ANDRÉ BRETON PURDUE UNIVERSITY MONOGRAPHS IN ROMANCE LANGUAGES William M. Whitby, General Editor Allan H. Pasco, Editor for French Enrique Caracciolo-Trejo, Editor for Spanish Associate Editors I.French Max Aprile, Purdue University Paul Benhamou, Purdue University Willard Bohn, Illinois State University Gerard J. Brault, Pennsylvania State University Germaine Brée, Wake Forest University Jules Brody, Harvard University Victor Brombert, Princeton University Ursula Franklin, Grand Valley State College Floyd F. Gray, University of Michigan Gerald Herman, University of California, Davis Michael Issacharoff, University of Western Ontario Thomas E. Kelly, Purdue University Milorad R. Margitić,Wake Forest University Bruce A. Morrissette, University of Chicago Roy Jay Nelson, University of Michigan Glyn P. Norton, Pennsylvania State University David Lee Rubin, University of Virginia Murray Sachs, Brandeis University English Showalter, Rutgers University, Camden Donald Stone, Jr., Harvard University II. Spanish J.B. Avalle-Arce, University of California, Santa Barbara Rica Brown, M. A., Oxon Frank P. Casa, University of Michigan James O. Crosby, Florida International University Alan D. Deyermond, Westfield College (University of London) David T. Gies, University of Virginia Roberto González Echevarría, Yale University Thomas R. Hart, University of Oregon David K. Herzberger, University of Connecticut Djelal Kadir II, Purdue University John W. Kronik, Cornell University Floyd F. Merrell, Purdue University Geoffrey Ribbans, Brown University Elias L. Rivers, SUNY, Stony Brook Francisco Ruiz Ramón, University of Chicago J.M. Sobré, Indiana University Bruce W. Wardropper, Duke University Volume 22 J. H. Matthews André Breton Sketch for an Early Portrait J.H. MATTHEWS ANDRÉ BRETON Sketch for an Early Portrait JOHN BENJAMINS PUBLISHING COMPANY Amsterdam/Philadelphia 1986 Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Matthews, J. H. André Breton: sketch of an early portrait. (Purdue University monographs in Romance languages, ISSN 0165-8743; v. 22) Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Breton, André, 1896-1966 - Knowledge and learning. 2. Surrealism ~ France. 3. Arts, French. 4. Arts, Modern - 20th century ~ France. I. Title. II. Series. PQ2603.R35Z754 1986 841'.912 86-20741 ISBN 90 272 1732 7 (European) / ISBN 0-915027-71-2 (US) (alk. paper) © Copyright 1986 - John Benjamins B.V. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publisher. Contents Preface vii 1. Introduction 1 2. Francis Picabia 11 3. Guillaume Apollinaire 33 4. Jacques Vaché 51 5. Marcel Duchamp 69 6. Sigmund Freud 87 7. Antonin Artaud 105 8. Pablo Picasso 123 9. Conclusion 145 Notes 157 Index 171 v Preface There are not many books in English about André Breton. Certainly, there are not so many of them that the author of yet another must feel obligated to explain how he was moved to write his. Breton's stature is much greater than that of a number of contemporaries who have received, already, far more attention from the critics than he. It provides justification without excuse, especially when the commentator's purpose is to shed light on the intricacies of Breton's mind, the significance of his original work, or the impact of his ideas on twentieth-century culture. Hence the aim pursued in the present study may be stated without further preamble: To attempt to broaden under standing of the evolution of André Breton's thinking during a critical period in his life, the one which brought him to leadership of the surrealist move ment in France. Evidently, the focus here is narrow, the goal being to give clearer definition to the intellectual state of a young man emerging from doubt—and so from self-doubt—into renewed confidence in his poetic calling. Examination of other cases (that of Louis Aragon, or Paul Eluard, or Benjamin Péret) which complement and in some respects parallel Breton's, has been excluded. However, the intention behind this book is not to leave a gullible audience with the belief that André Breton's experience was quite unique. Instead, attention is concentrated on the evolving thought of an individual whose prominence among the surrealists warrants granting him careful consideration. The surrealists' reputation for being incorrigible iconoclasts, determined to go their own way, whatever the opposition or resistance facing them, is well established and widely acknowledged. As a consequence, without really thinking about the matter, many people tend to treat surrealism as a movement having no prehistory, a phenomenon which somehow appeared from nowhere on October 15, 1924, the day Simon Kra published André Breton's Manifeste du surréalisme under the imprint Editions du Sagittaire. Their viewpoint