Surrealism In Literature

Delving into the Dream: Surrealism in Literature

Introduction:

Have you ever read a sentence that twisted reality into a pretzel, leaving you questioning the very fabric of your understanding? That, my friend, is the magic of surrealism in literature. This isn't your grandma's polite tea party novel; this is a descent into the subconscious, a vibrant exploration of dreams, nightmares, and the illogical beauty found in the unexpected. This comprehensive guide will unravel the captivating world of surrealist literature, examining its origins, key characteristics, prominent authors, and lasting impact on the literary landscape. Prepare to have your perceptions challenged and your imagination ignited as we journey into the heart of the surreal.


I. The Genesis of Surrealism: A Rebellion Against Reason

Surrealism, emerging in the aftermath of World War I, was a powerful reaction against the perceived constraints of reason and logic. Born from the Dada movement’s nihilistic rejection of societal norms, surrealism sought to liberate the unconscious mind, exploring the bizarre juxtapositions and illogical connections that define the dream state. It was a rebellion against the rationalism of the Enlightenment, a conscious effort to tap into the irrational and the unexpected. Key figures like André Breton, with his Manifesto of Surrealism, laid the groundwork for this literary movement, advocating for automatic writing and the exploration of the subconscious as a source of artistic inspiration. The disillusionment and trauma of war profoundly influenced the movement’s focus on the chaotic and unpredictable aspects of human existence.


II. Defining Characteristics of Surrealist Literature:

Surrealist literature is not easily defined by rigid rules, but several key characteristics consistently emerge:

Juxtaposition: The unexpected pairing of disparate images and concepts. Think a melting clock sitting atop a wilting flower – the incongruity itself becomes a powerful statement.
Automatic Writing: A technique where writers bypass conscious thought, letting their pens flow freely onto the page, capturing the raw, unfiltered output of the unconscious. This leads to stream-of-consciousness narratives that often defy conventional grammar and structure.
Dream Logic: Surrealist narratives often operate on the logic of dreams, where cause and effect are fluid and nonsensical. Characters might morph into objects, landscapes shift unpredictably, and time becomes a malleable entity.
The Grotesque and the Absurd: Surrealism often embraces the grotesque and the absurd, using them to challenge conventional notions of beauty and morality. The unsettling and the comical often coexist in a fascinating tension.
Exploration of the Subconscious: The central focus is on accessing and expressing the contents of the subconscious mind, including desires, fears, and repressed memories. This often leads to powerful explorations of the human psyche.


III. Key Figures in Surrealist Literature:

Several authors profoundly shaped the course of surrealist literature:

André Breton: The father of Surrealism, his works like Nadja exemplify the movement's core tenets.
Antonin Artaud: His "Theatre of Cruelty" extended surrealist principles to the stage, emphasizing visceral experiences and unsettling imagery.
Louis Aragon: His novels and poems showcase surrealist themes intertwined with political and social commentary.
Paul Éluard: Known for his intensely emotional and evocative poetry, exploring themes of love, loss, and the revolutionary spirit.
Georges Bataille: His transgressive writings explored taboo subjects and pushed the boundaries of acceptable expression, often with a focus on violence, death, and sexuality.


IV. The Enduring Legacy of Surrealism:

Surrealism's influence extends far beyond its initial literary confines. Its impact is visible in various art forms, including painting, film, and music. The movement's exploration of the subconscious and the irrational continues to resonate with contemporary artists and writers. Surrealist techniques, such as juxtaposition and dream logic, are employed by many modern writers to create compelling and thought-provoking narratives. The movement's legacy lies in its relentless challenge to conventional thought and its unwavering commitment to expressing the complex depths of the human experience.


V. Surrealism's Continued Relevance in the 21st Century:

In a world increasingly defined by technological advancements and rational discourse, surrealism offers a vital counterpoint. Its exploration of the irrational and the subconscious remains relevant, even crucial, in helping us understand the complexities of the human condition in the face of overwhelming technological and social changes. The movement’s focus on challenging societal norms and embracing unconventional perspectives continues to inspire artists and writers to question authority and explore the uncharted territories of the human imagination.


Sample Book Outline: "Unraveling the Surreal: A Journey Through Literary Dreamscapes"

Introduction: A brief overview of Surrealism and its significance in literature.
Chapter 1: The Historical Context: Tracing the origins of Surrealism and its connection to Dadaism.
Chapter 2: Key Characteristics and Techniques: A detailed examination of the defining features of surrealist writing.
Chapter 3: Major Figures and Their Works: In-depth analyses of key surrealist authors and their most influential works.
Chapter 4: Surrealism and Other Art Forms: Exploring the movement's influence on painting, film, and music.
Chapter 5: The Enduring Legacy and Contemporary Relevance: Analyzing the lasting impact of surrealism on modern literature and culture.
Conclusion: Summarizing the key findings and highlighting the enduring power of surrealism.


