), but, what is more,
it does not appear that, when the mind is functioning normally, it really responds
to anything but the suggestions which come to it from the depths of that dark night
to which I commend it. However conditioned it may be, its balance is relative. It
scarcely dares express itself and, if it does, it confines itself to verifying that
such and such an idea, or such and such a woman, has made an impression on it. What
impression it would be hard pressed to say, by which it reveals the degree of its
subjectivity, and nothing more. This idea, this woman, disturb it, they tend to
make it less severe. What they do is isolate the mind for a second from its solvent
and spirit it to heaven, as the beautiful precipitate it can be, that it is. When
all else fails, it then calls upon chance, a divinity even more obscure than the
others to whom it ascribes all its aberrations. Who can say to me that the angle
by which that idea which affects it is offered, that what it likes in the eye of
that woman is not precisely what links it to its dream, binds it to those fundamental
facts which, through its own fault, it has lost? And if things were different, what
might it be capable of? I would like to provide it with the key to this corridor.
3) The mind of the man who dreams is fully satisfied by what happens to him. The
agonizing question of possibility is no longer pertinent. Kill, fly faster, love
to your heart's content. And if you should die, are you not certain of reawaking
among the dead? Let yourself be carried along, events will not tolerate your interference.
You are nameless. The ease of everything is priceless.
What reason, I ask, a reason so much vaster than the other, makes dreams seem so
natural and allows me to welcome unreservedly a welter of episodes so strange that
they could confound me now as I write? And yet I can believe my eyes, my ears; this
great day has arrived, this beast has spoken.
If man's awaking is harder, if it breaks the spell too abruptly, it is because he
has been led to make for himself too impoverished a notion of atonement.
4) From the moment when it is subjected to a methodical examination, when, by means
yet to be determined, we succeed in recording the contents of dreams in their entirety
(and that presupposes a discipline of memory spanning generations; but let us nonetheless
begin by noting the most salient facts), when its graph will expand with unparalleled
volume and regularity, we may hope that the mysteries which really are not will
give way to the great Mystery. 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. It is in quest of this surreality that
I am going, certain not to find it but too unmindful of my death not to calculate
to some slight degree the joys of its possession.
A story is told according to which Saint-Pol-Roux, in times gone by, used to have
a notice posted on the door of his manor house in Camaret, every evening before
he went to sleep, which read: THE POET IS WORKING.
A great deal more could be said, but in passing I merely wanted to touch upon a
subject which in itself would require a very long and much more detailed discussion;
I shall come back to it. At this juncture, my intention was merely to mark a point
by noting the hate of the marvelous which rages in certain men, this absurdity beneath
which they try to bury it. Let us not mince words: the marvelous is always beautiful,
anything marvelous is beautiful, in fact only the marvelous is beautiful.
In the realm of literature, only the marvelous is capable of fecundating works which
belong to an inferior category such as the novel, and generally speaking, anything
that involves storytelling. Lewis' The Monk is an admirable proof of this. It is
infused throughout with the presence of the marvelous. Long before the author has
freed his main characters from all temporal constraints, one feels them ready to
act with an unprecedented pride. This passion for eternity with which they are constantly
stirred lends an unforgettable intensity to their torments, and to mine. I mean
that this book, from beginning to end, and in the purest way imaginable, exercises
an exalting effect only upon that part of the mind which aspires to leave the earth
and that, stripped of an insignificant part of its plot, which belongs to the period
in which it was written, it constitutes a paragon of precision and innocent grandeur.*
(What is admirable about the fantastic is that there is no longer anything fantastic:
there is only the real.) It seems to me none better has been done, and that the
character of Mathilda in particular is the most moving creation that one can credit
to this figurative fashion in literature. She is less a character than a continual
temptation. And if a character is not a temptation, what is he? An extreme temptation,
she. In The Monk the "nothing is impossible for him who dares try" gives it its
full, convincing measure. Ghosts play a logical role in the book, since the critical
mind does not seize them in order to dispute them. Ambrosio's punishment is likewise
treated in a legitimate manner, since it is finally accepted by the critical faculty
as a natural denouement.
It may seem arbitrary on my part, when discussing the marvelous, to choose this
model, from which both the Nordic literatures and Oriental literatures have borrowed
time and time again, not to mention the religious literatures of every country.
This is because most of the examples which these literatures could have furnished
me with are tainted by puerility, for the simple reason that they are addressed
to children. At an early age children are weaned on the marvelous, and later on
they fail to retain a sufficient virginity of mind to thoroughly enjoy fairy tales.
No matter how charming they may be, a grown man would think he were reverting to
childhood by nourishing himself on fairy tales, and I am the first to admit that
all such tales are not suitable for him. The fabric of adorable improbabilities
must be made a trifle more subtle the older we grow, and we are still at the age
of waiting for this kind of spider.... But the faculties do not change radically.
Fear, the attraction of the unusual, chance, the taste for things extravagant are
all devices which we can always call upon without fear of deception. There are fairy
tales to be written for adults, fairy tales still almost blue.
The marvelous is not the same in every period of history: it partakes in some obscure
way of a sort of general revelation only the fragments of which come down to us:
they are the romantic ruins, the modern mannequin, or any other symbol capable of
affecting the human sensibility for a period of time. In these areas which make
us smile, there is still portrayed the incurable human restlessness, and this is
why I take them into consideration and why I judge them inseparable from certain
productions of genius which are, more than the others, painfully afflicted by them.
