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Robert Desnos' Sleeping fit

First hypnotic sleeping fits

Manuscript

Author

Author Robert Desnos
People cited Jacques Baron, Marcel Duchamp, Francis Picabia
Notes by André Breton

Description

Abstract drawings and the manuscript of a Robert Desnos sleeping fit annotated by Breton dating from 1922.

‘Marcel D[uchamp] is the only murderer. The others are just his reflections.’ Placed once more under the sign of death (the recurring image of ‘people buried alive’), this series mixes abstract drawings representing ‘countries’ with assertoric sorts of formulas, the slight narrative snippets turning into a definition: ‘Today at five o'clock, I killed a woman whose breasts were in her back and that is called poetry.’ Desnos’s creative genius is finally concentrated in a series of formulas among which pearls of puns stand out, like this unexpected mention of ‘flowers of impalement’ (fleurs du pal). These ‘amorous locutions’, written in Breton's hand, are apparently ‘word games of a completely new lyrical nature, that [Desnos] could string together for a long period so they would rhythmically follow on from the one another in a prodigious way’ (Entretiens, 1952). Desnos brought together a good number of them in Corps et biens under the title of ‘Rrose Sélavy’.
First hypnotic sleeping fits.
13 handwritten pages in-4 in black pencil, some by Breton and other by Desnos, on various papers or ‘Congrès de Paris’ headed paper.
‘Mr. Crotti will be involved in a car accident along a Dauphiné road but he won’t die this time he will die in 17 years time? - 3 May 1928. - On this date I see him meeting a woman he has known for many years.
‘At 5 o'clock I killed a wm [woman] who had breasts in her back and was called poetry. Who just walked in. I don't want to know. It's another one of those unknowns than the hearses. Poetry, this half-rotted wm [woman] was thrown into the Seine. Baron. - Why is this mn [man] md [made] of fog?’
On the letterhead:
‘Do you prefer writing or talking? Writing. - The ground is steel but love is mother of pearl ah ah ah and the 4 magic.’
‘What does this drawing represent? - Picabia.’
‘... A man killed a woman 100 metres from him - Marcel D is the only murderer. The others are just his reflections.’

*This entry was translated from the French by Michael Richardson.

Creation date1922
LanguagesFrench
Library

Bibliothèque littéraire Jacques Doucet, Paris : BRT 161

Method of acquisition and collectionBibliothèque littéraire Jacques Doucet, Paris, don Aube et Oona Elléouët
Number of pages13 p.
Reference22000
Breton Auction, 2003Lot 2026
Keywords, , , , ,
CategoriesManuscripts, Surrealists Manuscripts
Set[Manuscripts] Sommeils
Permanent linkhttps://www.andrebreton.fr/en/work/56600100920090