RESPONSE TO BRANKO ALEKSIC REGARDING THE PLÉIADE EDITION OF BRETON
par Étienne-Alain HubertMarie-Claire DumasPhilippe Bernier
by Étienne-Alain Hubert, in agreement with Marie-Claire Dumas and Philippe Bernier, collaborators on the edition
What has gotten into the author of these "Amendments to the edition of Breton's Complete Works" that have just been posted online by the digital journal Astu of the Center for Surrealism Research at the University of Paris III ↑? We knew Branko Aleksic when, as a young researcher arriving in Paris, he benefited from a benevolent welcome from Marguerite Bonnet, showed full deference to her in his letters as in his remarks, and, in search of bibliographic information, courteously addressed me for communications that I appreciated.
The title of his text could have led one to hope for positive remarks, precious for those responsible for a complete edition in four volumes that necessarily always remains perfectible. Here we discover, under the cover of a seemingly legitimate discourse, an aggressive diatribe, suspicious intent trials, and, let's say it, a good dose of ignorance on the part of the author. Apart from some justified remarks that would have been welcome in a climate of exchange and in serious scientific debate — to err is human — we have the strange feeling of being embarked on what resembles a settling of scores: a settling of scores that remains opaque to us in its formulations as in its intentions.
We must recognize that, faced with this heavy and rather confused argumentation, our first reaction was one of ironic indifference. But thus disseminated on the Internet, these attacks of a frankly unpleasant tone — some of which could be qualified as insulting and defamatory — primarily target she who was the soul of this edition and who unfortunately is no longer here to respond. Everyone will understand that I felt it my duty not to let pass without response a text that calls into question Marguerite Bonnet with such insistence, attributing to her, for example, bad faith and "characterized malice," or pronouncing against her verdicts that claim to be without appeal. She is thus taxed with "alarming lack of poetic sense" by Branko Aleksic: it suffices for the reader of good faith who might be ignorant of Marguerite Bonnet's work to read the pages devoted to Les Champs magnétiques or to Clair de terre in her great book published by José Corti in 1975, André Breton. Naissance de l'aventure surréaliste. Beyond an erudition recognized by critics (and largely exploited by successors), it is precisely an exceptional gift for listening to poetry that had strongly struck good judges such as Julien Gracq.
We quickly pass over the considerations expressed by Branko Aleksic on the integration into Volume I of the unpublished works of Poisson soluble, this manna whose communication Marguerite Bonnet owed to Simone Kahn ↑. These are, we think, the texts that our censor bizarrely designates as "two variants of the complete manuscript." We poorly understand why this exceptional contribution is supposed to have created a "major difficulty" for the editor and to be a source of "the greatest disappointment" for the Pléiade reader. Branko Aleksic seems to reopen the debate on the status of Poisson soluble and, more generally, on the very scope of automatic writing. Visibly, and it is his right, he ranks among the contemptors of the practice of automatism in Breton, but when he attributes to the latter having "corrected to exhaustion his 'automatic' texts," we can hardly follow him. I myself was able to re-examine recently the manuscripts of Poisson soluble II during a historic sale, thanks to the kindness of Mme Anne Heilbronn, responsible for Sotheby's, and I cannot get over this expression "to exhaustion": excessive and unjustifiable. One would think that Branko Aleksic did not take the trouble to glance at the photographic reproductions of these documents in the catalog: he would have noted that the corrections, moreover rare and of minimal scope, are mostly the work of a hand that recovers immediately and in no way the result of a stylist's rereading.
We will be forgiven for taking up — at the cost of some heaviness — the subdivisions of Branko Aleksic's text: it is unfortunately he who leads us to this level of petty discussion.
"I. ERRORS IN CHRONOLOGY"
The exposition occupies a good page. We feel like advising the denouncer to moderate his vengeful ardor: to err is human, we repeat, especially when it comes to critical apparatuses that occupy hundreds of pages and count thousands of notes. Besides, as happens with every volume in the collection, each reprint is an opportunity for revisions.
Yes, the date 1946 appearing on page 1289 of Volume I (by error or simple printing typo) must be corrected to 1949, the exact date provided by the Chronology at the beginning of the same volume. It is indeed in 1949 that Breton changed floors in his building. We could moreover have been more precise: Breton prepared for this move as early as January 1949 so that his daughter Aube would have a room upon her return from America in April. So be it.