They are Villon's gibbets, Racine's Greeks, Baudelaire's couches. They coincide
with an eclipse of the taste I am made to endure, I whose notion of taste is the
image of a big spot. Amid the bad taste of my time I strive to go further than anyone
else. It would have been I, had I lived in 1820, I "the bleeding nun," I who would
not have spared this cunning and banal "let us conceal" whereof the parodical Cuisin
speaks, it would have been I, I who would have reveled in the enormous metaphors,
as he says, all phases of the "silver disk." For today I think of a castle, half
of which is not necessarily in ruins; this castle belongs to me, I picture it in
a rustic setting, not far from Paris. The outbuildings are too numerous to mention,
and, as for the interior, it has been frightfully restored, in such manner as to
leave nothing to be desired from the viewpoint of comfort. Automobiles are parked
before the door, concealed by the shade of trees. A few of my friends are living
here as permanent guests: there is Louis Aragon leaving; he only has time enough
to say hello; Philippe Soupault gets up with the stars, and Paul Eluard, our great
Eluard, has not yet come home. There are Robert Desnos and Roger Vitrac out on the
grounds poring over an ancient edict on duelling; Georges Auric, Jean Paulhan; Max
Morise, who rows so well, and Benjamin Péret, busy with his equations with birds;
and Joseph Delteil; and Jean Carrive; and Georges Limbour, and Georges Limbours
(there is a whole hedge of Georges Limbours); and Marcel Noll; there is T. Fraenkel
waving to us from his captive balloon, Georges Malkine, Antonin Artaud, Francis
Gérard, Pierre Naville, J.-A. Boiffard, and after them Jacques Baron and his brother,
handsome and cordial, and so many others besides, and gorgeous women, I might add.
Nothing is too good for these young men, their wishes are, as to wealth, so many
commands. Francis Picabia comes to pay us a call, and last week, in the hall of
mirrors, we received a certain Marcel Duchamp whom we had not hitherto known. Picasso
goes hunting in the neighborhood. The spirit of demoralization has elected domicile
in the castle, and it is with it we have to deal every time it is a question of
contact with our fellowmen, but the doors are always open, and one does not begin
by "thanking" everyone, you know. Moreover, the solitude is vast, we don't often
run into one another. And anyway, isn't what matters that we be the masters of ourselves,
the masters of women, and of love too?
I shall be proved guilty of poetic dishonesty: everyone will go parading about saying
that I live on the rue Fontaine and that he will have none of the water that flows
therefrom. To be sure! But is he certain that this castle into which I cordially
invite him is an image? What if this castle really existed! My guests are there
to prove it does; their whim is the luminous road that leads to it. We really live
by our fantasies when we give free reign to them. And how could what one might do
bother the other, there, safely sheltered from the sentimental pursuit and at the
trysting place of opportunities?
Man proposes and disposes. He and he alone can determine whether he is completely
master of himself, that is, whether he maintains the body of his desires, daily
more formidable, in a state of anarchy. Poetry teaches him to. It bears within itself
the perfect compensation for the miseries we endure. It can also be an organizer,
if ever, as the result of a less intimate disappointment, we contemplate taking
it seriously. The time is coming when it decrees the end of money and by itself
will break the bread of heaven for the earth! There will still be gatherings on
the public squares, and movements you never dared hope participate in. Farewell
to absurd choices, the dreams of dark abyss, rivalries, the prolonged patience,
the flight of the seasons, the artificial order of ideas, the ramp of danger, time
for everything! May you only take the trouble to practice poetry. Is it not incumbent
upon us, who are already living off it, to try and impose what we hold to be our
case for further inquiry?
It matters not whether there is a certain disproportion between this defense and
the illustration that will follow it. It was a question of going back to the sources
of poetic imagination and, what is more, of remaining there. Not that I pretend
to have done so. It requires a great deal of fortitude to try to set up one's abode
in these distant regions where everything seems at first to be so awkward and difficult,
all the more so if one wants to try to take someone there. Besides, one is never
sure of really being there. If one is going to all that trouble, one might as well
stop off somewhere else. Be that as it may, the fact is that the way to these regions
is clearly marked, and that to attain the true goal is now merely a matter of the
travelers' ability to endure.
We are all more or less aware of the road traveled. I was careful to relate, in
the course of a study of the case of Robert Desnos entitled ENTRÉE DES MÉDIUMS,*
(See Les Pas perdus, published by N.R.F.) that I had been led to" concentrate my
attention on the more or less partial sentences which, when one is quite alone and
on the verge of falling asleep, become perceptible for the mind without its being
possible to discover what provoked them." I had then just attempted the poetic adventure
with the minimum of risks, that is, my aspirations were the same as they are today
but I trusted in the slowness of formulation to keep me from useless contacts, contacts
of which I completely disapproved. This attitude involved a modesty of thought certain
vestiges of which I still retain. At the end of my life, I shall doubtless manage
to speak with great effort the way people speak, to apologize for my voice and my
few remaining gestures. The virtue of the spoken word (and the written word all
the more so) seemed to me to derive from the faculty of foreshortening in a striking
manner the exposition (since there was exposition) of a small number of facts, poetic
or other, of which I made myself the substance. I had come to the conclusion that
Rimbaud had not proceeded any differently. I was composing, with a concern for variety
that deserved better, the final poems of Mont de piété, that is, I managed to extract
from the blank lines of this book an incredible advantage. These lines were the
closed eye to the operations of thought that I believed I was obliged to keep hidden
from the reader. It was not deceit on my part, but my love of shocking the reader.
I had the illusion of a possible complicity, which I had more and more difficulty
giving up. I had begun to cherish words excessively for the space they allow around
them, for their tangencies with countless other words which I did not utter. The
poem BLACK FOREST derives precisely from this state of mind. It took me six months
to write it, and you may take my word for it that I did not rest a single day. But
this stemmed from the opinion I had of myself in those days, which was high, please
don't judge me too harshly. I enjoy these stupid confessions. At that point cubist
pseudo-poetry was trying to get a foothold, but it had emerged defenseless from
Picasso's brain, and I was thought to be as dull as dishwater (and still am). I
had a sneaking suspicion, moreover, that from the viewpoint of poetry I was off
on the wrong road, but I hedged my bet as best I could, defying lyricism with salvos
of definitions and formulas (the Dada phenomena were waiting in the wings, ready
to come on stage) and pretending to search for an application of poetry to advertising
(I went so far as to claim that the world would end, not with a good book but with
a beautiful advertisement for heaven or for hell).
In those days, a man at least as boring as I, Pierre Reverdy, was writing:
The image is a pure creation of the mind.
It cannot be born from a comparison but from a juxtaposition of two more or less
distant realities.
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...*
(Nord-Sud, March 1918)
These words, however sibylline for the uninitiated, were extremely revealing, and
I pondered them for a long time. But the image eluded me. Reverdy's aesthetic, a
completely a posteriori aesthetic, led me to mistake the effects for the causes.
