Surrealism And The Gothic

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.

A new evaluation of a writer who was the talk of the literary world in the early days of the sexual revolution. Since the publication of Tropic of Cancer in 1934, Henry Miller has been the target of critics from all sides. A Self-Made Surrealist sets out to provide a view of Miller different from both earlier vindications of him as sexual liberator and prophet and more contemporary feminist critiques of him as pornographer and male chauvinist. In this re-evaluation of Miller's role as a radical writer, Blinder considers not only notions of obscenity and sexuality, but also the emergence of psychoanalysis, surrealism, automatic writing, and the aesthetics of fascism, as they illuminate Miller's more general 20th-century concerns with politics and mass psychology in relation to art. Blinder also considers the effect on Miller of the theoretical works of Georges Bataille and André Breton, among others, in order to define and explore the social, philosophical, and political contexts of the period. By examining the enormous impetus Miller got from being in the midst of French culture and its debate, A Self-Made Surrealist shows that Miller was indeed a seminal writer of the period rather than simply an isolated male chauvinist.

This small collection of essays explores women’s relationship with the gothic: a relationship which has, since its eighteenth-century beginnings, always been complex. These essays demonstrate some of the scope and diversity of that relationship, and much of its intensity: the ingenuity and genius employed, the anguish experienced and the risks taken, in its evolution. Genuinely representative of gothic’s flexibility and presence in everything from novels to architecture, from surrealist art to hypertext fiction, this volume brings new primary sources and topics to the reader’s attention, and will be of interest to anyone who wants to expand and challenge their understanding of how and why women engage with the gothic.

Visualizing Theory is a lavishly illustrated collection of provocative essays, occasional pieces, and dialogues that first appeared in Visual Anthropology Review between 1990 and 1994. It contains contributions from anthropologists, from cultural, literary and film critics and from image makers themselves. Reclaiming visual anthropology as a space for the critical representation of visual culture from the naive realist and exoticist inclinations that have beleaguered practitioners' efforts to date, Visualizing Theory is a major intervention into this growing field.

The Gothic is a contested and complicated phenomenon, extending over many centuries and across all the arts. In The Edinburgh Companion to the Gothic and the Arts, the range of essays run from medieval architecture and design to contemporary gaming and internet fiction; from classical painting to the modern novel; from ballet and dance to contemporary Goth music. The contributors include many of the best-known critics of the Gothic (e.g., Hogle, Punter, Spooner, Bruhm) as well as newer names such as Kirk and Round. The editor has put all these contributors in touch with each other in the preparation of their essays in order to ensure the maximum benefit to the reader by producing a well-integrated book which will prove much more than a collection of disparate essays, but rather a distinctive contribution to a field.

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.

Lowbrow Art is Pop Surrealism at its best: a stunning blast of the weird and wonderful, with exaggerated shapes and doleful eyes, stripy stockings mixed with ornate decor, all served with lashings of style and humour. Featuring artworks by such talented artists as Jasmine Becket-Griffith, Dadara and Scott Rohlfs, this incredible new book in the Gothic Dreams series is a real feast for the eyes!

The Surrealist Movement is an international intellectual movement that has led a sustained questioning of the basis of human experience under twentieth- and twenty-first century modernity since its founding in the early 1920s. Influenced by the psychoanalytical teachings of Sigmund Freud, Surrealism emerged among the generation that had witnessed the insanity and horror of the First World War, and was conceived of as a framework for investigating the little-understood phenomena of dreams and the unconscious. In these territories the surrealists recognized an alternative axis of human experience that did not align with the rational, workaday rhythms of modern life, and which instead revealed the extent to which individual subjectivity had been constrained by post-Enlightenment rationalism and by the economic forces governing the post-industrial world. Against these trends, the Surrealist Movement has sought to re-evaluate the foundations of modern society and reassert the primacy of the imagination for almost a century to-date. This book offers focused introductions to numerous writers, poets, artists, filmmakers, precursors, groups, movements, events, concepts, cultures, nations and publications connected to Surrealism, providing orientation for students and casual readers alike. Historical Dictionary of Surrealism, Second Edition contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has more than 200 cross-referenced entries on the Surrealist Movement’s engagement with the realms of politics, philosophy, science, poetry, art and cinema, and charts the international surrealist community’s diverse explorations of specific thematic territories such as magic, occultism, mythology, eroticism and gothicism. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about surrealism.