André Breton was a French poet who helped found surrealism, which became one of the most influential artistic movements of the 20th century. As one of the first organizers of the group, he fully articulated the theory of surrealism and to put it into literary practice.
André Breton and Early Influences
André Breton was born on February 18, 1896, in Tinchebray, France. He went to medical school Breton in which he was introduced to the new theories of Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis. He became fascinated with how the mind works and began to experiment with new ways of writing. He hoped to reveal the mind's hidden parts that Freud called the realm of the unconscious.
At age 25, he wrote a work called Magnetic Fields, inspired by words and phrases written without deliberate thought, a technique that became known as "automatic writing" greatly influenced by Apollinaire whose technique of changing subject matter according to where the sound of words took him provided freedom of association to words.
Breton, the Dadaists and Surrealism
In 1916, Breton became involved with a group of artists called the Dadaists and joined it. The movement primarily involved visual arts and literature. The Dadaists rejected the prevailing art standards that time. They also believed that society and the world had no meaning.
Breton took it from here along with his earliest influences, developed a new way of thinking which later became known as surrealism. In 1924, Breton published the Manifesto of Surrealism setting out these beliefs.
Surrealism became very influential. In the 1920s, many writers and artists felt the destruction that Europe had suffered during the First World War. The Dadaists saw surrealism as a new hope for a better world.
Breton's ideas had such a strong influence on the movement. His 1928 novel Nadja challenged accepted ideas of what makes people call one person sane and another one mad. Breton's surrealist poetry remained unpublished until after his death. He died on September 28, 1966, at the age of 70.
Works by André Breton
- Magnetic Fields, 1921
- Light of the Earth, 1923
- Manifesto of Surrealism, 1924
- Nadja, 1928
- The Community Vessels, 1932
- What is Surrealism?, 1934
- Mad Love, 1937
- Ode to Charles Fourier, 1947
- Poems, 1948
- Constellations, 1959
- Selected Poems, 1969 (Published after he died)
- Poems of André Breton (Published after he died)
Sources:
- Goring, Rosemary, Ed. Larousse Dictionary of Writers. New York: Larousse Publishers, 1994.
- McGovern, Una, Ed. Chambers Biographical Dictionary. Edinburgh: Chambers / Harrap Publishers, 2002.
- Payne, Tom. The A-Z of Great Writers. London: Carlton, 1997.
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