first manifesto of surrealism

8/13/2019 First Manifesto of Surrealism

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First Manifesto of Surrealism - 1924

Andr BretonPreface

Such is the belief in life, in the most precarious aspects of life, by which ismeant real life, that in the end belief is lost. Man, that inveterate dreamer, moreand more discontented day by day with his fate, orbits with difficulty aroundthe objects he has been led to make use of, those which indifference has handedhim, or his own efforts, almost always his efforts, since he has consented tolabour, at least he has not been averse to chancing his luck (what he calls his

luck!). vast modesty is now his lot he knows what women he has had, whatfoolish affairs he has been involved in" riches or poverty are nothing to him, heremains in this respect a new#born babe, and as for the consent of his moralconscience, $ admit that he does very well without it. $f he retains any degree oflucidity, he can do no more than turn to his childhood, which ruined as it has

been by his teachers% pains, seems to him nonetheless full of charm. &here, theabsence of all familiar constraint, furnishes him with a perspective of severallives lived simultaneously" he becomes rooted in this illusion" he nolonger wishes to know anything beyond the momentary and e'treme facility ofeverything. ach morning, children set off without concern. verything

is near, the worst material circumstances are fine. &he woods are blackor white, one will never need to sleep again. ut it is true we would never dare venture so far, it is not merely a*uestion of distance. Menace accumulates, one yields, one abandons a part ofthe terrain to be con*uered. &hat same imagination that knowsno limits, is never permitted to be e'ercised e'cept according to arbitrary lawsof utility" it is incapable of assuming this inferior role for long, and at about theage of twenty, prefers, in general, to abandon Man tohis unilluminated destiny.

+et him try, later, now and then, to collect himself, having felt himself

little by little losing all reason to live, incapable as he has become of rising tothe heights of an e'ceptional situation such as love, and he will hardly succeed.&hat is because, from now on, he belongs body and soul to an imperious

practical necessity, of which one must never lose sight. is gestures will loseall their e'pansiveness, his ideas all their grandeur. $n what happens to him ormight happen, he will perceive only what relates such events to a host ofsimilar events, events in which he has not taken part, waste events. -ather, he


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will assess them with regard to some one of those events, more reassuring in itsoutcome than the rest. n no account, will he consider them as offering himsalvation. /ear imagination, what $ love most about you, is your unforgivingnature. &he only mark of freedom is whatever still e'alts me. $ believe it right tomaintain forever, our oldest human fanaticism. $ndeed that reflects my solelegitimate aspiration. midst all the shame we are heir to, it is well to recogni0ethat the widest freedom of spirit remains to us. $t is up to us not to abuse it inany serious manner. &o make a slave of the imagination, even though what isvulgarly called happiness is at stake, is to fail profoundly to do justice to one%sdeepest self. nly imagination realises the possible in me, and it is enough tolift for a moment the dreadful proscription" enough also for me to abandonmyself to it, without fear of error (as if one could be any more in error). 1heredoes error begin, and security end for the spirit2 $s not the possibility of error,for the spirit, rather a circumstance conducive to its well#being2 Madness remains, 3the madness one locks away% as has been so aptlysaid. &hat madness or another4veryone knows, in fact, that the mad owetheir incarceration to a number of legally reprehensible actions, and that were itnot for those actions, their liberty (or what we see as their liberty) would not beat risk. &hey may be, in some measure, victims of their imagination, $ am

prepared to concede that, in the way that it induces them not to observe certainrules, without which the species feels threatened, which it pays us all to beaware of. ut the profound indifference they show for the judgement we pass

on them, and even the various punishments inflicted on them, allows us tosuppose that they derive great solace from imagination, that they enjoy theirdelirium enough to endure the fact that it is only of value to themselves.nd, indeed, hallucinations, illusions etc, are no slight source of pleasure.&he most well#ordered sensuality partakes of it, and $ know there are manyevenings when $ would gladly tame that pretty hand which in the last pagesof &aine%sLIntelligence,indulges in some curious misdeeds.&he confidencesof the mad, $ could pass my whole life inspiring them. &hey are a scrupulouslyhonest tribe, whose innocence has no peer but my own. 5olumbus ought tohave taken madmen with him to discover merica. nd see how that folly has

gained substance, and endured.


