Surrealist Poetry in France

This is the first study in any language of the expression of surrealism in poetry, examined through analysis of the work of French poets from the 1920's to the 1960's. The book undertakes to show what the surrealists want to accomplish in poetry, how, and by what means. In providing evidence of the consequences of surrealism for poetry, the discussions of Aragon, Péret, Eluard, Arp, and twelve others are designed to illustrate the range of poetic response brought forth by surrealist principles, thus making clearer the norms of surrealist practice. Resting upon the conviction that "language has been given man so that he may make surrealist use of it," as André Breton said, surrealism imposes highly distinctive conditions upon poetic creation, influencing the form and content of poetry to a marked degree. The surrealists' indifference to certain conventions of twentieth-century poetry has prompted, everywhere in the world, scrutiny of the aesthetic values appropriate to poetic expression. Because of the urgency with which it has asserted its claim to make poetry a vehicle for its own ideals, and because of its lack of concern for some of the most respected ideals inherited from the past, surrealism has had an impact unequalled, in our time, by any other conception of literary communication.