One of the first surrealist games by Breton, Aragon, Éluard, Péret. 1920.

André Breton (1896.1966)

Autograph manuscript.

Four ½ in-4° pages numbered from 1 to 5 in red pencil.

Typewritten list of names, columns drawn in pencil, annotations in blue ink.

June 1920.

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A fantastic document constituting one of the very first post-Dadaist collective exercises of the future surrealist group. Aragon, Breton, Éluard, Fraenkel, Paulhan, Soupault and Péret rate subjectively (from -20 to +20) nearly two hundred and fifty literary, historical or scientific personalities from all periods.

Through a long list of famous names, the seven participants give free rein to their literary admirations and disdains through the game of academic notation.

Under the fire of mathematical censorship, certain names such as Rimbaud, Lautréamont, Apollinaire, Freud and Jacques Vaché benefit – unsurprisingly – from almost unanimity, while others (Tolstoy, Sand, Voltaire, Maupassant, etc.) see them severely punished.

Note the relative freedom of Paul Éluard generally taking the opposite view from his friends and the certain severity of Benjamin Péret who attributes the worst grades to the vast majority of the names proposed.

Reassessing literary history was one of the great undertakings of surrealism. In this session, still placed under the sign of Dada, affinities emerge, ignorance is hidden, hatreds or rivalries are expressed, which over the years will become clearer and sometimes amplified thanks to other surrealist games.

Games are one of the most fruitful techniques for exploring language, and for surrealism the game was much more than an activity, it was also an attitude and a value to which was added a dimension of collective poetic creation. A matrix of cultural and artistic creations of the century, the surrealist group continued to deepen its approach to play and its research into language.

Provenance: André Breton sale, April 11-12, 2003, n°2016