Anthology of Black Humor
Encyclopedia
The Anthology of Black Humor (in French
Anthologie de l'humour noir) is an anthology of 45 writers edited by André Breton
. It was first published in 1940 in Paris
by Éditions du Sagittaire and its distribution was immediately banned by the Vichy government
. It got reprinted in 1947 after Breton's return from exile, with a few additions. In 1966, Breton, "having resisted the temptation to add more names", published the book again and called this edition "the definitive".
The anthology not only introduced some until then almost unknown or forgotten writers, it also coined the term "black humor" (as Breton said, until then the term had meant nothing, unless someone imagined jokes about black people ). The term became globally used since then. The choice of authors was done entirely by Breton and according to his taste which he explains in the Foreword (called The Lightning Rod, a term suggested by Lichtenberg), a work of great depth (Breton was the main theoretician of the Surrealist movement
) that starts with contemplating Rimbaud´s words "Emanations, explosions." from Rimbaud's last poem The barrack-room of night : Dream . The authors, each introduced by a preface by Breton and represented by a few pages from their writings, are sorted chronologically. The book is still in print. It was translated into several languages; into English
by Mark Polizzotti in 1997.
Others works excerped include:
Louis Aragon
's 1928 Treatise on Style. Freud's 1928 Humor from International journal of psychoanalysis 9 1-6 (republished in Collected papers of Sigmung Freud vol.5).
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
Anthologie de l'humour noir) is an anthology of 45 writers edited by André Breton
André Breton
André Breton was a French writer and poet. He is known best as the founder of Surrealism. His writings include the first Surrealist Manifesto of 1924, in which he defined surrealism as "pure psychic automatism"....
. It was first published in 1940 in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
by Éditions du Sagittaire and its distribution was immediately banned by the Vichy government
Vichy France
Vichy France, Vichy Regime, or Vichy Government, are common terms used to describe the government of France that collaborated with the Axis powers from July 1940 to August 1944. This government succeeded the Third Republic and preceded the Provisional Government of the French Republic...
. It got reprinted in 1947 after Breton's return from exile, with a few additions. In 1966, Breton, "having resisted the temptation to add more names", published the book again and called this edition "the definitive".
The anthology not only introduced some until then almost unknown or forgotten writers, it also coined the term "black humor" (as Breton said, until then the term had meant nothing, unless someone imagined jokes about black people ). The term became globally used since then. The choice of authors was done entirely by Breton and according to his taste which he explains in the Foreword (called The Lightning Rod, a term suggested by Lichtenberg), a work of great depth (Breton was the main theoretician of the Surrealist movement
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
) that starts with contemplating Rimbaud´s words "Emanations, explosions." from Rimbaud's last poem The barrack-room of night : Dream . The authors, each introduced by a preface by Breton and represented by a few pages from their writings, are sorted chronologically. The book is still in print. It was translated into several languages; into English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
by Mark Polizzotti in 1997.
Contents of the 1966 "definitive" edition
The anthology contains the following excerpts, each introduced by a commentary by Breton:- Jonathan SwiftJonathan SwiftJonathan Swift was an Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer , poet and cleric who became Dean of St...
: Directions to Servants, A Modest ProposalA Modest ProposalA Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland From Being a Burden on Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick, commonly referred to as A Modest Proposal, is a Juvenalian satirical essay written and published anonymously by Jonathan Swift in...
, A Meditation on a Broom-Stick; a few aphorisms; - D.-A.-F.de SadeMarquis de SadeDonatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade was a French aristocrat, revolutionary politician, philosopher, and writer famous for his libertine sexuality and lifestyle...
: Juliette - Georg Christoph LichtenbergGeorg Christoph LichtenbergGeorg Christoph Lichtenberg was a German scientist, satirist and Anglophile. As a scientist, he was the first to hold a professorship explicitly dedicated to experimental physics in Germany...
: selected aphorisms. - Charles FourierCharles FourierFrançois Marie Charles Fourier was a French philosopher. An influential thinker, some of Fourier's social and moral views, held to be radical in his lifetime, have become main currents in modern society...
: L'éléphant, le chien... - Thomas de QuinceyThomas de QuinceyThomas Penson de Quincey was an English esssayist, best known for his Confessions of an English Opium-Eater .-Child and student:...
- Pierre-François Lacenaire
- Petrus BorelPetrus BorelPetrus Borel was a French writer of the Romantic movement.Born Joseph-Pierre Borel dHauterive at Lyon, the 12 of 14 children of an ironmonger, he studied architecture in Paris but abandoned it for literature...
: Marchand et voleur est synonyme - Christian Dietrich GrabbeChristian Dietrich GrabbeChristian Dietrich Grabbe was a German dramatist.Born in Detmold, Lippe, he wrote many historical plays and is also known for his use of satire and irony. He suffered from an unhappy marriage...
