Lise Deharme (1898–1980), Paul Éluard (1895–1952), Georges Hugnet (1906–1974) and Raymond Queneau (1903–1976). Cadavre exquis, [Paris], circa 1925-1930. Manuscript poem in four hands on one large sheet of newsprint, 42 x 37.5 cm. Signed at the bottom left by each contributor. Paper unevenly chipped on both left and right margins, with some minimal loss to text. Minimally mounted on a sheet of brown Canson drawing paper.

An exhilarating relic from the earliest days of the Surrealist movement, this fragile document -- the only record of an unpublished collaborative poem -- represents the mortal remain of a game of cadavre exquis (exquisite corpse) played by four of the movement’s leading spirits. Invented by André Breton and his friends at a party in Montparnasse in 1925, the game requires each participant to write a text or contribute a sketch to a collective poem or artwork without viewing the other components. The name comes from a line produced at the game’s first instantiation, “Le cadavre exquis boira le vin nouveau.”

"Les sirènes défont leurs nattes gonflées d’eau"

Lise Deharme as La Dame de Pique. Photograph by Man Ray (1935)

This poem clearly was produced in similar circumstances and features some of the movement’s most famous exemplars. Lise Deharme (née Anne-Marie Hirtz), who appears in Breton’s novel Nadja and was photographed by Man Ray, edited the Surrealist journal La Phare de Neuilly and wrote books illustrated by Joan Miró, Claude Cahun, and Léonor Fini. She was also celebrated as a hostess of Surrealist salons, and likely provided the occasion for this composition. She signs the poem with a sketch of donkey (âne) signed “âne marri” – a small jeu de mots referencing both her given name (Anne-Marie) and perhaps her recent marriage to Paul Deharme in 1927. (Désolé, mes beaux, l'Anne est marié...)

"Quand je vivais quand j’étais neuf quand je t’aimais."

Paul Éluard (detail) by Salvador Dali (1929)

Hailed as the greatest of the movement’s poets, Paul Éluard was one of the founders of Surrealism, along with Breton, Philippe Soupault and Louis Aragon, whom he met in 1919.  A prolific poet, he hit his first peak around the time he played this game of cadavre exquis, publishing in 1926 his collection Capitale de la douleur, a volume cherished by film buffs as the text Lemmy Caution repeatedly quotes in Jean-Luc Godard’s Alphaville.

"Je n’ai gardé de toi que ton ombre sur moi."

George Hugnet by Man Ray (1934)

Georges Hugnet was a bookbinder and worked with a number of Surrealist artists to produce their livres d’artistes. His own collage novel Le septième face du dé (1936) is a classic of the genre, and his histories and anthologies of Surrealism and Dadaism represented for many years the standard texts on the movements.

"Lorsque l’or du succube a fondu l’uranium."

Raymond Queneau by Man Ray (1925)

Raymond Queneau’s participation provides the terminus ante quem for dating the manuscript. He became associated with the surrealists through Michel Leiris, whom he met in 1924. But he did not last long, frustrated both by Breton’s treatment of his soon-to-be-ex-wife (who was also Queneau’s sister-in-law), and the political radicalization of three core members of the group – Breton, Éluard, and Aragon – who had joined the Communist Party in 1927. By 1930 he had broken with Breton and his allies, contributing to a pamphlet denouncing the Second Surrealist Manifesto.

The publication of Un cadavre (1930) marked Queneau’s break with the Surrealists. This poem must have been written earlier.

A work this ephemeral, executed on the cheapest paper available, was never intended to survive. That it has, for almost 100 years, is nothing short of a miracle. One can scarcely imagine a more appropriate souvenir of the ludic creativity of the Surrealist salon.

Selected References

Breton, Andre, et al. Le cadavre exquis: son exaltation. Paris: La Dragonne, Galerie Nina Dausset, 1948

Brotchie, Alastair and Mel Gooding (1991). Surrealist games. London: Redstone Press, 1991.

Caws, Mary Ann. Glorious Eccentrics. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006

Kochhar-Lindgren, Kanta, Davis Schneiderman, and Tom Denlinger, eds. The exquisite corpse: chance and collaboration in Surrealism's parlor game. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2009

Perge, Nicolas. Lisa Deharme: cynge noir. Paris: Jean-Claude Lattès, 2023

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