Breton, Surrealism and Black Humour

André Breton is known as the founder of Surrealism, the author of numerous manifestos of surrealism, and Nadja (1929), the semi-autobiographical novel that pioneered stream-of-consciousness writing.

He was also the editor of The Anthology of Black Humor (Anthologie de l'humour noir 1940/1947/1966). The anthology was a celebration of gallows humor that Breton traced back to writers like Jonathan Swift and the Marquis de Sade. Collating together texts by Charles Fourier, Thomas de Quincey, Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Baudelaire, Friedrich Nietzsche, Lewis Caroll, Arthur Rimbaud, Alfred Jerry, Pablo Picasso, Franz Kafka, Marcel Duchamp, Salvador Dalí, and Leonora Carrington, Breton creates a surrealist cannon stretching back to the 18th Century.

Tonight we will present a multimedia interactive presentation drawing upon the examples of Breton's anthology, as well as more recent examples from film and media, and using them to explore gallows humor and its relationship to Breton, surrealism, psychoanalysis, satire, and social change.

We will explore the story behind the anthology, the role played by black humor in Surrealism's revolutionary ideas, and the way black humor continues to influence popular culture from Chris Morris to David Lynch.

Session Lead: Bradley Tuck

In Person: Southern Belle, 3, Waterloo Street, Hove

Yo join on zoom:

Meeting ID: 848 6829 5306

Passcode: 007128

Time: 7:00 pm Doors. 7:30pm-10:00pm