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$t is not the fear of foolishness that compels us to leave the banner ofimagination furled. &he case against the realist position needs to be considered, afterconsidering the materialist position. &he latter, more poetic however than theformer, admittedly implies on the part of a Man, a monstrous pride, but not anew and more complete degeneration. $t should be seen, above all, as awelcome reaction against certain ridiculous spiritualist tendencies. 6ltimately,it is not incompatible with a certain nobility of thought. &he realistic position, in contrast, inspired by positivism, from &homas*uinas to natole 7rance, appears to me to be totally hostile to all intellectualand moral progress. $t horrifies me, since it arises from mediocrity, hatred anddull conceit. $t is what engenders all the ridiculous books, and insulting plays ofour day. $t feeds on newspaper articles, and holds back science and art, whileapplying itself to flattering the lowest tastes of its readers" clarity bordering onstupidity, the life lived by dogs. &he activity of the best minds is affected

by it, the law of the lowest common denominator imposes itself on them, in theend, as on the others. ne amusing result of this state of things, in literature fore'ample, is the vast *uantity of novels. ach brings its little measure of3observation%. 7eeling in need of a purge, 8aul 9al:ry recently suggested thecompilation of an anthology of as great a number as possible of opening

passages from novels, hoping much from the ensuing bouts of insanity. &hemost famous of authors would be included. Such an idea reflects honour on8aul 9al:rywho, some time ago, on the subject of novels, assured me that, asfar as he was concerned, he would continue to refrain from writing &he

Mar*uise went out at five. ut has he kept his word2 $f the declarative style, pure and simple, of which the sentence justoffered is an e'ample, is almost the rule in novels, it is because, as one mustrecognise, the authors% ambition is *uite limited. &he circumstantial, needlesslyspecific, nature of their respective writings, leads me to think they are amusingthemselves at my e'pense. &hey spare me not a single one of their issues ofcharacterisation will he be fair#haired, what will he be called, will weencounter him in summer2 So many *uestions, resolved once and for all,hapha0ardly" the only power of choice $ am left with is to close the book,which $ take care to do at about the first page. nd the descriptions! ;othing

can be compared to their vacuity" it is nothing but the superimposition ofimages from a catalogue, the author employs them more and more readily, hesei0es the opportunity to slip me postcards, he tries to make me fall in step withhim in public places 3&he small room into which the young man was shown was decoratedwith yellow wallpaper there were geraniums and muslin curtains in thewindows" the setting sun cast a harsh light over all4&here was nothing special


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about the chamber. &he furniture, of yellow wood, was all *uite old. sofawith a tall curved back, an oval table opposite the sofa, a dressing table andmirror set against the overmantel, chairs against the walls, two or three etchingsof little value, representing


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us true thought in search of itself, instead of focusing on achieving success. $tseems to me that every action carries within itself its own justification, at leastfor one who has had the capacity to commit it, that it is endowed with a radiant

power which the slightest gloss is certain to enfeeble. ecause of the latter, iteven, in some sense, ceases to e'ist. ;othing is gained by being thus singledout. Stendhal%s heroes are subject to their author%s appraisal, a more or lesshappy one, which adds nothing to their glory. 1here we truly rediscover them,is where Stendhal lost sight of them. 1e are still living under the rule of logic, that, of course, is what $ amdriving at. ut in our day, logical procedures are only applicable in solving

problems of secondary interest. &he absolute rationalism still in fashion onlyallows us to consider facts directly related to our own e'perience. &he aims oflogic, in contrast, escape us. 8ointless to add that our very e'perience findsitself limited. $t paces about in a cage from which it is more and more difficultto free it. $t leans, it too, on immediate utility, and is guarded by common sense.6nder the flag of civilisation, accompanied by the prete't of progress, we havemanaged to banish from the spirit everything that might rightly or wrongly betermed superstition, fancy, forbidding any kind of research into the truth whichdoes not conform to accepted practice. $t was by pure chance, it seems, that a

part of our mental world, and to my mind the most important, with which wepretended to be no longer concerned, was recently brought back to light. 1e must give thanks to 7reud for his discoveries. n the basis of hisresearch, a current of opinion is at last flowing, by means of which the e'plorerof humanity will be able to push his investigations much further, authorised as

he will be to take account of more than merely superficial realities. $maginationmay be on the point of re#asserting its rights. $f the depths of our spirits containstrange forces capable of supplementing those on the surface, or wagingvictorious war against them, there is every reason to sei0e on them, sei0e onthem and then, if needs be, submit them to the control of reason. nalyststhemselves have everything to gain from it. ut it is worth noting that themeans of conducting such an enterprise is not defined a riori, that until furthernotice, it can be taken to be the province of poets as well as scientists, and thatits success will not depend upon the paths, more or less capricious, which arefollowed.