represents one of those accommodations by which we spare ourselves the effort of serious reflection. It conveniently ignores indications like the following. vii viii André Breton Future surrealist playwright Roger Vitrac dedicated to the Symbolist poet Henri de Renier the opening sonnet of his first verse collection, Le Faune noir (1919). Future surrealist poet Benjamin Péret made the discovery of poetry when, in transit one day during his military service, he found on a railroad station bench a copy of Poèmes by that preeminent Symbolist Stéphane Mallarmé. Not all of those cited in the first surrealist manifesto as "having shown proof of ABSOLUTE SURREALISM" began writing under inspiration from the dominant poetic movement of the closing years of the nineteenth century. None of them, either, avoided all contact with literary tradition before enlisting in surrealism. In 1914, future poet of surrealism and its principal theoretician, André Breton published verse for the first time. Three poems of his appeared in La Phalange, a magazine edited by a disciple of Mallarmé's, Jean Royère. The first was dedicated to Paul Valéry, a great admirer of Mallarmé and someone whom Breton venerated as the author of Monsieur Teste, which he had committed to memory. The second was dedicated to the Symbolist poet Francis Vielé-Griffin. The facts are unexceptional, but worth noting all the same. André Breton was still a schoolboy when he wrote his first poems. Lacking adequate knowledge of any language but his mother tongue, he found his earliest models among the poets of France, where poetic tradition has always been strong and where dissidence has relegated writers to isolation oftener than it has earned them respect or a position of prominence. Breton's case would have been unusual indeed, had he approached poetry, while still a teenager, in a spirit of revolt, bent on scotching tradition and striking out on his own. So far as inherited values were concerned, André Breton showed himself to be dutifully acquiescent rather than rebellious. And his plan of campaign (if we may apply such a term to a course of action that was entirely predictable and not in the least original) was to earn approval from his elders, whom he could then expect to facilitate acceptance of his work by poetry magazines. As a beginner, he displayed no inclination to attempt to take the poetic citadel by storm. He sought entry—if possible by the main gate, so that his arrival would be noticed—armed with letters of introduction which would ensure that the drawbridge would be lowered for him, and with the least delay possible. The respectability of André Breton's ambitions as a youthful poet deserves mention because it contrasts radically with the aspirations nourishing the ideas and writings for which he is remembered. Between the time when he published his first verses and the appearance of Poisson soluble (appended to his first surrealist manifesto), Breton's outlook underwent a profound change, to which we owe the publication of his mature years. The change occurred during the period in Breton's life with which we are concerned here, a time when disillusion ment and hesitation caused his advance toward poetry to falter and then to pick up momentum as it took a new and exciting direction. Preface ix How did Breton, who as an eighteen-year-old seemed perfectly content to look to his elders for poetic examples to follow, come to reject the past and to map a route for the future exploration of poetry? This is the question underlying the present study, which is intended to provide a sketch of a young poet in evolution. The orientation of this study needs to be stressed from the outset, so that confusion about its scope does not lead some readers into disappointment or irritation other than of the kind its author may elicit inadvertently. A variety of influences came together to lead André Breton on a quest in which he was engaged already for quite some time before he realized where it was leading him. The focal point of our attention is therefore a sensi bility which reveals its complexities as it responds to the appeal (in some instances more directly influential than in others) of predecessors and contem poraries. The work of certain individuals seemed to Breton to hold up a mirror in which he caught glimpses of himself as he wanted to be, tantalizingly incom plete, sometimes rather vague, but fascinating and stimulating none the less. This volume deals with influences that left their mark on Breton by con tributing in some way to his intellectual formation, to the evolution of his ideas. It argues that the value of Breton's published essays about men as different from one another as Guillaume Apollinaire and Sigmund Freud lies elsewhere