- Edgar Allan PoeEdgar Allan PoeEdgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...
- Xavier ForneretXavier ForneretXavier Forneret was a French writer; poet, playwright and journalist.- Life :Born in Beaune in a rich bourgeois family by the name Antoine Charles Ferdinand, he was one of the few members of the Romantic movement who never experienced poverty and could afford to publish his books himself...
- Charles BaudelaireCharles BaudelaireCharles Baudelaire was a French poet who produced notable work as an essayist, art critic, and pioneering translator of Edgar Allan Poe. His most famous work, Les Fleurs du mal expresses the changing nature of beauty in modern, industrializing Paris during the nineteenth century...
- Lewis CarrollLewis CarrollCharles Lutwidge Dodgson , better known by the pseudonym Lewis Carroll , was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer. His most famous writings are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass, as well as the poems "The Hunting of the...
- Villiers de l'Isle-AdamAuguste Villiers de l'Isle-AdamJean-Marie-Mathias-Philippe-Auguste, comte de Villiers de l'Isle-Adam was a French symbolist writer.-Life:Villiers de l'Isle-Adam was born in Saint-Brieuc, Brittany, to a distinguished aristocratic family...
- Charles CrosCharles CrosCharles Cros was a French poet and inventor. He was born in Fabrezan, Aude, France, 35 km to the East of Carcassonne....
- Friedrich NietzscheFriedrich NietzscheFriedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a 19th-century German philosopher, poet, composer and classical philologist...
: Letter to Jacob Burckhardt (also published in The Portable Nietzche) - Isidore DucasseComte de LautréamontComte de Lautréamont was the pseudonym of Isidore Lucien Ducasse , an Uruguayan-born French poet....
(Comte de Lautréamont): excerpts from Maldor and Letters (Also published in Maldor and the Complete Works of the Comte de Lautreamont) - Joris-Karl HuysmansJoris-Karl HuysmansCharles-Marie-Georges Huysmans was a French novelist who published his works as Joris-Karl Huysmans . He is most famous for the novel À rebours...
- Tristan CorbièreTristan CorbièreTristan Corbière , born Édouard-Joachim Corbière, was a French poet born in Coat-Congar, Ploujean in Brittany, where he lived most of his life and where he died....
: The Litany of Sleep (also published in the Centenary Corbiere) - Germain NouveauGermain NouveauGermain Marie Bernard Nouveau was born and died in Pourrières, Var, in France . He was a French poet associated with the symbolist movement, and a friend of Rimbaud and Verlaine. In 1874 he traveled to London with Rimbaud. In 1876 he published "Dixains réalistes," a parody of the Parnassians...
- Arthur RimbaudArthur RimbaudJean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud was a French poet. Born in Charleville, Ardennes, he produced his best known works while still in his late teens—Victor Hugo described him at the time as "an infant Shakespeare"—and he gave up creative writing altogether before the age of 21. As part of the decadent...
: excerpt from A Heart under a Cassok (also published in Completed Works, Selected Letters) - Alphonse AllaisAlphonse AllaisAlphonse Allais was a French writer and humorist born in Honfleur, Calvados.He is the author of many collections of whimsical writings. A poet as much as a humorist, he in particular cultivated the verse form known as holorhyme, i.e. made up entirely of homophonous verses, where entire lines rhyme...
- Jean-Pierre BrissetJean-Pierre BrissetJean-Pierre Brisset was a French writer.Born in a family of farmers, Brisset was an outsider writer, much like Henri Rousseau was an outsider artist. He is a saint on the 'Pataphysics calendar. His writings are in publication as of 2004.Brisset was an autodidact...
- O. HenryO. HenryO. Henry was the pen name of the American writer William Sydney Porter . O. Henry's short stories are well known for their wit, wordplay, warm characterization and clever twist endings.-Early life:...
- André GideAndré GideAndré Paul Guillaume Gide was a French author and winner of the Nobel Prize in literature in 1947. Gide's career ranged from its beginnings in the symbolist movement, to the advent of anticolonialism between the two World Wars.Known for his fiction as well as his autobiographical works, Gide...
: Prometheus' Lecture (also published in Marshlands and Prometheus Misbound) - John Millington SyngeJohn Millington SyngeEdmund John Millington Synge was an Irish playwright, poet, prose writer, and collector of folklore. He was a key figure in the Irish Literary Revival and was one of the cofounders of the Abbey Theatre...
- Alfred JarryAlfred JarryAlfred Jarry was a French writer born in Laval, Mayenne, France, not far from the border of Brittany; he was of Breton descent on his mother's side....