9ery rightly, 7reud applied his critical faculties to dreams. $t isunacceptable, indeed, that this considerable part of psychic activity (since, fromthe birth to death of human beings at least, thought presents no solution tocontinuity the sum of the dream moments, from a temporal viewpoint, andconsidering only pure dream in sleep, being in no way inferior to the sum ofmoments of reality, or to be precise, waking moments) has still received solittle attention. &he vast difference in importance, in weight, that the ordinary


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observer grants to events while awake and asleep, has always astonished me. $tis because human beings, when they cease to sleep, are above all the playthingsof memory, and memory in its normal state takes pleasure in re#tracing theevents of dreams only feebly, depriving the latter of all real importance, anddistancing the sole determinant from the point where it thinks, several hourslater, that it was left a solid hope, a going concern. $t has the illusion ofcontinuing something worthwhile. /ream finds itself reduced to a parenthesis,like the night. nd, in general,delivers as little information as night does. &hiscurious state of affairs seems to me to call for certain reflections

>. 1ithin the bounds in which they operate (or are thought to operate),dreams, to all appearances, are continuous and show signs of order. Memoryalone arrogates to itself the right to recall e'cerpts, to ignore transitions, and torepresent it to us rather as a series of dreams than the dream itself. y the sametoken, we possess at any moment only a single distinct configuration of reality,whose coordination is a matter of will. (ccount must be taken of the depth ofthe dream. 7or the most part $ retain only what $ can glean from its mostsuperficial layers. 1hat $ delight in contemplating most about a dream iswhatever sinks back beneath the surface when awake, all $ have forgottenconcerning my previous day%s activities, dark leaves, dense branches. $n reality,similarly, $ prefer to fall.) 1hat is worth noting, is that nothing permits us toinfer a more profound dissipation of the constituent elements of dream. $ regrethaving to speak according to a formula which e'cludes dream, in principle.1hen will there be sleeping logicians, sleeping philosophers! $ would like to

sleep, to surrender myself to the dreamers, as $ deliver myself to those who readto me, eyes wide open" to cease from imposing, in this realm, the consciousrhythm of my thoughts. My dream last night, perhaps it continues that of the

preceding night, and will in turn be continued the following night, withe'emplary rigour. $t%s *uite possible, as they say. nd since there is not theslightest proof that, in doing so, the 3reality% which preoccupies me still e'istsin the dream state, failing to sink back behind memory, why should $ not accorddream what $ occasionally refuse reality, that *uality of certainty in itself,which, in its own domain of time, is free from e'posure to my repudiation21hy should $ not e'pect more from dream#signs than $ e'pect from a degree of

consciousness daily more acute2 5an the dream not also be applied to thesolution of life%s fundamental *uestions2 re they the same *uestions in onecase as the other, and are those *uestions already there in dream2 $s the dreamany less subject to sanctions than the rest2 $ age, and more than that reality towhich $ believe myself subject, it is perhaps the dream, the indifference $ showtowards it, which ages me.


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&hey say that every evening, before he slept, Saint#8ol#-ou' (theSymbolist poet) used to have posted on the door of his manor houseat 5amaret, a notice which read 8& & 1-A. &here is a great deal more to be said, but in passing $ simply wished totouch on a subject which would alone necessitate a long, altogether morerigorous, discussion $ will return to it. t this point, it was my intention to do

justice to that hatred of the marvellous which rages in certain individuals, tothat ridicule beneath which they would like to bury it. +et%s not beat about the

bush the marvellous is always beautiful, everything marvellous is beautiful,only the marvellous could be beautiful.

$n the realm of literature, the marvellous alone is capable of makingfertile those works which belong to a lesser genre such as the novel, everythingin general that involves storytelling. +ewis%s !he "onkbears admirable witnessto this. breath of the marvellous animates it throughout. +ong before theauthor has delivered his characters from all temporal constraint, one feels themready to act with unprecedented pride. &hat passion for eternity that stirs themincessantly lends an unforgettable intensity to their torments and mine. $ meanthat the book, from beginning to end, and in the purest way, e'alts only that

part of the spirit which aspires to *uit the ground" and that stripped of aninsignificant portion of its novelistic plot, belonging to its period, it constitutesa model of accuracy and innocent grandeur. (1hat is admirable about fantasy isthat nothing fantastic remains, there is only the real) $t seems to me that no onehas bettered it, and that the character of Matilda in particular is the most

moving creation that one could credit to the figurative mode in literature. She isless a character than a continual temptation. nd if a character is not atemptation, what is2 n e'treme temptation, she. &he 3nothing is impossible tohe who dares% is in !he "onkgiven its full and convincing measure.


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$t is irrelevant whether there is a degree of disproportion between thisdefence and the illustration of it that follows. $t was a matter of returning to thesources of poetic imagination, and what%s more, of staying there. ;ot that $

pretend to have done so. $t would be to take a great deal on oneself to wish toestablish oneself in those remote regions where everything at first appears sotroublesome, all the more so if you wish to lead someone else there. esides,one is never *uite sure of really being there. $f you are taking all that trouble,you are also tempted to stop elsewhere. &he fact remains that an arrow now

points in the direction of those regions, and that to attain the true goal onlydepends on the traveller%s powers of endurance.

