Andr Breton, Alchemist

Author(s): Jean Snitzer Schoenfeld

Source: The French Review, Vol. 57, No. 4 (Mar., 1984), pp. 493-502
Published by: American Association of Teachers of French
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THE FRENCH REVIEW, Vol. LVII, No. 4, March 1984 Printed in U.S.A.

Andre Breton, Alchemist*

by Jean Snitzer Schoenfeld

FOR ANDRE BRETON, POETRY IS A MAGIC ART that liberates both the poet and the
reader from the bonds of rationalism. Esoterism participates in that liberation
by loosening the bonds of everyday causality and substituting a broader range
of causal relationships. This substitution allows the poet to draw analogies from
a larger domain. It also affords him greater freedom to move among the
analogies he draws and thus to approach a more complete understanding of
symbol formation:

L'esoterisme, toutes reserves faites sur son principe meme, offre au moins l'immense
int6ret de maintenir a l'etat dynamique le systeme de comparaison, de champ illimite
dont dispose l'homme, qui lui livre les rapports susceptibles de relier les objets en
apparence les plus 6loign6s et lui decouvre partiellement la mecanique du symbol-
isme universal.1

That understanding is more than a passive overview; it entails a conscious

awareness of the process of artistic discovery. It gives rise to a second voice in
Breton's work, one which comments continually on his efforts and therein
reveals the central role played by magic. Esoterism is thus almost circular in its
function: "Consciemment ou non, le processus de decouverte artistique demeure
etranger a l'ensemble de ses ambitions metaphysiques, n'en est pas moins
infeode 'a la forme et aux moyens des progressions memes de la haute magie,"
(Arcane 17, p. 106).
While Breton does not specify the type of magic here, his vocabulary implies
an alchemical orientation. Michel Carrouges notes that orientation in Andre
Breton et les donnees fondamentales du surrealisme: "Il y a d'ailleurs une etroite
parente entre la matiere premiere de l'alchimie traditionnelle et celle de l'al-
chimie surrealiste. Cette derniere reprend souvent dans son materiel verbal
l'evocation des mineraux et des elements qui furent privilegies pour les alchi-
mistes d'autrefois."2 In Andre Breton: Magus of Surrealism, Anna Balakian also
highlights various alchemical elements. The "'Aigrette,'" she says, "is notable
because in its title it brings into view a bird that appears to Breton particularly
* This essay is partly based on research funded by a grant from Utica College of Syracuse
University and on research done for a Seminar funded by the National Endowment for the
Humanities.

'Andre Breton, Arcane 17 (Paris: Editions Jean-Jacques Pauvert, 1965), p. 105.

2 Michel Carrouges, Andre Breton et les donnees fondamentales du surre~alisme (Paris: Gallimard,
1950), p. 66.
493

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 494 FRENCH REVIEW

emblematic, with its

phoenix, which dies a
alchemist. The frequ
crucible completes th
cette region paradoxa
restitue a toutes chos
Such vocabulary analy
Anna Balakian promot
context: "If the poem
Stone" (p. 72). She thu
and Surrealism, but by
influence, she remain
tive,-that is, attempt
see alchemical elements in the work-allows the reader more immediate access,
clarifies aspects of Breton's theory and illuminates structure. Two works that
seem especially well suited to this approach are "Langue des pierres" and Arcane
17. Written thirteen years after Arcane 17, "Langue de pierres" presents a
condensed version of the major elements of alchemical theory and structure. It
validates these elements and legitimizes a restructuring of one's reading of the
earlier work.

The very title "Langue des pierres" demands alchemical analysis. Noting the
magical atmosphere implied by investing stone with the power of speech merely
opens the door to such an analysis. The focus on language recalls the importance
of symbolization to the alchemists, while the emphasis on stone implicates all
facets of the Great Work, from the basic unit of experimentation to the desired
end product of alchemical research, the Philosopher's Stone. Finally, the effect
of the title depends on a basic tenet of the alchemical world view according to
which minerals or metals are not simply inert material; they are living entities
which are born, make love, and die.' Attributing language to them, as does the
title, highlights their aliveness and facilitates the dialectic necessary to both
surrealist and alchemical discovery. It also plays havoc with the usual view of
stone and it uses that view to generate contrasts (between life and death, organic
and inorganic) which intensify that dialectic.
In the piece itself, the dialectic begins with indifference: "C'est donc sans les
arreter le moins du monde que les pierres laissent passer l'immense majorite
des etres humains parvenus l'a ge adulte."6 Even at this stage, the stones recall
the Philosopher's Stone which John Read describes in Through Alchemy to
Chemistry:

SAnna Balakian, Andre Breton: Magus of Surrealism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1971),
p. 137.
4 Andre Breton, L'Amour fou (Paris: Gallimard, 1937), p. 12.
s Mircea Eliade, The Forge and The Crucible, trans. Stephen Corrin (London: Rider and Co., 1962),
p. 48.
6 Andre Breton, 'Langue des pierres," Le Surrealisme Mime, 3 (Automne 1957), p. 63.