It was in the midst of all this that I renounced irrevocably my point of view.
One evening, therefore, before I fell asleep, I perceived, so clearly articulated
that it was impossible to change a word, but nonetheless removed from the sound
of any voice, a rather strange phrase which came to me without any apparent relationship
to the events in which, my consciousness agrees, I was then involved, a phrase which
seemed to me insistent, a phrase, if I may be so bold, which was knocking at the
window. I took cursory note of it and prepared to move on when its organic character
caught my attention. Actually, this phrase astonished me: unfortunately I cannot
remember it exactly, but it was something like: "There is a man cut in two by the
window," but there could be no question of ambiguity, accompanied as it was by the
faint visual image* (Were I a painter, this visual depiction would doubtless have
become more important for me than the other. It was most certainly my previous predispositions
which decided the matter. Since that day, I have had occasion to concentrate my
attention voluntarily on similar apparitions, and I know they are fully as clear
as auditory phenomena. With a pencil and white sheet of paper to hand, I could easily
trace their outlines. Here again it is not a matter of drawing, but simply of tracing.
I could thus depict a tree, a wave, a musical instrument, all manner of things of
which I am presently incapable of providing even the roughest sketch. I would plunge
into it, convinced that I would find my way again, in a maze of lines which at first
glance would seem to be going nowhere. And, upon opening my eyes, I would get the
very strong impression of something "never seen." The proof of what I am saying
has been provided many times by Robert Desnos: to be convinced, one has only to
leaf through the pages of issue number 36 of Feuilles libres which contains several
of his drawings (Romeo and Juliet, A Man Died This Morning, etc.) which were taken
by this magazine as the drawings of a madman and published as such.) of a man walking
cut half way up by a window perpendicular to the axis of his body. Beyond the slightest
shadow of a doubt, what I saw was the simple reconstruction in space of a man leaning
out a window. But this window having shifted with the man, I realized that I was
dealing with an image of a fairly rare sort, and all I could think of was to incorporate
it into my material for poetic construction. No sooner had I granted it this capacity
than it was in fact succeeded by a whole series of phrases, with only brief pauses
between them, which surprised me only slightly less and left me with the impression
of their being so gratuitous that the control I had then exercised upon myself seemed
to me illusory and all I could think of was putting an end to the interminable quarrel
raging within me.* (Knut Hamsum ascribes this sort of revelation to which I had
been subjected as deriving from hunger, and he may not be wrong. (The fact is I
did not eat every day during that period of my life). Most certainly the manifestations
that he describes in these terms are clearly the same:
"The following day I awoke at an early hour. It was still dark. My eyes had been
open for a long time when I heard the clock in the apartment above strike five.
I wanted to go back to sleep, but I couldn't; I was wide awake and a thousand thoughts
were crowding through my mind.
"Suddenly a few good fragments came to mind, quite suitable to be used in a rough
draft, or serialized; all of a sudden I found, quite by chance, beautiful phrases,
phrases such as I had never written. I repeated them to myself slowly, word by word;
they were excellent. And there were still more coming. I got up and picked up a
pencil and some paper that were on a table behind my bed. It was as though some
vein had burst within me, one word followed another, found its proper place, adapted
itself to the situation, scene piled upon scene, the action unfolded, one retort
after another welled up in my mind, I was enjoying myself immensely. Thoughts came
to me so rapidly and continued to flow so abundantly that I lost a whole host of
delicate details, because my pencil could not keep up with them, and yet I went
as fast as I could, my hand in constant motion, I did not lose a minute. The sentences
continued to well up within me, I was pregnant with my subject."
Apollinaire asserted that Chirico's first paintings were done under the influence
of cenesthesic disorders (migraines, colics, etc.).)
Completely occupied as I still was with Freud at that time, and familiar as I was
with his methods of examination which I had some slight occasion to use on some
patients during the war, I resolved to obtain from myself what we were trying to
obtain from them, namely, a monologue spoken as rapidly as possible without any
intervention on the part of the critical faculties, a monologue consequently unencumbered
by the slightest inhibition and which was, as closely as possible, akin to spoken
thought. It had seemed to me, and still does -- the way in which the phrase about
the man cut in two had come to me is an indication of it -- that the speed of thought
is no greater than the speed of speech, and that thought does not necessarily defy
language, nor even the fast-moving pen. It was in this frame of mind that Philippe
Soupault -- to whom I had confided these initial conclusions – and I decided to
blacken some paper, with a praiseworthy disdain for what might result from a literary
point of view. The ease of execution did the rest. By the end of the first day we
were able to read to ourselves some fifty or so pages obtained in this manner, and
begin to compare our results. All in all, Soupault's pages and mine proved to be
remarkably similar: the same overconstruction, shortcomings of a similar nature,
but also, on both our parts, the illusion of an extraordinary verve, a great deal
of emotion, a considerable choice of images of a quality such that we would not
have been capable of preparing a single one in longhand, a very special picturesque
quality and, here and there, a strong comical effect. The only difference between
our two texts seemed to me to derive essentially from our respective tempers. Soupault's
being less static than mine, and, if he does not mind my offering this one slight
criticism, from the fact that he had made the error of putting a few words by way
of titles at the top of certain pages, I suppose in a spirit of mystification. On
the other hand, I must give credit where credit is due and say that he constantly
and vigorously opposed any effort to retouch or correct, however slightly, any passage
of this kind which seemed to me unfortunate. In this he was, to be sure, absolutely
right.* (I believe more and more in the infallibility of my thought with respect
to myself, and this is too fair. Nonetheless, with this thought-writing, where one
is at the mercy of the first outside distraction, "ebullutions" can occur. It would
be inexcusable for us to pretend otherwise. By definition, thought is strong, and
incapable of catching itself in error. The blame for these obvious weaknesses must
be placed on suggestions that come to it from without.) It is, in fact, difficult
to appreciate fairly the various elements present: one may even go so far as to
say that it is impossible to appreciate them at a first reading. To you who write,
these elements are, on the surface, as strange to you as they are to anyone else,
and naturally you are wary of them. Poetically speaking, what strikes you about
them above all is their extreme degree of immediate absurdity, the quality of this
absurdity, upon closer scrutiny, being to give way to everything admissible, everything
legitimate in the world: the disclosure of a certain number of properties and of
facts no less objective, in the final analysis, than the others.
