André Breton, L'Amour fou [Mad Love]

Simon Kemp (University of Oxford)
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With

Nadja

(1928) and

Les Vases communicants

(1932),

L’Amour fou

completes the triptych of Breton’s major prose works. Like the earlier works, it combines the essay form with autobiographical fragments and creative writing, interspersed with photographic images. And, like them, it explores the irrational and unconscious mind. Where the first two focused primarily on madness and dreams respectively,

L’Amour fou

examines sexual, romantic and parental love as its principal subject, while also ranging widely over other topics relating to the unconscious and its effects on our experience. All three texts present a mystical view of the world, in which the emanations from the unconscious find themselves in uncanny harmony with external reality, even to the extent of predicting the future.…

1485 words

Citation: Kemp, Simon. "L'Amour fou". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 11 September 2013 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=34656, accessed 29 March 2024.]

34656 L'Amour fou 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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