YuliaPanova
Vinnytsia Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky State University
Scientific Supervisor: Pradivlyanna L. M.
THE ESSENCE OF SURREALISM. SURREALISM AND EXPERIMENT
Abstract
The article is devoted to the analysis of surrealism as an avant-garde movement. It reveals its peculiarities, surrealists’ worldview and aims, the main types of works, the role of the author, as well as the notion of linguistic experiment and its relation to surrealism.
Keywords: surrealism, Andre Breton, unconsciousmind, automaticwriting, linguistic experiment
Text of the article
Surrealism is an avant-garde movement of the 1920-60th in literature, painting, theatre, cinematograph,which originated in France and then spread to a number of European countries, as well as to the USA and Latin America. Appearance of surrealism was caused by a worldview and social crisis in European civilization of the late XIX – early XX century. It is typologically related to phenomena opposing the positivist culture, hence the name indicating an appeal to the hidden side of reality which is inaccessible to direct observation, defies logical comprehension, and is impermeable to clichéd mental modes.
The leader of French surrealism and its main theorist Andre Breton defines surrealism in his «Manifesto of surrealism»of 1924 as«psychic automatism in its pure state, by which one proposes to express – verbally, by means of the written word, or in any other manner – the actual functioning of thought. Dictated by thought, in the absence of any control exercised by reason, exempt from any aesthetic or moral concern» [4, p. 26].
- Breton claimed that the ideal form of art must be created through the unconscious mind. In «Manifesto of surrealism»it was mentioned that«surrealism is based on the belief in the superior reality of certain forms of previously neglected associations, in the omnipotence of dream, in the disinterested play of thought. It tends to ruin once and for all all other psychic mechanisms and to substitute itself for them in solving all the principal problems of life» [4, p. 26].Surrealism found inspiration in psychoanalysis and works of Freud who explored unconscious mind and dream imagery.
An important specific feature of surrealism is automatic writing that was used in order to free the mind from the restrictions imposed by society. The main point of automatic writing, according to Y. Girin, is «subjectless writing» in which the text itself becomes a generator of new images regardless of the will of the author. As a result, the role of the author changes.The author is not a creator any more, but a «recording instrument» that writes what the mind «dictates», and the ideas come from the sphere of subconscious. The text gains some autonomy in relation to its creator, who begins to follow the text [1, p. 477].
V. Pinkovskiy mentions in his article that surrealists intended to review the basics of the world, to verify the rightness of notions imposed on them. The main ways to do it were the following: 1) a profanation of the values of traditional culture; 2) an alteration of the relations between the phenomena of reality, including the elements of the language; 3) an attempt of «clairvoyant» penetration intothe essence of existence; 4)bringing the sensory reaction to reality to the degree when the feeling gains insight of the mind. These ways, according to V. Pinkovskiy, determine four main types of surrealistic works [2, p. 248]. The works of the first group are distinguished by the poetics of the archaic comic and represent a person, who does not share surrealistic ideas, roughly caricatured. The function of the second group of texts is a critical revision of the relations between phenomena of reality in order to change the view of reality itself. Surrealists pay a lot of attention to language. The logical connections between words are often replaced by homonymous (homophonic and homographic), anagrams, paronymics, etc., which contributes to the manifestation of linguistic «surreal» (unpredictable) meanings. The texts of the third group produce dreamlike and mystical pictures, the purpose of which is to represent (restore) the true image of the world and to bring the reader-viewer to a state of vision free from standards imposed by reason. In such «representations» quite real objects are connected in a fantastic, contrary to logic way, although surrealists never admitted their visions to be fiction, they claimed them to be illuminations. The fourth group is «sensual» texts, designed not only to express the author’s inner world but also to bring the feeling (most often love) to the fullness of the understanding of that feeling, that is, to make it a means of cognition [2, p. 249]. Surrealism, as other avant-garde movements, is an experimental system. The basis of the artistic experiment, according to V. Feschenko, lies in the creative process of maximal disclosure of language possibilities. Besides, the linguistic experiment makes it possible to comprehend such phenomena as the boundaries of language and consciousness, the interaction of various artistic languages, the possibility of creating a common language of science and art. The linguistic experiment is understood here as a linguistic activity aimed at the artistic and / or scientific study of aesthetic and cognitive abilities of the language [3, p. 3]. Though surrealism was not understood by majority of people and often criticized, it was one of the brightest and most impressive movements of avant-garde, and an integral part of culture of the twentieth century.
References:
- Гирин Ю. Н. Авангард в культуре ХХ века (1900-1930 гг.) / Ю. Н. Гирин, А. Б. Базилевский, Е. Д. Гальцова, В. Б. Земсков и др. – М.: ИМЛИ РАН, 2010. – 600с.
2. Пинковский В. Сюрреализм / В. Пинковский // Знание. Понимание. Умение. – 2008. – №1. – С. 248-250.
- Фещенко В. В. Языковойэксперимент в русской и английскойпоэтике 1910—30-х гг.: автореферат диссертации на соисканиеученойстепени кандидата филологических наук / В. В. Фещенко. – М.:РоссийскаяАкадемия наук, 2004 – 25с.
- Breton A. Manifesto of surrealism / A. Breton. – M.: The University of Michigan Press, 1924. – 304.