In homage to Guillaume Apollinaire, who had just died and who, on several occasions,
seemed to us to have followed a discipline of this kind, without however having
sacrificed to it any mediocre literary means, Soupault and I baptized the new mode
of pure expression which we had at our disposal and which we wished to pass on to
our friends, by the name of SURREALISM. I believe that there is no point today in
dwelling any further on this word and that the meaning we gave it initially has
generally prevailed over its Apollinarian sense. To be even fairer, we could probably
have taken over the word SUPERNATURALISM employed by Gérard de Nerval in his dedication
to the Filles de feu.* (And also by Thomas Carlyle in Sartor Resartus ([Book III]
Chapter VIII, "Natural Supernaturalism"), 1833-34.) It appears, in fact, that Nerval
possessed to a tee the spirit with which we claim a kinship, Apollinaire having
possessed, on the contrary, naught but the letter, still imperfect, of Surrealism,
having shown himself powerless to give a valid theoretical idea of it. Here are
two passages by Nerval which seem to me to be extremely significant in this respect:
I am going to explain to you, my dear Dumas, the phenomenon of which you have spoken
a short while ago. There are, as you know, certain storytellers who cannot invent
without identifying with the characters their imagination has dreamt up. You may
recall how convincingly our old friend Nodier used to tell how it had been his misfortune
during the Revolution to be guillotined; one became so completely convinced of what
he was saying that one began to wonder how he had managed to have his head glued
back on.
...And since you have been indiscreet enough to quote one of the sonnets composed
in this SUPERNATURALISTIC dream-state, as the Germans would call it, you will have
to hear them all. You will find them at the end of the volume. They are hardly any
more obscure than Hegel's metaphysics or Swedenborg's MEMORABILIA, and would lose
their charm if they were explained, if such were possible; at least admit the worth
of the expression....** (See also L'Idéoréalisme by Saint-Pol-Roux.)
Those who might dispute our right to employ the term SURREALISM in the very special
sense that we understand it are being extremely dishonest, for there can be no doubt
that this word had no currency before we came along. Therefore, I am defining it
once and for all:
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.
They seem to be, up to the present time, the only ones, and there would be no ambiguity
about it were it not for the case of Isidore Ducasse, about whom I lack information.
And, of course, if one is to judge them only superficially by their results, a good
number of poets could pass for Surrealists, beginning with Dante and, in his finer
moments, Shakespeare. In the course of the various attempts I have made to reduce
what is, by breach of trust, called genius, I have found nothing which in the final
analysis can be attributed to any other method than that.
Young's Nights are Surrealist from one end to the other; unfortunately it is a priest
who is speaking, a bad priest no doubt, but a priest nonetheless.
Swift is Surrealist in malice,
Sade is Surrealist in sadism.
Chateaubriand is Surrealist in exoticism.
Constant is Surrealist in politics.
Hugo is Surrealist when he isn't stupid.
Desbordes-Valmore is Surrealist in love.
Bertrand is Surrealist in the past.
Rabbe is Surrealist in death.
Poe is Surrealist in adventure.
Baudelaire is Surrealist in morality.
Rimbaud is Surrealist in the way he lived, and elsewhere.
Mallarmé is Surrealist when he is confiding.
Jarry is Surrealist in absinthe.
Nouveau is Surrealist in the kiss.
Saint-Pol-Roux is Surrealist in his use of symbols.
Fargue is Surrealist in the atmosphere.
Vaché is Surrealist in me.
Reverdy is Surrealist at home.
Saint-Jean-Perse is Surrealist at a distance.
Roussel is Surrealist as a storyteller.
Etc.
I would like to stress the point: they are not always Surrealists, in that I discern
in each of them a certain number of preconceived ideas to which -- very naively!
-- they hold. They hold to them because they had not heard the Surrealist voice,
the one that continues to preach on the eve of death and above the storms, because
they did not want to serve simply to orchestrate the marvelous score. They were
instruments too full of pride, and this is why they have not always produced a harmonious
sound.* (I could say the same of a number of philosophers and painters, including,
among the latter, Uccello, from painters of the past, and, in the modern era, Seurat,
Gustave Moreau, Matisse (in "La Musique," for example), Derain, Picasso, (by far
the most pure), Braque, Duchamp, Picabia, Chirico (so admirable for so long), Klee,
Man Ray, Max Ernst, and, one so close to us, André Masson.)
But we, who have made no effort whatsoever to filter, who in our works have made
ourselves into simple receptacles of so many echoes, modest recording instruments
who are not mesmerized by the drawings we are making, perhaps we serve an even nobler
cause. Thus do we render with integrity the "talent" which has been lent to us.
You might as well speak of the talent of this platinum ruler, this mirror, this
door, and of the sky, if you like.
We do not have any talent; ask Philippe Soupault:
"Anatomical products of manufacture and low-income dwellings will destroy the tallest
cities."
Ask Roger Vitrac:
"No sooner had I called forth the marble-admiral than he turned on his heel like
a horse which rears at the sight of the North star and showed me, in the plane of
his two-pointed cocked hat, a region where I was to spend my life."
Ask Paul Eluard:
"This is an oft-told tale that I tell, a famous poem that I reread: I am leaning
against a wall, with my verdant ears and my lips burned to a crisp."
Ask Max Morise:
"The bear of the caves and his friend the bittern, the vol-au-vent and his valet
the wind, the Lord Chancellor with his Lady, the scarecrow for sparrows and his
accomplice the sparrow, the test tube and his daughter the needle, this carnivore
and his brother the carnival, the sweeper and his monocle, the Mississippi and its
little dog, the coral and its jug of milk, the Miracle and its Good Lord, might
just as well go and disappear from the surface of the sea."
Ask Joseph Delteil:
"Alas! I believe in the virtue of birds. And a feather is all it takes to make me
die laughing."
Ask Louis Aragon:
"During a short break in the party, as the players were gathering around a bowl
of flaming punch, I asked a tree if it still had its red ribbon."
And ask me, who was unable to keep myself from writing the serpentine, distracting
lines of this preface.
