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The Political Position of Surrealism

Preface

Manuscript

Author

Author André Breton
People cited de La Roque, Paul Lafargue, Pierre Laval, Vladimir Ilitch Oulianov, dit Lénine, Karl Marx, de Wendel

Description

October 1935: in this preface to the collection Position politique du surréalisme [The Political Position of Surrealism]​, Breton brings together his reflections on a particularly intense year.

If the coherence of his position is obvious (despite the "fluctuations" admitted by Breton on the third page), the texts that make up the collection – which includes interviews, lectures, and essays – are, however, sometimes very different. Hence the importance of this preface, which elucidates the volume by immediately launching an attack on a Soviet power accused of having betrayed the revolution. The surrealists themselves were accused of practising bourgeois art and thought, and here Breton makes a real reversal, drawing closer to the movement that led to the 1917 revolution, only to distance himself from the directions it had taken since 1925. To the question "How to act?" that emerged from some of the texts produced in the spring of 1935, the preface answers this in advance by alluding to the founding of Contre-attaque, whose constitutive declaration, given at the end of the volume in the published version, immediately follows the manuscript here. [Atelier André Breton website, 2005]

Autograph manuscript, October 1935.

- Autograph manuscript of 3 pages in-4° in green ink, folioed, with erasures and corrections, titled and dated by Breton.

This is the preface to Position politique du Surréalisme, published in 1935 by Éditions du Sagittaire. The text of the manuscript is almost identical to the published text. (Œuvres complètes, Volume II, ‘Position politique du Surréalisme’, ‘Préface’, pp.411-415).

Bibliography

André Breton, (Édition de Marguerite Bonnet avec la collaboration de Philippe Bernier, Étienne-Alain Hubert et José Pierre), « Préface », Position politique du surréalisme, Œuvres complètes, tome II, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, Paris, Gallimard, 1992, pages 411-415.

 

Creation dateoct-35
Bibliographical material

3 pages in-4°

LanguagesFrench
Reference441000
Breton Auction, 2003Lot 2202
Keywords, , , ,
CategoriesAndre Breton's Manuscripts
Set[AB's Manuscripts] Miscellaneous Manuscripts
Permanent linkhttps://www.andrebreton.fr/en/work/56600100399800