than in undisguised, uncritical devotion. When we look beneath the surface of Breton's comments in print we always find, though in unequal measure, indications of his personal preoccupations. These take us beyond objective evaluation of this or that person's ideas and accomplishments. Ultimately, the significance of the essays written by André Breton while he was still a young man may be traced to his concern for questions which the particular occasion—prefacing an exhibition of Picabia's paintings or supplying an overview of Apollinaire's poetry, shall we say—offered him the opportunity to confront, even when definitive or explicit answers eluded him. The chapters assembled below are headed by names none of which could be confused with André Breton's. In no instance is an effort made to present a balanced view, of the ideas of Freud, for instance, or of Marcel Duchamp's achievement. An equitable treatment, based on broad acquaintance with Freudian theory, Apollinairian writing, and so on, has not been accomplished, and indeed has not been attempted. Instead, readers will discover evidence in Breton of a bias which is, at moments, flagrant. In each instance, the bias reflected in Breton's comments proves to be the most illuminating feature of what he has to say, bringing both light and shade to the picture he paints. It would be pointless, then, to refer to André Breton for an objective assess ment of the contribution made by Freud or Artaud. Breton had no reason to aspire to present such an evaluation. Thus it is especially informative to consider, for example, why he was attracted to Freud, when we are concerned with sketching Breton's portrait, not Freud's. X André Breton The artists whose ideas and accomplishments bring André Breton's opinions into focus here were not all, strictly speaking, contemporaries of his. They were all, however, men whom he had occasion to know personally, to meet (whether only once, as in the case of Freud, or at irregular intervals throughout his life, as in the case of Duchamp), to frequent, to engage in the exchange of ideas. A glance at his first collection of essays, Les Pas perdus of 1924, is all we need to be able to appreciate that Breton was capable of feeling and inclined to express admiration for people who had not lived long enough to give him the opportunity to make their acquaintance—Lautréamont, notably, and Louis Bertrand. Taken up in that volume, his article on Alfred Jarry alludes to the position in which Breton found himself when discussing such men. André Breton describes himself as having to "imagine him, I who did not know him."1 However, on the same page Breton affirms without hesitation, "I can, I think, judge his work with sufficient detach ment." In this statement, the French phrase "un recul suffisant" stands out oddly. It is anything but representative of Breton's approach to artists who had stimulated his admiration. The essay on Jarry is, indeed, unchar acteristic, not only of Les Pas perdus but of its author's nonpoetic studies in general. While Eluard once wrote an important text on Baudelaire, and Soupault, another (not to mention his book on Lautréamont), André Breton's published essays yield nothing comparable. Far from deriving benefit from distance (recul), and so improving perspective (recul), his comments on poetic matters gathered momentum best from proximity, which never held him back from judging to his own satisfaction artists physically close to him, whether they happened to be close to his own age or not. It goes without saying that Breton was very selective, in that the problems brought into focus when he evaluated the work of others were the very ones to which his own concerns granted priority. Not only were distance and detachment unnecessary, while perspec tive was preordained; they were inappropriate too, since the urgency of the problems Breton shared with selected artists (or thought he did—it comes to the same thing) would have made distance irrelevant, even perhaps an impedi ment. André Breton was deeply impressed by Jarry, and even more impressed by Arthur Rimbaud. But—and this explains their absence from the present study—we could not expect him to have discussed their work quite the way he did that of the individuals examined in the pages that follow. The main objective in view here is to shed light on Breton's position and to illuminate his ideas, through an examination of his response to the activities of men to whom he ascribed special importance and who helped him clarify his ideas and formulate them. Exhaustive treatment of the origins of surrealism in France lies beyond the range of the present volume. But review of certain documents will bring with it clarification of Breton's concept of surrealism.