Ask Robert Desnos, he who, more than any of us, has perhaps got closest to the Surrealist
truth, he who, in his still unpublished works* (NOUVELLES HÉBRIDES, DÉSORDRE FORMEL,
DEUIL POUR DEUIL.) and in the course of the numerous experiments he has been a party
to, has fully justified the hope I placed in Surrealism and leads me to believe
that a great deal more will still come of it. Desnos speaks Surrealist at will.
His extraordinary agility in orally following his thought is worth as much to us
as any number of splendid speeches which are lost, Desnos having better things to
do than record them. He reads himself like an open book, and does nothing to retain
the pages, which fly away in the windy wake of his life.
ö ö ö ö ö ö ö ö ö ö ö ö ö ö ö ö ö ö ö ö ö ö ö ö ö ö ö ö ö ö ö ö ö ö
SECRETS OF THE MAGICAL
SURREALIST ART
Written Surrealist composition
or
first and last draft
After you have settled yourself in a place as favorable as possible to the concentration
of your mind upon itself, have writing materials brought to you. Put yourself in
as passive, or receptive, a state of mind as you can. Forget about your genius,
your talents, and the talents of everyone else. Keep reminding yourself that literature
is one of the saddest roads that leads to everything. Write quickly, without any
preconceived subject, fast enough so that you will not remember what you're writing
and be tempted to reread what you have written. The first sentence will come spontaneously,
so compelling is the truth that with every passing second there is a sentence unknown
to our consciousness which is only crying out to be heard. It is somewhat of a problem
to form an opinion about the next sentence; it doubtless partakes both of our conscious
activity and of the other, if one agrees that the fact of having written the first
entails a minimum of perception. This should be of no importance to you, however;
to a large extent, this is what is most interesting and intriguing about the Surrealist
game. The fact still remains that punctuation no doubt resists the absolute continuity
of the flow with which we are concerned, although it may seem as necessary as the
arrangement of knots in a vibrating cord. Go on as long as you like. Put your trust
in the inexhaustible nature of the murmur. If silence threatens to settle in if
you should ever happen to make a mistake -- a mistake, perhaps due to carelessness
-- break off without hesitation with an overly clear line. Following a word the
origin of which seems suspicious to you, place any letter whatsoever, the letter
"l" for example, always the letter "l," and bring the arbitrary back by making this
letter the first of the following word.
How not to be bored any longer when with others
This is very difficult. Don't be at home for anyone, and occasionally, when no one
has forced his way in, interrupting you in the midst of your Surrealist activity,
and you, crossing your arms, say: "It doesn't matter, there are doubtless better
things to do or not do. Interest in life is indefensible Simplicity, what is going
on inside me, is still tiresome to me!" or an other revolting banality.
To make speeches
Just prior to the elections, in the first country which deems it worthwhile to proceed
in this kind of public expression of opinion, have yourself put on the ballot. Each
of us has within himself the potential of an orator: multicolored loin cloths, glass
trinkets of words. Through Surrealism he will take despair unawares in its poverty.
One night, on a stage, he will, by himself, carve up the eternal heaven, that Peau
de l'ours. He will promise so much that any promises he keeps will be a source of
wonder and dismay. In answer to the claims of an entire people he will give a partial
and ludicrous vote. He will make the bitterest enemies partake of a secret desire
which will blow up the countries. And in this he will succeed simply by allowing
himself to be moved by the immense word which dissolves into pity and revolves in
hate. Incapable of failure, he will play on the velvet of all failures. He will
be truly elected, and women will love him with an all-consuming passion.
To write false novels
Whoever you may be, if the spirit moves you burn a few laurel leaves and, without
wishing to tend this meager fire, you will begin to write a novel. Surrealism will
allow you to: all you have to do is set the needle marked "fair" at "action," and
the rest will follow naturally. Here are some characters rather different in appearance;
their names in your handwriting are a question of capital letters, and they will
conduct themselves with the same ease with respect to active verbs as does the impersonal
pronoun "it" with respect to words such as "is raining," "is," "must," etc. They
will command them, so to speak, and wherever observation, reflection, and the faculty
of generalization prove to be of no help to you, you may rest assured that they
will credit you with a thousand intentions you never had. Thus endowed with a tiny
number of physical and moral characteristics, these beings who in truth owe you
so little will thereafter deviate not one iota from a certain line of conduct about
which you need not concern yourself any further. Out of this will result a plot
more or less clever in appearance, justifying point by point this moving or comforting
denouement about which you couldn't care less. Your false novel will simulate to
a marvelous degree a real novel; you will be rich, and everyone will agree that
"you've really got a lot of guts," since it's also in this region that this something
is located.
Of course, by an analogous method, and provided you ignore what you are reviewing,
you can successfully devote yourself to false literary criticism.
How to catch the eye of a woman
you pass in the street
............................................................
Against death
Surrealism will usher you into death, which is a secret society. It will glove your
hand, burying therein the profound M with which the word Memory begins. Do not forget
to make proper arrangements for your last will and testament: speaking personally,
I ask that I be taken to the cemetery in a moving van. May my friends destroy every
last copy of the printing of the Speech concerning the Modicum of Reality.
“ “ “ “ “ “ “ “ “ “ “ “ “ “ “ “ “ “ “ “ “ “ “ “ “ “ “ “ “ “
Language has been given to man so that he may make Surrealist use of it. To the
extent that he is required to make himself understood, he manages more or less to
express himself, and by so doing to fulfill certain functions culled from among
the most vulgar. Speaking, reading a letter, present no real problem for him, provided
that, in so doing, he does not set himself a goal above the mean, that is, provided
he confines himself to carrying on a conversation (for the pleasure of conversing)
with someone. He is not worried about the words that are going to come, nor about
the sentence which will follow after the sentence he is just completing. To a very
simple question, he will be capable of making a lightning-like reply. In the absence
of minor tics acquired through contact with others, he can without any ado offer
an opinion on a limited number of subjects; for that he does not need to "count
up to ten" before speaking or to formulate anything whatever ahead of time. Who
has been able to convince him that this faculty of the first draft will only do
him a disservice when he makes up his mind to establish more delicate relationships?
There is no subject about which he should refuse to talk, to write about prolifically.
