A History Of The Surrealist Novel

"A History of the Surrealist Novel offers a rich, long, and elastic historiography of the surrealist novel, taking into consideration an abundance of texts previously left out of critical accounts. Its 20 thematically organized chapters examine surrealist prose texts written in French, English, Spanish, German, Greek, and Japanese, from the emergence of the surrealist movement in the 1920s and 1930s, through the post-war and postmodern periods, and up to the contemporary moment. This approach extends received narratives regarding surrealism's geographical locations and considers its transnational movement and modes of circulation. Moreover, it challenges critical biases that have defined surrealism in predominantly masculine terms, and which tie the movement to the interwar or early post-war years. This book will appeal both to scholars and students of surrealism and its legacies, modernist literature, and the history of the novel"--

A History of the Surrealist Novel offers a rich, long, and elastic historiography of the surrealist novel, taking into consideration an abundance of texts previously left out of critical accounts. Its twenty thematically organized chapters examine surrealist prose texts written in French, English, Spanish, German, Greek, and Japanese, from the emergence of the surrealist movement in the 1920s and 1930s, through the post-war and postmodern periods, and up to the contemporary moment. This approach extends received narratives regarding surrealism's geographical locations and considers its transnational movement and modes of circulation. Moreover, it challenges critical biases that have defined surrealism in predominantly masculine terms, and which tie the movement to the interwar or early post-war years. This book will appeal both to scholars and students of surrealism and its legacies, modernist literature, and the history of the novel.

Brandon follows the lives of the Surrealists--such as Andre Breton, Marcel Duchamp, Salvador Dali and Man Ray--through the movement, which culminated at the end of World War II. 24 pages of photos.

Now available in a single volume paperback, this advanced reference resource for the novel and novel theory offers authoritative accounts of the history, terminology, and genre of the novel, in over 140 articles of 500-7,000 words. Entries explore the history and tradition of the novel in different areas of the world; formal elements of the novel (story, plot, character, narrator); technical aspects of the genre (such as realism, narrative structure and style); subgenres, including the bildungsroman and the graphic novel; theoretical problems, such as definitions of the novel; book history; and the novel's relationship to other arts and disciplines. The Encyclopedia is arranged in A-Z format and features entries from an international cast of over 140 scholars, overseen by an advisory board of 37 leading specialists in the field, making this the most authoritative reference resource available on the novel. This essential reference, now available in an easy-to-use, fully indexed single volume paperback, will be a vital addition to the libraries of literature students and scholars everywhere.

Seminar paper from the year 2013 in the subject French Studies - Literature, grade: Gut, University of Graz (Institut für Romanistik), course: Allg. LW SE: Studien zur Literaturwissenschaft (Literatur und Fotografie), language: English, abstract: “Surrealism especially has entered our everyday language; we talk of ‘surreal humour’ or a ‘surreal plot’ to a film. This very continuity means that it is difficult to place them at one remove from us in ‘history’.” (HOPKINS 2004: Introduction) Defining Surrealism has become, as HOPKINS’s statement illustrates, a very challenging task due to its wide prevalence in contemporary speech and language, which makes it difficult to isolate Surrealism historically and to distinguish between its intended meanings within certain historical epochs. As the following section will outline, Surrealism has been continuously influenced and shaped from generation to generation and has therefore been marked by different characteristics throughout history. The long historical chronology (cf. ASPLEY 2010: XV) of the surreal has indeed caused a lot of confusion with regard to the usage of the term, which should always be contextualized within the respective examined epoch in order to “grasp” its intended “spirit”. This research paper aims at examining and defining the early twentieth century Surrealist Movement more closely, which has been described in the Manifeste du surréalisme in 1924 by ANDRÉ BRETON, who seems to be widely acknowledged as the father of Surrealism. After a brief theoretical section outlining a short historical chronology of Surrealism and commenting on BRETON’s influence on the Surrealist Movement in 20th Century France, chapter 3 will present an analysis of Nadja (1928), one of BRETON’s most important surrealist novels forming the “climax of the literary movement of Surrealism in France” (REENTS 2009: 31). The analysis will be carried out from a predominantly photographic angle to examine how photography relates to the concept of the surreal and how it helps define Surrealism in BRETON’s time.

"Nadja, " originally published in France in 1928, is the first and perhaps best Surrealist romance ever written, a book which defined that movement's attitude toward everyday life. The principal narrative is an account of the author's relationship with a girl in teh city of Paris, the story of an obsessional presence haunting his life. The first-person narrative is supplemented by forty-four photographs which form an integral part of the work -- pictures of various "surreal" people, places, and objects which the author visits or is haunted by in naja's presence and which inspire him to mediate on their reality or lack of it. "The Nadja of the book is a girl, but, like Bertrand Russell's definition of electricity as "not so much a thing as a way things happen, " Nadja is not so much a person as the way she makes people behave. She has been described as a state of mind, a feeling about reality, k a kind of vision, and the reader sometimes wonders whether she exists at all. yet it is Nadja who gives form and structure to the novel.