| French
poet and critic, a leader of the surrealistic movement. He was born in
Tinchebray, Orne Department, studied medicine, and worked in psychiatric
wards in World War I. Later, as a writer in Paris, he was a pioneer in
the antirationalist movements in art and literature known as Dadaism and
surrealism, which developed out of the general disillusionment with tradition
that marked the post-World War I era. Breton's study of the works of Sigmund
Freud and his experiments with automatic writing influenced his formulation
of surrealist theory. He expressed his views in Litérature, the
leading surrealist periodical, which he helped found and edited for many
years, and in three surrealist manifestos (1924, 1930, 1942). His best
creative work is considered the novel Nadja (1928), based partly on his
own experiences. His poetry, in Selected Poems (1948; trans. 1969), reflects
the influence of the poets Paul Valéry and
Arthur Rimbaud. |