All that results from listening to oneself, from reading what one has written, is
the suspension of the occult, that admirable help. I am in no hurry to understand
myself (basta! I shall always understand myself). If such and such a sentence of
mine turns out to be somewhat disappointing, at least momentarily, I place my trust
in the following sentence to redeem its sins; I carefully refrain from starting
it over again or polishing it. The only thing that might prove fatal to me would
be the slightest loss of impetus. Words, groups of words which follow one another,
manifest among themselves the greatest solidarity. It is not up to me to favor one
group over the other. It is up to a miraculous equivalent to intervene -- and intervene
it does.
Not only does this unrestricted language, which I am trying to render forever valid,
which seems to me to adapt itself to all of life's circumstances, not only does
this language not deprive me of any of my means, on the contrary it lends me an
extraordinary lucidity, and it does so in an area where I least expected it. I shall
even go so far as to maintain that it instructs me and, indeed, I have had occasion
to use surreally words whose meaning I have forgotten. I was subsequently able to
verify that the way in which I had used them corresponded perfectly with their definition.
This would leave one to believe that we do not "learn," that all we ever do is "relearn."
There are felicitous turns of speech that I have thus familiarized myself with.
And I am not talking about the poetic consciousness of objects which I have been
able to acquire only after a spiritual contact with them repeated a thousand times
over.
The forms of Surrealist language adapt themselves best to dialogue. Here, two thoughts
confront each other; while one is being delivered, the other is busy with it; but
how is it busy with it? To assume that it incorporates it within itself would be
tantamount to admitting that there is a time during which it is possible for it
to live completely off that other thought, which is highly unlikely. And, in fact,
the attention it pays is completely exterior; it has only time enough to approve
or reject -- generally reject -- with all the consideration of which man is capable.
This mode of language, moreover, does not allow the heart of the matter to be plumbed.
My attention, prey to an entreaty which it cannot in all decency reject, treats
the opposing thought as an enemy; in ordinary conversation, it "takes it up" almost
always on the words, the figures of speech, it employs; it puts me in a position
to turn it to good advantage in my reply by distorting them. This is true to such
a degree that in certain pathological states of mind, where the sensorial disorders
occupy the patient's complete attention, he limits himself, while continuing to
answer the questions, to seizing the last word spoken in his presence or the last
portion of the Surrealist sentence some trace of which he finds in his mind.
Q. "How old are you?" A. "You." (Echolalia.)
Q. "What is your name?" A. "Forty-five houses." (Ganser syndrome, or beside-the-point
replies.)
There is no conversation in which some trace of this disorder does not occur. The
effort to be social which dictates it and the considerable practice we have at it
are the only things which enable us to conceal it temporarily. It is also the great
weakness of the book that it is in constant conflict with its best, by which I mean
the most demanding, readers. In the very short dialogue that I concocted above between
the doctor and the madman, it was in fact the madman who got the better of the exchange.
Because, through his replies, he obtrudes upon the attention of the doctor examining
him -- and because he is not the person asking the questions. Does this mean that
his thought at this point is stronger? Perhaps. He is free not to care any longer
about his age or name.
Poetic Surrealism, which is the subject of this study, has focused its efforts up
to this point on reestablishing dialogue in its absolute truth, by freeing both
interlocutors from any obligations and politeness. Each of them simply pursues his
soliloquy without trying to derive any special dialectical pleasure from it and
without trying to impose anything whatsoever upon his neighbor. The remarks exchanged
are not, as is generally the case, meant to develop some thesis, however unimportant
it may be; they are as disaffected as possible. As for the reply that they elicit,
it is, in principle, totally indifferent to the personal pride of the person speaking.
The words, the images are only so many springboards for the mind of the listener.
In Les Champs magnétiques, the first purely Surrealist work, this is the way in
which the pages grouped together under the title Barrières must be conceived of
-- pages wherein Soupault and I show ourselves to be impartial interlocutors.
Surrealism does not allow those who devote themselves to it to forsake it whenever
they like. There is every reason to believe that it acts on the mind very much as
drugs do; like drugs, it creates a certain state of need and can push man to frightful
revolts. It also is, if you like, an artificial paradise, and the taste one has
for it derives from Baudelaire's criticism for the same reason as the others. Thus
the analysis of the mysterious effects and special pleasures it can produce -- in
many respects Surrealism occurs as a new vice which does not necessarily seem to
be restricted to the happy few; like hashish, it has the ability to satisfy all
manner of tastes -- such an analysis has to be included in the present study.
1. It is true of Surrealist images as it is of opium images that man does not evoke
them; rather they "come to him spontaneously, despotically. He cannot chase them
away; for the will is powerless now and no longer controls the faculties."* (Baudelaire.)
It remains to be seen whether images have ever been "evoked." If one accepts, as
I do, Reverdy's definition it does not seem possible to bring together, voluntarily,
what he calls "two distant realities." The juxtaposition is made or not made, and
that is the long and the short of it. Personally, I absolutely refuse to believe
that, in Reverdy's work, images such as
In the brook, there is a song that flows
or:
Day unfolded like a white tablecloth
or:
The world goes back into a sack
reveal the slightest degree of premeditation. In my opinion, it is erroneous to
claim that "the mind has grasped the relationship" of two realities in the presence
of each other. First of all, it has seized nothing consciously. It is, as it were,
from the fortuitous juxtaposition of the two terms that a particular light has sprung,
the light of the image, to which we are infinitely sensitive. The value of the image
depends upon the beauty of the spark obtained; it is, consequently, a function of
the difference of potential between the two conductors. When the difference exists
only slightly, as in a comparison,* (Compare the image in the work of Jules Renard.)
the spark is lacking. Now, it is not within man's power, so far as I can tell, to
effect the juxtaposition of two realities so far apart. The principle of the association
of ideas, such as we conceive of it, militates against it. Or else we would have
to revert to an elliptical art, which Reverdy deplores as much as I. We are therefore
obliged to admit that the two terms of the image are not deduced one from the other
by the mind for the specific purpose of producing the spark, that they are the simultaneous
products of the activity I call Surrealist, reason's role being limited to taking
note of, and appreciating, the luminous phenomenon.
