Le Grand Jeu (Performance Group)
Le Grand Jeu was a group of young French artists and the name of a literary and philosophical magazine published by them in the years 1928–1930.
history
The starting point of Le Grand Jeu was the experimental group Les phrères simples founded in Reims in 1922 by five high school students ( Roger Gilbert-Lecomte , René Daumal , Roger Vailland , Roger Caillois and Robert Meyrat ) . They wanted to rediscover the simplicity of childhood and the associated spontaneous and intuitive knowledge through various methods.
In 1925 Gilbert-Lecomte, Daumal, Vailland and Meyrat came into contact with André Breton and the surrealist movement he led through the publisher Léon Pierre-Quint in Paris . Other artists joined the group: Joseph Sima , Pierre Audard, André Delons, Artür Harfaux, Maurice Henry, Pierre Minet, Hendrik Cramer (also Kramer), Vera Milanova and André Rolland de Reneville. In 1927 the group changed its name to Le Grand Jeu and began publishing its eponymous magazine.
The group Le Grand Jeu was concerned with psychological and physical transgressions of boundaries and expansion of consciousness , which were brought about by drugs, sleep deprivation and esoteric methods and were to become the basis of social revolution.
In 1930, after the publication of three issues of their magazine, the Le Grand Jeu group disbanded . A few more texts appeared afterwards (as No. 4). The main actors Gilbert-Lecomte and Daumal died in 1943 and 1944.
Controversy with the surrealists
Despite at times intensive contacts with André Breton , the group refused to join the surrealist movement led by Breton. As a result, there were violent journalistic disputes between Breton and Le Grand Jeu , in which u. a. Louis Aragon tried to mediate. In this context, René Daumal wrote in an open letter to André Breton in 1930 :
- "Prenez garde, André Breton, de figurer plus tard dans les manuels d'histoire littéraire, alors que si nous briguions quelque honneur, ce serait celui d'être inscrits pour la postérité dans l'histoire des cataclysmes".
- ( Be careful, André Breton, that you do not appear in the handbooks on the history of literature later, while, on the other hand, if we apply for any honor, we will compete for posterity in the history of disasters. )
Aftermath
Le grand Jeu's own spiritual-revolutionary approach was mostly marginalized in the following years compared to literary surrealism. In the last few decades it has been rediscovered in France and English-speaking countries.
Bibliography (selection)
- Le Grand Jeu, n ° 1 à 4, 1928–1932. Paris 1977, ISBN 2858930104 .
- Catalog Le Grand Jeu. Preface by Bernard Noël. Paris 2003.
- Michel Random: Le Grand Jeu. Paris 1970. (2 volumes) Extended new edition: Le Grand Jeu. Les Enfants de Rimbaud le Voyant. Paris 2005.
- Roger Gilbert-Lecomte, Maurice Henry, René Daumal: “Le Grand Jeu”. The need for revolt. Nuremberg 1980. (selection volume). Changed new edition: Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-923211-13-5 . ( online, (PDF file) )
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Documented in Le Grand Jeu , No. 3.
- ↑ Book Description of the Complete Edition 1977 Le Grand Jeu ( Memento of the original from November 16, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed May 19, 2012.
