SURREALISMO. — French literary and artistic movement. The term « surrealist » first appears as the subtitle of a drama by G. Apollinaire, Les mammelles de Tirésias (1918).
The Manifesto of the new movement, which immediately followed the short-lived one named « Dada », was launched by André Breton in 1924. A first definition may be that given by Breton himself: « Psychic automatism through which one proposes to express, whether verbally, in writing, or in any other manner, the actual functioning of thought. Dictation of thought, in the absence of all control, beyond every aesthetic or moral concern ». But the literary group that arose around Breton, Soupault, Aragon, and Eluard claims antecedents and precursors in every literature and every century, and extends to the figurative arts and music, and finally to every attitude of thought, wherever free imagination or philosophical inquiry devoid of controls and limitations may be found. In particular, s. approaches psychoanalysis and every more advanced attempt at verbal invention, both in poetry and in the novel. Around 1940, the movement had run its course, and nothing remains of it but consequences of doubtful taste in every art.