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

André Breton (1896.1966)

Autograph manuscript.

Four and a half pages in quarto, numbered from 1 to 5 in red pencil.

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

June 1920.

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A formidable 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 in complete subjectivity (from -20 to +20) nearly two hundred and fifty literary, historical or scientific personalities from all periods.

Through a long list of illustrious names, the seven participants give free rein to their literary admirations and disdains through the game of school grading.

Under the fire of mathematical censorship, some names such as Rimbaud, Lautréamont, Apollinaire, Freud and Jacques Vaché benefit – unsurprisingly – from near unanimity, while others (Tolstoy, Sand, Voltaire, Maupassant, …) are severely sanctioned.

Note the relative freedom of Paul Éluard, who generally took the opposite stance to his friends, and the certain severity of Benjamin Péret, who assigned the worst grades to the vast majority of the names proposed.

Re-evaluating literary history was one of the great undertakings of Surrealism. In this session, still under the sign of Dada, affinities emerge, ignorances are concealed, hatreds or rivalries are expressed, which over the years will become more precise and sometimes amplified thanks to other Surrealist games.

Games are one of the most fruitful techniques for exploring language, and for Surrealism, play was much more than an activity; it was also an attitude and a value, enriched by a dimension of collective poetic creation. A matrix of cultural and artistic creations of the century, the Surrealist group continually deepened its approach to play and its research on language.

Provenance: André Breton sale, April 11-12, 2003, lot no. 2016