The Lost Steps

by André Breton, Mary Ann Caws (Foreword), Mark Polizzotti (Introduction)

The Lost Steps ( Les Pas perdus ) is André Breton’s first collection of critical and polemical essays. Composed between 1917 and 1923, these pieces trace his evolution during the years when he was emerging as a central figure in French (and European) intellectual life. They chronicle his tumultuous passage through the Dada movement, proclaim his explosive views on Modernism and its heroes, and herald the emergence of Surrealism itself. Along the way, we are given Breton’s serious commentaries on his Modernist predecessors, Guillaume Apollinaire and Alfred Jarry, followed by his not-so-serious Dada manifestoes. Also included are portraits of Marcel Duchamp, Francis Picabia, and Breton’s mysterious friend Jacques Vaché, as well as a crisis-by-crisis account of his dealing with Dada’s leader, Tristan Tzara. Finally, Breton offers a first glimpse of Surrealism, the movement that was forever after identified with his name and that stands as a defining force in twentieth-century aesthetics.

Genres: Art, French Literature, Literary Criticism, France

135 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1969

About the author

After World War I, French poet and literary theorist André Breton began to link at first with Dadaism but broke with that movement to write the first manifesto of surrealism in 1924.

People best know this theorist as the principal founder. His writings include the Surrealist Manifesto (Manifeste du surréalisme), in which he defined this "pure psychic automatism."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3...

Reviews

[Matthew · Rating 1 out of 5]

Breton in a particularly arrogant stage of his career.

It is irritating to have Breton mock Gide, an easy and undeserving target, again and again in multiple essays. Also annoying is Breton's trip to Freud's Vienna office which appears to accomplish nothing but to allow Breton to describe Freud as a "little man with no style" and his serving girl as "unattractive". Talk about a prodigal son.

Still, it is revealing to read the young critic's delusional portrait of a Paris completely devoid of talent, aside, of course, from a tiny group of his heroes and cronies. Dostoevsky is a hack but Eluard is the premier poet of our generation... of course! I should have known!

[Tom Grammer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sort of The Heart of Darkness but in Spanish.