Revolution of the Mind: The Life of Andre Breton - Hardcover

Polizzotti, Mark

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0374249822 ISBN 13: 9780374249823

Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1995

Synopsis

A portrait of an influential figure in modern culture traces his participation in the Paris Dada group in the 1920s, his seminal experiments with automatic writing, his role in the development of Surrealism, and his encounters with Duchamp, Freud, and Sartre.

About this title

Review

Finalist for the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for Best First Book of Nonfiction
One of the 25 best books of 1995, Village Voice Literary Supplement
Notable Book of 1995, New York Times Book Review

"Mr. Polizzotti has produced a substantial work. While mapping a wide area of French literary and artistic life between the wars, he offers much the most complete portrait available in English or French of Surrealism's magister ludi."--Frederick Brown, New York Times Book Review

"In his new, staggeringly well-researched biography of Breton, Mark Polizzotti does not shy from his subject's behavioral unsavoriness, and some of it makes for reading so hilarious one is tempted at moments to believe that his intention was to debunk the man. But the hilarity merely reflects the central paradox of Breton's existence...In Mark Polizzotti, Breton has found a flawless biographer."--Gilbert Adair, [London] Sunday Times

"Wonderfully thorough...Polizzotti takes us expertly through the years of Breton's dealings with Dada, the rupture of 1921, and the creation of Surrealism [and he] handles the awkward half-embraces between the Surrealists and the Parti Communiste Français well and in detail."--front page, Times Literary Supplement

"Enriched with new information, Mark Polizzotti's meticulous biography is likely to become the standard reference."--Le Monde

"Mark Polizzotti has written the portrait of an intransigent, uncompromising genius who founded the most characteristic artistic movement of our century. In painting his canvas Polizzotti has demonstrated his mastery of intellectual history, the intricacies of Parisian literary politics, Breton's own complex psychology, and the subtleties of artistic influence." --Edmund White

"Revolution of the Mind is a rare feat, a scholarly book that debunks and glories in its subject with serene pertinacity and a distinct genius for the back story. It is the best history of Surrealism we are likely to get for many years... Polizzotti had a daunting quantity of skillful mystification to plow through...to his immense credit, [he] sorts out as much as he can without boiling off the truly mysterious."--Gary Indiana, VLS

"A marvel of style and substance. It is written so engagingly that it reads almost like a novel, but it is clearly carefully researched and thorough...Polizzotti's treatment of [Breton] is even-handed and fair, showing the warts as often as the splendid head."--Art Book

From Library Journal

In this, the first biography in English of the iconoclastic poet and founder of Surrealism, first-time author Polizzotti offers both an expertly researched life and an informed history of one of the defining cultural movements of this century. Beginning with a narrative of his subject's working-class youth in northern France, Polizzotti goes on to relate the concatenation of events and influences (most notably World War I and the literary supernovas Alfred Jarry and Guillaume Apollinaire) that conspired to shape Breton's uniquely opinionated personality. A cynical atheist, the poet, critic, and artist harbored an irrepressible streak of romanticism. Breton and his band of followers reached their pinnacle of genius and relevance in the late 1920s and early 1930s, after which the movement was beset by defections and excommunications?many largely in reaction to its founder's despotic leadership. The worldwide upheaval caused by World War II rendered the surrealist's efforts sterile and effete, and, to many onlookers, the war only proved how ineffectual these agents provocateurs had been all along. The artistic vanguard rapidly shifted from Paris to New York, and Breton's heyday had passed. Yet his influence had for a short time been truly revolutionary, and this very well written account can be highly recommended for all larger libraries. [For an in-depth look at the surrealists in the 1930s and 1940s, see Martica Sawin's Surrealism in Exileand the Beginning of the New York School, p. 73.?Ed.]?Douglas F. Smith, Oakland P.L., Cal.
-?Douglas F. Smith, Oakland P.L., Cal.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 0374249822
• ISBN 13: 9780374249823
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 754