And just as the length of the spark increases to the extent that it occurs in rarefied
gases, the Surrealist atmosphere created by automatic writing, which I have wanted
to put within the reach of everyone, is especially conducive to the production of
the most beautiful images. One can even go so far as to say that in this dizzying
race the images appear like the only guideposts of the mind. By slow degrees the
mind becomes convinced of the supreme reality of these images. At first limiting
itself to submitting to them, it soon realizes that they flatter its reason, and
increase its knowledge accordingly. The mind becomes aware of the limitless expanses
wherein its desires are made manifest, where the pros and cons are constantly consumed,
where its obscurity does not betray it. It goes forward, borne by these images which
enrapture it, which scarcely leave it any time to blow upon the fire in its fingers.
This is the most beautiful night of all, the lightning-filled night: day, compared
to it, is night.
The countless kinds of Surrealist images would require a classification which I
do not intend to make today. To group them according to their particular affinities
would lead me far afield; what I basically want to mention is their common virtue.
For me, their greatest virtue, I must confess, is the one that is arbitrary to the
highest degree, the one that takes the longest time to translate into practical
language, either because it contains an immense amount of seeming contradiction
or because one of its terms is strangely concealed; or because, presenting itself
as something sensational, it seems to end weakly (because it suddenly closes the
angle of its compass), or because it derives from itself a ridiculous formal justification,
or because it is of a hallucinatory kind, or because it very naturally gives to
the abstract the mask of the concrete, or the opposite, or because it implies the
negation of some elementary physical property, or because it provokes laughter.
Here, in order, are a few examples of it:
The ruby of champagne. (LAUTRÉAMONT)
Beautiful as the law of arrested development of the breast in adults, whose propensity
to growth is not in proportion to the quantity of molecules that their organism
assimilates. (LAUTRÉAMONT)
A church stood dazzling as a bell. (PHILIPPE SOUPAULT)
In Rrose Sélavy's sleep there is a dwarf issued from a well who comes to eat her
bread at night. (ROBERT DESNOS)
On the bridge the dew with the head of a tabby cat lulls itself to sleep. (ANDRÉ
BRETON)
A little to the left, in my firmament foretold, I see -- but it's doubtless but
a mist of blood and murder -- the gleaming glass of liberty's disturbances. (LOUIS
ARAGON)
In the forest aflame
The lions were fresh. (ROBERT VITRAC)
The color of a woman's stockings is not necessarily in the likeness of her eyes,
which led a philosopher who it is pointless to mention, to say: "Cephalopods have
more reasons to hate progress than do quadrupeds."
(MAX MORISE)
1st. Whether we like it or not, there is enough there to satisfy several demands
of the mind. All these images seem to attest to the fact that the mind is ripe for
something more than the benign joys it allows itself in general. This is the only
way it has of turning to its own advantage the ideal quantity of events with which
it is entrusted.* (Let us no forget that, according to Novalis' formula, "there
are series of events which run parallel to real events. Men and circumstances generally
modify the ideal train of circumstances, so that is seems imperfect; and their consequences
are also equally imperfect. Thus it was with the Reformation; instead of Protestantism,
we got Lutheranism.") These images show it the extent of its ordinary dissipation
and the drawbacks that it offers for it. In the final analysis, it's not such a
bad thing for these images to upset the mind, for to upset the mind is to put it
in the wrong. The sentences I quote make ample provision for this. But the mind
which relishes them draws therefrom the conviction that it is on the right track;
on its own, the mind is incapable of finding itself guilty of cavil; it has nothing
to fear, since, moreover, it attempts to embrace everything.
2nd. The mind which plunges into Surrealism relives with glowing excitement the
best part of its childhood. For such a mind, it is similar to the certainty with
which a person who is drowning reviews once more, in the space of less than a second,
all the insurmountable moments of his life. Some may say to me that the parallel
is not very encouraging. But I have no intention of encouraging those who tell me
that. 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.
3rd. I do not believe in the establishment of a conventional Surrealist pattern
any time in the near future. The characteristics common to all the texts of this
kind, including those I have just cited and many others which alone could offer
us a logical analysis and a careful grammatical analysis, do not preclude a certain
evolution of Surrealist prose in time. Coming on the heels of a large number of
essays I have written in this vein over the past five years, most of which I am
indulgent enough to think are extremely disordered, the short anecdotes which comprise
the balance of this volume offer me a glaring proof of what I am saying. I do not
judge them to be any more worthless, because of that, in portraying for the reader
the benefits which the Surrealist contribution is liable to make to his consciousness.
Surrealist methods would, moreover, demand to be
heard. Everything is valid when it comes to obtaining the desired suddenness from
certain associations. The pieces of paper that Picasso and Braque insert into their
work have the same value as the introduction of a platitude into a literary analysis
of the most rigorous sort. It is even permissible to entitle POEM what we get from
the most random assemblage possible (observe, if you will, the syntax) of headlines
and scraps of headlines cut out of the newspapers:
POEM
A burst of laughter
of sapphire in the island of Ceylon
The most beautiful straws
HAVE A FADED COLOR
UNDER THE LOCKS
on an isolated farm
FROM DAY TO DAY
the pleasant
grows worse
coffee
preaches for its saint
THE DAILY ARTISAN OF YOUR BEAUTY
MADAM,
a pair
of silk stockings
is not
A leap into space
A STAG
Love above all
Everything could be worked out so well
PARIS IS A BIG VILLAGE
Watch out for
the fire that covers
THE PRAYER
of fair weather
Know that
The ultraviolet rays
have finished their task
short and sweet
THE FIRST WHITE PAPER
OF CHANCE
Red will be
The wandering singer
WHERE IS HE?
in memory
in his house
AT THE SUITORS’ BALL
I do
as I dance
What people did, what they’re going to do
And we could offer many many more examples. The theater, philosophy, science, criticism
would all succeed in finding their bearings there. I hasten to add that future Surrealist
techniques do not interest me.
Far more serious, in my opinion* (Whatever reservations I may be allowed to make
concerning responsibility in general and the medico-legal considerations which determine
an individual's degree of responsibility -- complete responsibility, irresponsibility,
limited responsibility (sic) -- however difficult it may be for me to accept the
principle of any kind of responsibility, I would like to know how the first punishable
offenses, the Surrealist character of which will be clearly apparent, will be judged.
