ABSTRACT
This chapter shows the height of Breton's quest into hermeticism and occultism in a text that is essentially the lyrical expression of his love for his companion and future wife, Elisa Claro, set against the ever-present crisis of the war in Europe. Written while he was away from New York with Elisa in Gaspé Peninsula, Canada in 1944, Arcane 17 represents culmination of Breton's hermetic interest. Arcane 17 is a celebration of Breton's love, dedicated to the object of that love; in Nervalian tradition, and also that of his own in L'Amour fou, he centred his text on Elisa, personified as 'The Star' – Isis/Venus/the Morning Star. Breton's quest for the 'sublime point' – the resolution of the antinomies which beset our daily lives – had been pushed to its extreme and evolved into an esoteric direction: a path involving a reassessment of Romanticism and the ensuing research into hermetic documents of past centuries.
