Retrospection and Prophecy in the Structure of Mad Love

André Breton's Mad Love deserves more attention both as a literary narrative and as a set of theoretical propositions about art and politics. This article studies its narrative time-structure and examines its arguments, and asks what each of these aspects of the text can tell us about the other. Breton's theoretical claims are put in conversation with some key texts of later Marxist thought, and Mad Love's story of prophecy and self-interpretation is read as a way of thinking about time.