Breton fused woman, nature, and poetry into a single mediating totality

Evidence

For all poets-or almost all-woman embodies nature; but for Breton, she not only expresses it: she delivers it. Because nature does not speak in a clear language, its mysteries have to be penetrated in order to grasp its truth, which is the same thing as its beauty: poetry is not simply the reflection of it but rather its key; and woman here cannot be differentiated from poetry. That is why she is the indispensable mediator without whom the whole earth would be silenced: “Nature is likely to light up and to fade out, to serve and not to serve me, only to the extent that I feel the rise and the fall of the fire of a hearth which is love, the only love, that for a single being … — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 599

Categorization

• DEFINE: Beauvoir here defines Breton’s figure of woman as mediator — distinct from the mere poetic embodiment of nature seen in earlier surrealist poets.
• XREF: Connects to Beauvoir’s central project of analyzing how woman is posited as Other — here rendered as ‘indispensable mediator’ in the male lyrical economy. — connects to: For surrealists woman is real enough to embody poetry in the flesh; Breton’s surrealist mythology of unique eternal love actually masks a plurality of beloved women.; Breton invokes Melusina as the mythic figure of woman redeemed through nature (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Woman’s subjugation symbolizes the mastery of nature that defines civilization #corroborates (0.85) — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 255
• Conquering nature is mythically gendered as conquering woman #corroborates (0.85)
• Poetic tradition reduces woman’s body to a natural landscape for man to possess. #corroborates (0.80)