Branko Aleksic then attacks an approximation of a month and a half regarding the publication of Joseph Delteil's "Chronique sur l'amour" in La Révolution surréaliste: it took place in issue 2, and not in issue 1 as Breton writes by pure inadvertence in the Second Manifesto. And Marguerite Bonnet is reproached for not having noted Breton's "curious' error: here the author of the Second Manifesto is suspected in turn.
As for the date of Breton's, Aragon's, and other close associates' adhesion to the Communist Party, Marguerite Bonnet prudently situated it in the course of January 1927, indicating that Aragon said he had joined on January 6 "because it was the day of the Kings." Severe call to order: "Aragon's memory is erroneous." And Branko Aleksic cites the Journal parisien of the Serbian surrealist Marko Ristic who relates, according to the testimony of those concerned, that a meeting of the "Montmartre Rayon" was held on January 14 where "on behalf of the communists conditions were posed to them": according to him, the 14th must imperatively be substituted for the 6th.
It is our turn to be petty. Why want to unearth a contradiction when Breton himself recounted that, according to the suspicious and bureaucratic procedure of the Communist Party, he had to undergo a whole series of admission examinations before commissions after his adhesion? The fact that one of these sessions was held on January 14 in no way contradicts Aragon's testimony. Branko Aleksic would have done better to consult the 1952 Entretiens, where Breton evokes among other places of appearance "a school courtyard on rue Duhesme": it is very probable that this is the meeting place of the 18th arrondissement "rayon" ↑.
"II. BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES"
The tone is set from the start in this introduction:
"Several notices on the persons evoked by Breton mix non-critical spirit and anachronisms. Devoid of objective critical sense, these biographical notices contain gaps (example: Marcel Noll), repetitions (another example: James Brown alias Pierre Morhange), or even prejudicial opinions (a final example: Gala Éluard-Dali)."
We will hardly dwell on the derisory reproach addressed to the editors for having twice alluded in Volume I (pages 1342 and 1605) to an article published by Pierre Morhange in Philosophies. In passing, let us note that Branko Aleksic deforms the title to Philosophie, little concerned with a plural that, very concerted by the initiators of the journal, strikes immediately on the great white cover.
The Marcel Noll case: let us come to the long and dense passages where our censor casts an inquisitive eye on the mentions that Marguerite Bonnet's critical apparatus makes of this actor of the surrealist movement, as well as on the erasure of his name — by Breton's doing — in the reissue of Nadja. Things are simple: with Noll, there was for several years a true companionship, which wanderings in the management of the Surrealist Gallery and in the art trade brought to an end in 1928. Devoid of consideration, a letter from Eluard to Joë Bousquet of October 17, 1928, brings out the moderate tone of Marguerite Bonnet: "Have you been warned of the infamies (and cowardice) of the said Noll? This said so that he does not abuse your ignorance. It is very unpleasant to be despised, mocked, swindled ↑." Should one smile or be distressed to see Branko Aleksic attribute to those he scolds tortuous designs, as if a dark plot had been hatched against Noll? We seek an explanation in vain.
The Gala Eluard case: Branko Aleksic takes on Marguerite Bonnet for a note on Gala, called for by the dedication to Gala of the poem "Épervier incassable" in Clair de terre ↑. The attack here takes a turn too insulting (and confusing) not to be cited — and refuted:
"This should have sufficed to justify a commentary on Breton-Gala relations within the surrealist circle in the 1920s. But the notice on page 1199, three lines, dryly refers to the Dictionnaire général du surréalisme composed by Breton and Éluard (that is, sixteen years later...), and to Paul Éluard's Lettres à Gala (posthumous, 1984)! The anachronism hides a characterized malice: the notice in the Dictionnaire... is only a citation from Salvador Dali: 'GALA. – Violent and sterilized woman." (Breton, OC III, p. 812)."
There is first here a serious mistake on Branko Aleksic's part, who mixes up books and eras.
Apparently, he ignores the well-known reference work that is the large Dictionnaire général du surréalisme published by P.U.F. in 1982 under the direction of Adam Biro and René Passeron. The critical apparatus naturally referred to this working tool which provides a substantial notice on Gala Eluard. Besides, references to the P.U.F. dictionary abound in our edition, as announced by the Warning at the head of the first volume (p. LXX). If Branko Aleksic had been a less hasty and less determined reader to demolish, he would have avoided the risible confusion with the Dictionnaire abrégé (and not général) du surréalisme, the one published in 1938 by Breton and Eluard at the Galerie Beaux-arts on the occasion of the great surrealist exhibition. Anchored in the current events of 1938, this poetic and polemical brochure is a hundred leagues from the P.U.F.'s repertoire aimed at historical and documentary purposes.