1e know, more or less, the road travelled. $ was careful to relate, in ananalysis of the case of -obert /esnos, entitled !#$ $%!&'%C$ () !#$"$DI*"+($%!&$ D$+ "DI*"+,Littrature, nouvelle srie no. -%ovemer 1, 1/00) that $ had been 3led to focus my attention on more or lesspartial phrases which, in complete solitude, on the verge of sleep, becomeperceptible to the mind without being able to discover in them any priorintention.% $ had at that time attempted the poetic venture with minimum risk,that is my aspirations were the same as today, but $ trusted in tardiness ofelaboration, to protect me from useless pro'imity, a pro'imity of which $wholly disapproved. $n that lay a modesty of thought of which some vestigesremain. t the end of my life, $ will doubtless manage with difficulty to speakas others do, apologising for my voice and paucity of gesture. &he virtue ofspeech (and writing, moreover) seemed to me to spring from the ability to

contract in a striking way the e'position (since such it was) of a small numberof facts, poetic or otherwise, of which $ made myself the subject. $ concludedthat -imbaud proceeded no differently. $ composed, with a concern forvariation which merited more, the last poems ofPan2+ho("ont de it,1/1/), that is $ managed to derive incredible benefit from the blank lines of that

book. &hose lines were the eye, closed to the operations of thought that $believed $ should hide from my readers. &hat was not deceit on my part, but adelight in shocking them. $ achieved the illusion of potential complicity, which$ had more and more difficulty in relin*uishing. $ had begun to cherish wordsimmoderately for they space they admit around them, for their tangencies with

a host of other words $ did not utter. &he poemBL'C32)(&$+!derives fromprecisely this state of mind. $t took me si' months to write and take my wordfor it $ did not leave off for a single day. ut you will understand that itstemmed rather from my self#esteem at that time, $ love these foolishconfessions. t that time, 5ubist pseudo#poetry was trying to gain a hearing,

but it had emerged helpless from 8icasso%s brain and as far as $ was concerned $was thought to be as dull as ditchwater ($ still am). $ suspected, moreover, that


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from the poetic point of view $ had taken a wrong turning, but $ hedged my betsthe best $ could, defying lyricism with a barrage of definitions and formulae(the phenomenon of /ada was soon to appear) and pretending to be searchingfor an application of poetry to advertising ($ claimed that the world would end,not with a good book, but a brilliant advertisement for heaven or hell). $n those days, a man, at least as boring as $, 8ierre -everdy, wrote&he image is a pure creation of the mind.$t cannot be born from a comparison but from a ju'taposition of two more orless remote realities.&he more the relationship between the two ju'taposed realities is remote andtrue, the stronger the image = the greater its emotive power and poeticreality4.etc. (%ord2+ud, "arch 1/1) &hese words, however Sibylline to the uninitiated, were e'tremelyrevealing and $ meditated on them for a long while. ut the image eludedme. -everdy%s aesthetic, an aesthetic totally aosteriori, led me to mistakeeffects for causes. $t was amidst all this that $ was driven to renounce my pointof view, irrevocably.

ne evening then, before falling asleep, $ perceived, so clearlyarticulated that it was impossible to change a word, but distinct however fromthe sound of any voice, a *uite bi0arre phrase which came to me without

bearing any trace of the events in which, my consciousness agrees, $ foundmyself involved at that time, a phrase which seemed to me insistent, a phrase,dare $ say it, that came knocking at the window. $ took swift note of it, and

prepared to move on, when its organic nature struck me. &ruly the phraseastonished me" $ have unfortunately been unable to recapture it precisely eventoday" but it was something like 3&here is a man sliced in two by the window%,

but it suffered no ambiguity, accompanied as it was by a faint visualrepresentation of a man walking, severed half#way up by a window at rightangles to the a'is of his body. (1ere $ a painter, this visual image would nodoubt have seemed more important to me than the other. $t was indeed my prior

predisposition which decided the issue. Since that day, $ have had occasion tofocus my attention at will on similar apparitions, and $ know they are just asclear as auditory phenomena. 1ith a pencil and a sheet of blank paper to hand,

$ could easily trace their outlines. ere again it is not a matter of depicting butmerely tracing. $n this way $ could reproduce a tree, a wave, a musicalinstrument, a host of things, of which $ am currently incapable of achievingeven the roughest sketch. $ would dive in, convinced of finding my waythrough a ma0e of lines which at first sight seemed to be heading nowhere.&hen on opening my eyes $ would gain the intense impression of something3previously unseen%. &he proof of what $ am saying has been demonstrated


