Neurological Impact of World War I on the Artistic Avant-Garde: The Examples of Andre Breton, Guillaume Apollinaire and Blaise Cendrars

World War I erupted at a time when artistic avant-gardes were particularly thriving across Europe. Young poets, writers, painters and sculptors were called to arms or voluntary enrolled to fight, and several of them died during the conflict. Among others, it dramatically changed their creative output, either through specific wounds or through personal encounters and experiences. These individual events then significantly modified the course of the literary and artistic avant-garde movements. Three particularly illustrative examples of avant-garde French poets are presented here: Andre Breton (1896-1966), Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918) and Blaise Cendrars (1887-1961). The deep source of the surrealist movement can indeed be found in Andre Breton's involvement as an auxiliary physician with critical interest in neuropsychiatry, which caused him to discover automatic writing. Guil-laume Apollinaire's right temporal subdural hematoma strongly modified his emotional state and subsequent artistic activities. Alternatively, after losing his right, writing hand, Blaise Cendrars not only substituted it with a phantom but also rapidly switched from poetry to novels after he learnt to write with his left hand. (C) 2016 S. Karger AG, Basel