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tr David Gascoyne ... Read more

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One of my favorite books of all time
I discovered this book at Arizona State University's, Hayden Library when I was in school in 1993 and it totally changed what I thought about literature. Its absolutely intoxicating freedom of creation was like nothing I had ever read except maybe Arthur Rimbaud. This book, I believe, points in the direction of pure human creativity not constrained by logic, form or anything that disconnects us from existence itself. On these roads maybe we can get back to the beginnings, not writing stories but why we write stories, why we scratched on cave walls. ... Read more

Product Description
This book collects together the two most vital "automatic" texts of Surrealism. Breton’s prefatory essay The Automatic Message relates this technique to the underlying concepts and aesthetic of the Surrealist movement.

The Magnetic Fields (1919) was the first work of literary Surrealism and is thus one of the foundations of modern European thought and writing. This authorised translation is by the poet David Gascoyne, himself a member of the group and a friend of both authors.

The Immaculate Conception (1930) traces the interior and exterior life of man from Conception and Intra-Uterine Life to Death and The Original Judgement. The central section is a celebrated series of "simulations" of various types of mental instability.

Maurice Nadeau (in The History of Surrealism) described the book as "An astonishing series of poems in prose, more brilliant than those of either Breton or Eluard on his own . . . if all that remained of the Surrealist movement were the pages of The Immaculate Conception, man, alerted, could not turn away from the astounding mystery of his condition." ... Read more

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Inside Out
In terms of finding a wild, uninhibited introduction to the radical and mindspinning worlds of Breton and friends I can assure you that this is a challenging but rewarding read. However, take note that those who feelprose must have structure and communicate linear thought, please leave yourtextbook at the door. This is work that burrows deep into the subconciousand festers like a tick. ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document, covering the life and work of David (Emery) Gascoyne, is an entry from Contemporary Authors, a reference volume published by Thompson Gale. The length of the entry is 3632 words. The page length listed above is based on a typical 300-word page. Although the exact content of each entry from this volume can vary, typical entries include the following information:

• Place and date of birth and death (if deceased)
• Family members
• Education
• Professional associations and honors
• Employment
• Writings, including books and periodicals
• A description of the author's work
• References to further readings about the author

Product Description
Writings of the best-known leader of the Surrealist movement in literature and the arts. Includes a facsimile reproduction of the 1942 Surrealist Album by André Breton. Index, Glossary, Annotation ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Art And Revolution
This book is about the intersection betweenart and revolutionary politics.In the 1930s the leading figures of the surrealist movement and a few other artists and writers tried to cut out some political space for artists who supported a revolutionaryoverturn of the system that birthed fascism and world war - capitalism .The same "globalized" capitalism that exists today, and which is marching toward fascism and world war all over again. In the 1930s, there was another challenge for would-be revolutionaryartists : the obstacleof the mass
"Communist" parties which betrayedthem and workers and farmers around the world in the interests of the "Soviet" bureaucrats headed by Stalin, which same bureaucracy stifled and suffocated all art and creativityinside the USSR.The struggle of those artists, led by Andre Breton and Diego Rivera, and their direct collaboration with the Russian revolutionary leader in exile Leon Trotsky, has rich lessons for those artists of all kinds who are already beginning to reject and revolt against the "globalized" capitalism of today. As well as those who will do so tommorow.

A revolution in art and art in revolution
This book will give you a good understanding of the surrealist movement. You will read the artists' writings not only on this subject, but also their views on the important political questions of the day which they understood were tied to cultural questions. A photo display in the book gives you a sampling of surrealist works. There is also an excellent glossary of names that reveals the evolution of the surrealists in later years. You gain an appreciation for the international breadth of the movement. 'What is Surrealism?' is not just for art history students. Anyone wishing to gain a deeper understanding of the relationship between art and politics will be fascinated by collection of articles in this book.

Can't say enough how interesting, easy-to-read this is
Well, what a shock. A totally human, big, fat tome on an art form that I've never enjoyed. Makes understandable and useful for one's own life the surrealists' aim of dissolving the alienating barriers between thought and action, dream and consciousness, art and life. Their appreciation of Freud; their collaboration with communists, with Leon Trotsky; their rejection of fatherland, religion, family - all flowing from their determination to be part of the birth of a new world in which there would be no poets because all would make poetry. Fascinating section of documents including a brief homage to Hopi art, denunciation of Salvador Dali for being pro-fascist, support to the Algerian independence fight. Still don't enjoy the surrealists' work. But do enjoy them now.

When some artists werent on the short leash they are on now
Today most artists seem to be on a short leash. I have friends who paint and sculpt and they don't even think about the fact that their art rarely reaches even middle class people let alone the working and farming majority. When something stirs them and they want to take action, they get afraid about their grants, their patrons, that artist in resident spot at a university, or that artist on a cruise, or on a rich person's art club trip to France or Egypt. They get scared to make a phone call or even write a letter because art in the US in particular is on strings to the rich.......................................................

Once it was different.Read this. I don't say follow surrealism, because it was just one school, born of another time, trying to surmount problems that only a socialist revolution and retransformation of society can solve.As a revolutionist as well as an artist--I have a MFA in Creative Writing and write fictional and poetry--what is remarkable about Breton is not his narrow precepts or methods, but about the militancy to which he tried to find truth and resonance and joy without surrendering to acceptance of bourgeois society..................................
The remarkable writings of Andre Breton, as gifted as a writer, as he was a painter, and more gifted as a thinker than he was either.After World War II US imperialism went to work to try to stifle the courage and outrageousness of people like Breton to channel art into the lack of statement of abstract expressionism.Surrealism is no more revolutionary than any other form of art.The most famous surrealist to most people today is Dali, who didn't mind Franco at all and tried to turn himself into an NY advertizing money maker.What is important about Breton, besides what he says about surrealism and art--and on those things I am no big judge--he was trying to find a way to fight for a free, fighting, critical, irreverant art, faced with the nauseating conservatism of formalism and the smothering idiocy of socialist realism?What was important about Breton is that in these writings and in the manifestos here signed by non surrealists like Leon Trotsky and Diego Rivera, Breton was fighting for more than his art?The quest to upturn (boulverser is better but not English) speak out of turn, penetrate, and speak openly that he developed in his art, in the 1930s and 1940s when most of this work was done, was connected with the struggle of artists to link up with the revolutionary struggle against imperialism, and at the same time, with the fight within the workers movement to free it self of the syphilis of Stalinism.
Buy this book.Read this book.Use this book to try to say what life really is. ... Read more