Great Liberty
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Author: Gracq, Julien
In 1941, Julien Gracq, newly released from a German prisoner-of-war camp, wrote a series of prose poems that would come to represent the only properly Surrealist writings in his oeuvre. Surrealism provided Gracq with a means of counteracting his disturbing wartime experiences; his newfound freedom inspired a new freedom of personal expression, and he gave the collection an appropriate title, Great Liberty: 'In the occult dictionary of Surrealism, the true name of poetry is liberation.' Gracq the poet rather than the novelist is at work here: Surrealist fireworks lace through bewitching modernist romance, fantasy, black humour and deadpan absurdism. A later, postwar section entitled 'The Habitable Earth' presents Gracq as visionary traveller exploring Andes and Flanders and returning to the narrative impulse of his better-known fiction. Julien Gracq (1910–2007), born Louis Poirier, is known for such dreamlike novels as The Castle of Argol, A Dark Stranger, The Opposing Shore and Balcony in the Forest. He was close to the Surrealist movement, and André Breton in particular, to whom he devoted a critical study.
ISBN 9781939663894. Wakefield Press. pb. 168 pages. 1 b/w ill. 17.8 x 11.4 cm.
available
In 1941, Julien Gracq, newly released from a German prisoner-of-war camp, wrote a series of prose poems that would come to represent the only properly Surrealist writings in his oeuvre. Surrealism provided Gracq with a means of counteracting his disturbing wartime experiences; his newfound freedom inspired a new freedom of personal expression, and he gave the collection an appropriate title, Great Liberty: 'In the occult dictionary of Surrealism, the true name of poetry is liberation.' Gracq the poet rather than the novelist is at work here: Surrealist fireworks lace through bewitching modernist romance, fantasy, black humour and deadpan absurdism. A later, postwar section entitled 'The Habitable Earth' presents Gracq as visionary traveller exploring Andes and Flanders and returning to the narrative impulse of his better-known fiction. Julien Gracq (1910–2007), born Louis Poirier, is known for such dreamlike novels as The Castle of Argol, A Dark Stranger, The Opposing Shore and Balcony in the Forest. He was close to the Surrealist movement, and André Breton in particular, to whom he devoted a critical study.
ISBN 9781939663894. Wakefield Press. pb. 168 pages. 1 b/w ill. 17.8 x 11.4 cm.
available