What Is Surrealism?: Selected Writings

by André Breton, Samuel Beckett (Translator), David Gascoyne (Translator)

Writings of the best-known leader of the Surrealist movement. Includes a facsimile reproduction of the 1942 Surrealist Album by Andre Breton.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, History, Philosophy, France

756 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1934

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

[Oswaldo Toscano · Rating 4 out of 5]

En esta conferencia pronunciada en Bruselas en 1934, André Breton, deja claro qué es el surrealismo y hacia dónde se dirige. Aclara que sus detractores han querido clasificar al movimiento surrealista en el campo del idealismo absoluto cuando, según él, en realidad se trata de un movimiento inscrito dentro del materialismo dialéctico.

Acorde a las grandes cuestiones de inicios de siglo, el surrealismo pone atención en la relación entre lo consciente y lo inconsciente eliminando la noción de límites.

La otra gran cuestión a la que atiende el movimiento surrealista es el de la acción social y particularmente a la revolución proletaria como medio para liberar al hombre y luego liberar su espíritu.

Breton aclara que el movimiento basa sus acciones e investigaciones futuras en el uso del elemento lírico que condiciona en parte la estructura psíquica y moral de la sociedad humana.

[Joe Simpkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Franklin Rosemont is an incredible translator and editor of Surrealist texts, I just wish his introduction had ended sooner, it felt like it became more about Rosemont toward the end than Breton.

Despite this, it is one of the best books on Surrealism around, as it is written from a Surrealist perspective. The introduction is priceless to those who do not know another language and wish to study and learn about Surrealism, as well as all these texts.

My only other thing would be, do not buy this if you are a beginner. Read Breton's manifestos first, practice Surrealism and even (with a very large pinchful of salt) read critics literature on Surrealism - even if it is wrong and detrimental to Surrealism it still provides a good framework to better tackle this book which is philosophically dense.

[Branden William · Rating 5 out of 5]

Where rises the spirit of revolt, there will be the living presence of André Breton. This superb collection of Breton's writings provides not only a necessary analyzation of surrealist thought but an equally necessary corrective to the confusion about everything that pertains to surrealism in the English-speaking world. Disseminated by television, newspapers and textbooks, these misconceptions regarding the revolutionary movement of surrealism, may be regarded as the 'vulgar' reinforcement of the anti-surrealist confusion which would seem to constitute, to-day, a component of all repressive ideology. As bourgeois civilization remains a succession of monstrous crimes against childhood, the boredom of the mundane initiated Breton decisively into the realm of pure subversion and revolt. The Surrealist Manifesto, a declaration aiming at nothing less than complete human emancipation, and the reconstruction of society governed by the watchword, 'To each according to his desire', appeared in October 1924. In it, surrealism refused to accept rigid definition, boundaries assigned by conventional rationality, or academic compartmentalization. These young men representing the surrealist movement, were intelligent geniuses capable of extreme hatred; adventurers drawn towards the exceptional. Together they had through a war and were bored by the conventional opportunities awaiting them and truly lived the surrealist life: complete human freedom.

In 1925 the French surrealist group took its first steps in the direction of revolutionary politics, thus reaffirming surrealism's fidelity to the tenets of 'total revolt, complete insubordination, formal sabotage,' The movement's fundamental perspectives were global from the very beginning, and during the next decade, the list of countries involved in the movement lengthened, the number of activists expanded, and their activity intensified. The misconception of America's role in the movement is discussed as well, and Breton's efforts to globalize surrealism are documented, as well as the surrealist transformation in America. The selected writings of Breton, include essays (some of which have never been printed before in English) that place a significant emphasis on the surrealist adventure, the surrealist interrogation of dreams, the magisterial triumph of mad love, the 'systematic derangement of the senses' proclaimed by Rimbaud, and other methods which force inspiration and make it work to order.

Turned forever toward the automatic message, André Breton will forever remain the surest guide to poetic action. Within these selected writings, are a compilation of various perspectives of international surrealism as they evolved over more than half of a century. Breton is forever instilled as and the principal spokesman of a movement, and an instrument of exploration and revolt, that still to-day, demands to be carried further. As Breton mentions in the introduction, "this book is dedicated to all who will take these risks, who will fan the flames of every true revolt, who will defend the revolutionary cause of poetry, freedom, and love-- no matter what." What is Surrealism?: Selected Writings is an obvious must-have for the initiated surrealist, placing the surrealist revolutionary movement in perspective-- a historical movement that is typically misinformed by biased critics. Despite any one person's political affiliation, surrealism's true political intent was based solely upon imagination. 'The imagination is revolutionary or it is nothing.'

