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Roger Caillois: The Uncertainty That Comes From Dreams

Manuscript

Author

Author André Breton
People cited René Descartes, Jean-Paul Sartre, André Breton, Roger Caillois, Franz Kafka

Description

Manuscrit signé d'André Breton et daté du 17 décembre 1956.

Manuscript signed by André Breton and dated 17 December 1956.

Responding to an article by Roger Caillois, Breton is led to clarify his position on the problem of consciousness: between reflection and fascination, he cannot choose the former exclusively, since the latter does not yield to the former whatsoever, but simply apprehends the world in a different way. When it avoids polemics, confrontation can be productive. Faced with a critic with whom he did not always agree, but whom he respected and with whom he shared a passion for precious stones, Breton reformulated his vision of the dream and enriched his thinking with a reflection on fascination that, unknowingly, opened up an entire area of modern literature, represented notably by Pascal Quignard. [Atelier André Breton website, 2005]

Autograph manuscript signed and dated (17 December 1956).

- 2 pages in-4°, the first handwritten in first draft, titled, dated and signed by André Breton in ink with numerous erasures and corrections, and the second of the same text, also handwritten in ink with erasures and corrections, in which Breton gives a critical review of the book by Roger Caillois, L'incertitude qui vient des rêves [The Uncertainty That Comes From Dreams].

“ I. I unreservedly endorse Roger Caillois's argument that there is no criterion on which to base the intellectual distinction between dream and what is usually opposed to it under the name of ‘reality’. [...]

“Where I inevitably part company with him is at the point where he posits as an axiom the superiority of ‘reflexive’ consciousness over ‘fascinated’ consciousness. On this point, in my opinion, different complexions cannot be vainly measured against each other and, as a result, confront each other with irreconcilable biases. [...]

“There is only one polemical abuse that I have identified in Roger Caillois’s book, when he wrongly accuses the surrealists, in recounting their dreams, of having ‘forced the Marvellous for their own pleasure’; on the contrary, they would have been wary of subjecting themselves to the slightest affectation.” [Auction Catalogue, 2003]

Bibliography

André Breton (Édition publiée sous la direction d'Étienne-Alain Hubert avec la collaboration de Philippe Bernier et Marie-Claire Dumas), « [Sur "L'incertitude qui vient des rêves" de Roger Caillois] », Inédits, Œuvres complètes, tome IV, Écrits sur l'art et autres textes, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, Paris, Gallimard, 2008, p. 1068-1069, notice p.1448.

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Lettre de Robert et Simone Droguet à André Breton, datée de Limonest, le 30 décembre 1956.

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