André Breton

1. AndréBreton

2. BackgroundInformation • André Breton was born in Tinchebray (Orne), France in 1896. • He had begun his education in medicine, but soon realized he no longer wanted to pursue that field. • Some of his early poetry tended to lean towards symbolism, but after being called up for World War 1, his outlook changed. • Two of Breton’s main influences were Jacques Vache and Guillaume. • He founded a magazine with two other men, entitled “Litterature” • Breton later went on to become one of the principal founders of surrealism, and wrote the Surrealist Manifesto in 1924. In this, he defined surrealism as “pure psychic automatism.” • Breton had three wives over the course of his life, and one child, named Aube. • André Breton died on September 28th, 1966.

3. Five Ways to Kill a Man • In an age of aeroplanes, you may flymiles above your victim and dispose of him bypressing one small switch. All you thenrequire is an ocean to separate you, twosystems of government, a nation's scientists,several factories, a psychopath andland that no-one needs for several years.These are, as I began, cumbersome waysto kill a man. Simpler, direct, and much more neatis to see that he is living somewhere in the middleof the twentieth century, and leave him there. • There are many cumbersome ways to kill a man.You can make him carry a plank of woodto the top of a hill and nail him to it. To do this properly you require a crowd of peoplewearing sandals, a cock that crows, a cloakto dissect, a sponge, some vinegar and oneman to hammer the nails home.Or you can take a length of steel,shaped and chased in a traditional way,and attempt to pierce the metal cage he wears.But for this you need white horses,English trees, men with bows and arrows,at least two flags, a prince, and acastle to hold your banquet in.Dispensing with nobility, you may, if the wind allows, blow gas at him. But then you need a mile of mud sliced through with ditches, not to mention black boots, bomb craters, more mud, a plague of rats, a dozen songs and some round hats made of steel.

4. All the School Girls Together • Often you say making a mark in the earth with your heel at the wild rose blooms in a bushWild one seemingly made only of dewYou say The whole sea and the whole sky for a singleVictory of childhood in the country of dance or better for a singleEmbrace in a train corridorGoing to the devil with rifle shots on a bridge or betterYet for a single timorous wordSuch as must be said while gazing at youBy a blood-stained man whose name goes far from tree to treeWho keeps going in and out among a hundred birds of snowWhere then it is niceAnd when you say it the whole sea and the whole skyScatter like a cloud of little girls in the yard of a strict boarding schoolAfter a dictation in which The heart takesWas perhaps written The heart aches

5. Always for the First Time • Always for the first timeHardly do I know you by sightYou return at some hour of the night to a house at an angle to my windowA wholly imaginary houseIt is there that from one second to the nextIn the inviolate darknessI anticipate once more the fascinating rift occurringThe one and only riftIn the facade and in my heartThe closer I come to youIn realityThe more the key sings at the door of the unknown roomWhere you appear alone before meAt first you coalesce entirely with the brightnessThe elusive angle of a curtainIt's a field of jasmine I gazed upon at dawn on a road in the vicinity of GrasseWith the diagonal slant of its girls pickingBehind them the dark falling wing of the plants stripped bareBefore them a T-square of dazzling lightThe curtain invisibly raisedIn a frenzy all the flowers swarm back inIt is you at grips with that too long hour never dim enough until sleep

6. Always for the First time –cont’d- • You as though you could beThe same except that I shall perhaps never meet youYou pretend not to know I am watching youMarvellously I am no longer sure you knowYour idleness brings tears to my eyesA swarm of interpretations surrounds each of your gesturesIt's a honeydew huntThere are rocking chairs on a deck there are branches that may well scratch you in theforestThere are in a shop window in the rue Notre-Dame-de-LoretteTwo lovely crossed legs caught in long stockingsFlaring out in the center of a great white cloverThere is a silken ladder rolled out over the ivyThere isBy my leaning over the precipiceOf your presence and your absence in hopeless fusionMy finding the secretOf loving youAlways for the first time

7. Analysis: Always for the First Time • Summary: I interpreted the poem “Always for the First time” by André Breton as an expression of a longing for love, and admiration from afar. Perhaps the story of unrequited love, or a secret affair. • Effective Imagery: “You return at some hour of the night to a house at an angle to my window” “It's a field of jasmine I gazed upon at dawn on a road in the vicinity of Grasse” “Before them a T-square of dazzling light the curtain invisibly raised” “There are rocking chairs on a deck there are branches that may well scratch you in the forest” “There are in a shop window in the rue Notre-Dame-de-Lorette two lovely crossed legs caught in long stockings” • Specific Metaphor: “It's a field of jasmine I gazed upon at dawn on a road in the vicinity of Grasse” – Most of this poem consists mainly of metaphors one after the other, this is one specific example. • Themes: Love, desperation • Opinion: I enjoy this poem simply for its elegance. It feels as though it was a love note, written to a woman a man has never met, but feels overwhelming love for. Even though I don’t understand the feelings, the poem makes me feel them, and for that I like it.

8. Less Time • Less time than it takes to say it, less tears than it takes to die; I've taken account of everything,there you have it. I've made a census of the stones, they are as numerous as my fingers and someothers; I've distributed some pamphlets to the plants, but not all were willing to accept them. I'vekept company with music for a second only and now I no longer know what to think of suicide, forif I ever want to part from myself, the exit is on this side and, I add mischievously, the entrance, there-entrance is on the other. You see what you still have to do. Hours, grief, I don't keep areasonable account of them; I'm alone, I look out of the window; there is no passerby, or rather noone passes. You don't know this man? It's Mr. Same. May I introduce MadamMadam? And their children. Then I turn back on my steps, my steps turn back too, but I don'tknow exactly what they turn back on. I consult a schedule; the names of the towns have beenreplaced by the names of people who have been quite close to me. Shall I go to A, return to B,change at X? Yes, of course I'll change at X. Provided I don't miss the connection with boredom!There we are: boredom, beautiful parallels, ah! how beautiful the parallels are under God'sperpendicular.

9. Less Time Discussion Questions • This poem is written in a bit of a nonsensical way, do you think this method still gets a message/theme across, or should poets just be blatant about what they’re trying to convey? • What images/thoughts come to mind when you read this poem? • What do you think the poet was thinking as he wrote this piece?

11. Works Cited • http://www.opusforfour.com/breton.html • www.poemhunter.com/andre-breton/biography