[Marcos Medrano · Rating 5 out of 5]

"La experiencia poética más revolucionaria bajo el régimen capitalista ha sido sin duda, en Francia como en Europa, la dadaísta-surrealista, por cuanto se ha propuesto destruir todos los mitos artísticos [...] (...valores hasta entonces basados ante todo en la perfección técnica, el estilo personal y la durabilidad de los materiales); esta experiencia puede y debe servir a la causa de la liberación del proletariado. Sólo cuando el proletariado tome conciencia de los mitos de los que depende la cultura capitalista, sólo cuando tome conciencia de lo que esos mitos y esa cultura representan para él y los haya destruido, sólo entonces podrá desarrollarse libremente..." Claude Cahun

"Quede claro que para nosotros, los surrealistas, los intereses del pensamiento no pueden dejar de ir de la mano de los intereses de la clase obrera, y que todo ataque a la libertad, todo obstáculo a la emancipación de la clase obrera y, más aún, todo ataque armado contra ella lo consideramos un intento de envenenar el pensamiento..." André Breton.

Un excelente libro, no se puede entender al surrealismo sin las reflexiones filosóficas del movimiento, sobre todo cuando se trata de un movimiento tan abarcador en las artes. Coincido con Breton en el marco de los textos de ese libro (1934), el surrealismo llegó a su esplendor y libró sus mejores batallas frente al fascismo de aquellos tiempos, dejándose al servicio de la liberación del proletariado, y de la Revolución. Lo que pasó en adelante, es otra historia.

[Kurt]

I have been reading this book, off and on, for many years. I never get engrossed in it. There are a lot of interesting ideas in here, sure, but it's a challenging read. Considering the anti-bourgeois, anti establishment stance of the Surrealists, Breton's writing comes across as very academic and esoteric, which, to me, smacks of intellectualism. While that's not necessarily a condemnation, it certainly keeps the ideas out of the hands of common people that may not have had access to private schools. In comparison, "Dada, Art And Anti Art" by Hans Richter is written in such plain spoken prose with such a direct and humble tone, it is very endearing to read. Maybe it's not fair to compare the two, since Richter's book is a memoir and Breton's is not, but it serves to show that if you want to reach people and communicate your ideas, it may be best to be as plain-spoken and clear as possible. I do like a book that challenges me, and I will continue to come back to "What Is Surrealism?". As I return to it, I hope that I can get more out of it while I'm digging in, instead of being put off by it.

[Brandon Desiderio · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read roughly half of this book, but came away with so many excellent notes that were vital for my current (self-guided, personal) studies, which I'm hoping will inform a project I've slowly been realizing. Rosemont's introduction to Breton and the movement he spearheaded is indispensable; the excerpts included, and other source texts, are a mixture of good to explore/skim and revelatory (and several have made it onto my to-read list at a quick clip). This, alongside Rosemont's collection 'Black Brown & Beige,' makes for required reading to understand what's too often set aside as a purely aesthetic, and temporally finite, movement. Surrealism is as alive today as ever, in hearts and in minds—and leftists in the West could very much use it to expand and revitalize their arsenal that is sadly too orthodox in its Marxism, and too conservative in its dreams for revolutionary action (and Breton's a better realizer and synthesizer of dreams than Marx ever was—though they both share the bourgeoisie trappings that make each good bedfellows, and need to each be reincorporated into the larger intellectual reality of the left and our struggle for liberation and emancipation).

[Ari Partrich · Rating 4 out of 5]

From my discussion post in my film class on George Romero:

“My skepticism of surrealism reflects my skepticism of all art. While it is, as Breton describes, an internal imprint on external realities, the limitations of this are apparent as it relates to praxis and liberation. How can this internal idealist projection materially liberate anything? Is the result of the art process not inevitably just the work of art itself? Breton sees this, and recognizes that the makeup of the creation of the art itself must reach that internal and external liberation by revealing their present contradictions. This is where Romero and NotLD come into frame. Image Ten embodies the ideal of revolutionizing and expanding art as a production and product beyond its traditional spheres through its unique process (collective production) and unique release cycle (pornographic theaters and content within the film that lie outside of the moral codes that result from prevailing modes of production), covering Breton’s extrapolations on the uses of the external in art to reveal contradictions. In this case, to reveal the contradiction of the solitary auteur.

