The Milk Bowl of Feathers: Essential Surrealist Writings

by Mary Ann Caws (Editor)

An exciting new collection of the essential writings of surrealism, the European avant-garde movement of the mind’s deepest powers Originating in 1916 with the avant-garde Dada movement at the famous Café Voltaire in Zurich, surrealism aimed to unleash the powers of the creative act without thinking. Max Ernst, André Breton, Tristan Tzara, Paul Éluard, Philippe Soupault, and Louis Aragon created a movement that spread wildly to all corners of the globe, inspiring not only poetry but also artists like Joan Miro and René Magritte and cinematic works by Antonin Artaud, Luis Bunuel, and Salvador Dalí. As the editor, Mary Ann Caws, says, “Essential to surrealist behavior is a constant state of openness, of readiness for whatever occurs, whatever marvelous object we might come across, manifesting itself against the already thought, the already lived.” Here are the gems of this major, mind-bending aesthetic, political, and humane writers as diverse as Aragon, Breton, Dalí, René Char, Robert Desnos, Mina Loy, Paul Magritte, Alice Paalen, Gisele Prassinos, Man Ray, Kay Sage, and Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven are included here, providing a grand picture of this revolutionary movement that shocked the world.

Genres: Poetry, Fiction, Short Stories, Art, France, Essays, Literature

128 pages, Paperback

Published September 25, 2018

About the author

Mary Ann Caws is an American author, translator, art historian and literary critic.
She is Distinguished Professor Emerita in Comparative Literature, English, and French at the Graduate School of the City University of New York, and on the film faculty. She is an expert on Surrealism and modern English and French literature, having written biographies of Marcel Proust, Virginia Woolf, and Henry James. She works on the interrelations of visual art and literary texts, has written biographies of Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dalí, and edited the diaries, letters, and source material of Joseph Cornell. She has also written on André Breton, Robert Desnos, René Char, Yves Bonnefoy, Robert Motherwell, and Edmond Jabès. She served as the senior editor for the HarperCollins World Reader, and edited anthologies including Manifesto: A Century of Isms, Surrealism, and the Yale Anthology of 20th-Century French Poetry. Among others, she has translated Stéphane Mallarmé, Tristan Tzara, Pierre Reverdy, André Breton, Paul Éluard, Robert Desnos, and René Char.
Among the positions she has held are President, Association for Study of Dada and Surrealism, 1971–75 and President, Modern Language Association of America, 1983, Academy of Literary Studies, 1984–85, and the American Comparative Literature Association, 1989-91.
She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Life Member of Clare Hall, Cambridge University, and a Fellow of the New York Institute for the Humanities.
In October 2004, she published her autobiography, To the Boathouse: a Memoir (University Alabama Press), and in November 2008, a cookbook memoir: Provençal Cooking: Savoring the Simple Life in France (Pegasus Books).
She was married to Peter Caws and is the mother of Hilary Caws-Elwitt and of Matthew Caws, lead singer of the band Nada Surf. She is married to Dr. Boyce Bennett; they live in New York City.

Reviews

[Hank Kirton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Spinning like soft, vertiginous childhood into a blast of black sand.

[Dylan Kiewel · Rating 5 out of 5]

holy crow, what a little book!

wanted louis aragon and this is all da library had (even better)

a nice lil guy i wanna keep handy to shift my understanding of what words can do from temps en temps

a lil a b c's primer on surrealism , a is for aragon , b for breton (or bataille), c for my favorite crevel (or carrington) d for desnos (or dali) so on so forth

to top it off the descriptions of authors in the back sets you up with a dozen more things to read (who knew magritte had a cool ass brother?)

so freakin quotable . so good .

[Emma · Rating 5 out of 5]

short but expansive collection from the OG surrealists. a lovely read

[A. B. Box · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderful to see so many contributors to Littérature in one place. Of course, Robert Desnos stole the show.

[Jack Burnham]

Absolutely fantastic from start to finish. The selections are impeccable, and often so rich I found myself reading them 2-3 times. For someone like myself who is familiar enough with literary surrealism to know what's good, while also not quite being an expert, this book was a treat and a joy, rounding up some great selections from the big names while also introducing some less familiar figures to me. I'd say that this would most likely act as a good introduction to surrealist literature, seeing as it isn't dauntingly long, but still manages to give a sense of the broad range and power of surrealist writing. There are dozens of unforgettable literary images in this book

[Lily · Rating 5 out of 5]

All my friends in one place! A lovely collection, I discovered some new people and interesting translations and reacquainted with more familiar work. Some love poems, some short prose pieces, some political pieces, and from an international set of authors.

