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  • Textbook
  • © 2017

The Language of Surrealism

Authors:

  • A rich and fascinating exploration of the literature that is written by a worldclass expert in the field this is the first book of its kind

    Places surrealist style in context, and considers the topic using sociolinguistic as well as cognitive perspectives

    Draws on original research, but doesn't assume any knowledge of linguistics key terms and frameworks are introduced clearly and carefully, ensuring that the book is engaging and accessible for students and general readers

Part of the book series: Language, Style and Literature (LSL)

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Table of contents (10 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xiii
  2. Delineating Surrealism

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1
    2. Origins and Histories

      • Peter Stockwell
      Pages 3-18
    3. Lives and Minds

      • Peter Stockwell
      Pages 19-34
    4. Language in Surrealist Thought

      • Peter Stockwell
      Pages 35-48
  3. Writing Surrealism

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 49-49
    2. Automaticity

      • Peter Stockwell
      Pages 51-70
    3. Dissonance

      • Peter Stockwell
      Pages 71-89
    4. Collage

      • Peter Stockwell
      Pages 90-112
  4. Reading Surrealism

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 113-113
    2. Coherence

      • Peter Stockwell
      Pages 115-132
    3. Ambience

      • Peter Stockwell
      Pages 133-148
    4. Immersion

      • Peter Stockwell
      Pages 149-166
  5. Diffusing Surrealism

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 167-167
    2. Surrealisms

      • Peter Stockwell
      Pages 169-181
  6. Back Matter

    Pages 182-196

About this book

The Language of Surrealism explores the revolutionary experiments in language and mind undertaken by the surrealists across Europe between the wars. Highly influential on the development of art, literary modernism, and current popular culture, surrealist style remains challenging, striking, resonant and thrilling – and the techniques by which surrealist writing achieves this are set out clearly in this book. Stockwell draws on recent work in cognitive poetics and literary linguistics to re-evaluate surrealism in its own historical setting. In the process, the book questions later critical theoretical views of language that have distorted our ideas about both surrealism and language itself. What follows is a piece of literary criticism that is fully contextualised, historically sensitive, and textually driven, and which sets out in rich and readable detail this most intriguing and disturbing literature.

Authors and Affiliations

  • Professor of Literary Linguistics, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, United Kingdom

    Peter Stockwell

About the author

Peter Stockwell is Professor of Literary Linguistics at the University of Nottingham, UK. He is the author or editor of 30 books in literary stylistics, sociolinguistics and cognitive poetics, including Texture (Edinburgh University Press), Cognitive Poetics (Routledge), The Poetics of Science Fiction (Pearson), and the co-edited volumes The Language and Literature Reader (Routledge), Cognitive Grammar in Literature (Benjamins), Contemporary Stylistics (Bloomsbury), and The Handbook of Stylistics (Cambridge University Press).

Bibliographic Information