Article ID: CBB000932093

Das reine Sein des Schreibens. Écriture automatique in der Psychiatrie des späten 19. Jahrhunderts und im frühen Surrealismus (Breton/Soupault: Les champs magnétiques) (2009)

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The Pure Being of Writing. Écriture automatique in 19th Century Psychiatry and Early Surrealism (Breton/Soupault: Les champs magnétiques). Écriture automatique and psychoanalysis are often lumped together in literary studies, almost as a knee-jerk reaction. However, on closer inspection it can be seen that the discoverers of automatic writing - the surrealists - were more interested in the hysteria research that prevailed around the year 1900 (Pierre Janet, Alfred Binet) and in parapsychology (Frederic Myers). In these two branches of medicine, the theory and practice of automatic writing are based on an experimental constellation in which the relationship between the psychiatrist/experiment organiser and the patient/participant takes centre stage. Here, the latter writes in response to an order or question from the former, mostly while overcoming a physical or memory block. André Breton and Philippe Soupault set up a very similar constellation in the Champs magnétiques, though with some key alterations. Indeed, surrealism liberates the patient engaging in automatic writing from the dictates of the psychiatrist - but only to submit him to a yet more overwhelming force, a pure violence of writing, so to speak: the automatism of a higher reality.

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Authors & Contributors
Raia, Courtenay Grean
Plas, Régine
Pratte, Erika Annabelle
Evrard, Renaud
Cardeña, Etzel
Pietro Terzi
Concepts
Psychology
Parapsychology; psychic phenomena
Psychiatry
Clinical psychology
Spiritualism
Science and literature
Time Periods
19th century
20th century, early
20th century
Places
France
Great Britain
Netherlands
Italy
Germany
China
Institutions
Reichsuniversität Strassburg
Institut für Psychologie und Klinische Psychologie
Society for Psychical Research
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