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SURREALISM, n. Psychic automatism in its pure state, by which one proposes to express -- verbally, by means of the written word, or in any other manner -- the actual functioning of thought. Dictated by the thought, in the absence of any control exercised by reason, exempt from any aesthetic or moral concern.
–Breton, First Manifest of Surrealism
Surrealist automatism is a method in which the writer suppresses conscious control over the writing process. It is almost exactly what we now know as free writing, but with more emphasis on giving space for the subconscious. Unlike free writing, it is not trying for self-expression, but to write without any preconceived subject matter (including the self). And it is not a pre-writing method or a preparation for writing, but a drafting technique, meant to generate substantially finished pieces.
Because automatism is strongly associated with Surrealism and Surrealism strikes many people as weird, it carries unfavorable connotations. It may evoke the robotic style of mediumistic transcription, or revolutionary libido. But automatic writing, while it has been connected with such, is neither of these. It is something simpler and better.
The Mysterious Balance
There is a pendulum in theories of creativity, with poets and periods going back and forth on who is right. On one end, creativity is virility and activity. The writer pushes into experience and feeling. Under the Romantics this side held sway. Poetry was an “overflow of powerful feelings” and a single, organic sensation that moves through the poet into language. Percy Shelly: “[W]hen composition begins, inspiration is already on the decline, and the most glorious poetry that has ever been communicated to the world is probably a feeble shadow of the original conceptions of the poet.” The idea is in the poet, and language flows from them. Writers on this side of the pendulum don’t wait around, they just write. If they must fill themselves up with life to get inspired and passionate, they do that.
On the other end of the spectrum, the writer is a monk, listening intently to the world, seeking egolessness and enlightenment. To reach this state requires a long preparation. Training, which involves a lot of waiting, eventually leads to germination:
For the artist there is no counting or tallying up; just ripening like the tree that does not force its sap and endures the storms of spring without fearing that summer will not come. But it will come. It comes, however, only to the patient ones who stand there as if eternity lay before them—vast, still, untroubled. (Rilke, from Letters to a Young Poet)
Modernist poets explored both sides and argued about them. The “active” view was often claimed by the avant-garde, and the passive view by the academics and traditionalists. But few poets would say it’s all one or the other, because they know poetry does not come only from willing or waiting. There is always a synergy, a mysterious balance.
Surrealism was only one movement circling around the mystery, but it had unconventional ideas about it. The strangeness of automatic writing is that it cannot be easily located on the active or passive spectrum. If we speak of the subconscious, it appears to come from within; if we foreground the role of chance, from without. Yet both views entail a surrender to something beyond direct control. Working with this other force, and finding a way to trust it, is when poetry becomes music.
(My wife walked in just now to ask whether she should make Memorial Day French Potato Salad with broccoli or leeks and asparagus variant. “The latter, duh!” “But do we want to share our nice ingredients [i.e, leeks, asparagus] with others?” Me: “False choice. We always end up eating nearly all our own dishes at parties, and take home the leftovers!” The illusion of passivity breaks when patience is recognized as action, when the gift circles back to the giver.)
There has only ever been a few modes of invention: imitation, prescribed forms, and mimetic description. Automatism proposes another mode. It reimagined what process and form could be.
But, What Is It?
Want more specifics? Here's how Breton described it:
After you have settled yourself in a place as favorable as possible to the concentration of your mind upon itself, have writing materials brought to you. Put yourself in as passive, or receptive, a state of mind as you can. Forget about your genius, your talents, and the talents of everyone else. Keep reminding yourself that literature is one of the saddest roads that leads to everything. Write quickly, without any preconceived subject, fast enough so that you will not remember what you're writing and be tempted to reread what you have written. The first sentence will come spontaneously, so compelling is the truth that with every passing second there is a sentence unknown to our consciousness which is only crying out to be heard. It is somewhat of a problem to form an opinion about the next sentence; it doubtless partakes both of our conscious activity and of the other, if one agrees that the fact of having written the first entails a minimum of perception. This should be of no importance to you, however; to a large extent, this is what is most interesting and intriguing about the Surrealist game. The fact still remains that punctuation no doubt resists the absolute continuity of the flow with which we are concerned, although it may seem as necessary as the arrangement of knots in a vibrating cord. Go on as long as you like. Put your trust in the inexhaustible nature of the murmur. If silence threatens to settle in if you should ever happen to make a mistake -- a mistake, perhaps due to carelessness -- break off without hesitation with an overly clear line. Following a word the origin of which seems suspicious to you, place any letter whatsoever, the letter "l" for example, always the letter "l," and bring the arbitrary back by making this letter the first of the following word.
I have come to love this passage for its self-aware humor (only gentleman with servants, apparently, can write poetry, having “writings materials brought to [them]”?), and for its mystification of what is rather un-mysterious set of steps, but here I only care to show that there is a set of steps, and quite a few, actually. Depending on how you sort it, about seven:
Settle into a place favorable for concentration.
Have writing materials brought to you.
Put yourself in a passive state of mind, and step away from the ego (“forget about your genius”).
Write the first sentence quickly and spontaneously.
Let subsequent sentences flow naturally from the previous ones, and don’t get hung up on punctuation.
If you get stuck or make a mistake, go back to the last word that feels right and restart by writing a word that starts with a letter picked at random.
