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Magical RealismLectures 1 and 2: IntroductionLectures 3 and 4:
Axolotl by Julio CortazarLecture 5 : Student presentations on a
topic related to MR
Midterm Exams
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Lectures 1-4: G.G. Marquez,One Hundred Years of SolitudeLecture
5 : Student presentations on One Hundred Years of Solitude or any
other magical realist text
Final exams: Make-up exams
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Magical realist works:G.G. Marquez, One Hundred Years of
Solitude (1967)Isabel Allende, The House of the Spirits (1982)T.
Morrison Beloved (1987)Salman Rushdie, Midnights Children (1981)
The Satanic Verses (1988)G.Grass, The Tin Drum (1959)Patrick
Sskind, Perfume (1985)Angela Carter, Nights at the Circus
(1984)Laura Esquivel, Like Water for Chocolate (1989)Ben Okri, The
Famished Road (1991)
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Isabel Allende, The House of the Spirits (1982) The story
details the life of the Trueba family, spanning four generations,
and tracing the post-colonial social and political upheavals of
Chile.
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Supernatural elements in The House of SpiritsClara del Valle,
has paranormal powers -she predicts future events, she moves
inanimate objects, she communicates with ghosts and spirits. Clara
has a green-haired sister, Rosa the Beautiful.
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Patrick Sskind, Perfume (1985) The story focuses on the life of
a perfume apprentice in 18th-century France who, born with no body
scent himself, begins to kill virgins in search of the "perfect
scent", which he finds in a young woman named Laure.
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The supernatural in The Tin Drum On his third birthday our
little Oskar fell down the cellar stairs, no bones were broken, but
he just wouldnt grow any more. And I began to drum. The ability to
drum, the necessary distance between grownups and myself developed
shortly after my fall, almost simultaneously with the emergence of
a voice that enabled me to sing in so high-pitched vibrato, to
sing-scream so piercingly that no one dared to take away the drum
that was destroying his eardrums; for when the drum was taken away
from me, I screamed, and when I screamed, valuable articles burst
into bits: I had the gift of shattering glass with my singing: my
screams demolished vases, my singing made windowpanes crumple and
drafts prevail.
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Angela Carter: Nights at the Circus (1984) The novel focuses on
the life Sophie Fevvers, a virgin hatched from an egg laid by
unknown parents and ready to develop fully fledged wings.
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Ben Okri: The Famished Road (1991) The novel focuses on Azaro,
an abiku (spirit child) living in an unnamed most likely Nigerian
city.
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The book exploits the belief in the coexistence of the spiritual
and material worlds that is a defining aspect of traditional
African life.
The novel employs a unique narrative style incorporating the
spirit world with the "real" world. It has been classified by
critics as example of magical realism, animist realism or fantacy
literature.
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Common feature: All of these works treat the supernatural as if
it were a perfectly acceptable and understandable aspect of
everyday life.
A basic definition of magical realism:
a mode of narration that naturalises or normalises the
supernatural
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PRECURSORS ofMAGICAL REALISMGogol The Nose Kafka
Metamorphosis
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The Nose: precursor of magical realism (an unreal element is
woven into a realistic narrative)This story "contains much that is
highly implausible." The Nose
Highly implausible element: the nose of Major Kovalyov leaves
his face andacquires an independent life.
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As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from a troubled dream, he
found himself changed in his bed to some monstrous kind of
vermin.
Kafka Metamorphosis
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HISTORY OF MAGICAL REALISM
3 stages in the development of MG
Franz Roh: Post-Expressionism, Magical Realism (1925) The term
is used to define new, neo-realistic trends in German painting
lo real meravilloso: the term is used by Alejo Carpentier in the
preface to Kingdom of this World (1949)
a 1955 lecture by Mexican writer Angel Flores: Flores notes that
Latin American romantic literature is full of elements of realism,
and realist works are full of elements of fantasy, and calls this
mix magical realism.
Gonzales Echevarria
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Franz Roh:Post-Expressionism, Magical Realism (1925)
Roh offered the term magical realismto describe (and celebrate)
the post-expressionists return to realism after a decade or more of
abstraction.
