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Rene Crevel's second sleeping fit

First hypnotic sleeping fits

Manuscript

Author

Author René Crevel
People cited André Breton, Robert Desnos

Description

René Crevel’s second ‘sleeping fit’, transcribed by Robert Desnos, dated 28 September 1922, three days after the very first in the sequence, on the 25^th.

Over two pages of headed notepaper for the Congrès de Paris, Crevel ‘sent to sleep by Breton’ and questioned by Desnos, once again evokes some morbid images, with a shroud and a coffin expressing his obsession with death. During this second sleeping fit the replies are more coherent, and all the more astonishing since in the first one the note-taking was incomplete. The disassociation between the ego and the body that was fundamental for the future author of Mon corps et moi is here given latitude through phrases such as ‘my body’, or that moving image that once again seems to anticipate the recurring motif of suicide: ‘I burned my poor hands.’ We note moreover that these hands are also the agents of writing. On the other hand, the questions also tackle the question of eroticism; Crevel, whose tendencies are towards homosexuality, accepts having ‘women friends’, with this obvious flirtation succumbing to the void of the final phrase: ‘I do not want to love.’

28 September 1922.
2 numbered in-4° manuscript pages in black pencil by Desnos on the back of headed notepaper for the ‘Congrès de Paris’, inserted in an identical sheet of paper folded in two and labelled by Breton: ‘Thursday 28 September - Crevel – 2^nd sleeping fit.’
‘Crevel sent to sleep by Breton: Write three versions.
‘Crevel do you have a male friend ? – I don’t have any. – A woman friend ? - Several. – Do you love them ? - No, because I do not want to love.’

Bibliography

- « Sommeil », Littérature nouvelle série n° 6, 1^er novembre 1922.

See also