[The pure being of writing. Ecriture automatique in 19th century psychiatry and early surrealism (Breton/Soupault: Les champs magnétiques)].
Ecriture automatique and psychoanalysis are often lumped together in literary studies, almost as a knee-jerk reaction. However, on closer inspection it can be seen that the discoverers of automatic writing--the surrealists--were more interested in the hysteria research that prevailed around the year 1900 (Pierre Janet, Alfred Binet) and in parapsychology (Frederic Myers). In these two branches of medicine, the theory and practice of automatic writing are based on an experimental constellation in which the relationship between the psychiatrist/experiment organiser and the patient/participant takes centre stage. Here, the latter writes in response to an order or question from the former, mostly while overcoming a physical or memory block. André Breton and Philippe Soupault set up a very similar constellation in the Champs magnétiques, though with some key alterations. Indeed, surrealism liberates the patient engaging in automatic writing from the dictates of the psychiatrist--but only to submit him to a yet more overwhelming force, a pure violence of writing, so to speak: the automatism of a 'higher reality'.
Bergengruen
Maximilian
M
Département de langue et de littérature allemandes, Université de Genève, Genève 4. Maximilian.Bergengruen@unige.ch
D001332:Automatism / Q000266:history*; D049672:History, 19th Century; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D011572:Psychoanalysis / Q000266:history*; D014473:Unconscious, Psychology; D014956:Writing / Q000266:history*