At a time of intensified interest in the nature of the avant-garde movements, here is Anna Balakian's first-rate study of the founders of modern French poetry. The sources of poetry of Breton, Aragon, Eluard, and a number of other surrealists are explored as they relate to French and German romanticism and to the brilliant poetic experiments of Lautreamont, Rimbaud, Malarme, Apollinaire, and the Dadaists. These poets are examined against the background of the thought of their age as the author shows how their philosophical preoccupations and their poetic innovations grew out of a profoundly mystical vision of reality, a vision that transfigured traditional poetic themes and laid the groundwork for surrealist poetry.