Poetry
Corps et biens
Not translated into English
Robert Desnos · 1930
Synopsis
The collection gathers about ten years of the author's poetry. On one side it contains language games: aphorisms and spoonerisms published under the name of Rrose Sélavy, borrowed from Marcel Duchamp, then puns, charades and childlike wordplay that unravel stock expressions. On the other, love poems of direct lyricism, grouped in the sequences “À la mystérieuse” and “Les Ténèbres”, alongside regular verse and prose poems.
Context
The title takes up the expression “périr corps et biens” (to perish with all hands); the Larousse reads in it the Surrealist project of reinterpreting received expressions, together with an evocation of the desired body. The Rrose Sélavy suite, dated 1923, strings together one hundred and fifty short texts, allusive and often based on puns. The book appeared in 1930 from Éditions de la Nouvelle Revue française, at the time when the author was drifting away from Breton, and it gathers the texts of his Surrealist years.
Who it is for
Poems of very diverse forms, to be read separately; the plays on sounds and double meanings are largely lost outside French.
Prizes and reception
Available since 1968 in pocket format from Gallimard, in the Poésie series, where it bears the number 27.
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The pages consulted to check this page.