[Dahlia Ravencroft · Rating 5 out of 5]

"I love because I love at the edges"

A small but radiant book - one of those which often gave me the feeling of a dark river running fast under a thick sheet of ice. Strange, beautiful, and truly surreal work.

[Kels · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Come quickly — my soul is troubled —and turns in all directions to find the fire — My eyes seek your eyes — aren't they for my sky, and my lips stretch forth to the breath of you my lover, cover me with bites(…)”
(Léona Delacourt)

-

“Until I see everything clearly, I want to hunt myself down, struggle with myself. Who, feeling armed against her own self, be that with the vainest of words, would not do her very best if only to hit the void bang in the middle.

It's false. It's very little. But it trains the eye.

Only with the very tip would I wish to sew, sting, kill. The rest of the body, what comes after, what a waste of time! Only ever travel in the prow of myself.”
(Claude Cahun)

-

“Whatever your lot will be, increasingly fortunate or entirely other, I cannot know, you will delight in living, expecting everything from love. (…) Let me believe you will be ready then to incarnate this eternal power of woman, the only power I have ever submitted to.”
(André Breton)

-

“From the very first day, I admired your hand. It hovered about everything intellectual I had tried to construct, as if to render it inane. What a mad thing this hand is, and how I pity those who have never had the chance to place it, like a star, on the loveliest page of a book. The poverty, suddenly, of any flower. (…) I want you to be madly loved.”
(André Breton)

-

“The American lover who simply takes his pleasure while he is thinking about the stock exchange(…) It is the French who really know how to make love. They take love as an art, which it should be. I have never had any fault to find with the French.” (Kay Sage, she just like me fr)

[Dri · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a fairly good selection. Some were a bit tedious to read as the subject matter was either really generic or so incredibly specific, where the topic was not of interest to me. My favourite one by far has to be ‘At the Chateau d’Argol’ by Julien Gracq. The writing was STUNNING, enough said.

I would recommend this as a starter book if you want to get into reading surrealist works, there is a broad scope of people from different places, women writers too which is great. Once getting a taste you can look into particular artists more in depth.

[Eric Phetteplace · Rating 4 out of 5]

The usual splendid, explosive diction & imagery that makes me love surrealism. More obscure works spanning many different authors. I was hoping for more I guess, more pages or fewer authors covered more in depth (it's hard to get a sense of anyone's work from what's included here), more prose but this is mostly poetry. The writing was great but I was on the whole a little disappointed in the book.

[Molly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don’t remember why I checked this book out, it could be that I read something that mentioned one of the authors highlighted in this book, but, for whatever reason I am glad I read it. It was a good introduction into the artists of surrealism, an impressive movement tied up with war and I suppose a questioning of society. The writings are interesting, some intriguing, and some beautiful. Having read this, I would now like to read further, to explore the movement and its artists.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

These are very short excerpts from the 'essential surrealist writings' with a few short poems, which is a good thing. It's good as an introduction to individuals involved. You may discover someone new. In my case it was Gisèle Prassinos via her bizarre Arrogant Hair poem.

[Ian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good introductory collection of surrealist writing. Caws reclaims many lesser-known names for the moment, rightly including a lot of women.

[britt · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book inspired me to write more and I absolutely loved it. No two pieces in this collection are the same. These authors are unique and special.

[A · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sometimes I just don't get it.

[Chris Lovejoy]

A mixed bag. For a lot of this stuff to land, I think you had to be there. I would have had more time for poetry in 1940. Anyway, it motivated me to order the Complete Stories of Leonora Carrington.

[Lauryn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Yet another book to add to my surrealism collection, and I remain curious as ever. Still absolutely tickled that Tristan Tzara was called "the Papa of Dada" in the introduction.

[Osaka Tides · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this collection so much. Now I am on the search for more surrealist poetry!

[Jenny · Rating 3 out of 5]

meh.

[Anna · Rating 2 out of 5]

~2.5

[Jillian · Rating 4 out of 5]

A helpful introduction but much less prose than I expected to find in an anthology.

[RatGrrrl · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is an odd sensation reading something you know will be re-reading for the rest of your life.

[Ivy]

Really nice run through of some classic surrealist figures and their literature. Short, but to the point!

[Sofia Ruiz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very nice. I enjoyed the variety a lot. It's a lot of very hit or miss pieces, but still good quality.

[Mel · Rating 2 out of 5]

My primary complaint is the lack of variety in this collection. How an assortment of surrealist writings can be monotonous, I have no idea.