(The detailed content for each chapter would expand upon the points mentioned in the main body of this article.)


FAQs:

1. What is the difference between Surrealism and Dadaism? Dadaism was a nihilistic rejection of societal norms, while Surrealism built upon this foundation, seeking to tap into the power of the unconscious mind creatively.

2. Is Surrealism only found in literature? No, it's a broader artistic movement impacting painting, sculpture, film, and music.

3. What are some examples of Surrealist imagery? Melting clocks, elongated figures, bizarre landscapes, and unexpected juxtapositions of objects.

4. How does automatic writing work? It involves writing without conscious thought, allowing the subconscious to guide the pen.

5. Who are some lesser-known Surrealist writers? Consider exploring the works of Benjamin Péret, Liselotte Werler, and Unica Zürn.

6. How does Surrealism reflect the anxieties of its time? The post-WWI era's disillusionment and trauma heavily influenced the movement's embrace of chaos and the irrational.

7. Can Surrealism be considered a political movement? While not solely political, many Surrealist writers incorporated political and social commentary into their work.

8. How is Surrealism used in contemporary literature? Many modern authors utilize surrealist techniques such as dream logic and unexpected juxtapositions to create unique and compelling narratives.

9. Where can I find more resources on Surrealism? Libraries, museums, academic journals, and online archives offer extensive resources on Surrealism.


Related Articles:

1. The Impact of World War I on Surrealist Literature: Explores the historical context and influence of the war on the movement.
2. Automatic Writing: A Deep Dive into Surrealist Technique: Examines the process and implications of automatic writing.
3. Surrealism in Film: A Visual Exploration of the Unconscious: Analyzes the use of surrealist techniques in cinema.
4. The Surrealist Poets: Voices of Rebellion and Dreams: Focuses on the contributions of Surrealist poets.
5. Surrealism and the Grotesque: Embracing the Unsettling: Explores the use of grotesque imagery in Surrealist art and literature.
6. André Breton and the Manifesto of Surrealism: A close reading of Breton's seminal text.
7. Surrealism and the Subconscious: Unlocking the Mysteries of the Mind: Investigates the movement's exploration of the human psyche.
8. The Lasting Influence of Surrealism on Modern Art: Analyzes the enduring impact of Surrealism on various art forms.
9. Surrealism in Contemporary Fiction: New Expressions of the Absurd: Examines how Surrealist elements are used in contemporary novels.