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Expressionism Expressionists present the world from a subjective
perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order
to evoke moods or ideas. They try to express an emotional
experience rather than physical reality. The Scream (1893) by
E.Munch which inspired Expressionists
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Franz Roh Expressionism
More abstract
An exaggerated preference for fantastic, extraterrestrial,remote
objects. Post-Expressionism (1920s)
Return to realism
Celebration of the mundane(ordinary)
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Post-expressionism / magical realism (in painting) A style of
visual art that brings extreme realism to the depiction of mundane
subject matter, revealing an "interior" mystery, rather than
imposing external, overtly magical features onto this everyday
reality. Alexander Kanoldt Still Life (1922)
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HISTORY OF MAGICAL REALISM
3 stages in the development of MG
Franz Roh: The term is used to define new, neo-realistic trends
in German painting
2. lo real maravilloso: the term is used by Alejo Carpentier in
the preface to Kingdom of this World (1949)
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Alejo Carpentier, Kingdom of this World Because of the virginity
of the land, our upbringing, our ontology, the presence of the
Indian and the black man, the revelation constituted by its recent
discovery, its fecund racial mixing, America is far from using up
its wealth of mythologies. After all, what is the entire history of
America if not a chronicle of the marvellous real?
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Because of the virginity of the land, our upbringing, our
ontology, the presence of the Indian and the black man, the
revelation constituted by its recent discovery, its fecund racial
mixing, America is far from using up its wealth of mythologies.
After all, what is the entire history of America if not a chronicle
of the marvellous real?
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Here (in Latin America) the strange is commonplace and always
was commonplace.The stories of knighthood were written in Europe
but they were acted out in America because even though the
adventures of Amadis of Gaul were written in Europe, it is Bernal
Diaz del Castillo, who in the True History of the Conquest of New
Spain gives e us the first authentic chivalric romance. And
constantly the conquerors saw very clearly aspects of the marvelous
real in America. Here I want to recall Bernal Diazs phrase as he
contemplates Tenochtitlan/Mexico City for the first time: We were
all amazed and we said that these lands, temples and lakes were
like enchantments in the books of Adonis. Here we have the European
man in contact with the American marvelous real.
Carpentier, Baroque and the marvelous Real
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Amadis of Gaul a 16th century landmark work among the
knight-errantry tales (chivalric romances) which were parodied by
Cervantes in Don Quixote.
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Bernal Diazs response to Tenochtitlan/Mexico City:We were all
amazed and we said that these lands, temples and lakes were like
enchantments in the books of Adonis. Here we have the European man
in contact with the American marvelous real.
1521: conquest of Mexico
Paris 13 km 2 (at the time of the conquest)Madrid 20 km2 (in
1889)Paris 80 km 2 (in 1889)
Tenochtitlan 100 km2 (in 1521)
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Magical Realism relies on South American reality: the confluence
of races and cultures of the whole world superimposed on the
indigenous culture, in a violent climate.
Isabel Allende
Qtd. by Foreman in Zamora and Faris, MR, p. 286
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Magical realism is born, the novel (One Hundred Years) suggests,
in the gap between the belief systems of two very different groups
of people.
(S. Hart , Wen-Chin Ouyang, Companion to MR, p.3)
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HISTORY OF MAGICAL REALISM
3 stages in the development of MG
Franz Roh: Post-Expressionism, Magical Realism (1925) lo real
meravilloso: Alejo Carpentier
a 1955 lecture by Mexican writer Angel Flores: Flores notes that
Latin American romantic literature is full of elements of realism,
and realist works are full of elements of fantasy, and calls this
mix magical realism.
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Flores points out the affinity of this magical realist style
with the opening sentences of Kafkas The Metamorphosis: As Gregor
Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams, he found himself
transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect. Flores explains: The
transformation of Gregor Samsa into a cockroach is not a matter of
discussion: it happened and it was accepted by the other characters
as an almost normal event. Similarly, magical realism, to Flores,
is not weighed down by needlessly baroque descriptions but clings
to reality as if to prevent literature from flying off, as in fairy
tales, to supernatural realms.
