Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book examines how André Breton used the text of Prolègomènes to establish the shortcomings of any political 'system', from that of the Communist Party to that of the French Revolution, even admitting that the Surrealist movement itself was not proof against the intellectual vagaries of some of its members. It looks at that from 1943 onwards, Breton was especially concerned with the role of the poet as a "seer", adopting a prophetic stance. The book reveals a stronger link from one poet to the other in the descriptive passages of Arcane 17. It concentrates on the reception of Breton's texts written during his exile in the context of postwar France, after his return to Paris, as well as his introduction to the Surrealist exhibition of 1947.