  surrealism in literature: Kafka on the Shore Haruki Murakami, 2006-01-03 NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the New York Times bestselling author of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and one of the world’s greatest storytellers comes an insistently metaphysical mind-bender” (The New Yorker) about a teenager on the run and an aging simpleton. Now with a new introduction by the author. Here we meet 15-year-old runaway Kafka Tamura and the elderly Nakata, who is drawn to Kafka for reasons that he cannot fathom. As their paths converge, acclaimed author Haruki Murakami enfolds readers in a world where cats talk, fish fall from the sky, and spirits slip out of their bodies to make love or commit murder, in what is a truly remarkable journey. “As powerful as The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.... Reading Murakami ... is a striking experience in consciousness expansion.” —The Chicago Tribune
  surrealism in literature: Surrealism and the Book Renee Riese Hubert, Renée Riese Hubert, Renee Hubert Hubert, 1988-01-01 An indispensable tool ... for the student of Surrealism and book illustration ... [and] also for those interested in the complicated intrications between literature and pictorial movements from Romanticism to present-day Postmodernism--Blurb.
  surrealism in literature: Echoes of Surrealism Gerrit-Jan Berendse, 2021-05-14 For many artists and intellectuals in East Germany, daily life had an undeniably surreal aspect, from the numbing repetition of Communist Party jargon to the fear and paranoia engendered by the Stasi. Echoes of Surrealism surveys the ways in which a sense of the surreal infused literature and art across the lifespan of the GDR, focusing on individual authors, visual artists, directors, musicians, and other figures who have employed surrealist techniques in their work. It provides a new framework for understanding East German culture, exploring aesthetic practices that offered an alternative to rigid government policies and questioned and confronted the status quo.
  surrealism in literature: Historical Dictionary of Surrealism Keith Aspley, 2010 Despite surrealism's celebration of the subconscious and eschewal of reason, the movement was nevertheless concerned with definitions. Andre Breton included a dictionary-style entry for surrealisme in his 1924 Manifeste du surrealisme and later explored juxtapositions of the absurd and the mundane in the 1938 Dictionnaire abrege du surrealisme. To the mountain of literature that seeks to organize the far-reaching intellectual movement, Aspley (honorary fellow, Univ. of Edinburgh) adds this handy volume that organizes the breadth of surrealism into concise entries on artists, writers, artworks, and themes. A chronology highlights events that sparked the surrealist imagination, activities of formal surrealist groups, and exhibitions. An introductory essay and extensive bibliography are included. One of the few English-language reference sources about surrealism published in the last decade, Aspley's dictionary is useful for quick access to key terms and biographies. For a book devoted to a movement characterized by arresting visual imagery, the lack of illustrations is annoying. Even Rene Passeron's 1978 Phaidon Encyclopedia of Surrealism (CH, May'79) reprints artworks in color. For a richly illustrated and comprehensive history, see Gerard Durozi's History of the Surrealist Movement (CH, Nov'02, 40-1316). Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-level undergraduates through graduate students. Lower-division Undergraduates; Upper-division Undergraduates; Graduate Students. Reviewed by A. H. Simmons.
  surrealism in literature: Surrealism and the Art of Crime Jonathan Paul Eburne, 2008 Corpses mark surrealism's path through the twentieth century, providing material evidence of the violence in modern life. Though the shifting group of poets, artists, and critics who made up the surrealist movement were witness to total war, revolutionary violence, and mass killing, it was the tawdry reality of everyday crime that fascinated them. Jonathan P. Eburne shows us how this focus reveals the relationship between aesthetics and politics in the thought and artwork of the surrealists and establishes their movement as a useful platform for addressing the contemporary problem of violence, both individual and political. In a book strikingly illustrated with surrealist artworks and their sometimes gruesome source material, Eburne addresses key individual works by both better-known surrealist writers and artists (including André Breton, Louis Aragon, Aimé Césaire, Jacques Lacan, Georges Bataille, Max Ernst, and Salvador Dalí) and lesser-known figures (such as René Crevel, Simone Breton, Leonora Carrington, Benjamin Péret, and Jules Monnerot). For Eburne the art of crime denotes an array of cultural production including sensationalist journalism, detective mysteries, police blotters, crime scene photos, and documents of medical and legal opinion as well as the roman noir, in particular the first crime novel of the American Chester Himes. The surrealists collected and scrutinized such materials, using them as the inspiration for the outpouring of political tracts, pamphlets, and artworks through which they sought to expose the forms of violence perpetrated in the name of the state, its courts, and respectable bourgeois values. Concluding with the surrealists' quarrel with the existentialists and their bitter condemnation of France's anticolonial wars, Surrealism and the Art of Crime establishes surrealism as a vital element in the intellectual, political, and artistic history of the twentieth century.
  surrealism in literature: Surrealism and the Novel J. H. Matthews, 1966