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Classification of Magical Realism (post-Boom period)
a phenomenological magical realism (stemming from Rohs ideas) an
ontological magical realism (stemming from Carpentiers
approach)
Gonzales Echevarria
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Phenomenological MR (stemming from Rohs ideas): The
magical/marvelous: not a quality of reality but a way of looking at
reality (marvels stem from an observers vision)
The interaction of subjectivity and reality, mediated by the act
of perception . . . generates the alchemy, the magic, but reality
remains unaltered.
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Ontological MR (stemming from Carpentiers approach):Magic: an
inherent quality of realityMethod of grasping the magical aspects
of reality: faith (Myth-based perceptions of reality rather than
empirical rationality guarantee it.)
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MAIN FEATURES OF MR1. Magic: an irreducible element 2. A strong
presence of the phenomenal world;3. The reader may experience some
unsettling doubts in the effort to reconcile two contradictory
understandings of events;4. The narrative merges different realms;
5. MR disturbs received ideas about time,space, and identity.
(Wendy B. Faris,Ordinary Enchantments: Remystification of
Narrative, 2004: 7-43)
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1. Magic: an irreducible element
* Irreducible element: something we cannot explain according to
Western empirically based discourse
* The irreducible element is presented on the same narrative
plane as other, commonplace, happenings:
(Ex.: Remedios the Beauty in Garca Mrquezs OHYS really ascends
heavenward.)
* The irreducible element causes reversal of logic.
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2. The phenomenal world
Realistic descriptions create a fictional world that resembles
the one we live in, often by extensive use of detail.
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3.Unsettling doubts
The reader may hesitate between two contradictory understandings
of events, and hence experience some unsettling doubts.
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3.Unsettling doubts
ExamplesYears before, when she had reached one hundred
forty-five years of age, she had given up the pernicious custom of
keeping track of her age and she went on living in the static and
marginal time of memories, in a future perfectly revealed and
established, beyond the futures disturbed by the insidious snares
and suppositions of her cards.
They forgot her like a bad dream.Morrison, Beloved
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3. Unsettling doubts Examples: G.G. Marquez starts the novel Of
Love and Other Demons with a newspaper story he claims to have
covered in 1949
The chief of excavations calmly explained to me that human hair
grows one centimeter a month even after death, and twenty-two
meters seemed to him a reasonable amount for two hundred years. To
me, on the other hand, it didnt seem so trivial, for as a child my
grandmother had told me the legend of a little twelve year old
marquise whose hair dragged her along like a brides train, who had
died of rabies from a dog bite, and who was worshipped in Caribbean
villages for the miracles she performed.
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4. The MR narrative merges different realmsAncient/
traditional/indigenousmodern worlds.Life deathFact - fiction
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5.Disruptions of Time, Space, and Identity* Time: In IHYS it
rains for four years, eleven months, and two days. * Space Cortzars
axolotl and his observer seem to change places on either side of
the glass .* Identity
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Multiple and mobile identity Who what am I? My answer: I am the
sum total of everything that went before me, of all I have been
seen done, of everything done-to-me. I am everyone everything whose
being-in-the-world affected was affected by mine. I am anything
that happens after Ive gone which would not have happened if I had
not come. Nor am I particularly exceptional in this matter; each I,
every one of the now-six-hundred-million-plus of us, contains a
similar multitude. I repeat for the last time: to understand me,
youll have to swallow a world. (S.Rushdies character Saleem from
Midnight Children)
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MAIN FEATURES OF MR1. Magic: an irreducible element 2. a strong
presence of the phenomenal world;3. the reader may experience some
unsettling doubts in the effort to reconcile two contradictory
understandings of events;4. the narrative merges different realms;
5. MR disturbs received ideas about time,space, and identity.
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Other features of MRMetafiction: the text provides a commentary
of itself.Authorial reticence Verbal magic: a closing of the gap
between word and worldRepetition/replication(mirror
image)MetamorphosisPolitical critique
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Magical Realism and Neighbouring
GenresRealismSurrealismFantasyScience Fiction
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Magical Realism: an OxymoronRealism* history* mimetic *
familiarization * empiricism/logic* narration* closure-ridden/
reductive naturalism * cause and effect Magical Realism*
myth/legend* fantastic* defamiliarization * mysticism/magic*
meta-narration* open-ended/expansive romanticism* imagination
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Double faced nature of mimesis Function of art:
world-reflecting representation
holding a mirror to reality Function of art:
world-simuating/creating representaton
words are not mirrors
Halliwell, Stephen. The Aesthetics of Mimesis:Ancient Texts and
Modern Problems.Princeton: Princeton UP, 2002
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Different perceptions of reality
Logical (scientific) mentality/world view:
Characterised by a law of causality that seeks to identify and
eliminate contradictions, and is conceptual, empirical and
scientifically rational in nature.
