W&M ScholarWorks Arts & Sciences Articles Arts and Sciences 1996 André Breton’s Swinging Doors Katharine Conley College of William and Mary, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wm.edu/aspubs Part of the Modern Languages Commons Recommended Citation Conley, Katharine, André Breton’s Swinging Doors (1996). Romance languages annual, 8, 28-32. https://scholarworks.wm.edu/aspubs/1764 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Arts and Sciences at W&M ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Arts & Sciences Articles by an authorized administrator of W&M ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. RLA Romance Languages Annual Editors 1995 RLA Jeanette Beer Patricia Hart Ben Lawton Production Editor Deborah S. Starewich Sponsors Thomas Adler Interim Dean School of Liberal Arts Christiane E. Keck Head Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures John T. 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I I i .,f t I © 1996 by Purdue Research Foundation Hovde Hall Purdue University WestLafayette,IN 47907 All rights reserved ISBN 0-931682-58-4 ISSN 1050-0774 Printed in the United States of America rI. ANDRE BRETON'S SWINGING DOORS 1 Katharine Conley Dartmouth College There is a tendency to view surrealism as an historical group activities,2 as Susan Suleiman has stated unequivo- movement with Andre Breton as its inflexible founder and cally, "between 1924 and 1933, during the most dynamic prophet. Such is the implication of his nickname, the and 'ascendant' period of the movement, not a single "pope" of surrealism. However, while Breto~ .was cer- woman was included as an official member" (29).3 In ref- tainly didactic in his pronouncements and wnnngs, and erence to surrealism'S most outspoken man, Simone de even in his "excommunications" of such formerly loyal Beauvoir explains that "Breton ne parle pas de la femme companions as Robert Desnos, it is a mistake to interpret en tant qu'elle est sujet" (375). Nevertheless, Woman as a his body of work as a closed system. Breton himself took construct played a significant role in surrealist philoso- stock of his own development on a regular basis. Each phy. Reciprocal love was idealized by Andre Breton and time he fell in love, for example, he wrote a book and in other participants in the group, and Woman was every- each of those books, Nadja, L 'Amourlou, and Arcane 17, where visible as a surrealist icon.4 Renee Riese Hubert af- he reread and rethought himself in a way that serves as a firms that by the 1940s, "Breton's own views, including directive to us, his readers, on how to read, reread, and re- his ideas on women, had also evolved, though perhaps not think him. The key phrase may be found in Nadja, where sufficiently to gain the suffrage of all emancipated fe- Breton proclaims his own approach to reading: "Je persiste males" (371). a reclamer les noms, a ne m'interesser qu'aux livres qu'on While Breton's shortcomings and shortsightedness in laisse battant comme des portes, et desquels on n'a pas a his portrayal and praise of women is evident, in the long ehercher la cle" (Oeuvres completes 1: 651, and again, in run what may be more important is to recognize that reference to a singular door, 751). many of his ideas, such as objective chance, were inextri- Breton's idea of a door that opens and reopens continu- cably linked to a feminine presence. He opened the door to ously, like a door pushed by the wind or a swinging door, women, albeit inexpertly, so that they could-and did- returning to a singular point of departure yet ever opening take possession of what Suleiman calls "the subject posi- onto new vistas of thought, serves as an appropriate em- tion" in surrealism, correct him, and participate in the dis- blem for the Surrealist project and his activity within it. course he initiated on art and society (19). From his statement in Nadja, to the act of rereading him- self explicitly in L'Amour lou, to the call on humanity to In considering Woman as the ultimate example of the rethink its value system in Arcane 17, Breton persists in a process that resists closure and values open-mindedness swinging door approach to reading and writing for Breton above all else. Furthermore he enacts the swinging door it is important to look beyond the ways he used women as theme in each of these books structurally by constructing examples to see how women have taken inspiration from them in a way that confirms his rejection, stated in the Breton's innovations in writing. The swinging door itself first Manifeste, of traditional narrative coherence and form. as a symbol for a resistance to traditional narrative shape What is troubling to many contemporary readers of Bre- and to closure, as well as a symbol for the reading process ton is the way women serve as his most tangible exam- as active and non-linear, may be seen as appropriately em- ples for the aspect of the door opening and reopening linked to his own emotions. Women substituted for one IAn expanded version of this study will appear in the fourth another embody the swinging door theory at the end of chapter of my forthcoming book. Automatic Woman: The Nadja and at the beginning of L 'Amour lou; he portrays Representation of Woman in Surrealism (U of Nebraska Pl. himself as waiting for the ultimate love and the ultimate 2For a pertinent reading of one of the early photographs of woman as an example of his continued receptive stance in the surrealist group, including Mick Soupault and Simone relation to the ultimate artistic breakthrough or philosoph- Breton, see Suleiman, Subversive Intent (20-24). Marguerite ical idea. Woman as an objectified ideal was ever impor- Bonnet's account of the "period of sleeps," indicates that tant to Breton and in these books the most remarkable ex- women participated in the experiments. including Simone Breton, and women friends of Peret, Vitrac, and Picabia (262- amples of his open-mindedness, his swinging-door ideal- 67). ism in relation to thought, reads like stereotypical Don- 3Starting in 1935 women such as Meret Oppenheim. Dora Juan sexism. He lauds the women in his life: each one of- Maar, Valentine Hugo, Leonor Fini, and others began to add fers him a fresh perspective on himself, like a traditional their names to surrealist tracts. See Tracts surrealistes. Gisele muse. Prassinos, only 14 in 1935, was "discovered" by the surreaj, This laudatory stance, however, did not extend to the in- ists, who published her work and admired the fierce amorality clusion of women into the surrealist group until the mid of her automatic texts (Eluard 140). 1930s. Though women may be seen in photographs of 4Apart from Breton's books devoted to his relationships see the Second Manifeste in Oeuvres completes I: 822-23, L"]m- maculee Conception in Oeuvres completes 1: 874, and Recherches 53. 28 blematic of more contemporary writing, including writing striking experience of objective chance-of a chance meet- by women such as Quebec's Nicole Brossard. A closer ing with a person who so exactly embodies his current consideration of the swinging door in Breton works dedi- philosophical train of thought; the third is a meditation on cated to women is in order: of the swinging door as a book writing and the ultimate romantic example of objec- theme in Nadja, L'Amour fou, and Arcane 17, including tive chance-his meeting with X (Suzanne Muzard), the the examples of women, and also as a structural organiz- woman he hopes will be the last love in his life. This ing principle within the text. shifting of subject matter seems appropriate to an author Throughout Nadja Breton expresses a wish to "resolve who continually questions himself in the book, not only opposites," which he illustrates by what Gerald Prince has with the opening question, "Qui suis-je"? (Oeuvres com- termed "la strategic du desordre et du discontinu"S typical pletes 1: 647) but with the questions that close the central of the "faits-glissades et ces faits-precipices" to which he Nadja section of the book: refers at the beginning (Oeuvres completes I: 651).