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Notes made following the German invasion in June 1940

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Author

Author André Breton
People cited Pierre Aimery, Maxime Alexandre, Jean-Jaques Allain, Louis Aragon, Gaston Bachelard, Ludwig van Beethoven, Julien Benda, Georges Bernanos, Jean-Richard Bloch, Jérôme Carcopino, Paul Claudel, Frédéric, dit Georges Cuvier, Giorgio De Chirico, J.-P. Didier, Jacques Doriot, Pierre Drieu La Rochelle, George Du Maurier, Édouard Dujardin, Georges Dumas, Dupuis, Georges Duthuit, Max Eschig, Paul Faure, Théodore Flournoy, Geoffroy-Saint-Hilaire, Georgin, André Gide, Grasset, Guébriant, Edouard Herriot, Jactel, Emmanuel Kant, Lansberg, Dr Henri Laugier, Stéphane Mallarmé, Emile Mallet, Jacques Maritain, Charles Maurras, Henri Mondor, Henri de Montherlant, Emmanuel Mounier, Charles Münch, Olivier, Wolfgang Paalen, Charles Péguy, Philippe Pétain, Denise René, Kay Sage, Jean Wahl, Way, Weil, Salvador Dalí, Louis Poirier, dit Julien Gracq, Pierre Jean Jouve, Claude Mauriac, Jean Paulhan, Roland Penrose, Paul Rivet

Description

Breton's handwritten notes dating from 1940 some of which were included in the Ajours section of Arcane 17.

For want of Notebooks of the Phoney War, Breton left us these handwritten reflections during the early days in France after the German invasion. He found them useful later when writing the Ajours section of Arcane 17, and finally spoke about the behaviour and attitudes he observed. In his notes, he situates himself in turn at the level of politics as he observed in particular ‘the communists’ opportunism’, at that of morality, noting the witchtrials and slide into unreasonableness, and finally at that of language, anxiously noting the growing taste for rhetoric and grand declarations. War spoils language. [Atelier André Breton website, 2005]

Handwritten manuscripts, sd [1940]
17 pages in-18° handwritten in green ink by Breton of thoughts and words written in 1940 about Dali, Bachelard, the Occupation and Pétain as well as a few bizarre stories. [sale catalogue, 2003]

*This entry was translated from the French by Michael Richardson.