End when you feel silence threatening, breaking off with an “overly clear line.”
What was edgy here was (a) the complete commitment to process over subject matter (there is no preconceived subject for the writing session), (b) trusting the unconscious for content, and (c) a rapid drafting tempo, to disable editing and self-censorship. All three innovations require the relaxed, receptive, or “passive” attitude Breton prepares us for in the opening steps. The magic of the windsail comes from harnessing the counterforce of the air, not sheer horse power. There is a knack to automatism. You control it, but you don’t, and you have to relax to get the feel of it.
On the other hand automatism is the lease passive method imaginable. It is energetic, decisive! Surrealism was out to colonize the subconscious. It wanted a revolution of the mind, and it was willing to use force. Breton: “Imagination is not a gift, it must be conquered.” You will yourself to sit down in the chair and start the session. The prescribed steps makes automatism somewhat rigid. You can only move in one direction, for instance: forward! But, on the other hand, it emphatically places no restrictions on content. You can write anything! So we have a paradox: automatism is a synthetic, plastic writing form, and yet it procedurally strict.
A century later, after composition theory has researched and established the scientific basis for writing flow states, this doesn’t sound that surprising. But for the Surrealists, it was huge, because it shifted focus away from ideas to process. Ideas were what mattered for poets in the 1920s, for whom originality and ownership were paramount. Romanticism had placed value on originality. And obscenity laws meant you were responsible for your words. Anxiety about the ideas you were writing could be downright crippling. Automatism, by its strict process, frees you from that. And removing that limitation allows you to just go.
Writing With Love
Automatism lead to a breakthrough concept that ideas are not produced by individuals but are circulated and recirculated, even unconsciously. It made it easier to see that there are no ideas that are actually “yours.” What you provide is transmission, style, energy, or, to put it more simply, love. Eighty years later, this point would be explained brilliantly by Jonathan Lethem in “The Ecstasy of Influence.” Writing at the apex of the Napster-era debate about copyright and creative commons, Lethem argues that no one owns art, that it can only, wonderfully and mysteriously, be given away. Artists offer their work as a gift, and those who enjoy it, give back. It’s a community of love. This goes to the creative process itself. We steal art we admire in order to put our love into it, remixing it and returning it to the community to be remixed again but someone else. Instead of seeing literature as a market where texts are owned and copyrighted, he proposes we see it for what it seems to be by nature—a gift economy.
I think we can extend that thesis to whatever psychic force is behind automatic writing. While Breton got the concept of subconscious speech from Freud, it would be a mistake to think the images produced by automatic writing primarily have private psychological source. The sources are numerous, and include especially images from culture and art that writers love. Automatic writing, that is to say, is writing with a kind of loving attention to everything we know and do not know.
Put your trust in the inexhaustible nature of the murmur.
–Breton
Mastering the Murmur
At first, writers are usually skeptical of automatic writing. They fear that writing without control or the guidance of reason will be junk. Such doubts are easily assuaged by giving it a try. But there is a second level of concern, more difficult to deal with, that says it is dangerous to make automatism a primary practice for the serious writer. That if you rely on it too much, it will make you incapable of ambitious, complex work.
But it turns out otherwise. Whatever part of the brain is activated by automatic writing is a wonderful part, and as it gets exercised and loved, it starts to switch on more easily and dance with the other parts. When it’s fully healthy, it can take any part in the drama. If you want it to be the star, great, but it can also take a supporting role, jumping for a moment of improvisation, a dash of something that makes the show a winner. It plays well with the other creative modes.
For a time, the Surrealists were too committed to their ideals to realize this, insisting on purity of method. But subsequent generations figured out that automatism had a lot more potential when it is one tool among many. The Deep Image poets, for example, combined it with techniques from Imagism, and the Beats matched its fast-pace free association with mystical forms and political subjects. These poets show that the “murmur” doesn’t turn you into a vegetable, but, paradoxically, can be controlled. With practice it can be focused on subjects, integrated with “logical” writing elements, and experimented with in endless ways. Work with it and it works for you.
Have Writing Materials Brought To You
Automatism, despite its initial shock value as an extreme style or defiant gesture, actually offers a middle way in the paradox of creativity. It recognizes the world is a source of images and invites the poet to let the world flow through them. And, despite its initial restrictiveness, it opens as a path into a whole range of creative methods.
Rilke is right. We wait for poems to come, and there is a ripening that allows the practiced automatist to bear fruit with greater ease and increasing openness, “as if eternity lay before them.” But his tree metaphor hides the fact that for humans “passivity” is never truly passive. Forcing oneself to start writing, even spontaneously, makes the sap flow.
So sit down, have writing materials brought to you, and start writing, as Breton says. The results may surprise you. If it does, send it to me. (How to submit.)
“Lethem argues that no one owns art, that it can only, wonderfully and mysteriously, be given away. Artists offer their work as a gift, and those who enjoy it, give back. It’s a community of love. This goes to the creative process itself. We steal art we admire in order to put our love into it, remixing it and returning it to the community to be remixed again but someone else. Instead of seeing literature as a market where texts are owned and copyrighted, he proposes we see it for what it seems to be by nature—a gift economy.”
LOVE this!! Thanks for these wonderful thoughts.