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In 1951 Robert Motherwell published a collection of writings called The Dada Painters and Poets: An Anthology. Conceived as a sequel to that volume, Surrealist Painters and Poets: An Anthology does for Surrealism what Motherwell's book did for Dadaism. The concept and contents were discussed with Robert Motherwell and met with his enthusiastic approval. The essays, manifestos, poems, and texts in this anthology offer a composite picture of the Surrealists—their convictions, styles, and spirit—from the movement's beginnings in France just after World War I to its second flowering in America after World War II. The book includes writers and artists from Belgium, Chile, Czechoslovakia, Cuba, Egypt, England, France, Germany, Guyana, Italy, Martinique, Mauritius, Mexico, Spain, Switzerland, Senegal, Uruguay, and the United States. Caws's main criterion for inclusion was that the works be the best and most representative of the different forms of Surrealism. Among others, the artists and writers include Andre Breton, Marcel Duchamp and Rrose Selavy, Max Ernst, Mina Loy, Francis Picabia, and Tristan Tzara.
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Surrealist Painters and Poets
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Surrealist Painters and Poets An Anthology
edited by Mary Ann Caws
The MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England
2001 Mary Ann Caws All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher. This book was set in Bembo by Achorn Graphic Services, Inc., and was printed and bound in the United States of America. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Surrealist painters and poets: an anthology / edited by Mary Ann Caws. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-262-03275-9 (hc.: alk. paper) 1. French poetry—20th century—Translations into English. 2. Surrealism—France. 3. Artists’ writings. I. Caws, Mary Ann. PQ1170.E6 S8 2001 700′.41163—dc21 Source notes are found on p. 517.
00-032888
For my children and in memory of Rene´ Char
Rene´ Char as a child, with Emilienne, Lily, and Marthe Brun, in Lacoste, 1915. Gift of Rene´ Char to the author.
Rene´ Char with Matthew and Hilary Caws, at Les Busclats, L’Isle-sur-Sorgue, 1976.
Contents
Preface: Surrealist Gathering Acknowledgments M EMOIRS
OF
xix xxxiii
S URREALISM
Eileen Agar Am I a Surrealist?
3
Mary Ann Caws Remembering Jacqueline Remembering Andre´
7
Rene´ Char The Journey Is Done
21
Giorgio de Chirico From The Memoirs of Giorgio de Chirico
25
Rene´ Magritte Lifeline
33
Man Ray At the Beginning of My Career . . . Dadamade
41
Andre´ Masson Painting Is a Wager
47
Philippe Soupault Hymn to Liberty
51
Contents
T EXTS Anonymous [Scrutator] Automatic Drawing
59
Guillaume Apollinaire Oneirocriticism
63
Louis Aragon From Paris Peasant
67
From The Fate of La Fontaine
77
Hans Arp Notes from a Diary
85
Fernando Arrabal The Folly Stone
91
Antonin Artaud The Shell and the Clergyman: Film Scenario
95
The Mountain of Signs
101
From ‘‘Van Gogh: The Man Suicided by Society’’
103
Georges Bataille The Absence of Myth
111
Hans Bellmer What Oozed through the Staircase
115
Yves Bonnefoy The Anti-Plato
117
Kay Boyle A Complaint for M and M
121
Victor Brauner On the Fantastic in Painting
123
v