Hallucinatory realism
{{Short description|Term used by critics in describing works of art}}
Hallucinatory realism is a term that has been used with various definitions since at least the 1970s by critics in describing works of art. In some occurrences the term has had connections to the concept of magical realism,{{cite book|editor=Harold Osborne|title=The Oxford Companion to Twentieth Century Art|page=529}} although hallucinatory realism is usually more specific to a dream-state. The term occurs in the motivation for Mo Yan's Nobel Prize in Literature.
History
In 1975, Clemens Heselhaus used it to describe the poetry of Annette von Droste-Hülshoff,{{cite journal |journal=The German Quarterly |author= Larry D. Wells |title=Annette von Droste-Hülshoff: Werk und Leben by Clemens Heselhaus. Review by: Larry D. Wells |date=January 1975 |volume=48 |pages= 101–103 |number=1 |jstor=403458|doi= 10.2307/403458 }} although it was criticized in a book review as an "oxymoronic" term that did not fully capture the striking imagery of the poems. Professor Elisabeth Krimmer, of the University of California Davis, praised von Droste-Hülshoff's hallucinatory realism, saying that "the transition to the dream world is even more compelling because it is preceded by a detailed description of the natural environment."{{cite journal |journal=Women in German Yearbook|author=Elisabeth Krimmer |author-link=Elisabeth Krimmer |title=A Perfect Intimacy with Death: Death, Imagination, and Femininity in the works of Annette von Droste-Hülshoff |year=2001 |volume=17 |page=132 |doi=10.1353/wgy.2001.0006 |jstor=20688927|s2cid=144030425}}
In 1981, The Oxford Companion to Twentieth Century Art listed hallucinatory realism as one trend of surrealism—"a careful and precise delineation of detail, yet a realism which does not depict an external reality since the subjects realistically depicted belong to the realm of dream or fantasy."
In 1983, in his paper Halluzinatorischer Realismus (page 183), Burkhardt Lindner defined hallucinatory realism as the attempt to make the bygone present with a documentary factuality and at an Aesthetic enhancement of the reality.{{cite journal |author=Burkhardt Lindner |author-link=Burkhardt Lindner |title=Hallucinatory Realism: Peter Weiss' Aesthetics of Resistance, Notebooks, and the Death Zones of Art |journal=New German Critique |date=Autumn 1983 |volume=30 |issue=30 |pages=127–156 |publisher=Duke University Press |doi=10.2307/487836 |jstor=487836 }}
Goethe University Frankfurt professor Burkhardt Lindner discussed it in the paper "Hallucinatory Realism: Peter Weiss' Aesthetics of Resistance, Notebooks, and the Death Zones of Art" (New German Critique, 1983). In this paper about Peter Weiss, Lindner says:
:Weiss calls his Trotsky drama "a play that is documentary only in a limited sense, and would rather have take shape as a vision, almost hallucinatory." The expressions vision, hallucination, and schizophrenia should make one suspicious of the claim to true-to-life reproduction. Hallucinatory Realism - this is the attempt to blend the numerous characters into a breadth, an openness, a secret connection, a synchronism and a network of memory into a "We".
Lindner goes on to say "The treatment of hallucinatory realism seeks to achieve a dream-analogous authenticity."
The term occurs in the motivation for Mo Yan's Nobel Prize in Literature.
- {{cite news|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-19907762|title=Chinese author Mo Yan wins Nobel Prize for Literature|work=BBC News|date=11 October 2012|accessdate=11 October 2012}}
- {{cite news|url=http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2012/1011/breaking27.html|title=Chinese writer Mo Yan wins Nobel prize|newspaper=The Irish Times|date=11 October 2012|accessdate=11 October 2012|archive-date=12 October 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121012123424/http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2012/1011/breaking27.html|url-status=dead}}
- {{cite news|url=http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2012-10/11/c_131900696.htm|title=Chinese writer Mo Yan wins 2012 Nobel Prize in Literature|work=Xinhua|date=11 October 2012|accessdate=11 October 2012}}
- {{cite news|first=Paul|last=Mason|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2012/oct/11/mo-yan-nobel-china-paul-mason|title=Mo Yan's storytelling is as surreal as China|newspaper=The Guardian|date=11 October 2012|accessdate=11 October 2012}}
The term is used in four of the five official versions of the press release (English, French, German, and Spanish);{{cite web|url=https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2012/press.html|title=The Nobel Prize in Literature 2012 - Press Release|work=Nobelprize.org|date=12 October 2012}}
however, in the presumably original Swedish version, the term "hallucinatorisk skärpa" ("hallucinatory sharpness") is used instead.{{Cite web |date=2012-10-11 |title=Nobelpriset i litteratur år 2012 - Pressmeddelande |language=Swedish |url=https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2012/press_sv.html|work=Nobelprize.org |publisher=Nobel Media |access-date=13 September 2013}} The award was announced in Swedish and English.[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAAeoBPQgKw video]
In a review by Joy Press of the novel My Life as a Fake by Peter Carey, hallucinatory realism is used to describe how the book manages to make imaginary universes feel concrete and believable.{{cite web |url=http://www.villagevoice.com/2003-11-04/books/my-little-phony/|first=Joy|last=Press|date=Nov 4, 2003|title=My Little Phony |work=The Village Voice}} In an essay on the filmmaker Maya Deren, the term hallucinatory realism is used in a sentence about making reality and subjectivity indistinguishable.{{cite book |work=Rites of Realism: Essays on Corporeal Cinema |editor=Ivone Margulies |publisher=Duke University Press |year=2003 |isbn=9780822330660 |page=270 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UP3Gf8KfsXwC&q=%22hallucinatory+realism+in+which+reality+and+subjectivity+were+indistinguishable%22&pg=PA270 |title=Ecstatic Ethnography: Maya Deren and the Filming of Possession Rituals |author=Catherine Russel |access-date=13 September 2013}}
The term hallucinatory realism has also been used by different critics to describe works by the writers Peter Weiss{{cite journal |title=Hallucinatory Realism: Peter Weiss' Aesthetics of Resistance, Notebooks, and the Death Zones of Art |journal=New German Critique|issue=30|author1=Burkhardt Lindner |author2=Luke Springman |author3=Amy Kepple |date=Autumn 1983 |pages=127–156 |doi=10.2307/487836 |jstor=487836}} and Tomi Ungerer,{{cite journal|author= Serge Jongué|title= Le réalisme hallucinatoire de Tomi Ungerer |journal=Vie des Arts| volume= 26, numéro 104 |date=Autumn 1981 |pages=42–44|url=http://id.erudit.org/iderudit/54505ac}}
Pasolini's film The Gospel According to St Matthew,{{cite web |author=Catherine Rosario |url=http://film.guardian.co.uk/Century_Of_Films/Story/0,,391895,00.html |title=Pier Paolo Pasolini's Gospel According to St. Matthew |work=Suite101 |date=2 November 2000 |access-date=13 September 2013}} and the novel Paradise Alley by Kevin Baker.{{cite web |work=Los Angeles Times |title=Burn, baby, burn |date=October 13, 2002 |first=Adam |last=Bresnick |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2002-oct-13-bk-bresnick13-story.html |access-date=13 September 2013}}
See also
- {{annotated link|Direct and indirect realism}}
- {{annotated link|Surrealism}}
- {{annotated link|Magic realism}}
- {{annotated link|Realism (arts)}}
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
- [https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2012/ Nobel citation] of Mo Yan