ROBERT DESNOS (1947)

French poet who joined André Breton in the early Surrealist movement, soon becoming one of its most valuable members because of his ability to fall into a hypnotic trance, under which he could recite his dreams, write and draw.

Texts from his period appeared in the Surrealist review Littérature and in his book La Liberté ou l´amour! (1927). Humour, tenderness and eroticism pervade his works in which acrobatic verbal techniques never detract from the spontaneity of the inspiration.

Dreams and reality merge in freely associated images in Corps et biens (1930; Bodies and Goods).

In 1930 he broke from the doctrinaire Surrealist rigidity of Breton and for a decade wrote motion-picture and radio scripts including the highly successful Complainte de Fantomas (1933; Fantomas Lament). Later he abandoned the eccentric experiments in Surrealistic verse in favour of more traditional and classical forms to express his humanitarian sympathies aroused by World War II. In the 1940s he became with Paul Éluard and Louis Aragon the poet of man´s hope.

Arrested for his activity in the Resistance he was deported to Germany and died of typhus in Terezin, Czech. a few days after his liberation by U.S. troops.

A collection including both his early Surrealist poems and his later works Domaine public appeared in 1953.