Revolution of the Mind: The Life of André Breton

Aptly described by playwright Eugene Ionesco as one of the four or five great reformers of modern thought, Andre Breton (1896-1966) was the founder and prime mover of Surrealism, the most influential artistic and literary movement of the 20th century. Poet and theorist, artistic impresario and political agitator, Breton was a man of paradoxical character: inspiring one moment, crushingly tyrannical the next; embracing friends like Brunuel, Dali, Duchamp, Miro, Man Ray, Aragon and Eluard, only to exile them as enemies later. From its emergence from Dada after World War I through its culmination in the 1960s, here is the Surrealist world in detail. --Black Widow Press. Title Page 10 Copyright 11 Contents 12 Acknowledgments 14 Foreword to the Revised Edition 16 1. “The Passably Haggard and Very Hounded Child” (February 1896 – August 1913) 21 2. Meetings with Remarkable Men (Spring 1913 – February 1916) 32 3. Joyful Terrorists (February 1916 – August 1917) 52 4. The Three Musketeers (August 1917 – October 1918) 76 5. A Man Cut in Two (November 1918 – September 1919) 93 6. Dada Comes to Paris (September 1919 – December 1921) 120 Photographs 169 7. A Room above Heaven and Hell (January 1922 – May 1924) 189 8. The “Pope” of Surrealism (May 1924 – July 1925) 220 9. Revolution by Any Means (July 1925 – December 1926) 252 10. Admirable Love and Sordid Life (January 1927 – December 1928) 284 11. The Crash of ’29 (January 1929 – March 1930) 316 12. In the Service of the Revolution (March 1930 – March 1932) 341 13. The Great Undesirable (April 1932 – September 1934) 376 14. On the International Stage (September 1934 – December 1936) 405 15. For an Independent Revolutionary Art (January 1937 – June 1939) 434 16. The Exile Within (June 1939 – May 1941) 464 17. The Exile Without (June 1941 – May 1946) 488 18. The Situation of Surrealism after the Two Wars (May 1946 – December 1949) 521 19. “I Am Surrealism!” (January 1950 – July 1957) 548 20. The Anti-Father (August 1957 – September 1966) 576 Epilogue: The Gold of Time 595 Select Bibliography 599 Notes 612 Index 687 "Lauded internationally upon its publication in 1995 as 'the most complete portrait available in English or French of Surrealism's magister ludi' (New York Times Book Review) and 'the first great biography of André Breton' (Livres Hebdo), Revolution of the Mind is now reissuedd in an updated, extensively revised version incorporating the wealth of new information that has since emerged about Breton, his stewardship of the Surrealist movement, his interaction with such figures as Buñuel, Dalí, Aragon, Picasso, Ernst, and many others, and his personal relationships, including previously unknown details about the mysterious Nadja. This is the definitive edition of a work that the New Criterion called 'an exemplary model of the [biographer's] art"--Back cover Aptly described by playwright Eugene Ionesco as "one of the four or five great reformers of modern thought", André Breton (1896-1966) was the founder and prime mover of Surrealism, the most influential artistic and literary movement of the 20th century. Poet and theorist, artistic impresario and political agitator, Breton was a man of paradoxical character: inspiring one moment, crushingly tyrannical the next; embracing friends like Brunuel, Dali, Duchamp, Miro, Man Ray, Aragon and Eluard, only to exile them as enemies later. From its emergence from Dada after World War I through its culmination in the 1960s, here is the Surrealist world in detail. The first major biography in English of Surrealism’s founder traces his participation in the Paris Dada group in the 1920s, his seminal experiments with automatic writing, his role in the development of Surrealism, and his encounters with Duchamp, Freud, and Sartre. Mark Polizzotti. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 561-648) And Index.