The Magnetic Fields
Sign in to keep track of books you’ve read and want to read.
Les Champs magnétiques (The Magnetic Fields) is a book by André Breton and Philippe Soupault. It is famed as the first work of literary Surrealism. Published in 1920, the authors used a surrealist automatic writing technique.
Read more
The book is considered Surrealist, rather than Dadaist, because it attempts to create something new rather than react to an existing work.
Les Champs magnetiques is characterised by rich textured language that often seems to border on the nonsensical. This is considered a "normal" result of automatic writing and is considerably more logical than the output from other Surrealist techniques, such as "exquisite corpse" (a method whereby each of a group of collaborators, in sequence, adds words or images to a composition).
The division between chapters was the point where the writers stopped writing at the end of the day. The next chapter was started the following morning.
Breton gave many interviews about the creation of the book.
Liked The Magnetic Fields? Here’s where I’d start.
These suit anyone who liked The Magnetic Fields. Sign in and mark a few books for picks shaped around your own taste.
-
Approximate Man and Other Writings Shares poetry, surrealism, surrealism dada -
Essential Poems and Writings of Robert Desnos Shares poetry, surrealism, french literature -
Darkness Moves: An Henri Michaux Anthology, 1927-1984 Shares poetry, surrealism, french literature -
Selected Writings Shares poetry, surrealism, french