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many times by -obert /esnos to convince oneself, one has simply to leafthrough the pages of issue 5-of)euilles lireswhich contains several of hisdrawings,&omeo and 6uliet,' "an Died !his "orningetc., which wereaccepted by that journal as the drawings of a madman and published as such). 1ithout *uestion, what offered itself was a simple presentation in spaceof a man leaning from a window. ut the window having followed the man%smovements, $ realised that $ was dealing with an image of a sufficiently rarekind, and $ could think of nothing but how to incorporate it among mymaterials for poetic construction. $ had no sooner accorded it this placehowever than it was succeeded by an almost continuous succession of phrases,scarcely less surprising, and leaving me with an impression of gratuitousnesssuch that the control $ had e'ercised over myself up till then seemed illusoryand all $ could think of was putting an end to the interminable *uarrel taking

place within me. (Anut amson attributes this kind of revelation of which $ wasthe recipient as deriving from hunger, and he may be right, since it is true $ didnot eat every day during that period of my life. 5ertainly the manifestations hedescribes are clearly the same 3&he ne't day $ woke early. $t was still dark. My eyes had been open along while when $ heard a clock in the apartment above strike five. $ wanted togo back to sleep but could not. $ was wide awake and a host of thoughtsflooded through my mind. Suddenly a few choice fragments came to mind,

perfectly suitable for use in a rough draft, or to be serialised" instantly $ found,*uite by chance, lovely phrases such as $ had never conceived. $ repeated themto myself slowly, word by word" they were e'cellent. nd still more followed. $

rose and snatched a pencil and paper from the table behind my bed. $t as athough an artery had burst inside me, one word followed another, found itscorrect position, adapted itself to the conte't, scene piled on scene, eventsunfolded, one vessel after another bubbled in my mind, and $ was enjoyingmyself immensely. &houghts came so swiftly and flowed so copiously that awhole host of subtle details escaped me, because my pencil could not keep upwith them, and yet $ went as fast as $ could, my hand in continual motion, notlosing an instant. &he sentences continued to well up within me" $ was pregnantwith my subject.% pollinaire claimed that 5hirico%s first paintings were created under the

influence of cenesthetic disorder (migraine, colic, etc.)&otally preoccupied with 7reud as $ then was and familiar with his

methods of investigation which $ had some slight occasion to practice onpatients during the war, $ resolved to obtain from myself what one tries toobtain from others, namely a monologue delivered as rapidly as possible, onwhich the critical mind of the subject is unable to pass judgement,


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adopted and whose benefit we wished to bestow on our friends, by the name ofS6--+$SM. $ see no point now in dwelling on the word, the meaning wehave given it having generally prevailed over the that of pollinaire. &o bestowa yet more appropriate title on it, we could no doubt have appropriated theword S68-;&6-+$SM, employed by


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reton, 5arrive, 5revel, /elteil, /esnos, Gluard,


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harmonious sound at all times. ($ might say the same of a number ofphilosophers and artists, including, among the latter, 6cello among the oldmasters, and in the modern era Seurat, 1/


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he has lent himself to, has fully justified the hopes $ placed in surrealism andleads me to hope for much more yet. /esnos now speaks surrealist at will. &he

prodigious agility with which he follows his thought orally is worth as much tous as the pleasure we derived from splendid speeches now lost, /esnos having

better things to do than preserve them. e reads himself like an open book anddoes nothing to retain the pages, which fly off in the windy wake of his life.


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Secrets of the Magical Surrealist Art

- Written surrealist composition or first and last draft

ave writing materials brought, once you are settled in a place as favourable aspossible for focusing the mind on itself. 8ut yourself in the most passive, orreceptive, state you can. 7orget about your genius, your talents, and those ofothers. &ell yourself repeatedly that literature is one of the saddest roadsleading to everything. 1rite swiftly with no preconceived subject, swiftlyenough that you cannot retain it, and are not tempted to re#read. &he firstsentence will arise spontaneously, it being the case in truth that each secondthere is a sentence, unknown to our conscious thought, which only asks to bee'ternalised. $t is *uite difficult to make pronouncements about the ne'tsentence" it no doubt participates in both our conscious activity and the otherkind, if you agree that the fact of having written the first entails a minimum of

perception. &hat should matter little to you, however" and in that resides, to alarge e'tent, the interest of the surrealist game. $t is still the case that

punctuation definitely runs counter to the absolute continuity of flow whichconcerns us, although it may seem as necessary as the distribution of nodes ona vibrating string. 5ontinue for as long as you wish. &rust in the ine'haustiblenature of that murmuring. $f silence threatens to establish itself, if you havecommitted an error an error, let us say, of inattention, break off withouthesitation with a more than obvious blank line. 7ollowing a word whose originseems suspect to you, place some letter, the letter 3l% for e'ample, the letter 3l%

every time, and recall the arbitrary by making this letter the initial one of thevery ne't word.- !o" not to #e #ored in compan$

&his is e'tremely difficult. ;ever be at home to anyone, and occasionally whensome irrelevance has broken the injunction, interrupting you in the full flow ofsurrealist activity, your arms crossed, say 3$t%s no matter, there are doubtless

better things to do or not do. +ife%s interests can%t sustain themselves.Simplicity, what%s going on within me is still tiresome!% or some such revolting

banality.


