The Dream in the Surrealist Work – the Poetics of the Unconscious and the Literature of the Fantastic

Bora Kuçuku
University of Tirana, Faculty of Foreign Languages

Abstract

It is the poetics of the unconscious that stands at the foundation of the Surrealist behavior. The dream for the Surrealists became an art work in itself and an unattainable model of the unconscious creation. In both the dreams and the Surrealist works inspired by dreams, one can easily identify the poetical aspect. Breton derided those that did not consider the dream as naturally aesthetic and poetical. The Surrealists managed to create an oneiric style – that of the dream account. Even though there are several elements that lead to a poetical analysis of the works discussed here, this article however focuses on the most important and the most obvious: the fantastic and the uncanny. The dream opens up a limitless path to this literary genre. The oneiric uncanny and the literary uncanny have a unique fusion in the Surrealist works.


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