Anthology of Black Humor

by André Breton

This is the first publication in English of the anthology that contains Breton's definitive statement on l'humour noir, one of the seminal concepts of Surrealism, and his provocative assessments of the writers he most admired. While some of the authors featured in The Anthology of Black Humor are already well known to American readers--Swift, Kafka, Rimbaud, Poe, Lewis Carroll, and Baudelaire among them (and even then, Breton's selections...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B004WG6WSM
• ISBN13: 9780872863217
• Release Date: January 1997
• Publisher: City Lights Books
• Length: 356 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.5" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

incredible

breton's eulogy of surrealist revolt is basically incarnated in this book, which is a collection of insane and eccentric (particularly lacenaire, murderer and poet) figures who, through absurd humor and surrealistic flights of the fantastic, cast serious (sometimes dangerous) doubts on the validity of the Reality Principle. The best in this collection is perhaps Benjamin Peret, the most uncompromising surrealist of them all. His work is completely recalcitrant to mundane reality, forcing it to become magical and, of course, surreal. Admittedly, some of these writers are difficult to penetrate, but the effort is certainly worth it. Jarry especially.

Yes

I want to vomit right now. Good.

very funny

I am writing in response to the person who said that the selections in here are childish. Do you even understand black humour, dadaism, or surealism? Since when is being childish a bad thing?

Goos hit

This book was good because it contained lots of sarcastic, twisted ideas which arose mainly in the nineteenth century. don't read it for fun, read it because you have absolutely nothing better to do. Ta-ta!