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'Charity without buttocks does well' (an untranslatable pun playing on the homonym between 'bienfaisance' and 'bien sans fesses')

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Author

Authors Pierre de Massot, Robert Desnos
Recueilli par André Breton
People cited Anatole France, Pierre de Massot, Benjamin Péret, Tristan Tzara

Description

Undated manuscript sheets by André Breton, filed in the dossier for the exhibition Le Surréalisme en 1947

Final ‘word games’, as usual between genius and spoonerism, that are not as well developed as they might be. One of the final ones on this double-sided sheet of paper is attributed to Pierre de Massot (and then scratched out…). On the other hand, we note Tzara’s reappearance, and the scandalous mixture of eroticism and religion, very much in the spirit of Dada, and which is moreover at the heart of the personal fantasies of Desnos: ‘Say an avé to your / sex that has a river of sap / for its axis.’ [Atelier André Breton website, 2005]

Hand-written manuscript (undated).
2 in-12 pages handwritten puns in black pencil by André Breton:
‘Charity without buttocks does well [...] Tzara plucks his sword as if he were looking for the navel of numbers.’ [sale catalogue, 2003]

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