Description

Granted to Aimé Patri for the review Paru, this interview appeared in 1948. Once again, in the post-war context, André Breton had to answer the inevitable question about the ‘death’ of Surrealism. In a literary scene occupied by militants, resistance fighters and existentialists, Breton was questioned about the legitimacy and relevance of a movement of which he, along with Benjamin Péret, remained the only truly faithful historical figure. While reaffirming Hegel’s influence on his thought, he places the creator of dialectic in a much broader culture, that of esoteric illuminism, with which he himself acknowledges having many points of convergence. Signed autograph manuscript, 9 January 1948. Responding to questions on esotericism from Aimé Patri, a specialist in the occult sciences, André Breton declared: "I believe that we are making progress, at least in the sense of deepening ideas. At the beginning of the 20th century, when outright cretins like Edmond Rostand or Pierre Loti could make a name for themselves, what scope has opened up since then! What a restitution of thought there has been since then, and especially since the last war. And what revenge for occultism, which paid almost the whole cost."

Bibliography

André Breton, in Paru, l’actualité littéraire intellectuelle et artistique, n° 40, mars 1948.

André Breton (Édition de Marguerite Bonnet avec la collaboration de Philippe Bernier, Marie-Claire Dumas et José Pierre), « Interview d'Aimé Patri », Entretiens 1913-1952,  Réponses à d’autres questions, tome III, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, Paris, Gallimard, 1988, p. 603-609 , notice p.1 325.

 

BnF

Sudoc

Creation date	09-janv.-48
Bibliographical material	4 pages in-4° handwritten in blue ink, folioed, titled, dated and signed by André Breton. Numerous erasures et corrections.
Languages	French
Number of pages	4 p.
Reference	501000
Breton Auction, 2003	Lot 2286
Keywords	Criticism, entretien, Automatic Writing, esotericism
Set	[AB's Manuscripts] Miscellaneous Manuscripts
Permanent link	https://cms.andrebreton.fr/en/work/56600100144710