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 ANDRE BRETON, ALCHEMIST 495

The Gloria Mundi, an alchemical wo

that the Stone "is familiar to all me
in the village, in the town, in all th
Rich and poor handle it every day
Children play with it. Yet no one pr
most beautiful and the most precio
down kings and princes. Neverthel
earthly things!"

The work of the adept thus invol

chemical modification, and the qu
process. The role of surrealist discov
flexibility of its hierarchy: each s
less, both the surrealist and the
stone.

The alchemist does so by means of his world view. For him, the baser me
are base only chronologically: each base metal represents a specific stage o
development through which all metals must pass before they can reach th
highest stage, that of gold (Eliade, p. 50). The initiate hopes to accelerate
process by various alchemical and astrological techniques. Although the Bre
ian initiate cannot define his goals as clearly, he is a voyant who sees
potential for transmutation in everyday reality. Using language as a tool (Ar
17, p. 119), he transmutes that reality into the crystalline image that constitute
the surreal.
But it is not only the potential of the common stone that gives it value.
"Langue des pierres" places that stone in the context of a larger unity whose
essential features are highlighted in the myth of the "Grands Transparents."
According to that myth, man might not be the center of the universe; instead,
he might be contained within a larger, invisible being.8 This change in status
invalidates the current hierarchy, allows material things to assume a greater
relative importance, and assures their place as part of the larger entity. In
"Langue des pierres," Breton posits the essential unity of the universe by
emphasizing the mythic link between earth and sky. He quotes a seventeenth-
century explanation of the healing powers of the gamahe: "Il arrive quelquefois
que les rayons tombes des etoiles (pourvu qu'ils soient d'une meme nature)
s'unissent aux m6taux, aux pierres et aux mineraux, qui sont tombes de leur
position la plus haute, les penetrent enti6rement et s'amalgament i eux" (p. 63).
Thus the stars cast their own spell over the earth, and the earth, which once
belonged to the stars, reabsorbs their essence. This world view coincides
strikingly with that of the alchemists. To emphasize their belief in the "essential
unity of things" (p. 14), John Read quotes an ancient Greek inscription that was
prevalent in alchemical writings: "One is all and by it all and to it all, and if
one does not contain all, all is nought" (p. 25). The goal of alchemy, then, was
to cement unity by attempting 'to bring the microcosm of man into relation
7 John Read, Through Alchemy to Chemistry (London: J. Bell and Sons, 1957), p. 30.
SAndre Breton, Manifestes du surrialisme (Paris: Gallimard, 1969), p. 175.

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 496 FRENCH REVIEW

with the macrocosm

("Langue des pierres
responsibility.
In order to accomp
dialogue with the co
therein recall the sy
function, simultane
procedures to the a
Breton describes in
force psychique par
nous, l'illumination
des autres lieux, la
They facilitate the p
In "Langue des pie
prestige, for it estab
it incorporates appa
system which then
another field to the reader, it allows him or her a broader domain for the
associative play that constitutes the surrealist reading experience, and it frees
him or her more completely for the necessary analogical work.9 Finally, by
multiplying the roles the stones can play, the alchemical perspective prepares
the reader for the single but multivalent Rock of Perce of Arcane 17.
The Rock of Perce dominates the entire first part of Arcane 17. It generates
Breton's associative imagery and when framed by the window (p. 28), recalls
the mandala in both form and function. In Psychology and Alchemy, C. G. Jung
defines the mandala as "an aid to contemplation" and as "an inner image, which
is gradually built up through (active) imagination, at such times when psychic
equilibrium is disturbed."10 Breton's motivation for such a construct in a time
of deprivation, exile, and war is obvious. Jung describes the traditional structure
of the mandala as "based on a quaternary system" (p. 96). Thus the window
frame does not only circumscribe the object for contemplation, but it also
suggests the quaternary structure that delineates the mandala. The major
concerns of the first half of Arcane 17 partake of that structure: the external
world confronted by its own bellicosity ajoins the internal, grief-torn world of
the poet, and the four-way conflict becomes an object for contemplation through
the spatialization of time. As Michel Beaujour remarks, "Le temps ici n'est
qu'une m6taphore de l'espace. Tout, dans Arcane 17, devrait se d6ployer dans
l'espace et n'accepter de la temporalit6 que ce qui est n6cessaire pour parcourir
de l'oeil un tableau complexe."11
' See Jean S. Schoenfeld, 'Andr6 Breton and the Poet/Reader" to appear in Dada/Surrealism
(Oct. 1983), for a more complete discussion.
10 C.G. Jung, Psychology and Alchemy, trans. R.F.C. Hull (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1968), p. 96.
" Michel Beaujour, 'Andre Breton mythographe: Arcane 17," in Andre Breton, ed. Marc Eigeldinger
(Neuchatel: Editions de la Baconniere, 1970), p. 228.