  surrealism in literature: Surrealism Anna Balakian, 1986 First published in 1959, Surrealism remains the most readable introduction to the French surrealist poets Apollinaire, Breton, Aragon, Eluard, and Reverdy. Providing a much-needed overview of the movement, Balakian places the surrealists in the context of early twentieth-century Paris and describes their reactions to symbolist poetry, World War I, and developments in science and industry, psychology, philosophy, and painting. Her coherent history of the movement is enhanced by her firsthand knowledge of the intellectual climate in which some of these poets worked and her interviews with Reverdy and Breton. In a new introduction, Balakian discusses the influence of surrealism on contemporary poetry. This volume includes photographs of the poets and reproductions of paintings by Ernst, Dali, Tanguy, and others.
  surrealism in literature: Surrealism and the Gothic Neil Matheson, 2017-08-07 Surrealism and the Gothic is the first book-length analysis of the role played by the gothic in both the initial emergence of surrealism and at key moments in its subsequent development as an art and literary movement. The book argues the strong and sustained influence, not only of the classic gothic novel itself – Ann Radcliffe, Charles Maturin, Matthew Lewis, etc. – but also the determinative impact of closely related phenomena, as with the influence of mediumism, alchemy and magic. The book also traces the later development of the gothic novel, as with Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and its mutation into such works of popular fiction as the Fantômas series of Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre, enthusiastically taken up by writers such as Apollinaire and subsequently feeding into the development of surrealism. More broadly, the book considers a range of motifs strongly associated with gothic writing, as with insanity, incarceration and the ‘accursed outsider’, explored in relation to the personal experience and electroshock treatment of Antonin Artaud. A recurring motif of the analysis is that of the gothic castle, developed in the writings of André Breton, Artaud, Sade, Julien Gracq and other writers, as well as in the work of visual artists such as Magritte.
  surrealism in literature: The Language of Surrealism Peter Stockwell, 2016-10-14 A thorough introduction to the language of surrealism by a leading authority in the field. The author draws on recent work in cognitive poetics and literary linguistics to re-evaluate surrealism in its own historical setting, analysing textual examples and situating them within a framework of the latest theories and stylistic methods.
  surrealism in literature: Surrealism Natalya Lusty, 2021-08-31 This book examines the salient ideas and practices that have shaped Surrealism as a protean intellectual and cultural concept that fundamentally shifted our understanding of the nexus between art, culture, and politics. By bringing a diverse set of artistic forms and practices such as literature, manifestos, collage, photography, film, fashion, display, and collecting into conversation with newly emerging intellectual traditions (ethnography, modern science, anthropology, and psychoanalysis), the essays in this volume reveal Surrealism's enduring influence on contemporary thought and culture alongside its anti-colonial political position and international reach. Surrealism's fascination with novel forms of cultural production and experimental methods contributed to its conceptual malleability and temporal durability, making it one of the most significant avant-garde movements of the twentieth century. The book traces how Surrealism's urgent political and aesthetic provocations have bequeathed an important legacy for recent scholarly interest in thing theory, critical vitalism, new materialism, ontology, and animal/human studies.
  surrealism in literature: Dada & Surrealism C. W. E. Bigsby, 2017-07-06 Cover -- Half Title Page -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Original Title Page -- Original Copyright Page -- Dedication Page -- Contents -- General Editor's Preface -- Prefatory Note -- Part One Data -- 1 Definitions, Statements and Manifestoes -- 2 The Spread of the Dada Virus -- 3 The Dada Essence -- Part Two Surrealism -- 4 Definitions, Statements and Manifestoes -- 5 Birth, Progress and Politics -- 6 Origins, Aesthetics and Ethics -- Select Bibliography -- Index
  surrealism in literature: Surrealism and Women Mary Ann Caws, Rudolf E. Kuenzli, Gwen Raaberg, 1991-03-13 These sixteen illustrated essays present an important revision of surrealism by focusing on the works of women surrealists and their strategies to assert positions as creative subjects within a movement that regarded woman primarily as an object of masculine desire or fear.While the male surrealists attacked aspects of the bourgeois order, they reinforced the traditional patriarchal image of woman. Their emphasis on dreams, automatic writing, and the unconscious reveal some of the least inhibited masculine fantasies. The first resistance to the male surrealists' projection of the female figure arose in the writings and paintings of marginalized woman artists and writers associated with Surrealism. The essays in this collection explore the complexity of these women's works, which simultaneously employ and subvert the dominant discourse of male surrealists. Essays What Do Little Girls Dream Of: The Insurgent Writing of Gis�le Prassinos • Finding What You Are Not Looking For • From D�jeuner en fourrure to Caroline: Meret Oppenheim's Chronicle of Surrealism • Speaking with Forked Tongues: Male Discourse in Female Surrealism? • Androgyny: Interview with Meret Oppenheim • The Body Subversive: Corporeal Imagery in Carrington, Prassinos, and Mansour • Identity Crises: Joyce Mansour's Narratives • Joyce Mansour and Egyptian Mythology • In the Interim: The Constructivist Surrealism of Kay Sage • The Flight from Passion in Leonora Carrington's Literary Work • Beauty and/Is the Beast: Animal Symbology in the Work of Leonora Carrington, Remedio Varo, and Leonor Fini • Valentine, Andr�, Paul et les autres, or the Surrealization of Valentine Hugo • Refashioning the World to the Image of Female Desire: The Collages of Aube Ell�ou�t • Eileen Agar • Statement by Dorothea Tanning
