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From sunspots to splashes of sunlight

Manuscript

Author

Author André Breton
People cited Stéphane Lupasco, Raymond Abellio

Description

Manuscript by Breton of an article dated 26 March 1950 that would be published in Combat on 28 March 1950.

This manuscript of an article published in Combat on 28 March 1950 is emblematic of Breton’s position in the intellectual realm at the start of the 1950s. If he had distanced himself somewhat from the Global Citizens movement, notably due to its anarchist-related positions that seemed to him scarcely constructive, let alone revolutionary, the poet’s rage was just as enflamed: in this respect – and he was one of the few to do so in this period – he stood opposed as much to the right (the United States and its iniquitous executions) as to the left (communism and the agents of the USSR). Breton never ceased to repeat that identity is constructed within contradiction, not within ‘full association’. [Atelier André Breton website, 2005]

Signed handwritten manuscript, 26 March 1950.
- 2 in-4° pages of a signed and dated manuscript in black ink by Breton relating to the idea of becoming and the atomic threat.  
‘In these first days of spring there comes to mind again one of those rare supportive ideas to which I managed to cling in the worst days of the last war: so much devastation could do nothing in the face of the return of a spring that was enough of a great magician to bring a smile to the ruins. [...]
I have several times heard sunspots being held culpable. But these spots can also affect what takes the place of the sun for us.’ 

Many deletions and corrections. Published in Combat on 28 March 1950. [Auction catalogue, 2003]

Translated by Krzysztof Fijalkowski

Bibliography

André Breton (Édition de Marguerite Bonnet avec la collaboration de Philippe Bernier, Marie-Claire Dumas, Étienne-Alain Hubert et José Pierre), Alentours II, Œuvres complètes, tome III, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, Paris, Gallimard, 1999, p. 1019-1021, notes p. 1443