An overview of the elements of surrealist literature.

2. S rrealism U An artistic movement that strove to liberate creative expression through an emphasis on imagination and the sub-conscious.

3. Works of fiction feature the element of surprise, with unexpected juxtapositions.

4. Surrealist artists offer “ another way of looking at things.”

5. Picasso, for example, captured the chaos of the bombing of Guernica in Spain by twisting angles, exaggerating features that stood out for him, and drawing the viewer’s eye to the outer edges where people and animals scream in terror and agony.

6. Writers experimented with stream of consciousness writing and dreamlike imagery. Writer Franz Kafka employed this technique so successfully that critiques call such “dreamlike” passages “Kafkaesque.”

7. As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect. He was lying on his hard, as it were armor-plated, back and when he lifted his head a little he could see his domelike brown belly divided into stiff arched segments on top of which the bed quilt could hardly stay in place and was about to slide off completely. His numerous legs, which were pitifully thin compared to the rest of his bulk, waved helplessly before his eyes.

9. Writers, like artists, wanted readers to “re-think” the words they were reading, to focus not so much on the meaning of the words, but the meaning of the USAGE of the language: The overall effect of the way the details of language, such as words, punctuation, spellings, and the appearance on the .page

10. In drama, Eugene Ionesco and Samuel Beckett introduced surrealism to the stage; the movement was called “the Theatre of the Absurd.” It redefined the role of the audience in drama and corrupted the classic elements of plot, character, thought, diction, and spectacle, which includes movement, gesture, speech, costume, and staging.