Apollinaire et le Dr. Vinchon: poésie, psychanalyse et les débuts du surréalisme

This article uses unpublished correspondence and other archive materials from private and public collections to reveal and explore for the first time the relationship between the poet Apollinaire and Dr Jean Vinchon, a pioneer of art therapy at St Anne psychiatric hospital in Paris. It extends and clarifies our awareness of Apollinaire’s contacts with Freudian psychoanalysis, his interest in sexuality and the subconscious, and the ways in which these preoccupations nourish his poetry and prose. Our appreciation of Apollinaire’s role as a precursor of 1920s surrealism is thus considerably enhanced.