"Oh Myth, Fleeting Prey", [preface to]: Annette Tamuly, Surrealism and Myth, New York, Peter Lang, 1995, pp. XI-XVII.
Strange fate that of prefaces! This one was never mentioned, not even by the recipient whose originality I tried to highlight in her work, after having directed her (from afar) for the defense of her State Doctorate thesis. It must be said that, teaching abroad, she was not aware of the rules or customs of this type of work. The important thing is that she obtained the highest diploma from the French university, and that an international publisher agreed to publish her in a renowned collection. As will be seen in the reading, this preface develops a method of approaching the concept of myth, while highlighting the choices and discoveries of the author. My title, I should specify, is a personal variation on the one that Odette de Mourgues had given to her essay on La Fontaine and his fables: O muse, fuyante proie..., Paris, J. Corti, 1962. Tamuly, Annette, Surrealism and Myth, pref. by Henri Béhar, New York ; Washington ; Paris : P. Lang, 1995, XVII-285 p. ; 24 cm. Collection : American university studies. Series II, Romance languages and literature, ISSN 0740-9257 ; 208. Revised text from : State Thesis : Letters : Paris 3, 1991 If I copy the BnF notice here, it's because it's the only one to mention my contribution.
Back cover: The object of this study was not so much to catalog the myths to which the surrealists refer as to grasp myth as an integrating principle conferring on surrealism its essential orientation. Myth is at the root of a surrealism that seeks to capture the unconscious desires of the individual and the collectivity. It is also what a surrealism concerned with participating in the liberation of man tends toward. In general, we sought to follow in this work the exercise of an activity by which myth is sometimes rejected, sometimes rekindled and reinvented as modern mythology. Beyond the narrative, objects can become paradigms of myth and we see in Aragon or Malcolm de Chazal the establishment of a veritable mythology of places. André Breton's work served as the main reference to show that surrealism, in seeking to realize the essential triad of love, freedom and poetry, defines itself as a mythical project.