Download the exchange of correspondence between Saint-John Perse and André Breton

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Only the presentation of the correspondence exchanged between Breton and Saint-John Perse will be read here. I must admit that I was not a little proud to have obtained the agreement of the two authors' heirs to publish their exchanges, at a time when the first's will was being applied!

See all the originals of SJP's letters to AB on the André Breton site (inventory established from my article):

Correspondence with Saint-John Perse (André Breton site)

From this extreme point towards Europe..., Letter dated Washington, July 29, 1949 (André Breton site)
Three times, crossing Paris..., Letter dated Chenoy, December 23, 1961
You will be glad to know..., Letter dated Washington DC, January 11, 1945

As well as Saint-John Perse's correspondence (Alexis Léger) on the SJP Foundation site:

Private Correspondence of Saint-John Perse (Alexis Leger) and Dorothy Leger – Saint-John Perse Foundation

Read:

• Praises
• Poetics of Saint-John Perse
• Seamarks
• Rains

See: the manuscript of Aragon's critique of Anabasis (andrebreton.fr)

50 occurrences of Saint-John Perse's name on the André Breton site

Extensions:

S.J.P. and surrealism, on the Mélusine site:

Saint-John Perse or the Enigmas of a Modernity:

Saint-John Perse's Modernity? Proceedings of the Besançon colloquium of May 14, 15 and 16, 1998. Texts collected and presented by Catherine Mayaux, Presses universitaires franc‑comtoises, coll. "Annales littéraires de l'Université de Franche‑Comté", 716, Série Centre Jacques‑Petit, vol. 96, 2001, 460 p.

Saint-John Perse in André Breton's Work: The Complete Works of Breton in the Pléiade-Gallimard edition not having an index, one must take the trouble to read everything, or else consult the index that I provided on my pages (or: https://melusine-surrealisme.fr/en/henribehar/en/wp/?p=304)

There are 6 occurrences of Saint-John Perse, starting with the Manifesto formula that served as the title for this presentation:

"t. – J. Perse is surrealist at a distance." (I0329, M₁)

Then in the tribute dedicated to him during the awarding of the Nobel Prize, THE DONOR: "I see myself again, in Nantes, watching on Jacques Vaché's face the effect produced by piece XIII of the collection [Praises] that he did not underestimate its "modern" virtue as we said, such as I find myself today prisoner of its echo as well as delivered to all that, since then, from Anabasis to Winds, Saint-John Perse has known how to open to the horizon in his wake. III0899, C.D.C.

"the equal of the water diviner he was in this domain, I honor in Saint-John Perse the man of my time most assiduously in search of all men, in their present affectation to each one.

"As the turn of Apollinaire's thought holds in the formula "There is", great leitmotif of his poems, which allows him to confront the simultaneous aspects, without appreciable common measure, that this world can take on while we are there, that of Saint-John Perse never gives itself freer rein than through the formula "This one", opening the floodgates to the celebration of the most disparate activities that the current world requires of man and among which the least utilitarian, the most capricious are not for all that the least well seen. (II0900, C.D.C.)

Then by a citation in the notice on Maria, reprinted in Surrealism and Painting:

"Let one rise with us to the wind's forceries!
Let one give us, O living ones! the fullness of our due (1)..."

(1). Saint – John Perse: Winds. (V0737, S.P.)

Finally in the posthumous collection Cavalier Perspective:

"All the great creators of images could be submitted to the same test with profit, such as in the modern era Lautréamont, Rimbaud, Corbière, Cros, Nouveau, Jarry, Maeterlinck, Saint – Pol Roux, Saint John Perse, Reverdy, Malcolm de Chazal." (V0889, P.C.)