7 SURREALISM

7.1 Specific objectives

At the end of this lecture, you will be able to:
(i ) Define terms used in surrealism;
(ii) Define surrealism;
(iii) List the tenets of surrealism;
(iv) Develop an awareness of the major proponents of surrealism as a literary
movement;
(v) Analyse literary works that conform to the literary movement of surrealism.

7.2 Definition of terms

Since surrealism has its roots to the theory of Dadaism, the philosophy of
existentialism, the literary movement of symbolism, automatic writing, and theatre of
the absurd, we shall define each of these concepts. We might, where necessary, also
give brief explanations with a view to making our understanding of surrealism easy.

7.2.1 Dada or Dadaism

Surrealism arose from dada or Dadaism. Dada or Dadaism refers to the international
nihilistic (the belief that nothing has meaning or value) movement among European
artists and writers. It lasted from 1916 to 1922. The movement was born of the
widespread disillusionment engendered (caused) by World War 1. It originated in
Zurich with the poetry of the Romanian Tristan Tzara. Dada attacked conventional
standards of aesthetics and behaviour and stressed absurdity and the role of the
unpredictable in artistic creation. In Berlin dada had political overtones, exemplified
by the caricatures (representations of people either in painting, drawing or literature in
which some parts of their characters or appearance are made more noticeable, odd or
amusing than they really are) of George Grosz. The French movement was more
literary in emphasis; it centred on Tristan Tzara, André Breton, Louis Aragon, Jean
Arp, Marcel Duchamp, Francis Picabia and Man Ray.

Dada principles were eventually modified to become the basis of surrealism in 1924.
The literary manifestations of dada were mostly nonsense poems – meaningless
random combinations of words – that were read in public.

7.2.2 Existentialism
Existentialism is a modern philosophical trend that is distinguished by its emphasis on
lived human experience. Its outstanding tenet is that a person has no predetermined
essence but forms his or her essence by acts of pure will.

7.2.3 Symbolism
A group of French poets started the literary movement of symbolism between 1885
and 1895. Stephane Mallarmé led the movement, but the poetry of Paul Verlaine was
more widely imitated. The leading symbolists – Paul Verlaine, Arthur Rimbaond and
Stephane Mallarmé wrote in reaction to realism and naturalism and against the
objectivity and technical conservation of the Parnassians (a group of French poets in
the latter half of the 19th century emphasizing strictness of form). Other leading
theorists of symbolism included René Ghil, Gustave Kahn, Jean Moreás and Charles
Morice. Many European poets of the early 1900s followed the symbolist style.

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The symbolists aimed at poetry of suggestion rather than of direct statement, evoking
subjective moods through the use of private symbols while avoiding the description of
external reality or the expression of opinion. In short, they aimed at presenting ideas
and emotions by indirect expression and attached a symbolic meaning to particular
objects, words, sounds etc. In other words, poetry should suggest meanings through
impressions, intuitions and sensations rather than describe objective reality. They also
searched for the musical quality in words. Much of the poetry of the symbolists was
personal and obscure. They expressed themselves in metaphors and created technical
modifications in existing verse forms. Some critics have called the movement
decadent because of its obsession with death and its general pessimism.

Symbolist verse usually presents a poetic image that can be interpreted in many ways.

7.2.4 Automatic writing

Automatic writing is a method of composition that tries to dispense with conscious
control or mental censorship, transcribing immediately the promptings of the
unconscious mind. Some writers in the early days of surrealism attempted it, notably
André Breton and Phillipe Soupalt in their work Les Champs Magnetiques (1919).
W.B. Yeats had conducted similar experiments with Georgie Hyde-Lees after their
marriage in 1917; these séances (meeting where people try to talk or receive messages
from spirits of the dead) influenced the mystical system of his prose work A Vision
(1925).

7.2.5 Theatre of the absurd

This is a term derived from the existentialism of Albert Camus, and often applied to
the modern sense of human purposelessness in a universe without meaning or value.
Many 20th century writers of prose fiction have stressed the absurd nature of human
existence. Good examples of these are the novels of Franz Kafka, in which the
characters face alarmingly incomprehensible predicaments. The critic Martin Esslin
coined the phrase theatre of the absurd in 1961 to refer to a number of dramatists of
the 1950s (led by Samuel Beckett and Eugenè Ionesco). The works of these dramatists
evoke the absurd abandoning of logical form, character and dialogue with realistic
illusion. The classic work of absurdist theatre is Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for
Godot, 1952. The work invites some of the conventions of clowning and farce
(dramatic work intended only to excite laughter, often by presenting ludicrously
improbable events) to represent the impossibility of purposeful action and the
paralysis of human aspiration. Other dramatists associated with the theatre of the
absurd are: Edward Albee, Jean Genet, Harold Pinter and Vaclov Havel.

