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Grasping a crazy world

Manuscript

Author

Author André Breton
People cited Garry Davis, David Rousset

Description

Manuscript of a text by André Breton published in Combat on 3 April 1950.

Even more than the beautiful formula of vital energy, the model of utopia permeates this text published in Combat on 3 April 1950. Breton celebrates the small but powerful act of resistance offered to the great movements of the world by the inhabitants of the île de Sein, who, by proclaiming their autonomy, gave a meaningful sign - even if it may have been inadequate on the geopolitical level on the moral level it was essential. The inhabitants of Sein thus become figures of revolt in a pure state. [Atelier André Breton website, 2005]

Hand-written manuscripts signed, 2 April 1950.
- 1 small page in-4°, handwritten in blue ink by Breton, constitutes a first part of this text, with erasures and corrections.
- 2 pages in-4° handwritten in green ink, titled, dated and signed by Breton about the keepers of the Jument lighthouse, off Ouessant, who had hoisted the black flag:
‘It would be utopian and even vain to call for a vital surge, to assert its necessity and sufficiency so that the return to what within us that it makes time ‘beautiful’ occurs if we refrained from saying what this surge could consist of and didn’t try to detect some harbinger of it... The gendarmes, tired of the forced baths, only come for its ‘excursions’... As a result, Sein administers itself very well; that is without misdemeanours.
Scratchings and corrections. Published in Combat on 3 April 1950. [sale catalogue, 2003]

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

Bibliography

André Breton Alentours II, Œuvres complètes, volume III (Edition established by Marguerite Bonnet and edited by Étienne-Alain Hubert with contributions from Philippe Bernier, Marie-Claire Dumas and José Pierre), Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, Paris, Gallimard, 1999, p. 1021-1023, notice p. 1443-1444.