: The Debraining Song; and excerpts from Ubu Enchained, Act I, Scene II Le Champ de Mars (also published in The Ubu Plays) - Raymond RousselRaymond RousselRaymond Roussel was a French poet, novelist, playwright, musician, and chess enthusiast. Through his novels, poems, and plays he exerted a profound influence on certain groups within 20th century French literature, including the Surrealists, Oulipo, and the authors of the nouveau...
: excerpt from Impressions of Africa - Francis PicabiaFrancis PicabiaFrancis Picabia was a French painter, poet, and typographist, associated with both the Dada and Surrealist art movements.- Early life :...
- Guillaume ApollinaireGuillaume ApollinaireWilhelm Albert Włodzimierz Apolinary Kostrowicki, known as Guillaume Apollinaire was a French poet, playwright, short story writer, novelist, and art critic born in Italy to a Polish mother....
: Dramaturgy and Meetings (from The Poet Assasinated and Other Stories) - Pablo PicassoPablo PicassoPablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...
- Arthur CravanArthur CravanArthur Cravan was known as a pugilist, a poet, a larger-than-life character, and an idol of the Dada and Surrealism movements. He was the second son of Otho Holland Lloyd and Hélène Clara St. Clair of Armenian desent. His brother, Otho, was born in 1885...
- Franz KafkaFranz KafkaFranz Kafka was a culturally influential German-language author of short stories and novels. Contemporary critics and academics, including Vladimir Nabokov, regard Kafka as one of the best writers of the 20th century...
: excerpt from The MetamorphosisThe MetamorphosisThe Metamorphosis is a novella by Franz Kafka, first published in 1915. It is often cited as one of the seminal works of short fiction of the 20th century and is widely studied in colleges and universities across the western world... - Jakob van HoddisJakob van HoddisJakob van Hoddis was the pen name of a German-Jewish expressionist poet Hans Davidsohn, of which name "Van Hoddis" is an anagram...
- Marcel DuchampMarcel DuchampMarcel Duchamp was a French artist whose work is most often associated with the Dadaist and Surrealist movements. Considered by some to be one of the most important artists of the 20th century, Duchamp's output influenced the development of post-World War I Western art...
: aphorisms (also found in The Writings of Marchel Duchamp - Hans Arp: Bestiary with no First Name
- Alberto SavinioAlberto SavinioAlberto Savinio, real name Andrea Francesco Alberto de Chirico was an Italian writer, painter, musician, journalist, essayist, playwright, set designer and composer. He was the younger brother of 'metaphysical' painter Giorgio De Chirico...
: Introduction to a Life of Mercury (from Le lives of the Gods) - Jacques VachéJacques VachéJacques Vaché was a friend of André Breton, the founder of surrealism. Vaché was one of the chief inspirations behind the Surrealist movement. As Breton said:...
- Benjamin PéretBenjamin PéretBenjamin Péret was a French poet, Parisian Dadaist and a founder and central member of the French Surrealist movement with his avid use of Surrealist automatism.-Biography:...
: Death to the Pigs and other writings - Jacques RigautJacques RigautJacques Rigaut was a French surrealist poet. Born in Paris, he was part of the Dadaist movement. His works frequently talked about suicide and he came to regard its successful completion as his occupation...
- Jacques PrévertJacques PrévertJacques Prévert was a French poet and screenwriter. His poems became and remain very popular in the French-speaking world, particularly in schools. Some of the movies he wrote are extremely well regarded, with Les Enfants du Paradis considered one of the greatest films of all time.-Life and...
- Salvador DalíSalvador DalíSalvador Domènec Felip Jacint Dalí i Domènech, Marquis de Púbol , commonly known as Salvador Dalí , was a prominent Spanish Catalan surrealist painter born in Figueres,Spain....
- Jean FerryJean FerryJean Levy known as Jean Ferry was a French writer and follower of the 'pataphysical tradition'.- See also :* La Loi des rues * Le Saint prend l'affût...
- Leonora CarringtonLeonora CarringtonLeonora Carrington OBE was a British-born Mexican artist, a surrealist painter and a novelist. She lived most of her life in Mexico City.-Early life:...
: The Debutante - Gisèle PrassinosGisèle PrassinosGisèle Prassinos is a French writer associated with the surrealist movement.She was born in Istanbul, Turkey and emigrated to France with her family at the age of two, where they lived initially in Nanterre...
- Jean-Pierre DupreyJean-Pierre DupreyJean-Pierre Duprey was a French poet and sculptor, one of the modern examples of an accursed poet....
Others works excerped include:
Louis Aragon
Louis Aragon
Louis Aragon , was a French poet, novelist and editor, a long-time member of the Communist Party and a member of the Académie Goncourt.- Early life :...
's 1928 Treatise on Style. Freud's 1928 Humor from International journal of psychoanalysis 9 1-6 (republished in Collected papers of Sigmung Freud vol.5).