  surrealism in literature: Dark Toys David Hopkins, 2021-01-01 A wide-ranging look at surrealist and postsurrealist engagements with the culture and imagery of childhood We all have memories of the object-world of childhood. For many of us, playthings and images from those days continue to resonate. Rereading a swathe of modern and contemporary artistic production through the lens of its engagement with childhood, this book blends in-depth art historical analysis with sustained theoretical exploration of topics such as surrealist temporality, toys, play, nostalgia, memory, and 20th-century constructions of the child. The result is an entirely new approach to the surrealist tradition via its engagement with childish things. Providing what the author describes as a long history of surrealism, this book plots a trajectory from surrealism itself to the art of the 1980s and 1990s, through to the present day. It addresses a range of figures from Marcel Duchamp, Giorgio de Chirico, Max Ernst, Hans Bellmer, Joseph Cornell, and Helen Levitt, at one end of the spectrum, to Louise Bourgeois, Eduardo Paolozzi, Claes Oldenburg, Susan Hiller, Martin Sharp, Helen Chadwick, Mike Kelley, and Jeff Koons, at the other.
  surrealism in literature: Refusal of the Shadow Michael Richardson, Krzysztof Fijalkowski, 1996-05-17 Refusal of the Shadow explores the nature of the relationship between black anti-colonialist movements in the Caribbean and the most radical of the European avant-gardes, and presents a series of texts which reveal its complexity.
  surrealism in literature: Literary Origins of Surrealism Anna Balakin, 1947
  surrealism in literature: Drawing Surrealism Leslie Jones, Isabelle Dervaux, Susan Laxton, 2012 Drawing, often considered a minor art form, was central to surrealism from its very beginnings. Automatic drawing, exquisite corpses, and frottage are just a few of the techniques invented by surrealists to tap into the subconscious realm. Drawing Surrealism recognizes the medium as a fundamental form of surrealist expression and explores its impact on other media. Works of collage, photography, and even painting are presented in the context of drawing as a metaphor for innovation and experimentation. This volume, in addition to brilliant reproductions of drawings and other works by approximately one hundred artists, includes a substantial historical essay and illustrated chronology by the exhibition's curator, Leslie Jones, as well as informative essays by leading scholars Isabelle Dervaux and Susan Laxton. It also encompasses the contributions of a wide array of artists on a global scale - from the great figures in surrealist history to lesser-known surrealists from Japan, central Europe, and the Americas, where the movement had profound and lasting effects on the arts. Drawing Surrealism, which will become a definitive resource on the subject, offers a deep understanding of the techniques and concerns that made surrealism such an intimate perceptual revolution.
  surrealism in literature: The Lives of the Surrealists Desmond Morris, 2022-02-08 A lively history of the Surrealists, both known and unknown, by one of the last surviving members of the movement—artist and bestselling author Desmond Morris. Surrealism did not begin as an art movement but as a philosophical strategy, a way of life, and a rebellion against the establishment that gave rise to the World War I. In The Lives of the Surrealists, surrealist artist and celebrated writer Desmond Morris concentrates on the artists as people—as remarkable individuals. What were their personalities, their predilections, their character strengths and flaws? Unlike the impressionists or the cubists, the surrealists did not obey a fixed visual code, but rather the rules of surrealist philosophy: work from the unconscious, letting your darkest, most irrational thoughts well up and shape your art. An artist himself, and contemporary of the later surrealists, Morris illuminates the considerable variation in each artist’s approach to this technique. While some were out-and-out surrealists in all they did, others lived more orthodox lives and only became surrealists at the easel or in the studio. Focusing on the thirty-two artists most closely associated with the surrealist movement, Morris lends context to their life histories with narratives of their idiosyncrasies and their often complex love lives, alongside photos of the artists and their work.
  surrealism in literature: Surreal Things Victoria and Albert Museum, 2007 Surrealism, one of the influential movements of the 20th century, had a profound impact on all forms of culture. Containing over 350 illustrations, this book examines its impact in the wider fields of design and the decorative arts and its sometimes uneasy relationship with the commercial world.
  surrealism in literature: Objects of Desire Mateo Kries, Tanja Cunz, 2019-09 Surrealism expanded our reality by drawing upon myths, dreams, and the subconscious as sources of artistic inspiration. Beginning in the 1930s, the movement made a crucial impact on design, and it continues to inspire designers to this day. »Objects of Desire: Surrealism and Design« is the first book to document this fascinating conversation. It includes numerous essays and a comprehensive selection of images which traces these reciprocal exchanges by juxtaposing exemplary artworks and design objects. Among the featured artists and designers are Gae Aulenti, Achille Castiglioni, Giorgio de Chirico, Le Corbusier, Salvador Dalí, Marcel Duchamp, ntoni Gaudí, Frederick Kiesler, René Magritte, Carlo Mollino, Meret Oppenheim, and many others. The book is rounded off with historical text material as well as short texts and statements by contemporary designers. This in- depth examination makes one thing abundantly clear: form does not always follow function -- it can also follow our obsessions, our fantasies, and our hidden desires.