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 ANDRE BRETON, ALCHEMIST 497
The center of the mandala usually contains a hig
the dorje, symbol of all the divine forces together
tive" (pp. 97-98). More important for the image o
is the presence of "certain 'alchemical' properties of
of the lapis and the elixir vitae" (p. 98). Indee
described in alchemical terms, and Anna Balakian sees it as a manifestation of
an essential alchemical concept-the supreme point:

The Rock of Perce becomes an emblem by means of which Breton can build
analogies between cosmic and human modification. The rock is composed of
geological strata, as civilization has its historical epochs superimposed one on
the other. Breton's analogical eye, with its habit of seeing one thing in another,
equates or merges the hues of the rock, rose to deep hues, with the soldering
of human cultures in human blood; he sees in the tempests and rain that batter
the rock and in it their everlasting marks and the foreboding of eventual
dissolution, the bloodbaths of European wars and Europe's much more rapid
effacement. But the analogy of disintegration and division that the rock spells
out on the one hand is compensated by the image of unity and cohesion that
the strata's solid appearance embodies.... Thus the Rock of Perc6 becomes for
him the final manifestation of the supreme point: "that luminous point concen-
trating all that can be common to life." (Pp. 206-07)

Michel Carrouges sees the supreme point in more philosophical terms. He

situates it both within the subjective human consciousness and the external
world and he characterizes it as real, even surreal (pp. 20-21). While he describes
it more specifically as the locus of the reconciliation of opposites, he uses that
description only to compare the goals of Surrealism and alchemy; he thus fails
to relate the supreme point directly to the image-making process. For Breton,
that process consists of the spontaneous rapprochement of two distant realities
(Manifeste, p. 50). Though not necessarily opposites, these realities are so distant
and their conjunction so unexpected that the image created recalls the supreme
point in both form and function. The Rock of Perce is a multifaceted product
of the image-making process. As such, it literally teems with distant realities
that have been conjoined. The primary conjunction is that of organic with
inorganic: the rock comes alive with avion wings as birds settle on it: "on
decouvre que le repos des oiseaux epouse les anfractuosites de cette muraille a
pic, en sorte que le rythme organique se superpose ici de justesse au rythme
inorganique comme s'il avait besoin de se consolider sur lui pour s'entretenir"
(p. 6). Other more isolated images also come alive: ice becomes a witch and the
"trainees serpentines du quartz" change to elephant trunks and heraldic banners
(p. 53). The reconciliation of life with non-life dissolves easily into the recon-
ciliation of two opposites basic to alchemy: life and death. Further, the rock
becomes a concrete manifestation of the supreme point precisely because of the
reconciliations it effects.
The Rock of Perc's resemblance to the Philosopher's Stone also emerges in
the completeness of its imagery. Like the Stone, it is ?composed 'de re animali,
vegetabili et minerali'" (Jung, p. 178). Its life-giving qualities, which recall the