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- !o" to ma%e speeches

8ut your name on the list, on the eve of election, in the first country whichconsiders it worthwhile proceeding with such public consultations. ach of ushas the makings of an orator the multicoloured loincloths, the glass baubles ofwords. &hrough surrealism one will surprise despair in all its poverty. nenight on some public platform, all by oneself, one will carve up eternal heaven,that rich carcase. ne will promise so much and perform so little that it will bea wonder. &o the demands of an entire people one will concede a partial andludicrous ballot. ne will join together the most intractable of enemies in asecret yearning, which will blow nations apart. nd one will achieve thismerely by allowing oneself to be elevated by the vast word which melts with

pity and spins with hatred. $ncapable of failure, one will triumph amongfailures. ne will be truly elect and the loveliest women will love one with all#consuming passion.


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- !o" to "rite false no&els

1hoever you are, if your spirit moves you, burn a few laurel leaves, andwithout needing to fan the meagre flame, you%ll begin writing a novel.Surrealism permits it" you have only to position the needle marked 37air% at3ction% and the game will begin. ere are some characters varying widely inappearance their names in your writing can be simply capital letters, and theywill conduct themselves as easily with respect to active verbs as does the

personal pronoun 3it% towards words like 3rains%, 3is%, 3must% etc. &hey willorder them about, so to speak, and whenever observation, reflection and the

power of generalisation prove of no assistance to you, be assured they willcredit you with a thousand intentions you never had. &hus endowed with asmall number of physical and moral characteristics, these beings, who in truthowe so little to you, will no longer depart from a fi'ed mode of conduct withwhich you no longer need to occupy yourself. plot, appearing more or lessskilful, will result from this, justifying point by point the moving or reassuringdenouement about which you care not a jot. Bour false novel will simulate atrue novel to a marvellous degree" you will become rich and all will agree thatyou have 3something in your belly%, since it is there as well that this somethingis located. f course, by an analogous method, and provided you ignore what youreview, you can devote yourself successfully to false criticism.- !o" to catch the e$e of a "oman $ou pass in the street

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- Against death

Surrealism will introduce you to death which is a secret society. $t will gloveyour hand, burying within it the profound M with which the word Memorystarts. /o not forget to make proper arrangements for your will personally, $ask to be conducted to the cemetery in a removal van. +et my friends destroyevery last copy of myDiscourse on the Paucity o8 &eality.(Discours sur le Peu de &alit 1/0


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that we do not 3learn%, that we only ever 3re#learn%. &here are happy turns ofphrase that $ have thus become familiar with. nd $ say nothing of the poeticconsciousness of objects $ have been able to ac*uire through spiritual contactwith them a thousand times repeated. owever it is to dialogue that the forms of surrealist language are bestadapted. ere, two thoughts confront one another" while one is being delivered,the other is occupied with it, but how is it so occupied2 &o suppose that itincorporates it within itself would be to admit that for a while it is possible forit to feed entirely on the other thought, which is highly improbable. nd in factthe attention it pays is purely e'ternal" it only has time to accept or reject,generally reject, with all the consideration a man can summon. &his mode oflanguage moreover does not allow the depths of a subject to be plumbed. Myattention, prey to a demand which it cannot with decency refuse, treats theopposing thought as an enemy" in ordinary conversation, it always almost3picks up% on the words, the figures of speech employed" it places me in a good

position to employ them in my reply while altering them. &his is true to such adegree that in certain pathological mental states where sensory disordersoccupy the patient%s whole attention, the latter, while continuing to reply to*uestions posed, will sei0e on the last word spoken in his presence, or the lastfragment of some surrealist phrase a trace of which he finds in his mind 3ow old are you2 = Bou% (cholalia) 31hat is your name2 = 7orty#five houses.% (


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principle totally indifferent to the self#esteem of the person speaking. &hewords, the images are only so many spring#boards for the mind of the listener.&his is the way in which, in"agnetic )ields(Les Chams magnti=ues,1/1/),the first purely surrealist work, the pages grouped together under thetitleBarriers(Barri@res) should be construed, pages in which Soupault and $show ourselves as impartial interlocutors. Surrealism does not allow those who devote themselves to it to abandonit when they please. verything suggests that it acts on the mind as drugs do"like them it creates a certain state of dependence and can drive Man to terribleacts of rebellion. $t is also, if you like, an artificial paradise and the taste oneac*uires for it comes within the scope of audelaire%s criticism, under the sameheadings as drugs do. s does the analysis of the mysterious effects and special

pleasures it can engender = in many respects surrealism presents itself as a newvice which it seems need not be restricted to only a few" like hashish it has the

power to satisfy all tastes = place for such an analysis must necessarily befound in the present study.

