LIT 221 French Surrealist Literature and Art (Same as French 209) (Not offered 1997-98; to be offered 1998-99)

Dealing with Surrealism as an avant-garde literary, artistic, social, and cultural movement, the course will attempt to define the philosophy, aesthetics, and ideologies of Surrealism by examining the novels, poems, manifestos, essays, films, photographs, and paintings by which the Surrealists sought to establish a communion with what they called the marvelous," to liberate human imagination, and to inaugurate a new humanism, which would, as one Surrealist wrote, "transform the world, change life [and] remake from scratch human understanding." Discussion will be given to the notion of Surrealist beauty, to the role of chance, play, and the unconscious in Surrealist creation, to the changing definitions of love and desire in Surrealist experience, and to the male appropriation of the female body in Surrealist representation. Readings will include the works of Andre Breton, Louis Aragon, Paul Eluard, Robert Desnos, Tristan Tzara, Joyce Mansour, and Benjamin Peret. In addition, study will be devoted to the Dada creations of Marcel Duchamp and Francis Picabia and to the Surrealist painting and photography of Max Ernst, Rene Magritte, Leonora Carrington, Frida Kahlo, Man Ray, Salvador Dali, Yves Tanguy, Joan Miro, and the Surrealist constructions of the American, Joseph Cornell. Films by Dali, Luis Bunuel, and others will be shown. Conducted in English. (Students seeking course credit for the French major will do the readings and written work in French; other students will do them in English.) Requirements: active participation in class discussions, one short paper, one longer final paper, possibly one-hour exam, and oral class presentations. No prerequisites.

STAMELMAN