  surrealism in literature: Pulp Surrealism Robin Walz, 2000 A 'wonder cabinet' of a book that brings to vivid life again the ephemeral pleasures of flanerie in Paris. Walz is a marvelous guide to the pulp fiction, newspaper sensationalism, and 'disreputable, ' fast-disappearing neighborhoods of Paris that the surrealists not only loved but drew on for inspiration in their revolutionary effort to reconfigure human consciousness in early twentieth-century France. Richard Abel, author of The Cine Goes to Town: French Cinema, 1896-1914 and The Red Rooster Scare: Making Cinema American, 1900-1910 Robin Walz's Pulp Surrealism represents an original and creative approach to the cultural history of the French interwar avant-garde. He shifts our focus away from surrealist texts themselves to the conditions of their production and in the process illuminates in fascinating ways the relationship between surrealism and popular culture. Carolyn Dean, author of The Frail Social Body: Pornography, Homosexuality, and Other Fantasies in Interwar France Pulp Surrealism is the vibrant story of the interplay between avant-garde intellectuals and emerging mass culture in the early years of the twentieth century. In this stimulating history Robin Walz lays bare the many contradictory connections between high and popular culture, and in the process restores to life the brilliant effrontery and joy of the surrealist movement. Tyler Stovall, author of The Rise of the Paris Red Belt and Paris Noir: African Americans in the City of Light
  surrealism in literature: Literary Origins of Surrealism Anna Balakian, 1947 Describes the relation of surrealism to the social and psychological revolt of the first post war period as revealed by its deep antipathy for bourgeois society in order to show that surrealist writings have contributed no so much to each other as to one general revolution in poetic mysticism and lead to the development of a new philosophy of reality.
  surrealism in literature: What is Surrealism? André Breton, 1978 André Breton (1896-1966) was the founder and major theorist of the surrealist movement, one of the most vital currents of modern poetry and revolutionary thought. This compilation of Breton's writings gives a compact survey of his views and the perspectives of international surrealism as they have developed through more than half a century, and as they serve to guide the groups and individuals who, in dozens of centuries, have taken up the surrealist cause. About half of the selections are published here in English for the first time; others are reprinted from scarce, out-of-print periodicals. The editor, Franklin Rosemont, met Breton in 1966, and later that year organised the first indigenous US surrealist group. He is the author of two books of poems and the Manifesto on the Position & Direction of the Surrealist Movement in the United States (1970). He played a major role in organising the 1976 World Surrealist Exhibition in Chicago, by far the largest exhibition ever prepared by the surrealists. He lives in Chicago where he edits Arsenal/Surrealist Subversion, English-language journal of the international surrealist movement.
  surrealism in literature: Surrealism in Latin American Literature M. Nicholson, 2013-01-07 Charting surrealism in Latin American literature from its initial appearance in Argentina in 1928 to the surrealist-inspired work of several writers in the 1970s, Melanie Nicholson argues that surrealism has exercised a significant and positive influence over twentieth-century Latin American literature, particularly poetry.
  surrealism in literature: From Paris to Tlön Delia Ungureanu, 2017-11-02 Best International Debut in 2017 (awarded by Romanian General and Comparative Literature Association) Most Prestigious Publication in the Humanities (awarded by the Senate of the University of Bucharest) Surrealism began as a movement in poetry and visual art, but it turned out to have its widest impact worldwide in fiction-including in major world writers who denied any connection to surrealism at all. At the heart of this book are discoveries Delia Ungureanu has made in the archives of Harvard's Widener and Houghton libraries, where she has found that Jorge Luis Borges and Vladimir Nabokov were greatly indebted to surrealism for the creation of the pivotal characters who brought them world fame: Pierre Menard and Lolita. In From Paris to Tlön: Surrealism as World Literature, Ungureanu explores the networks of transmission and transformation that turned an avant-garde Parisian movement into a global literary phenomenon. From Paris to Tlön gives a fresh account of surrealism's surprising success, exploring the process of artistic transfer by which the surrealist object rapidly evolved from a purely poetic conception to a mainstay of surrealist visual art and then a key element in late modernist and postmodern fiction, from Borges and Nabokov to such disparate writers as Gabriel García Márquez, Haruki Murakami, and Orhan Pamuk in the 21st century.
  surrealism in literature: Surrealism and the Novel J. H. Matthews, 1966
