Roger CAILLOIS informs BRETON of his break with the surrealists.

Roger CAILLOIS (1913.1978)

Autograph letter signed to André Breton.

Three and a half pages, large quarto.

No location. December 27, 1934.

"If surrealism can encompass such an attitude alongside others so radically opposed, it is because it is but a word."

Important letter from Roger Caillois detailing to André Breton all of his disagreements with the surrealist movement and thus definitively recording his break with said movement.

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“ My dear Breton, I hoped that the divergence in our attitudes wasn’t as profound as it appeared during our conversation last night. Certainly, given my particular position, I found something to appreciate in your work. I couldn’t fully embrace one aspect of it without some unease, but I found compensation in the other that allowed me to make this sacrifice. Recently, the satisfaction I’ve derived from reading Point du Jour has led me to resign myself definitively to seeing you play both sides: investigation and poetry (it goes without saying that I’m speaking here in broad strokes, without regard for nuance or cross-referencing).” After all, it was explainable – I am tempted to write, thinking of the way your thought has gone from its origin: it was only too explainable ( I mean by this that surrealism is from a literary milieu ) – that you were inclined to hold the balance equally between the satisfactions that one brings and the enjoyments that the other provides, to use the two words that came almost simultaneously to your lips last night.

After our conversation, I must conclude that there has never been, and probably never will be, a balance between the two domains in your life […] So you are decidedly on the side of intuition, poetry, art—and their privileges. Need I say that I prefer this stance to ambiguity? But you know that I have adopted the opposite stance, practically alone among my kind, for, surprisingly, the superstitious respect for these shortcomings is never so strong as among those who, not making use of them, only know them from the outside; thus, this is merely an effect of naiveté […]

When I compare this grand game with Gérard de Nerval's refusal to enter Palmyra so as not to spoil his preconceived notions of it, or with your own refusal to open a seed that quivers intermittently for fear of discovering an insect or a worm inside, because, as you said, the mystery would have been destroyed—my choice is clear […]

If Surrealism can encompass such an attitude alongside others so radically opposed, it is because it is only a word, and I still wish it were not that, even at my own expense […] For my part, it is at least equally unbearable to be compromised by the activity of Victor Brauner or Georges Hugnet, for example, or by the biographical poetry that is taking up an increasingly large place in Surrealist production (poems by Maurice Heine on Sade, by Hugnet on Onan, by you, by Éluard, and by various others on Violette Nozières, and finally, Bosey's epic poem about you). Until now, I have felt a strong enough sense of solidarity to cover all this up, reluctantly, in the face of external attacks, however well-founded they may have been. Thus, I had accepted without hesitation the clannish morality of Surrealism. I can no longer do so, since I am too openly in disagreement with the very principle of the agreement. […]

Don't you think that the Surrealist movement thrives on too many misunderstandings, mutual concessions, if not repressions? […] Allow me to be nothing more than a kind of correspondent for Surrealism. It will be better for both of us. Don't you think ?