Gascoyne, David

The Automatic Message, the Magnetic Fields, the Immaculate Conception (Atlas Anti-Classics)

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Illiterature
Inside Out

The Automatic Message, the Magnetic Fields, the Immaculate Conception (Atlas Anti-Classics)
Andre Breton , Philippe Soupault , and Paul Eluard
Manufacturer: Atlas Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Manifestoes of Surrealism (Ann Arbor Paperbacks)
My Heart Through Which Her Heart Has Passed
Une Semaine De Bonte: A Surrealistic Novel in Collage
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ASIN: 0947757996

Book Description

This book collects together the two most vital "automatic" texts of Surrealism. Breton's prefatory essay The Automatic Message relates this technique to the underlying concepts and aesthetic of the Surrealist movement.

The Magnetic Fields (1919) was the first work of literary Surrealism and is thus one of the foundations of modern European thought and writing. This authorised translation is by the poet David Gascoyne, himself a member of the group and a friend of both authors.

The Immaculate Conception (1930) traces the interior and exterior life of man from Conception and Intra-Uterine Life to Death and The Original Judgement. The central section is a celebrated series of "simulations" of various types of mental instability.

Maurice Nadeau (in The History of Surrealism) described the book as "An astonishing series of poems in prose, more brilliant than those of either Breton or Eluard on his own . . . if all that remained of the Surrealist movement were the pages of The Immaculate Conception, man, alerted, could not turn away from the astounding mystery of his condition."

Customer Reviews:

Illiterature.......2005-09-14

A bit unreadable at times, but worth the effort. Leave expectations at the door. The Immaculate Conception is my pick of the bunch, written, it says in the intro, as a riposte to the "craven and intellectually depraved way that an individual comes to terms with, or rather, submits to the world" as represented by organised religion, in particular Catholic dogma. The Surrealists were freedom loving and the concept of automatic writing was a bold venture. Andre Breton's inspiration, he states, came one night when just on the point of falling asleep a precise sentence came into his head for no reason. The Magnetic Fields, composed in 1919, was supposedly the first official work of Surrealism. Breton's essay, "The Automatic Message" is accompanied by various intriguing works of "automatic drawing". Although the Surrealist movement dwindled away in the 1930s, partly as a result of the bleak economic situation at the time and also, it seems, from artistic jealousies, there is still a fine body of work in print for anyone interested, see Atlas Press's website. Also recommended: the automatic writing & drawing epic Oahspe.

Inside Out.......2000-06-20

In terms of finding a wild, uninhibited introduction to the radical and mindspinning worlds of Breton and friends I can assure you that this is a challenging but rewarding read. However, take note that those who feel prose must have structure and communicate linear thought, please leave your textbook at the door. This is work that burrows deep into the subconcious and festers like a tick.

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Collected Poems
David Gascoyne
Manufacturer: Oxford, 1982
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000J0UNEE

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One of my favorite books of all time

The Magnetic Fields
Andre Breton , and Philippe Soupault
Manufacturer: Serpent's Tail
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

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Book Description

tr David Gascoyne

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One of my favorite books of all time.......2006-06-12

I discovered this book at Arizona State University's, Hayden Library when I was in school in 1993 and it totally changed what I thought about literature. Its absolutely intoxicating freedom of creation was like nothing I had ever read except maybe Arthur Rimbaud. This book, I believe, points in the direction of pure human creativity not constrained by logic, form or anything that disconnects us from existence itself. On these roads maybe we can get back to the beginnings, not writing stories but why we write stories, why we scratched on cave walls.

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Collected Verse Translations
David Gascoyne
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

French | Poetry | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0192112821

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Early Poems
David Gascoyne
Manufacturer: Greville Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0906887046

David Gascoyne Collected Journals 1936-42

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"Something great but obscure is striving to express itself through me"

David Gascoyne Collected Journals 1936-42
David Gascoyne
Manufacturer: Skoob Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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"Something great but obscure is striving to express itself through me".......2007-02-01

Poet David Gascoyne has suffered a strange fate, even for one whose place is firmly within the canon of great visionary artists; his continued obscurity is puzzling for any reader who has even merely sampled the power of his epic, imaginative lyricism.

These pages document Gascoyne's unrelenting pursuit of poetic vision at all costs in the face of abject poverty, alienation from friends and family, taking us on his unforgettable journey from the celestial heights
of the "seer" (in the tradition of his idols Holderlin and Rimbaud), to the depths of a psychotic depression which would leave him silent for more than twenty years.

Gascoyne's concerns were unfashionably religious--though not in any orthodox sense--and his quest for a "religio poetae" which would restore a sense of the sacred in the human being through imagination charged his life in Paris with famous contemporaries (Henry Miller, Claude Cahun, Dylan Thomas) and even friends (George Barker, Paul Eluard, Roger Roughton, Lawrence Durrell) a sense of separateness which constantly drove him into an impassioned solitude.

It is incredible that anyone, poet or not, could manage to pack the amount of intensity Gascoyne did into these 335 pages. Packed to the hilt with philosophy, poetry, translations, and accounts of his daily interactions with some of the most well known literary figures of the twentieth century, I can only imagine Kafka's "Diaries" equalling it.
It somehow transcends even the great time period in which it was written.

This intensity is of necessity short-lived. His addiction to a (then legal) form of methamphetamine and a monstrous self-hatred that grows worse and worse as the journal continues.

The "Afterword", written thirty years after his mental breakdown, is sombre, compelling and sort of sad--Gascoyne documents his return home to his parents in Teddington, England and his subsequent loss of belief in himself as poet, and a series of hospitalizations which would eventually result in a lifelong marriage.

Gascoyne would indeed gain the recognition he deserved and craved, but tragically it happened very close to the time of his death when he was not fully able to appreciate the fruits of his labor. It came via Enitharmon Press and also commendably through the influence of poet Jeremy Reed.

These pages are somehow as great as anything I have ever read, whether in literature or poetry; it is a time capsule and also a monumental achievement on the part of Gascoyne.

It is way past time for a re-introduction of David Gascoyne's poetry to a younger generation of readers.

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Let's Visit Norway (Burke books)
David Gascoyne
Manufacturer: Macmillan Children's Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Europe | History & Historical Fiction | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

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Collected poems 1988 (Oxford poets)
David Gascoyne
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

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POEMS 1937-1942
DAVID GASCOYNE
Manufacturer: PL
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000S39U28

Extracts from 'a Kind of Declaration and Prelude to a New Fin-de-siecle'

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Extracts from 'a Kind of Declaration and Prelude to a New Fin-de-siecle'
David Gascoyne
Manufacturer: Greville Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Poetry | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0906887496

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