Mythic/mystic mentality: A belief in forces which, though
imperceptible to sense, are nevertheless real.
This belief implies that there is no distinction between natural
and supernatural.
The primitives mentality does not recognise two distinct worlds
in contact with one another and more or less penetrating. To him
there is but one
Stanley Tambiah: Magic, Science, Religion andthe Scope of
Rationality.
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Surrealism - Magical Realism dream or a psychological experience
tangible and material reality
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Magic realism, unlike the fantastic and the surreal,presumes
that the individual requires a bond with the traditions and the
faith of the community, that s/he is historically constructed and
connected.
Both the fantastic and the surreal require the total rejection
of faith and tradition. Unlike magical realism, the fantastic and
the uncanny posit an individual who experiences a world beyond the
communitys parameters.
P.Gabrielle Foreman, Past-On stories Zamora and Faris (ed.)
MR.p. 286
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Magical Realism Fantasy (the fantastic) "In fantastic
literaturein Borges for examplethe writer creates new worlds,
perhaps new planets. By contrast, writers like Garcia Marquez, who
use magical realism, don't create new worlds, but suggest the
magical in our world."
L. Leal
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Magical Realism Fantasy (the fantastic) In fantastic literature
the supernatural invades a world ruled by reason. In magical
realism the mystery does not descend to the represented world, but
rather hides and palpitates behind it
Luis Leal
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Magical Realism Fantasy (the fantastic) Shared features
1. Simultaneous presence of two conflicting codes2. Supernatural
events (that cannot be integrated into a logical framework)3.
Authorial reticence
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Differences in the approach to the common elements: Approach to
Supernatural Events
Fantacy
Supernatural eventsdemand special attention Magical Realism
The presence of supernatural events is normal.
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Differences in the approach to the common elements:The
simultaneous presence of two conflicting codes
Fantacy
Hieararchy betweenthe two codes.
Magical Realism
No hierarchy between the two codes.
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Magical Realism- Science fiction
A science fiction novel provides a "...rational, physical
explanation for any unusual occurrences." (such as Aldous Huxleys
Brave New World)
"The science fiction narrative's distinct difference from
magical realism is that it is set in a world different from any
known reality and its realism resides in the fact that we can
recognize it as a possibility for our future. Unlike magical
realism, it does not have a realistic setting that is recognizable
in relation to any past or present reality.
Bowers, Maggie A. Magic(al) Realism. New York: Routhledge,
29-30.
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Magical Realism - Postcolonialism Magical realism: the literary
language of the emergent postcolonial world.
Homi Bhabha
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Magical Realism - PostcolonialismMR: writing back of the margins
to the centreIt blurs the binaries of modern thoughtIt critiques
the assumptions of the Enlightenment It shows the limitations of
European rationalism It reveals the ethical failings of
realism.
Warnes, MR and the Postcolonial Novel, 6
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Magical Realism in non-Hispanic countries
Robert Kroetsch What the Crow Said (1978)Salman Rushdie
Midnights Children (1980) D.M. Thomas The White Hotel (1981)Angela
Carter The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories (1981)Toni Morrisons
Beloved (1987)
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Further Reading:Alejo Carpentier, On the Marvellous Real in
America, in Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community, ed. Wendy
B. Faris and Lois Parkinson Zamora (Durham, NC: Duke University
Press, 1995), pp. 7588.
Roberto Gonzlez Echevarra, Myth and Archive. A Theory of Latin
American Narrative (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1990).
The Presence of Myth in Borges, Carpentier, Asturias, Rulfo and
Garca Mrquez by Donald L. Shaw