SOURCE: "Miró and Breton," in Yale French Studies, No. 31, 1964, pp. 52-9.

Hubert is a poet and scholar. In the following excerpt, she analyzes Breton's surrealist technique in Constellations, a volume consisting of twenty-two prose poems that parallel paintings by the artist Joan Miró.

Breton's Surrealist technique, unchanged since Poisson soluble, is very much in evidence in Constellations. An animated spectacle unfolds, several events happen simultaneously, and this multifarious animation provides the only unity. "Le Lever du soleil" suggests a solitary child's crossing of the threshold leading into a world of fantasy, legend, and heraldry. This movement coincides with the denouement of another more adult, fateful play. After this awakening, a further exploration of this newly discovered land is suggested by a series of unfolding movements, such as the sudden opening of poppies, the upward projection of an invisible ladder, the cries of chimneysweeps, mysterious skybound smoke rings. Then...