55

1he automatic image

trom beginning to end in a matter ot days in complete
solitude. 1he surrealists aimed to act as modest recording
instruments ot psychical thoughts and not as poets. 1hus
they declared in the +,: Manifesto of Surrealism: We do
not have any talent.
3
Psychic automatism, they argued,
could be practised by anyone and the Manifesto vent
on to encourage everyone to do so and, especially tor
those vith aspirations to become vriters, onered the
tolloving advice:
lorget about your genius, your talents, and the
talents ot everyone else. Keep reminding yourselt
that literature is one ot the saddest roads that leads to
everything. Write quickly, vithout any preconceived
subject, tast enough so that you vill not remember
vhat you are vriting and be tempted to reread vhat
you have vritten.
6
Psychic automatism vas a means to produce literary
vriting that avoided the contrived expressions ot their
peers and torebears. In the +,: Manifesto Breton com-
plained ot the mediocrity, hate, and dull conceit in
the realistic attitude ot the literature ot his time, its
vacuity ot realist description and clarity bordering
on stupidity, a dogs lite.
7
Deprived ot imagination,
humans are the less tor it and the surrealists set about
repairing the split. Breton argues:
Lnder the pretence ot civilization and progress, ve
have managed to banish trom the mind everything
that may rightly or vrongly be termed superstition, or
tancy, torbidden is any kind ot search tor truth vhich
is not in contormity vith accepted practices. It vas,
apparently, by pure chance that a part ot our mental
vorld vhich ve pretended not to be concerned
vith any longer and, in my opinion by tar the most
important part has been brought back to light. lor
this ve must give thanks to the discoveries ot Sigmund
lreud.
8
In lreud, the issue ot automatism appears most tre-
quently in the tvo books The Psychopathology of Everyday
Life and Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious. It
vas the trst book, The Psychopathology of Everyday Life,
that surrealists had read trst hand by the time ot the
Breton, Manitesto ot Sur-
realism, p. ::.
o Ibid., pp. :,o.
; Ibid., p. o.
: Ibid., p. +o.