>. $t is true of surrealist images as it is of those engendered by opium thatMan does not evoke them, but that they 3offer themselves to him,spontaneously, despotically. e cannot dispel them" for the will is powerless,and no longer governs the faculties.% (audelaire) $t remains to be seen whetherimages can ever be 3evoked%. $f, as $ do, one accepts-everdy%s definition, itdoes not seem possible to conjoin of one%s own volition what he terms 3twodistant realities%. &he conjunction is made or not made, that is all. 7or my part,

$ refuse to believe, in the most formal" way, that in -everdy%s work imagessuch as $n the stream there is a song that flowsor /ay unfolded like a white tableclothor &he world returns to a sackreveal the slightest degree of premeditation. $t is false, in my opinion, to

pretend that 3the mind has grasped the relationship% between the two realitiesbefore it. 7irstly, it has not grasped anything consciously. $t is the ju'taposition

of two terms, in some fortuitous manner, that has emitted a certain light, thelight of the image, to which we show ourselves to be infinitely sensitive. &hevalue of the image depends on the beauty of the spark obtained" it is,conse*uently, a function of the difference in potential between the twoconductors. 1hen a difference barely e'ists as in a comparison (note the imagein the work of Fules -enard) no spark is produced. ;ow it is not in man%s

power, to my mind, to effect the conjunction of two far distant realities. &he


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principle of association of ideas, such as we conceive it, militates against it. relse we would be forced to revert to an elliptical art, which -everdy deplores as$ do. 1e are obliged then to admit that the two terms of the image are notdeduced one from another by the mind in order to conjure a spark, that they aresimultaneous products of the activity $ term surrealist reason limiting itself tonoting and appreciating the luminous phenomenon. nd just as the length of the spark increases to the e'tent it does whentraversing rarefied gases, the surrealist atmosphere created by automaticwriting, which $ desire to place within reach of everyone, is especiallyconducive to the production of the most beautiful images. ne might even saythat, in this vertiginous race, the images appear, as the mind%s sole means ofsteering. &he mind, little by little, becomes convinced of the supreme reality ofthese images. t first confining itself to submitting to them, it soon perceivesthat they stimulate its powers of reason, increasing its knowledge accordingly.$t becomes conscious of limitless e'panses where its desires are made manifest,where for and against are constantly diminished, where its obscurity does not

betray it. $t goes onward, borne by these images which delight it, whichscarcely leave time to cool the fire in its fingers. $t is the most beautiful night ofall, the night of the lightning#flash day, compared to it, is night. &he innumerable types of surrealist image call for classification, a taskwhich $ do not propose to attempt here. &o group them according to theirspecific affinities would take me too far afield" what $ want to take account of,essentially, is their common virtue. &he most powerful, for me, $ must reveal, isthat which presents the greatest degree of arbitrariness" that which takes the

longest to translate into everyday language, either because it contains animmense amount of apparent contradiction" or because one of its terms isstrangely hidden" or because proclaiming its sensational nature, it has theappearance of ending weakly (abruptly reducing the angle of its compass)" or

because it derives from itself a ridiculous formal justification" or because it isof a hallucinatory nature" or because it gives a mask of the concrete to theabstract in a very natural manner" or, conversely, because it implies thenegation of some elementary physical property" or because it provokeslaughter. ere, in order, are a few e'amples &he ruby of 5hampagne. (+autr:amont)

+ovely as the law of arrested development of the breast in adults whosepropensity to growth is not in proportion to the *uantity of molecules theorganism assimilates. (+autr:amont) church stood there brilliant as a bell. (8hilippe Soupault) $n -rose S:lavy%s sleep a dwarf risen from a well comes to eat her breadat night. (-obert /esnos)


