Surrealist fiction in Romania and its European emergence

Alina Buzatu (Ovidius University Constanta, Romania) [BIO]

Email: alina.buzatu@seanet.ro

 

ABSTRACT:

It is difficult to trace all the routes by which Romanian Surrealism has filtered into the European cultural mainstream. But it is certain that its conceptual influence, dilute or transformed, is to be found not only in some forms of the ensuing art, but also in the cultural and critical debate. Our paper focuses on the concepts epitomized by the Romanian Surrealist literary manifestos and fictions in their rational phase: experiment / experimentation. These key-terms are pivotal in the works of some important Romanian authors (e.g. Gellu Naum, Gherasim Luca) and provide alternative definitions of Surrealism (others than the ones pioneered by André Breton). It is important to reassert that the relation between the Romanian Surrealist Group (Gellu Naum, Virgil Teodorescu, Paul Paun, D. Trost, Gherasim Luca) and the European movement is biunivocal: not only because the above mentioned authors adopted and continued along the directions established by European Surrealism, but also because they notably contributed to the Surrealist doctrine. Excerpts from Romanian Surrealist manifestos (Dialectique de la dialectique, Cubomanies et objets) and fictions (poems by Gellu Naum and Gherasim Luca) support our critical analysis.