As for the reprobation expressed before the "anachronism" that would constitute the reference to the "posthumous' edition of Paul Eluard's Lettres à Gala (without accent), it plunges us back into perplexity. Was Marguerite Bonnet wrong to cite this excellent 1984 edition (necessarily posthumous), established and annotated by one of Eluard's grandsons, M. Pierre Dreyfus, a reader as learned as he is sensitive? The letters exchanged over the years between Eluard and Gala bring the surrealist movement back to life, and in the present.
"III. IDENTIFICATION OF BRETON"S SOURCES: KANT, SADE"
Let us pass over the unkind allegations that suggest that the scientific editors had an easy task in finding "essential help" in the annotations that Breton would have sown in the margins of his personal copies. Yes, certain volumes from the rue Fontaine library bore marginal signs (crosses, sometimes braces or bookmarks), as is noted in the critical apparatus. But it is indeed the reading, done at the Bibliothèque nationale or at the Bibliothèque de la Sorbonne, of all of Hegel's books in the old translations by Charles Bénard and especially Augusto Vera (whose work is not reduced to "a critical work," as affirmed here) that allowed Marguerite Bonnet and Étienne-Alain Hubert to locate all the citations or allusions.
Regarding the citation from Kant with which the January 1920 text "Giorgio de Chirico" opens, we willingly recognize that we had not identified it at first glance. Chance would have it that, barely had the volume come out, the error was spotted. Like others, it was corrected as early as 1999 in the reprint of Volume I and naturally in the following one, as everyone can verify. So be it.
On the other hand, we will follow with difficulty in their meanderings Branko Aleksic's considerations on Kant's place in Breton's philosophical horizon. Sample:
"'The philosopher's straying..." (example of a duality of mind in Les Pas perdus, p. 294) is attributed by Marguerite Bonnet to the character of Pascal (p. 1323). But this could well be some other philosopher, Kant himself for example."
Well, no: it is incontestably the Pascal of the "two Infinites," particularly dear to Breton, who is concerned. As for the formulas on Kant that are contained in the "Project for Jacques Doucet's Library" and whose extreme generality makes one think they come from a dictionary or a manual, they seem attributable to Aragon, co-editor of the text.
Should one dwell on other reprobatory comments, such as the one concerning Breton's mention of "the distraction of woman in Kant"? Marguerite Bonnet having referred to Henri Heine's De l'Allemagne, our intractable corrector adds a vengeful sic to the first name Henri. He could have dispensed with it, given the poet's preference for this French form of his first name which appears well on the title page of De l'Allemagne, whether it be the oldest editions or the 1989 reissue by Gallimard.
Another "source" would have escaped the annotators:
"Volume I, p. 263: the Dadaist manifesto 'Lâchez tout' ↑, speaks to us of the passion of ideas. 'Forgive me for thinking that, contrary to the ivy, I die if I attach myself.' This is probably a paraphrase of Descartes: ('there exist ivy men, who do not think for themselves")"
But it suffices to open any encyclopedic dictionary to the lierre article to find cited the popular motto "I attach myself or I die," with its variant "I die where I attach myself." As for the comparison of certain minds with ivy in Descartes, it hardly has this meaning: it wants to show that the followers of a great philosophy will always rise less high than the tree to which they are attached.
The annotation of Fata Morgana in Volume II offers Branko Aleksic a new opportunity to shoot down the Pléiade:
"a long notice, p. 1794-1795, discusses Henri Desoubeaux's proposition (Mélusine, n° XI, 1990), according to which Sade's narrative, Histoire secrète d'Isabelle de Bavière, reine de France, can be identified as the source of Breton's verses. É.-A. Hubert concludes that 'for the ensemble of the tradition Isabeau de Bavière is not, at the time of her marriage, the monster of seduction and perversity that she is in Sade.' But Breton will cite Sade in the article 'Isabeau,' Lexique succinct de l"érotisme surréaliste, 1959!"
Well convinced that to err is human, let us leave Branko Aleksic to cling to the idea that Breton in 1940 would have been inspired by Sade's Histoire secrète d'Isabelle de Bavière, reine de France. Too bad if this text only emerged from the shadows in 1953 thanks to Gilbert Lely and with this explicit subtitle: published for the first time from the unpublished autograph manuscript with a foreword by Gilbert Lely.
