Description
Book SynopsisRobert Desnos remains celebrated today as one of France's most famous surrealist artists and as a hero and martyr of the French Resistance. Robert Desnos and the Play of Popular Culture sheds new light onto both of these facets of his persona and uncovers the fundamental connections between them by analyzing the poet's long-standing commitment to the public domain and his involvement with popular media during the 1930s and 1940s. Through analysis of Desnos's regular contributions to the sensationalist 1930s-era magazine Voilà, this study begins with consideration of Desnos's turn to popular commercial media after his break with André Breton. The study then turns to Desnos's continued engagement with the public sphere of artistic expression under the Occupation and analyzes Bonsoir mesdames, bonsoir messieurs, the 1944 film that Desnos co-authored with Henri Jeanson, which was released in Parisian theatres just one week before Desnos's arrest and deportation for
Table of Contents
Introduction – Reportage and the Re-Enchantment of Actualité: Robert Desnos at Voilà (1933–1935) – Radio and the Cultivation of the Popular in Time of War: Good Evening, Ladies and Gentlemen (1944) – English Translation of the Articles by Robert Desnos in Voilà (1933–1935) – Full French Text of the Articles by Robert Desnos in Voilà (1933–1935) – Index.