Will the accused be acquitted, or will he merely be given the benefit of the doubt
because of extenuating circumstances? It's a shame that the violation of the laws
governing the Press is today scarcely repressed, for if it were not we would soon
see a trial of this sort: the accused has published a book which is an outrage to
public decency. Several of his "most respected and honorable" fellow citizens have
lodged a complaint against him, and he is also charged with slander and libel. There
are also all sorts of other charges against him, such as insulting and defaming
the army, inciting to murder, rape, etc. The accused, moreover, wastes no time in
agreeing with the accusers in "stigmatizing" most of the ideas expressed. His only
defense is claiming that he does not consider himself to be the author of his book,
said book being no more and no less than a Surrealist concoction which precludes
any question of merit or lack of merit on the part of the person who signs it; further,
that all he has done is copy a document without offering any opinion thereon, and
that he is at least as foreign to the accused text as is the presiding judge himself.
What is true for the publication of a book will also hold true for a whole host
of other acts as soon as Surrealist methods begin to enjoy widespread favor. When
that happens, a new morality must be substituted for the prevailing morality, the
source of all our trials and tribulations.) -- I have intimated it often enough
-- are the applications of Surrealism to action. To be sure, I do not believe in
the prophetic nature of the Surrealist word. "It is the oracle, the things I say."*
(Rimbaud.) Yes, as much as I like, but what of the oracle itself?** (Still, STILL....
We must absolutely get to the bottom of this. Today, June 8, 1924, about one o'clock,
the voice whispered to me: "Béthune, Béthune." What did it mean? I have never been
to Béthune, and have only the vaguest notion as to where it is located on the map
of France. Béthune evokes nothing for me, not even a scene from The Three Musketeers.
I should have left for Béthune, where perhaps there was something awaiting me; that
would have been to simple, really. Someone told me they had read in a book by Chesterton
about a detective who, in order to find someone he is looking for in a certain city,
simply scoured from roof to cellar the houses which, from the outside, seemed somehow
abnormal to him, were it only in some slight detail. This system is as good as any
other.
Similarly, in 1919, Soupault went into any number of impossible buildings to ask
the concierge whether Philippe Soupault did in fact live there. He would not have
been surprised, I suspect, by an affirmative reply. He would have gone and knocked
on his door.) Men's piety does not fool me. The Surrealist voice that shook Cumae,
Dodona, and Delphi is nothing more than the voice which dictates my less irascible
speeches to me. My time must not be its time, why should this voice help me resolve
the childish problem of my destiny? I pretend, unfortunately, to act in a world
where, in order to take into account its suggestions, I would be obliged to resort
to two kinds of interpreters, one to translate its judgements for me, the other,
impossible to find, to transmit to my fellow men whatever sense I could make out
of them. This world, in which I endure what I endure (don’t go see), this modern
world, I mean, what the devil do you want me to do with it? Perhaps the Surrealist
voice will be stilled, I have given up trying to keep track of those who have disappeared.
I shall no longer enter into, however briefly, the marvelous detailed description
of my years and my days. I shall be like Nijinski who was taken last year to the
Russian ballet and did not realize what spectacle it was he was seeing. I shall
be alone, very alone within myself, indifferent to all the world’s ballets. What
I have done, what I have left undone, I give it to you.
And ever since I have had a great desire to show forbearance to scientific musing,
however unbecoming, in the final analysis, from every point of view. Radios? Fine.
Syphilis? If you like. Photography? I don’t see any reason why not. The cinema?
Three cheers for darkened rooms. War? Gave us a good laugh. The telephone? Hello.
Youth? Charming white hair. Try to make me say thank you: "Thank you." Thank you.
If the common man has a high opinion of things which properly speaking belong to
the realm of the laboratory, it is because such research has resulted in the manufacture
of a machine or the discovery of some serum which the man in the street views as
affecting him directly. He is quite sure that they have been trying to improve his
lot. I am not quite sure to what extent scholars are motivated by humanitarian aims,
but it does not seem to me that this factor constitutes a very marked degree of
goodness. I am, of course, referring to true scholars and not to the vulgarizers
and popularizers of all sorts who take out patents. In this realm as in any other,
I believe in the pure Surrealist joy of the man who, forewarned that all others
before him have failed, refuses to admit defeat, sets off from whatever point he
chooses, along any other path save a reasonable one, and arrives wherever he can.
Such and such an image, by which he deems it opportune to indicate his progress
and which may result, perhaps, in his receiving public acclaim, is to me, I must
confess, a matter of complete indifference. Nor is the material with which he must
perforce encumber himself; his glass tubes or my metallic feathers… As for his method,
I am willing to give it as much credit as I do mine. I have seen the inventor of
the cutaneous plantar reflex at work; he manipulated his subjects without respite,
it was much more than an "examination" he was employing; it was obvious that he
was following no set plan. Here and there he formulated a remark, distantly, without
nonetheless setting down his needle, while his hammer was never still. He left to
others the futile task of curing patients. He was wholly consumed by and devoted
to that sacred fever.
Surrealism, such as I conceive of it, asserts our complete nonconformism clearly
enough so that there can be no question of translating it, at the trial of the real
world, as evidence for the defense. It could, on the contrary, only serve to justify
the complete state of distraction which we hope to achieve here below. Kant’s absentmindedness
regarding women, Pasteur’s absentmindedness about "grapes," Curie’s absentmindedness
with respect to vehicles, are in this regard profoundly symptomatic. This world
is only very relatively in tune with thought, and incidents of this kind are only
the most obvious episodes of a war in which I am proud to be participating. "Ce
monde n’est que très relativement à la mesure de la pensée et les incidents de ce
genre ne sont que les épisodes jusqu’ici les plus marquants d’une guerre d’indépendence
à laquelle je me fais gloire de participer." Surrealism is the "invisible ray" which
will one day enable us to win out over our opponents. "You are no longer trembling,
carcass." This summer the roses are blue; the wood is of glass. The earth, draped
in its verdant cloak, makes as little impression upon me as a ghost. It is living
and ceasing to live which are imaginary solutions. Existence is elsewhere.