Un Duel Manqué en 1927: Les Surréalistes, Jean Paulhan et la NRF Surréalistes

Abstract

On 1st October 1927, Jean Paulhan, Editor-inChief of La Nouvelle Revue Franfaise published two reviews. One concerned Au Grand Jour, a joint pamphlet published a short while before by the Editions surrealistes, and which focused on the relationships between surrealists and communists. The second dealt with the reply by Antonin Artaud, who had recently been excluded from the surrealist group and who had been insulted in the pamphlet. Artaud's reply was entitled A Ia Grande Nuit. A short while after, Paulhan received a blunt letter from Breton. He immediately chose two witnesses, but when they showed up at the offender's house, Breton refused to fight. Paulhan then published the note with which his witnesses had informed him of Breton's refusal. Also published was his own conclusion: 'One now knows the cowardice that lies beneath the violence and filth of that person'. Beyond its picturesque quality, this episode is not unworthy of the attention of an audience preoccupied by quarrels affecting the intellectual world, their changing forms and the way they shed light on power plays that are usually better concealed. Paulhan's attitude, in 1927, was not as uncommon as one today might imagine. Literary duels were practised in France before the Great War. After the armistice, they did survive, after a fashion, as harmless human comedies.