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n the bridge the dew with a she#cat%s head rocks itself to sleep. (ndr:reton) little to the left, in my divined firmament, $ see = but it is doubtlessonly a mist of blood and murder = the frosted gleam of freedom%s disturbances.(+ouis ragon) $n the bla0ing forest, &he lions were cool. (-oger 9itrac) &he colour of a woman%s stockings is not necessarily in the likeness ofher eyes, which led a philosopher whom it is useless to name to declare35ephalopods have more reasons to hate progress than *uadrupeds.%(Ma' Morise) 1hether we like it or not, there is enough there to satisfy several of themind%s demands. ll these images seem to testify that the mind is ripe forsomething more than the benign joys it commonly accords itself. &his is theonly means it has to turn the ideal *uantity of events it is charged with to itsown advantage. (+et us not forget that, according to ;ovalis% formula, 3there isa series of events which runs parallel to real events. Men and circumstancescommonly modify the ideal train of circumstances, so that it appears imperfect,and their conse*uences are e*ually imperfect. So it was with the -eformation"instead of 8rotestantism we got +utheranism.%) &hese images show the mindthe e'tent to which it usually dissipates itself and the disadvantages that it thusincurs. $t%s no bad thing that the images ultimately disconcert it, since todisconcert the mind is to place it in the wrong. &he sentences $ cited provideamply for this. ut the mind that savours them draws from them the conviction

that it is on the right track" by itself, it is incapable of convicting itself of*uibbling" it has nothing to fear anyway since it bids fair to encompasseverything.

?. &he mind which plunges into surrealism relives with e'altation thebest part of its childhood. 7or such a mind, it is a little like the conviction withwhich a person drowning reviews, in less than a moment, all the insuperableevents of his life. Bou will say that is not very encouraging. ut $ have nointention of encouraging those who tell me so. 7rom childhood memories and afew others emerges a feeling of being un#preoccupied and subse*uently of

being delin*uent, which $ regard as the most fecund that e'ists. $t is childhoodperhaps which comes closest to 3real life%" childhood beyond which Man has,apart from his passport, only a few complimentary tickets at his disposal"childhood where everything nevertheless conspires to bring about his

possession of himself, efficiently and without risk. &hanks to surrealism, itseems those opportunities return. $t is as if one were still running towards one%ssalvation, or perdition. ne revisits, in the shadows, a precious terror. &hank


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preaches for its saint& /$+B -&$S; 7 B6- 6&BM/Ma pairof silk stockingsis not leap in the void S&H?C, at oneo%clock, the voice whispered to me 3:thune,:thune.% 1hat did that mean2 $

have never been to :thune, and have only the foggiest notion where it islocated on the map of 7rance. :thune evokes nothing for me, not even a scenefrom &he &hree Musketeers. $ ought to have left for :thune, where there wassomeone awaiting me perhaps" that would have been simply too obvious.Someone told me they once read in a book by 5hesterton of a detective who, inorder to find someone he is searching for in a certain city, merely scoured thehouses, from roof to cellar, whose e'teriors seemed abnormal to him in someway, if only in some slight detail. &hat method is as good as any other.Similarly, in >H>H, Soupault entered any number of impossible buildings to askthe concierge whether 8hilippe Soupault lived there. e would not have been

surprised, $ suspect, by an affirmative. e would have gone and knocked on hisdoor.) &he piety of Man does not fool me. &he surrealist voice thatshook 5umae, /odona and /elphi was nothing more than the voice whichdictates to me my less irate speeches. My time ought not to be its time, whyshould it help me to resolve the childish problem of my destiny2 $ pretend,unfortunately, to act in a world where, in order to take account of itssuggestions, $ would be obliged to resort to two sorts of interpreter, one to


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translate its utterances for me, the other, impossible to find, to impress onothers whatever understanding $ had of those utterances. &his world in which $endure what $ endure (do not go and look), this modern world, well, what thedevil do you want me to do with it2 8erhaps the surrealist voice willfall silent, $ no longer try to keep track of the vanished. $ will not pursue,however briefly, the marvellously detailed account of my years and days. $ will

be like ;ijinksi, who was taken last year to the -ussian ballet, and could notcomprehend what spectacle he was viewing. $ will be alone, *uite alone inmyself, indifferent to all the world%s ballets. 1hat $ have done, or not done, $leave to you. nd, since then, $ have e'hibited a passion for treating scientific reveriewith indulgence, so unseemly in the final analysis in every respect.-adio2 7ine. Syphilis2 $f you like.8hotography2 $ don%t see whynot. 5inema2 ravo, for darkened rooms. 1ar2


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truly to achieve here below. Aant%s distraction with respect to woman,8asteur%s distraction 3with grapes%, 5urie%s distraction regarding vehicles, are inthis respect profoundly symptomatic. &his world is only relatively#speaking intune with thought, and incidents of this kind are only episodes, till now themost notable, in a war of independence in which $ have the glory of

participating. Surrealism is the 3invisible ray% which will one day allow us togain the upper hand over our adversaries. 3Bou no longer *uiver, carcase.% &hissummer the roses are blue" the wood is of glass. &he earth draped in its verdurehas as much effect on me as a ghost. $t is living and ceasing to live which areimaginary solutions. 'istence is elsewhere.

first manifesto of surrealism

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