Andre Breton (1896-1966) was the founder of Surrealism and a major leader of the avant-garde movement in France following World War I. Breton is internationally famous for his many prose works, including the "Manifestoes of Surrealism" and the novel "Nadja". Breton's poetry- imaginative, alive with the bizarre and striking images that are characteristic of Surrealism in the visual arts- is increasingly finding a wider audience that has come to appreciate his poetry as a witness to an influential movement and as an achievement unto itself. This exceptional volume brings together the most comprehensive selection of poems by Breton available in English. Here, in a bilingual French-English format are 73 poems representing all styles and stages of the writer's career. Introductory essays by the editors describe the significant themes and stylistic features of Breton's work, including the Surrealist concept of "convulsive beauty" and the practice of automatic writing. The book also includes extensive text-clarifying notes, a useful chronology of the poet's life, and a selected bibliography.
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Nearly perfect... a boon to American students of surrealism and of poetry as well... (Serge Gavronsky )
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Text: English, French
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8 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
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Stream of consciousness and the pure pleasure of words,
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This review is from: Poems of Andre Breton: A Bilingual Anthology (Paperback)
Most of these poems are purely surrealistic, and some others include political and social statements or hints, the "Ode to Fourier" being the most important of these ones. Charles Fourier, a Frenchman from the XIX century, was the creator of "Utopic socialism", which viewed Socialism's mission as the building of a completely new civilization, and not the reform of the existing ones. Breton and most of the Surrealistic movement were politically opinionated, and supporters of Communist parties and Communism in general (although they never lived in a Communist society; much on the contrary, they enjoyed very much the advantages and comfort of the West, always indulgent with its hypocritical intellectuals).But, beyond his political opinions, Breton was an extremely important poet and, I would say, a very enjoyable one. That is, if you enjoy poetry for the sake of poetry. In his purely poetical poems, you won't find clear or straightforward messages: it's just the flow of thought and feeling being automatically translated into the paper. The best ones are: "Fata Morgana", "Pleine Marge", "Les Etats Generales", and "Oubliés". These poems are not easy to read, but they are extremely creative in the best sense of the term. Onirical images, impossible, absurd, with passages and sentences of an incredible and totally unexpected beauty. I think that the best form to read them is to indulge in the wording and following it right through the end. You may reread later to better appreciate the images.
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