BRETON, André

Initially part of Paris Dada, Breton broke with Tristan Tzara and became the founder and self-styled pope of Surrealism. Primarily a novelist and theoretical critic, he was a physically imposing figure whose critical specialty was manifestos that formulated and reformulated the Surrealist esthetic. As a literary radical, he preached the virtues of automatic writing (purportedly without conscious control) and of the exquisite corpse, which was his term for collaboration, both of which...