"Words make love with one another"

Andre Breton’s phrase, “Words make love with one another,” evokes a living, intimate energy within language. Words are not static symbols composing basic messages, but vibrant entities capable of profound connection. Just as individuals in love interact unpredictably, generating new sensations and realities, words, when combined with intention and artistry, transcend their everyday meanings, producing resonant ideas and experiences impossible in isolation. Language, under this lens, becomes a space of creativity, where meanings entwine and give birth to fresh meanings, a tender, generative process akin to the creation of life.

Surrealism, the movement Breton championed, sought to unravel the chains of rationality and convention, welcoming the subconscious, the irrational, and the marvelous. By saying words “make love,” Breton encourages freedom from linguistic rigidity. When words passionately collide, their union is not merely utilitarian. Their relationships produce poetry, ambiguity, sensation, and surprise. Erotic energy becomes a metaphor for linguistic potential: words seek one another out, entwine, and from their embrace emerges something unanticipated and vital.

Consider the way metaphors and similes operate. The phrase “the moon weeps” fuses moon and weeping, two disparate ideas, yielding emotional resonance that neither word achieves alone. Through their union, an entirely new image is born. Even in prose, the juxtaposition and combination of words transform mere statements into evocative atmospheres, sensorial landscapes, and emotional realities.

Breton’s image also suggests a democratization of language. No single word dominates; meaning is generated not by authority, but by interaction and relationship. Writers, poets, and readers alike become witnesses or facilitators of these passionate encounters, allowing language to evolve and proliferate in meaning. Ultimately, Breton’s assertion is a call for linguistic playfulness and liberation, embracing the unpredictable beauty that arises when words interact beyond prescription, when they, quite simply, make love.