NotLD, and Martin for that matter, also internally function on the surrealist logic explained by Breton. There is a constant dialectic unfolding in Romero’s films between the idealism of the subject and the dire state of external reality: Martin and Cuda or his cousin, Ben and the zombies. The syntheses within the films do not necessarily present clear solutions to the problem art presents in being a radical entity, but rather examine the necessity of art as, what Benjamin calls ‘a work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction.’ I find he and Breton’s conclusions quite similar, where art is an entity in the struggle fascism by being an endlessly reproducible entity that systematically reveals and combats the conditions that the working underbelly of society have been subjected to. While surrealists, in the aim to embody surrealist art on all levels of life or mediums of art, might not necessarily center their actions on reproducibility, its applications, through Romero, display the importance of infusing Benjamin’s material analysis of art into the examination of the contractions and later synthesis of internal and external realities.“

[Nicholas Auletti · Rating 2 out of 5]

What is Surrealism, by André Breton and edited by Franklin Rosemont, is an homage to the revolutionary and artistic fervor that persisted through the 19th and 20th centuries. A comprehensive history that sees no detail goes un-liberated, and every political accusation is retorted. The history of this book is fascinating as you see the evolution, dissolution, and eventually an amoeba form internationally that encompasses the term surrealism. Franklin Rosemont does an excellent job putting us in the shoes of Breton and his comrades but is heavily partisan and passionately excludes any other perspective on this subject.
The second half of this book is articles about Surrealist theory and artists. These are enlightening, perhaps a bit dense at times, but appropriate in the totality of the text. If you want to learn about the origins of the Surrealist movement and the flowering effect it had on the world, this is the book for you.

[Luis González · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un acercamiento sencillo pero preciso a lo que en aquellos tiempos era el surrealismo. Como se convirtió de una corriente artística libre de las ataduras físicas y lógicas del mundo, a complementar este mundo real con la imaginación y los sueños, en beneficio del proletariado y del acercamiento del arte vulgar al pueblo en general, quitándole el mérito de ser solo una actividad burguesa. Muy importante todo lo que este libro ofrece, y me daría mucho gusto leer después los Manifiestos.

[Tina]

Podría decir que es como si no hubiera leído nada. Supongo que cualquier experto en arte, especialmente los interesados en las primeras vanguardias, encontrarán este libro uno de sus textos fundamentales.

[Raoul · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent initiation into Breton's world.

[Lau · Rating 3 out of 5]

el surrealismo consiste en ser niño con conciencia de clase o algo así

[Erika |vermuparaleer| · Rating 4 out of 5]

Muy interesante para conocer en profundidad y de primera mano lo que hay detrás del movimiento surrealista.
Y qué miedo los problemas que citan, tan presentes en la actualidad.

[Marc Lichtman · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read a little of this, but didn't really get into it.

From 'Choice' magazine:

"An excellent, if partisan, introduction to surrealism from a Marxist point of view this volume consists of two parts. Part I centers on the historical situation of Breton's life and polemical writings, emphasizing surrealism's affinities with Marxist-Leninist tenets and present international revolutionary thought. Despite attempts at asserting that surrealism is very much alive today, Breton concludes that by 1959 “the surrealist international was no longer an organically centralized world movement.” A few of the chapters read like radical pamphlets that culminate in the author's appeal for a “surrealist transformation of America”; but in general, this is a valuable study of surrealism and its aims with respect to life and language, the likes of which were previously not available in English. Part II contains English translations of Breton's writings heretofore unavailable or difficult to obtain. Each translation is preceded by a brief introduction. Translations of French surrealist documents conclude this volume. A useful glossary, separate indexes for the two parts and a selected bibliography of Breton's works complete the book. Recommended for college and graduate school libraries."

[Cameron · Rating 3 out of 5]

very informative. the political manifestos get so boring though.

[George · Rating 5 out of 5]

Franklin Rosemont's gathering of Breton's writings, here, is socially relevant and helps map the radical social project of Breton's thinking.