Section 1 Summary and Analysis

Mad Love or L'Amour fou is surrealist theorist André Breton's case study on love. Following on his earlier work, Nadja that chronicled his interractions with a young woman who was eventually shown to be mentally-unbalanced, Mad Love continues Breton's exploration of madness and love, demonstrating how, for the purposes of surrealist theory and practice, the two are completely intertwined.

Mad Love opens with Breton invoking the theater and by beginning the first section of the book this way, Breton immediately juxtaposes ideas of theatre, audience, and performers. The reference to stage and the "unveiling" that occurs in theatre are important metaphors for the unveiling that Breton wants to tackle in Mad Love, particularly as he is the actor, the analyst, and the author.

The first section of Mad Love invokes the works of many avant-garde artists and theorists that Breton and...