Gide's concept of the gratuitous act: its relationship to surrealism and existentialism

In an interview in 1941, Breton also stated that surrealism consisted of the "alienation of sensation, the deep exploration of 'objective hazard the term used by the Surrealists to describe the unpredictable and seemingly illogical forces which control the succession of events - and 'the great modern tradition. Although Breton's manifesto is considered the beginning of surrealism, the movement did not suddenly spring up one day in 1924. Rather, it came about as a "crystallization of a historical and artistic development" which started with nineteenth century romantics such as Gerald de Nerval who believed in mixing elements of the "spiritual and the physical" in order to arrive at a "new representation of the supernatural.18 Nor do all the ideas of the surrealists disappear with the end of the movement. Many of them are to be found again in the existentialists.