ABSTRACT
The Ode à Charles Fourier is described as being "At the crossroads of reality and Utopia", and again "At the intersection of time and space". This demonstrates the breadth and depth of André Breton's text, which succeeds in confronting reality with the imagination and stretching the dimensions of time and space. Using the Ode form to highlight the thinker's ideas for social reform, Breton showed Fourier's work as the prism through which he viewed contemporary society. If Arcane 17 represents the apogee of Breton's hermetic quest, the Ode à Charles Fourier is a demonstration of his research into Fourier's form of social utopianism in a practical attempt to find a new postwar myth by which to live and to maintain a connection between politics and art. One of the main points of attraction for Breton was Fourier's definition of "Universal analogy" as a science, and one where "the material world and the inner or passionate world constituted a unified system".