7.3 Background and proponents of surrealism

Surrealism was a movement founded in 1924 by André Breton and a group of writers
and painters in Paris. It was conceived as a revolutionary mode of thought and action
concerned with politics, philosophy, and psychology as well as literature and art. It is
an anti-rational movement of imaginative liberation in European (mainly French) art
and literature. André Breton launched it in his Surrealist Manifesto (1924). The
movement was influenced by Freudianism. The Manifesto attacked rationalism and
narrow logical systems. Many of the adherents of surrealism had belonged to the dada
movement.

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The group of writers and painters that gathered round Breton experimented with
automatic processes which were considered the best means of producing the surreal
poetic image: the spontaneous coupling of unrelated objects. An extended conception
of poetry, which was to be part of, not separate from, life, was central to surrealism.

Other writers associated with surrealism included Louis Aragon, Paul Éluard, René
Crevel, Robert Desnos and Jean Cocteau, the last noted particularly for his surreal
films. Surrealist artists of the 1920s sought equivalents to automatic writing. In the
1930s writers and artists alike collected fabricated surrealist objects, and Breton
mixed words and images in his poem-objects. Several surrealists joined the
communist party and theoretical texts including Breton’s Surrealist Manifesto of 1929
try to reconcile Freud and Marx.

Surrealism was a major intellectual force between the wars, although as it spread
internationally in the 1930s interest tended to concentrate on surrealist art. In England
the movement attracted some attention among literary circles, but it was only after the
International Surrealist Exhibition of 1936 that a surrealist group was established. Its
members included D. Gascoyne, H. Read, Roland Penrose (1900-84) and the
documentary filmmaker Humphrey Jennings (1907-50).

7.3.1 Definition of surrealism

Surrealism is a concept of philosophy stating that liberation of the mind, and
subsequently the liberation of the individual self and society, can be achieved by
exercising the imaginative faculties of the “unconscious mind” to the attainment
of a dream-like state different from, or ultimately “truer” than everyday reality.
Furthermore, surrealism may conveniently be defined as the free grouping
together of incongruous (strange) and non-associated images. Moreover,
surrealism is pure psychic automation (see automatic writing), by which it is
intended to express verbally, in writing or other means, the real process of
thought. For a surreal writer, the world of dream and fantasy are joined to the
everyday rational world in an absolute reality, surreality. In other words,
surrealism is the transmutation (conversion of one thing into another) of those two
seemingly contradictory states, dream and reality, into a sort of absolute reality, of
surreality.

7.3.2 Tenets of surrealism

The following are some of the major tenets of surrealism.
1. Surrealism is influenced by Freudianism and dedicated to the expression of
imagination as revealed in dreams, free from the conscious control of reason
and free of convention. In other words, surrealists declare that a magical world
– more beautiful than the real one- can be created in art and literature. Much of
the beauty sought by surrealism is violent and cruel. In this way, the surrealists
try to shock the viewer or reader and show what they consider the deeper and
truer part of the human nature. Surrealism seeks to break down the boundaries
between rationality and irrationality, exploring the resources and revolutionary
energies of dreams, hallucinations and sexual desire. Influenced by both
symbolists and Sigmund Freud’s theories of the unconscious, the surrealists
experiment with automatic writing and with the free association of random
images brought together in surprising juxtaposition.

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 2 Surrealists believe that a more truthful reality can bring about personal,
cultural and social revolution and a life of freedom, and unhibited sexuality.
Andre Breton said that such a revealed truth would be beautic, or in his own
words, “beauty will be convulsive or not at all”.
3 Surrealist writers were concerned with the associations and implications of
words rather than their literal meanings; their works are thus extraordinarily
difficult to read.
4 Surrealism sought to explore the frontiers of experience and to broaden the
logical and matter-of-fact view of life by fusing it with instinctual,
subconscious and dream experience in order to achieve an absolute or super
reality.

7.4 Surrealism today

Surrealism is still evident in some genres of literature whose writers are
fascinated with the tenets of the movement.

7.5 Activity
7.5.1 Select any ONE of the following and show how each of the writers conforms to
the tenets of surrealism:
1. At least four poems by the same poet;
2. One play;
3. One novel;
4. At least two short stories.