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 498 FRENCH REVIEW

elixir vitae, insure t

next just as in the p
preparation was off
"Dissolve the Fixt, an
(Read, p. 33). For him
of basic materials, the liberation and therefore alteration of their alchemical
state and finally the fixation of the element's altered form. The statistics
provided in the rock's tourist brochure reaffirm the alchemical nature of the
process by invoking the numerical value of the name of gold (see Read, p. 69):
"je ne serais pas si surpris que se manifestat le nombre d'or, tant dans ses
proportions la Rocher Perce peut passer pour un modele de justesse naturelle"
(p. 34).
Such parallelism is not sufficient to justify Breton's claim of indebtedness to
the processes of High Magic. John Read describes the Great Work as "the
prolonged and controlled heating of proximate materials, under the right
conditions, in the sealed vessel of Hermes" (p. 32). As the witch, or the ice
frozen in crevasses of the rock, stirs her brew, the little girl learns to create light
(p. 51) and by juxtaposing two distant realities (see Manifeste, p. 31)-the piece
of straw with a sieve, a keyhole, a shoe eyelet and a button hole, she sets
everything ablaze with light: "Et tout cela se met, non seulement a regarder,
mais 'a faire de la lumiere, et toutes les lumieres s'appretent a communiquer
(p. 52). The "right conditions" depend on the position of the sun and the moon
as Breton notes the influence of their light on the images he visualizes, and the
"sealed vessel of Hermes" manifests itself in different guises. First, the "coffre
rouge et noir a serrures bleues" emerges from the sea (p. 11). Its locks stand out
against the colors of blood and ink. It remains sealed, hermetic (p. 98) in the
face of the ocean's destructive force, and it is finally incorporated unopened
into the tree of the seventeenth Arcana (p. 99). Both its sacredness and its
impenetrability recall the sealed flask of the alchemist.
A more specific symbol of that flask is the bird, and birds are everywhere.
They hide the rock beneath a "fantasmorgorique broderie" (p. 11), and they
impart to it their characteristic plumage as the rock emerges ruffled ("herisse")
from the sea (p. 98). Finally, they penetrate the rock in the figure of the bird
who reveals the secret of life to the little girl and of the aigret who takes its
place beneath the arch (p. 53). The bird is simultaneously a symbol and a
magically constitutive part of the framework. In alchemical research, the bird
is an active symbol; since death is necessary for life and mortification precedes
revivication, the pelican tears at her own flesh to feed her young (Read, p. 34).
Breton's bird, too, must be born from the remnants of its own destruction: "ce
que dechire l'oiseau c'est lui-meme .... C'est la... qu'en s'acharant du bec
contre son propre coeur, a son emoi supreme il ne parvient qu' a l'aggran-
dir .... Et dans ce coeur d'ombre s'ouvre a ce moment un jeune coeur de lumiere,
encore tout dependant du premier et qui reclame de lui sa subsistance" (pp. 97-
98). The Rock of Perce, which is the Philosopher's Stone, is also the vessel from

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ANDRE BRETON, ALCHEMIST 499

which the Stone is born. As Jung rema

proceeds from the one and leads bac
dragon biting its own tail" (p. 293
"Langue des pierres" is thus made m
As the alchemical work proceeds, t
color changes he observes. Since they
change, he considers the tinging pr
(Read, p. 38). Indeed, Jung remarks t
169). So too does the Rock of Perce.
covered by the multicolored "bro
appearance of the rainbow colors of
assured the adept that he was on th
spreads her multicolored tail over th
transmutation (p. 53). The rock, tran
gives way to the "wonderful variety
course of the [alchemical] work"
elephants, heralds bearing golden-fr
plete and with it sounds the proclam
dans l'amour humain que reside tout
(p. 54). Love is the key to the elixir
reader will see precisely how the key
Now that the Work is complete an
its essence, the reader, who has step
a painting,12 can reemerge to contem
but not for long. Breton draws back
into another, larger construct. The w
now frames a special darkness: "C'est
la nuit des enchantements" (p. 72). T
73). The description of the Arcana, b
the acacia tree, gives way to the ro
above). Through it all, the Arcana r
("C'est maintenant tout l'etang ve
quickly reasserts itself with the tre
Rock of Perce, which formed the c
17's first part, has lost its dominanc
a miniscule portion of the image org
This image also dominates the alch
philosophical endeavor. Like the twe
it serves as the emblem of that ende
transmutation while remaining suff
center of that emblem is the woman
including Melusine, Isis, and Eve-s
soror mystica is often depicted in i

