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A famous sip of poison; A small jaguar; The rogue of the day; 3²+4²=5²

Manuscript

Author

Author André Breton
People cited Pierre Bruegel l'Ancien, Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly, Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Hyeronimus Bosch, Maurice Clavel, Nils de Darden, Sigmund Freud, René Guénon, Joris-Karl Huysmans, Francis Jourdain, Paul Sérant, Henri Beyle, dit Stendhal, Max Walter Svanberg

Description

Manuscripts collected on a sheet of paper dated 25 May 1953 and intended for issue 7 of Médium, informations surréalistes.

Here again are some notes intended for Médium in various different versions, and published on 25 May 1953 in issue 7 of the journal. Max Walter Svanberg, René Guénon, Maurice Clavel and Alexandre Astruc: in between giving some news, making notes on what he had been reading, criticism of films, and taking an exhibition curator to task, Breton seems to find pleasure in writing these short notes (published without an author's name), which also translates into joys of expression: as if, by writing and publishing without a signature the poet allowed himself a greater license. The collection of texts would be included in the third volume of the Œuvres complètes. [Atelier André Breton website, 2005]

Handwritten manuscripts signed, 25 May 1953.
- 1 1/2 page in-4 handwritten, titled, dated, and signed in black ink in first draft by André Breton of these four texts, with erasures and corrections, which appeared in issue 7, May 1953, of Médium:
‘A famous sip of poison’ is a critical text about two films, Alexandre Astruc's The Crimson Curtain, based on a short story by Barbey d'Aurevilly, and another, Mina de Vanghel (1951), by Maurice Clavel, based on a Stendhal novel.

‘The Day Rogue’, a text in which Breton reveals his admiration for the Swedish painter Max Walter Svanberg.
‘3²+4² = 5²’: ‘René Guénon warrants our great deference and nothing else for always soliciting the mind and never the heart... Nevertheless, the great solitary adventurer who rejected faith for knowledge, opposed deliverance to ‘salvation’ and extricated metaphysics from the ruins of religion that concealed it, deserves respect...'
1/2 handwritten page in-4 and drawn in black ink by Breton: ‘A small jaguar’.
Second state with erasures and corrections.
1/2 handwritten page in-4, signed A.B. and titled in black ink : ‘ 3²+4² = 5²'.
Second state with erasures and corrections.
Published in Médium feuille n.7 [sale catalogue, 2003].

‘The Day Rogue’ was published under the title ‘That!’ and dedicated not to Max Walter Svanberg, but to Francis Jourdain, whose father Frantz built 26 rue Vavin. [André Breton website, 2015]

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

Bibliography

– André Breton, « Un peu jaguar », « 3²+4²=5² », « Une fameuse gorgée de poison », « Le gredin du jour » sous le titre « Ça ! », Médium. Informations surréalistes, n° 7, mai 1953.

– André Breton, « Médium, informations surréalistes », Alentours II, Œuvres complètes, tome III, (Édition établie par Marguerite Bonnet et Étienne-Alain Hubert avec les contributions de Philippe Bernier, Marie-Claire Dumas et José Pierre), Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, Paris, Gallimard, 1999, p. 1087-1089, notice p. 1462