  surrealism in literature: A History of Modernist Literature Andrzej Gasiorek, 2015-06-15 A History of Modernist Literature offers a critical overview of modernism in England between the late 1890s and the late 1930s, focusing on the writers, texts, and movements that were especially significant in the development of modernism during these years. A stimulating and coherent account of literary modernism in England which emphasizes the artistic achievements of particular figures and offers detailed readings of key works by the most significant modernist authors whose work transformed early twentieth-century English literary culture Provides in-depth discussion of intellectual debates, the material conditions of literary production and dissemination, and the physical locations in which writers lived and worked The first large-scale book to provide a systematic overview of modernism as it developed in England from the late 1890s through to the late 1930s
  surrealism in literature: The Language of Surrealism Peter Stockwell, 2016-10-14 The Language of Surrealism explores the revolutionary experiments in language and mind undertaken by the surrealists across Europe between the wars. Highly influential on the development of art, literary modernism, and current popular culture, surrealist style remains challenging, striking, resonant and thrilling – and the techniques by which surrealist writing achieves this are set out clearly in this book. Stockwell draws on recent work in cognitive poetics and literary linguistics to re-evaluate surrealism in its own historical setting. In the process, the book questions later critical theoretical views of language that have distorted our ideas about both surrealism and language itself. What follows is a piece of literary criticism that is fully contextualised, historically sensitive, and textually driven, and which sets out in rich and readable detail this most intriguing and disturbing literature.
  surrealism in literature: The Absence of Myth Georges Bataille, 2020-05-05 For Bataille, the absence of myth had itself become the myth of the modern age. In a world that had lost the secret of its cohesion, Bataille saw surrealism as both a symptom and a beginning of an attempt to address this loss. His writings on this theme are the result of a profound reflection in the wake of World War Two. The Absence of Myth is the most incisive study yet made of surrealism, insisting on its importance as a cultural and social phenomenon with far-reaching consequences. Clarifying Bataille's links with the surrealist movement, and throwing revealing light on his complex and greatly misunderstood relationship with Andre Breton, The Absence of Myth shows Bataille to be a much more radical figure than his postmodernist devotees would have us believe: a man who continually tried to extend Marxist social theory; a pessimistic thinker, but one as far removed from nihilism as can be.
  surrealism in literature: Surrealism and Quebec Literature André-G. Bourassa, 1984
  surrealism in literature: Library of Congress Subject Headings Library of Congress. Cataloging Policy and Support Office, 2009
  surrealism in literature: Sacred Surrealism, Dissidence and International Avant-Garde Prose Vivienne Brough-Evans, 2016-05-05 Vivienne Brough-Evans proposes a compelling new way of reevaluating aspects of international surrealism by means of the category of divin fou, and consequently deploys theories of sacred ecstasy as developed by the Collège de Sociologie (1937–39) as a critical tool in shedding new light on the literary oeuvre of non-French writers who worked both within and against a surrealist framework. The minor surrealist genre of prose literature is considered herein, rather than surrealism's mainstay, poetry, with the intention of fracturing preconceptions regarding the medium of surrealist expression. The aim is to explore whether International surrealism can begin to be more fully explained by an occluded strain of 'dissident' surrealist thought that searches outside the self through the affects of ekstasis. Bretonian surrealism is widely discussed in the field of surrealist studies, and there is a need to consider what is left out of surrealist practice when analysed through this Bretonian lens. The Collège de Sociologie and Georges Bataille's theories provide a model of such elements of 'dissident' surrealism, which is used to analyse surrealist or surrealist influenced prose by Alejo Carpentier, Leonora Carrington and Gellu Naum respectively representing postcolonial, feminist and Balkan locutions. The Collège and Bataille's 'dissident' surrealism diverges significantly from the concerns and approach towards the subject explored by surrealism. Using the concept of ekstasis to organise Bataille's theoretical ideas of excess and 'inner experience' and the Collège's thoughts on the sacred it is possible to propose a new way of reading types of International surrealist literature, many of which do not come to the forefront of the surrealist literary oeuvre.
  surrealism in literature: Library of Congress Subject Headings Library of Congress, 2010
  surrealism in literature: Surrealism, Feminism, Psychoanalysis Natalya Lusty, 2017-03-02 How did women Surrealists such as Leonora Carrington and Claude Cahun take up the question of female identity in terms of their own aesthetic and intellectual practice? What was the response of women analysts such as Joan Riviere to Freud's psychoanalytic construction of femininity? These are among the questions that Natalya Lusty brings to her sophisticated and theoretically informed investigation into the appropriation of 'the feminine' by the Surrealist movement. Combining biographical and textual methods of analysis with historically specific discussions of related cultural sites such as women's magazines, fashion, debutante culture, sexology, modernist lesbian subculture, pornography, and female criminality, the book examines the ambiguities and blind spots that haunt the work of more central figures such as André Breton, Georges Bataille, Jacques Lacan, Walter Benjamin, and the Surrealist photographer Hans Bellmer. Lusty's examination of a series of psychoanalytic Surrealist themes, including narcissism, fantasy, masquerade, perversion, and 'the double', illuminates a modernist preoccupation with the crisis of subjectivity and representation and its ongoing relevance to more recent work by Cindy Sherman and Judith Butler. Her book is an important contribution to modernist studies that will appeal to scholars and students working across a diverse range of fields, including literary studies, gender studies, visual culture, cultural studies, and cultural history.
