ANDRE BRETON & ELISA CLARO

(Quoted from the book:) The last personal testimony we will visit before returning to the bountiful fields of literary fiction is by a modern poet of “ancient perspective”. It’s not by chance, my love, that this poet born at the turn of century, the French André Bréton, was a key figure of Surrealism, a movement that called for the primordial role of intuition in art in general, and in poetry in particular. Having studied esoteric tradition in depth, Bréton was a profound connoisseur of ancient knowledge. Well, then, it’s in the autobiographical Arcane 17, where he writes to his beloved Elisa, with whom he married almost immediately after meeting: “Before I met you, but what am I saying, these words make no sense. You know that the first time I saw you, there is no doubt I recognised you.” This, Blanca, is love at first sight, what in French is known as coup de foudre, “thunderbolt”. That is to say, a sudden love that sweeps you off your feet, which Bréton himself baptised as amour fou, “mad love”. “Naturally -he points out- I'm talking about a love that holds absolute power, that is connected for an entire lifetime, that refuses to see as its object anyone other than that one being. In this respect, this experience, as distressing as it has been (it’s relevant to point out here that Breton and Elisa ended up getting a divorce), has taught me nothing: so powerful is this aspiration for me, that I am aware I could not renounce it without sacrificing everything I live for. I am still bound to one of the most powerful myths, to which no apparent setback in the context of my adventure would prevail.” The myth he is referring to, my dear, is none other than love predestination, the myth of twin souls. A myth he subsequently articulates: “Every human being has been thrown into this life in search of that one other being of a different sex which, from every perspective, is its counterpart, to the point that one without the other appears as the result of a dissociation, of a dislocation of a single block of light.” 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

REINCARNATION

Image
(Quoted from the book:) In fact, for our sages, as we have seen, human love is the touchstone of divine love. Hence, throughout the entire heroic process (and this process may last several lives), the predestined “duo” should coincide if not always, then often. The Two will then come together to play that melody that they rehearsed by themselves. After all, that’s why we come into this world: to rehearse, to put our soul to the test in order to polish it, to clean it of impur ities. Just like a musician hones his technique during rehearsals. Practice makes perfect. Reincarnations are as vital for the soul as daily physical contact with his instrument is for the musician. We cannot clean the impurities off our soul all the way up from Heaven, just as a musician cannot perfect his technique just by studying musical theory. Theory is the necessary foundation, but it’s useless if he does not translate that theory into practice. And that takes time and effort. https://www.amazon.com/...
Read more

TO DIE OF LOVE

Image
(Quoted from the book:) Talking about the Arabic ideal of chastity, Blanca, is talking about Udhra love, which is how courtly love is known in the Arab world. The name comes from a tribe who flourished between the seventh and eighth century in the Southeast of the Arabian Peninsula, in a remote valley in Yemen. The Bedouin tribe of the Banu Udhra, the “Sons of Virginity”, produced many poets; with the peculiarity that Udhra poetry is monothematic: it deals with one single issu e, spiritual love. But, in addition, the Udhra poets practiced what they preached: they became famous for cultivating the type of love they put into verse; a pure and chaste love, so intense (its intensity came from its purity) that it was said they “died of love”. The Arabic chronicles of the time tell about Udhras dying of no particular infirmity, but of love towards their lady. Otherwise, my dear, Udhra love verged on mysticism, on religion, to the point that orthodox Muslims denigrated and accused it of inter...
Read more

INTRODUCTION by Xavier Perez-Pons

Image
ANNOUNCEMENT AND DISCLAIMER On a spring afternoon in the year two thousand, I happened to wander into a bookshop in the old Barri Gòtic in Barcelona. The owner was busy taking books from two large wooden boxes. I was curious, so I asked him if I could have a look. The books were in Catalan, Spanish, French, and English, some of them illustrated, most of them filled with underlinings and pencil notes on the margin; there were also a couple in Portuguese and some other in Italian. They were of all sorts of literary genres, although I could spot a common subject. I asked the owner where he had gotten these boxes. They had belonged to a man that had recently died; that is all he knew. He had bought them at an auction, along with other private libraries and lots from all over the place. I asked him to give me a price, and I took the whole lot home. Actually, that is not true. There was more to the lot than those two boxes. There was a third one. A third box, which...
Read more