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Robert Desnos and the Play of Popular Culture

by Charles A. Nunley (Author)
©2018 Monographs VIII, 176 Pages

Summary

Robert 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 resistance activities. Exploration of these intriguing but surprisingly little-known facets of his artistic production demonstrates that Desnos, far from abandoning his prewar fascination with the power of popular media, sustained and deepened his engagement with public culture as a space of contestation where the interplay of public and private, producer and consumer, intersects with the cultural politics of wartime France. The book includes the full text of Desnos’s eleven articles for Voilà, which have never been previously collected, with accompanying English translations.

Table Of Contents

  • Cover
  • Title
  • Copyright
  • About the author
  • About the book
  • This eBook can be cited
  • Contents
  • Introduction
  • Chapter 1: Reportage and the Re-Enchantment of Actualité: Robert Desnos at Voilà (1933–1935)
  • Chapter 2: Radio and the Cultivation of the Popular in Time of War: Good Evening, Ladies and Gentlemen (1944)
  • Chapter 3: English Translation of the Articles by Robert Desnos in Voilà (1933–1935)
  • “I Need Money” November 18, 1933
  • “I Need Money” November 25, 1933
  • “Dillinger’s Women” August 11, 1934
  • “Roland Had Durandal!” September 8, 1934
  • “Revolting Old Men: Sir Basil Zaharoff” September 29, 1934
  • “The Master of the Insane” November 24, 1934
  • “The Lindbergh Affair” January 19, 1935
  • “The Flying Aquanaut” March 23, 1935
  • “Magic Wand” April 27, 1935
  • “Who Doesn’t Have a Mask?” May 11, 1935
  • “All That’s Left to Say About the Normandy” May 18, 1935
  • “A Vibrant Recreation of Turn-of-the-Century Paris: The Party at Le Moulin” June 8, 1935
  • Chapter 4: Full French Text of the Articles by Robert Desnos in Voilà (1933–1935)
  • “J’ai besoin d’argent” (18 novembre 1933)
  • “J’ai besoin d’argent” (25 novembre 1933)
  • “Les Poules à Dillinger” (11 août 1934)
  • “Roland eut Durandal!…” (8 septembre 1934)
  • “Affreux vieillards: Sir Basil Zaharoff” (29 septembre 1934)
  • “Le maître des fous” (24 novembre 1934)
  • “L’affaire Lindbergh” (19 janvier 1935)
  • “Le scaphandrier volant” (23 mars 1935)
  • “Baguette magique” (27 avril 1935)
  • “Qui n’a pas son masque?” (11 mai 1935)
  • “Ce qui reste à dire sur le Normandie” (18 mai 1935)
  • “Une étincelante reconstitution du Paris de 1900: La fête au Moulin” (8 juin 1935)
  • Index

Charles A. Nunley

Robert Desnos and the
Play of Popular Culture

About the author

Charles A. Nunley is Professor of French at Middlebury College. He completed his Ph.D. at Princeton University, specializing in French literature of the interwar and World War II periods. His work has been supported by grants from the American Philosophical Society and National Endowment for the Humanities.

About the book

Robert 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 resistance activities. Exploration of these intriguing but surprisingly little-known facets of his artistic production demonstrates that Desnos, far from abandoning his prewar fascination with the power of popular media, sustained and deepened his engagement with public culture as a space of contestation where the interplay of public and private, producer and consumer, intersects with the cultural politics of wartime France. The book includes the full text of Desnos’s eleven articles for Voilà, which have never been previously collected, with accompanying English translations.

This eBook can be cited

This edition of the eBook can be cited. To enable this we have marked the start and end of a page. In cases where a word straddles a page break, the marker is placed inside the word at exactly the same position as in the physical book. This means that occasionally a word might be bifurcated by this marker.

Details

Pages
VIII, 176
Year
2018
ISBN (PDF)
9781433143021
ISBN (ePUB)
9781433143038
ISBN (MOBI)
9781433143045
ISBN (Hardcover)
9781433143014
DOI
10.3726/b13021
Language
English
Publication date
2018 (February)
Published
New York, Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles, Oxford, Wien, 2018. VIII, 176 pp.

Biographical notes

Charles A. Nunley (Author)

Charles A. Nunley is Professor of French at Middlebury College. He completed his Ph.D. at Princeton University, specializing in French literature of the interwar and World War II periods. His work has been supported by grants from the American Philosophical Society and National Endowment for the Humanities.

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