  surrealism in literature: The Language and Literature Reader Ronald Carter, Peter Stockwell, 2020-08-19 The Language and Literature Reader is an invaluable resource for students of English literature, language, and linguistics. Bringing together the most significant work in the field with integrated editorial material, this Reader is a structured and accessible tool for the student and scholar. Divided into three sections, Foundations, Developments and New Directions, the Reader provides an overview of the discipline from the early stages in the 1960s and 70s, through the new theories and practices of the 1980s and 90s, to the most recent and contemporary work in the field. Each article contains a brief introduction by the editors situating it in the context of developing work in the discipline and glossing it in terms of the section and of the book as a whole. The final section concludes with a ‘history and manifesto’, written by the editors, which places developments in the area of stylistics within a brief history of the field and offers a polemical perspective on the future of a growing and influential discipline.
  surrealism in literature: Surrealism and the Occult Nadia Choucha, 1992-10 Searching for a deeper understanding of the power and influence of surrealist art, Nadia Choucha clearly confirms that many surrealists and their predecessors were steeped in magical ideas. The Theosophical involvement of Kandinsky, the visionary paintings of Salvador Dali, the alchemy of Pablo Picasso, and the shamanism of Max Ernst and Leonora Carrington all demonstrate the fundamental and dynamic impact of magic and mysticism on surrealism. Surrealist artists believed that society had much to learn from the unconditioned, spontaneous forms of art produced by spiritual mediums, children, untutored artists, and the insane. In their attempt to tap the unconscious regions of the mind, the surrealists borrowed imagery from alchemy, the Tarot, Gnosticism, Tantra, and other esoteric traditions and sought inspiration from ancient myths, 'irrational' thought, and ethnic art. Enhanced by both color and black-and-white reproductions of fine art, Choucha's account explains the intimate connections between occult and surrealist philosophies and provides an essential key to the mysteries of the surrealist movement and the forces that give it life --Back cover.
  surrealism in literature: The Cambridge Introduction to French Literature Brian Nelson, 2015-06-11 An engaging, highly accessible and informative introduction to French literature from the Middle Ages to the present.
  surrealism in literature: The Course of English Surrealist Poetry Since the 1930s Rob Jackaman, 1989 This study proposes that there has been a revival of surrealist poetry, and traces an uninterrupted thread of development in surrealism throughout 20th-century English poetry.
  surrealism in literature: The Cambridge Companion to the Literature of Paris Anna-Louise Milne, 2013-08-01 No city more than Paris has had such a constant and deep association with the development of literary forms and cultural ideas. The idea of the city as a space of literary self-consciousness started to take hold in the sixteenth century. By 1620, where this volume begins, the first in a long line of extraordinary works of the human imagination, in which the city represented itself to itself, had begun to find form in print. This collection follows that process through to the present day. Beginning with the 'salon', followed by the hybrid culture of libertinage and the revolutionary hotbeds of working-class districts, it explores the continuities and changes between the pre-modern era and the nineteenth century, when Paris asserted itself as cultural capital of Europe. It goes on to explore how this vision of Paris as a key capital of modernity has shaped contemporary literature.
  surrealism in literature: Surrealism in Egypt Sam Bardaouil, 2016-10-17 In the thick of the Second World War, the Cairo-based Surrealist collective Art et Liberte were pioneering new art forms and mounting subversive exhibitions that sent shockwaves across local artistic circles. Born with the publication of their Manifesto Long Live Degenerate Art on December 22nd, 1938, the group rejected the convergence of art and nationalism, aligning themselves with a complex, international and evolving Surrealist movement spanning cities such as Paris, London, Mexico City, New York, Beirut and Tokyo. Art and Liberty created a distinct reworking of Surrealism, which provided a generation of disillusioned Egyptian and non-Egyptian artists and writers, men and women alike, with a platform for cultural reform and anti-Fascist protest. Surrealism in Egypt is the first comprehensive analysis of Art and Liberty's artworks, literature and critical writings on Surrealism. By addressing the group's long-lost and often misconstrued legacy, and drawing on a substantial body of previously unpublished primary documents and more than 200 field interviews, the author charts Art and Liberty's significant contribution towards a new definition of Surrealism.Moving beyond the polarizing dichotomies of Saidian Orientalism, this book rewrites the history of Surrealism itself - advocating for a new definition of the movement that reflects an inclusive vision of art history.
  surrealism in literature: Surrealism and the literary imagination Mary Ann Caws, 2016-07-11