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7 800 €

Réf : 53047

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André BRETON & Paul ELUARD

Salvador DALI

Notes sur la poésie

GLM, Paris 1936, 12,5x17cm, broché.

BRETON André & éLUARD Paul & DALI Salvador. Notes sur la poésie [Notes on Poetry]
Glm, Paris 1936, 12,5 x 17 cm, original wrappers
First edition, one of 100 numbered copies on vélin paper, this one not justified, the only grand papier (deluxe) copies after 15 on Japon paper.
With a frontispiece drawing by Salvador Dali.
Handsome autograph inscription signed by Paul Éluard to René Char: “Exemplaire de mon ami René Char. Paul Éluard. [My friend René Char's copy. Paul Éluard].”
It was in 1929 that René Char discovered Éluard's poems. Blown away, the young poet from L'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, then just 23, decided to send Éluard a copy of his collection of poems, Arsenal, with the following inscription: “à Paul Éluard enfin. L'Isle, 17 septembre 1929 [For Paul Éluard, at last. L'Isle, 17 September 1929]”. The elder poet sent him a good-natured reply a few weeks later: “Dear sir, couldn't we get to know each other better? Do you have any plans to come to Paris? I would be glad of an opportunity to tell you how much I like your poems – and this book overall, so fine”. The young Char was overjoyed and went to meet his “surrogate brother” for the first time (Laurent Greilsamer, René Char, Perrin, 2012), before very quickly deciding to move to Paris to be nearer his new companions Aragon, Breton and Éluard, and enlisting in the Surrealist movement. Éluard, abandoned by Gala – who left him for Dali – suggested to Char that he come live in the apartment on the rue Becquerel. The two bachelors soon took on Odette, a young and very pleasant maid. “Char liked this stylish service and was at the same time struck by the marked kindness of this pretty brunette. One day, he took her in his arms. The beautiful young woman smiled, allowed herself to be seduced, and proved to be quite experienced. In the evening, René told Éluard of his adventure. The next day, Éluard had his breakfast served in bed, where he invited Odette to join him. A provisional ménage à trois was formed.” (op.cit.). Char and Éluard, who became inseparable, shared a taste for partying and frenetic seductions, roaming the Parisian boulevards in search of adventure. Thus, on the evening of 21 May 1930, they met a penniless actress and trapeze artist, Nusch. “Éluard decided to take her back, like a delicate parcel, to the rue Becquerel. But it took all of Char's friendliness and his powers of persuasion to convince the young lady to stay, to give Éluard the time, all the time he needed to become absorbed” (op. cit.). Char thus played a mediating role and allowed Éluard to conquer the love of his life, who died prematurely in 1946 of a brain hemorrhage. Despite a few passing spats – never over women, but rather over ideas – the two poets remained close both intellectually and as friends right to the end of Éluard's life. “I am old, René, in moments – to the point where I no longer love life. I live out of a sense of duty. But I love you deeply, like I've always loved you: don't be shocked by anything, coming from me, everything is affection and admiration…What more proof could you want than that I tell you that you are the only man to whom I can confess this great emptiness that I carry within me and before whom I could cry as much as I have always wanted.” 

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