What Is Surrealism? Selected Writings

Contents
Introductory Note by Franklin Rosemont
Introduction: Andre Breton and the First Principles of Surrealism by Franklin Rosemont

Part One: The Nineteen-20s
	For Dada
	Max Ernst
	After Dada
	Marcel Duchamp
	Francis Picabia
	Introduction to the Discourse on the Paucity of Reality
		Colloquy of the Suits of Armour
		Succession of the Wonders
		A Problem
		The Strange Diversion
	Leon Trotsky’s ‘Lenin’
	Legitimate Defence
	Exhibition X... Y... (excerpts)
	The First Dali Exhibition

Part Two: The Nineteen-30s
	The Immaculate Conception (excerpts)
		Intra-Uterine Life
		Introduction to the Possessions
		Simulation of Mental Debility
		Simulation of General Paralysis
		Simulation of Delirium of Interpretation
		Force of Habit
		Nothing Is Incomprehensible
		The Original Judgment
	Surrealism and the Treatment of Mental Illness
	The Relationship Between Intellectual Work and Capital
	The Communicating Vessels (excerpts)
	The Poverty of Poetry: The Aragon Affair and Public Opinion (excerpts)
	Surrealism Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (excerpts)
	Conversations with S. A. Rhodes
	On ‘Proletarian Literature’
	Experimental Researches (On the Irrational Embellishment of a City) (excerpts)
	The Automatic Message
	‘M. Renault Is Very Concerned’
	What Is Surrealism?
		‘Written Surrealist Composition or First and Last Draft\'
	Interview with \'Halo-Noviny\'
	Interview with \'Indice\'
	Preface to the Catalogue of the International Surrealist Exhibition {London 1936)
	Limits Not Frontiers of Surrealism
	Mad Love (excerpts)
	Declaration on the Second Moscow Trial
	Freud in Danger
	Visit with Leon Trotsky
	Manifesto for an Independent Revolutionary Art
	Anthology of Black Humour (excerpts)
		Lightning Rod (excerpts)
		Jonathan Swift
		Charles Fourier
		Isidore Ducasse, Comte de Lautreamont
		Benjamin Peret

Part Three: The Nineteen-40s
	Interview with \'View\' Magazine
	Originality and Freedom
	Prolegomena to a Third Manifesto of Surrealism or Else
		Little Prophetic Interlude
		The Return of \'Pere Duchesne\'
		The Great Invisibles
	Genesis and Perspective of Surrealism in the Plastic Arts
	A Great Black Poet: Aime Cesaire
	Situation of Surrealism Between the Two Wars
	Arcane 17 (excerpts)
	Testimony 45: On Marcel Duchamp
	Interview with Rene Belance (excerpts)
	Speech to Young Haitian Poets
	Foreword to ‘Yves Tanguy’
	Interview with Jean Duche (excerpts)
	Silence is Golden
	Second Ark
	On the Survival of Certain Myths and on Some Other Myths in Growth or Formation
	Before the Curtain
	Rising Sign

Part Four: The Nineteen-50s
	Introduction to the Work of Toyen
	Speech to the Meeting ‘For the Defence of Freedom’ (excerpts)
	On Magic Art (excerpts)
	Flora Tristan
	The October Revolution
	Art Poetique

Part Five: The Nineteen-60s
	Far from Orly
	Homage to Natalia Sedova-Trotsky
	First Hand
	Surrealism Continues
	Cavalier Perspective

Surrealist Documents
	1920s
		Open the Prisons! Disband the Army!
		Declaration of 27 January 1925
		Revolution Now and Forever! (excerpts)
		The Fiftieth Anniversary of Hysteria by Louis Aragon and Andre Breton
	1930s
		Telegram to Moscow
		Fire!
		Murderous Humanitarianism
		Manifesto on ‘L’Age d’or’ (excerpts)
		Mobilisation Against War is not Peace! (excerpts)
		‘The Planet Without a Visa’
		International Surrealist Bulletin (excerpts)
		Neither Your War Nor Your Peace!
	1940s
		Declaration VVV
		Freedom is a Vietnamese Word
		Inaugural Break (excerpts)
	1950s
		At Last! by Andre Breton and Benjamin Beret
		Hungary: Sunrise
		Letter to Don C. Talayesva, Hopi Sun Chief
	1960
		Declaration Concerning the Right of Insubordination in the Algerian War
		We Don’t EAR It That Way
		The Iniquitous Way
		Against the Liquidators
		Letter to the Surrealists of the United States