French literary critic & surrealist poet (1929-1996)
Surrealism, although the courses of literature paradoxically make room for it today, is not a discipline that can be taught.
JEAN-LOUIS BÉDOUIN
Twenty Years of Surrealism
Surrealism is born of a consciousness of the derisory condition allotted to the individual and his thought, and a refusal to accommodate oneself to it.
JEAN-LOUIS BÉDOUIN
Twenty Years of Surrealism
However syncretic we may think Surrealism is, there is absolutely no reason to suppose it is a philosophy, just because it may proceed on the philosophical level of Hegelian dialectic; or because it may have recognized, on the level of traditional knowledge, a few of the major sources of hermetic philosophy; or because at some point in its development it may have subscribed to the basic principles of Marxism-Leninism. Nor is it a psychology, although Freud's discoveries and theories greatly contributed to setting it on its path.
JEAN-LOUIS BÉDOUIN
Twenty Years of Surrealism