The Origin of Surrealism: Rethinking Apollinaire's Penetrating Brain Injury with Current Knowledge Regarding White Matter Tracts

Abstract

The French poet Apollinaire enrolled in the French army during World War I. In 1916, he sustained a penetrating brain injury when a fragment of shrapnel pierced his helmet in the right temporal region. Neurosurgical techniques were at that time standardized to manage the significant number of war-related neurosurgical casualties. Apollinaire, who experienced transient fainting followed by left-sided hemiparesis 2 months after his trauma, underwent trepanation. The poet's personality and behavior changed dramatically after his trauma. These neurobehavioral changes, associated with preserved cognition and no other neurologic dysfunction, were later described as Apollinaire syndrome. These personality changes were accompanied by flourishing writing changes. Hence, 15 months after his penetrating brain injury, the poet introduced the term "surrealism" to the world in his play The Breasts of Tiresias, giving birth to a major movement that paved the way for the 20th century. Linguistic shifts such as phonologic and semantic word games were at the forefront of the narrative process of the play. Traumatic brain injury often leads to cognitive impairment. In the case of Apollinaire, if the ballistic trauma were also responsible for diffuse axonal injury, it could have also led to semantic and social cognition impairment, in addition to the neuropsychological disorders that had already been widely documented by his friends and family. The world will always remember Apollinaire's writing genius as deeply associated with the birth of surrealism. But what if the poet's new writing style was caused, at least in part, by the unexpected help of a lost shrapnel fragment?

Keywords: Literature; Penetrating brain injury; Surrealism; White matter tract.