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Fragment of a dream account

12 February 1943

Manuscript

Author

Author André Breton

Description

Autograph manuscript by André Breton, dated 12 February 1943.

Dreams... the oldest dates from 1931, the most recent from the post-war period; figures familiar to Breton appear at different times, such as his parents, René Char in the first, Robert Denoël in the third... Les Vases communicants (The Communicating Vessels) takes up part of the first text and ‘Trajectoire du rêve’ (Trajectory of the Dream) quotes two of them in 1938. However, unlike the dream narratives published here and there by Breton or included in the unpublished works of the Pléiade Œuvres complètes, these are texts written for his own use, without any literary concern; they are also very intimate in character and some of them include drawings, giving them an ‘extra-literary’ character - even if this term should used with caution when speaking of the surrealists. In any case, let us say that they do not lend themselves well to a literary form, unless extensively reworked and thus distorted. [Atelier André Breton website, 2005]

Autograph manuscript, 12 February 1943.
- 3 pages in-18 from a hole-punched agenda, in pencil by Breton.

"I had the idea of having a day out in Poitiers, which is not far away, but, as soon as I arrived, I was taken prisoner on a bridge by the Germans... I am now taken to an office to register. I thought he was French but no, he was German. He was surprised and concerned when he saw that, since my arrival, I had been able to move around without the black star ‘on my badge’. They pinned this star on me." [Sale Catalogue, 2003].