12 Andre Breton, Le Surrealisme et la peintur

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 500 FRENCH REVIEW

considered to be a t
was as involved in
well, for the close c
the essential operati
and in which the pr
Stone.13 In Breton's
combining the golde
in the stagnant pool
coniuncto, the joinin
his lover, which will
change the world.
The Arcana also mir
In it, the tree whi
hermetically sealed
debris de la sagesse m
cation "par le moyen
vertu du principe d
renouvellement etem
cesses-coniunto, mortification, and revivication-do not suffice for the accom-
plishment of the Magnum Opus. The essential tool, the tool that initiates both
these three processes and the necessary exchange among them, is the Word (p.
119). The alchemists, too, depended on the process of symbolization, for it was
the basis of their focus on emblems. It was the reason for the proliferation of
illustrative material in their written work, and it was the implicit motivation for
the sheer volume of that written work. Their valorization of hieroglyphic
representation also coincides with Breton's insistence on the pictorial corre-
spondence between the Hebrew letter representing speech and its referent:
"Cette resolution est d'ailleurs bien une resolution commune car elle ne necessite
d'autre instrument que celui que les Hebreux ont figure hieroglyphiquement
par la lettre 3 (prononcer: phe) qui ressemble a la langue dans la bouche et qui
signifie au sens le plus haut la parole meme" (p. 119).
The Word, or more appropriately for Breton, Poetry, is the essence of the
second part of Arcane 17, for it is poetry which combines the masculine and
feminine principles in the Arcana, and it is poetry which joins the stars, liberty,
and love. An actively constitutive element, poetry is also responsible for the
structure of the work. It effects the transmutation that dominates the first part
of Arcane 17 and allows that transmutation to be subsumed into the depiction
of the alchemical process that structures the second part. Finally, by focusing
on the Arcana with its alchemical implications, it transforms the Arcana into
the emblem of the poetic process. Breton joins Rimbaud to celebrate once again
the alchemy of the word.
The second part of Arcane 17 is thus an abstraction of the first part. It is a
metalanguage that simultaneously describes a specific instance of poetic trans-
"3 See F. Sherwood Taylor, The Alchemists: Founders of Modern Chemistry (New York: Henry
Schuman, 1949), p. 148.

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ANDRE BRETON, ALCHEMIST 501

mutation and manifests the process

is suggested by the presence of m
mythographe," Michel Beaujour cauti
Arcane 17: "C'est donc un non-sens d
comme s'il les utilise pour etoffer so
Breton wants to create his own my
that of Melusine and feminine me
saying that Breton seeks the univer
the esoteric quest (p. 226), but he hes
The myths controlling Arcane 17 a
they deal, as well, with liberty and
these concepts have their place in a
and rebellion in such liberating pro
p. 32)-the underlying assumption p
take place is that of the essential un
which Breton alludes in Arcane 17
encompassing:

Me1usine au-dessous du buste se dore

d'automne. Les serpents de ses jambes d
de ses jambes plongent et leurs tetes
paroles de ce saint qui les prechait d
relevent sur elle le filet aerien.... Melu
d'herbes aquatiques ou de duvet de nid

Her story is that of her mate's reb

and the need for ultimate fusion. Ph
ical emblem that represents the fu
eating serpent. Isis becomes a unify
parts of her slain brother. As for t
based on the unifying process: while
two urns, the butterfly prepares to
from the flower of the Arcana and
more extensive research can determi
both guide and nourish the esoteric
Arcana 17 is significant enough to re
Arcane 17's alchemical status is fin
Van Lennep's analysis of alchemical
ates four categories: "la geste royal
geste heroique."14 Although Arcane
"la geste heroique" that most firmly
tradition. The specific manifestation
second level abstraction in which po
the mythic level in which alchemic
Lennep observes:
"4 J. Van Lennep, Art et alchemie (Bruxell

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 502 FRENCH REVIEW

On peut parler d'un

Jason, aux exploits
doit traverser une s
merveilleux des 16g
pour epuiser les etat
par le tombeau avant
de l'amour et de la v

Not only does Van

legend and thus my
Arcane 17. Breton a
while the world must resuscitate itself in the ashes of war and Lucifer must die
in order to be free. Reducing Arcane 17 to the pattern Van Lennep describes
and reasserting the alchemical significance of that pattern fixes the orientation
of Breton's work in alchemy.
In Arcane 17, literary creation follows the course of alchemical experimenta-
tion-the conditions under which they are both conducted, the processes by
which they take place and the resulting transmutations are comparable. This
parallelism gives substance to the Arcana's voice as it describes the work in
alchemical terms. As for the myths of Arcane 17, placing them in an alchemical
context reveals their function more completely; indeed, it highlights the dialectic
that binds them to the rest of the work. The alchemical perspective implied by
'Langue des pierres" thus enriches the reading of Arcane 17.

ROCHESTER, NEW YORK

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