Philosophy and Literature

Abstract:

Interrupting an article on surrealist politics in 1935, André Breton reproduced three brand-new poems by Paul Éluard, Benjamin Péret, and Salvador Dalí to make a particular point. Although the poems were written in radically different styles, he explained, he admired them for their depth of feeling, richness of intuition, and lively structure. In the eleven years that had passed since the first surrealist manifesto, the movement had attracted some marvelous poets who had learned how to extract the maximum effect from their imagery.