The Place of Suicide in the French Avant–Garde of the Inter–War Period

Abstract

The cult of artistic and existential evasion in and surrealism made a leitmotif of literary life in inter-war France. Dadaists and surrealists exploited as a figure of evasion from reality, from social and moral conventions, and from bourgeois concepts of talent, ambition, and remuneration associated with Galvanized by intolerable malaise of war experience (Soupault, Memoires 1914-1923, 70-75, 96), Andre Breton, Philippe Soupault, and Louis Aragon questioned very validity of literary activity. In first issue of their ironically entitled review, Litterature (1919), upcoming poets asked French literati: Why are you writing? In 1924, young critic and novelist Marcel Arland suggested that whole spiritual atmosphere shared by his peers was similar to Romantic of century (Nouveau Mal du siecle 11). Since and surrealism were seen as products of a new malady of century, their suicidal tendencies recalled those in Romantic malady. Thus, in his essays Le Suicide en litterature (1930) and L'Art de mourir (1932), Paul Morand argued that deaths of many contemporary avant-garde artists were as esthetically motivated as suicides of Werther's admirers. (1) Victor Crastre also thought that 1929 of former dadaist Jacques echoed Werther's gunshot because Dada and surrealism clearly affirmed value of suicide (Jacques Rigaut 253). (2) In 1979 preface to his novel En Joue! (1925), which had anticipated a number of suicides in milieu of French avant-garde, Philippe Soupault, a veteran of both artistic movements, wrote that he chronicled an epoque in which the sons of bourgeoisie failed to overcome insecurity, anxiety, and chaos of post-war years (11). The present article will explore place of in mythology and artistic praxis of French avant-garde between two world wars. I contend that many French literati involved in activities of and/or surrealism viewed as an ideal means of evasion from reality conceived by positivist theory and as an ultimate artistic statement, a lived poem far superior to a written poem by virtue of its realism and sincerity. Suicide as a Founding Myth of and Surrealism Choosing their ancestors from among those artists who seemed to have realized literally ideal of evasion, dadaists and surrealists were profoundly influenced by personal mythology of Arthur Count of Lautreamont, Jacques Vache, and Arthur Cravan. According to these models, one could escape vanity of art through complete silence, realize one's anti-social stance by leaving society, and flee positivist reality in dreams, unconscious, drugs, and death. In cultural mythology of French avant-garde, and Lautreamont incarnated ideal of artistic, social, and existential evasion. Their personal myths provided a paradigm for life-in-poetry. Andre Breton, who saw no value in literature if it was not supported by writer's attitude to lire, wrote that Rimbaud was a surrealist by virtue of his lifestyle (Manifeste 38). According to their myths, rejected art (he fell silent) and society (he left for Africa), while Lautreamont was author of a sole text, died young and left no biographical trace. Soupault modeled his frequent trips abroad along lines of Rimbaud-Lautreamont paradigm. J'etais toujours, plus ou moins consciemment, influence par la destinee de Rimbaud, recalled poet, lui qui avait decide, a n'importe quel prix, de fuir les milieux litteraires. L' `exemple' de et le besoin de m'evader [...] m'obligerent, le mot n'est pas trop fort, a partir (Memoires 1923-1926 167-68). (3) Soupault was not only young Parisian avant-gardist who drew on revered example to show his contempt for literature. …