We will add that there is no objective element allowing one to attribute to Breton the anonymous article "Isabeau" of the "Lexique succinct de l'érotisme" — and not "de l'érotisme surréaliste," as our judge writes, decidedly at odds with titles. And let me be allowed to advise the familiars of the digital journal Astu to reread in the Pléiade my "long notice" devoted to Fata Morgana: perhaps they will find there a bit more documentation and reflection than Branko Aleksic's partial and biased commentary suggests.
Still regarding Volume III, Branko Aleksic attacks the annotation of the text "Derrière le rideau," reproaching me for having contented myself with a reference instead of providing elements of information on the journal Troisième convoi. And he lectures me again:
"Troisième Convoi was published between 1945 and 1951, with five issues in all (reissued by Fourbis, 1998). Jean Maquet and Michel Fardoulis-Lagrange were its founders. They invited Breton to collaborate. He had responded favorably, when, in preparing his submission, he was surprised by Maquet"s attack in the very journal!"
First, our censor is mistaken about the target: the critical apparatus of the text is signed by Marie-Claire Dumas. And this tracker of repetition could have remembered that the evocation of the journal Troisième convoi had already been made by Marguerite Bonnet and Étienne-Alain Hubert in Volume II on the occasion of the emergence of the expression "deuxième convoi" in Les Vases communicants ↑.
"IV. FIVE POEMS BY BRETON PREPUBLISHED IN L"IMPOSSIBLE"
This time, it is our regretted friend José Pierre, annotator of Revolver à cheveux blancs in Volume II, who finds himself taken to task for not having mentioned the prepublication of five poems in the almanac Nemoguce-L'Impossible, while Marguerite Bonnet notes it with a precision recognized by Branko Aleksic regarding Breton's response to the survey on desire launched by Ristic. So be it.
This follows in conclusion this condemnation with heavy grounds:
"For an informed reader to draw the right deductions from this information, a posteriori, one must then go through a negative critique of the previous erroneous remarks of José Pierre, collaborator of Volume II: to note a lack of coordination, or even an absence of rereadings and homogenization of the critical apparatus in the Complete Works of Breton in the Pléiade."
Are we wrong to expect from the "informed reader" a more balanced judgment? The four volumes of the Pléiade represent the establishment of 4681 pages of Breton's texts and the writing of 2138 pages of prefaces, chronologies, notices, and notes, in very small type in Volumes III and IV. As in any enterprise of this scope, it is inevitable that imperfections have slipped in to which reprints give the opportunity to remedy. While, the publication being completed, it is open to us to cast a perspective look on the four volumes, we dare to believe that Marguerite Bonnet and ourselves in her wake have served André Breton's work. And we can think that we have not been unworthy either of the requirements to which the successive directors of the Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, as well as their collaborators, are rightly attached. Over the course of these years of realization, we were able to measure how much their advice and particularly their rereadings proved essential for the scientific editors that we were.
But is it worth developing our point of view further, whose legitimacy any attentive and good-faith reader will know how to appreciate? As Freud wrote to Breton on December 26, 1932, "So much noise...".
Paris, May 3, 2009
melusine .univ-paris3.fr/ astu /Aleksic_BretonOC.htm.
Let us note in passing that the director of the Pléiade was then M. Jacques Cotin and not "Jean Cottin," as Branko Aleksic writes.
Volume III, p. 508-509. Let us add that street or factory cells were grouped into rayons, the rayons being regrouped at the departmental level.
Lettres à Joë Bousquet, ed. Lucien Scheler, Les Éditeurs français réunis, 1973, p. 50. Lucien Scheler specifies in a note: "Marcel Noll was directing the Surrealist Gallery at the time. Breton was not without sharing the opinion expressed here by Eluard."
Volume I, p. 160.
See Volume II, p. 1412. We had written regarding "deuxième convoi": "How to understand this expression? Does Breton want to say that his friends and he represent, in relation to the Russian Revolution, a second generation that can expect from it something other than those who were its artisans? In October 1945, a journal was born, Troisième convoi, recalling this phrase from Les Vases communicants. Its founders, Michel Fardoulis-Lagrange (whom we thank for this information) and Jean Maquet signified by this that, representing a new generation in relation to surrealism, they intended not to reject it, but to go further in the direction of interiority." — The present debate, derisory, gives me the opportunity to refer with nostalgia to the written or oral exchanges, always in deep friendship, that it was given to me to have with the being of great stature that was Michel Fardoulis-Lagrange.