'Outsiders and Impersonators': a critical and creative exploration of the surrealist fiction of Leonora Carrington, Ithell Colquhoun and Unica Zurn

本研究包括两个相互关联的要素：一篇批判性论文，探讨上述作家作品的独特方式，作为超现实主义的“局外人”版本，提供有关其经典和哲学的新见解；以及一本实验小说，它将通过基于实践的调查来扩展这些见解。小说将提供机会来进行批判性探究所建议的正式实验，并产生见解，如果没有这个实际的试验场，这些见解将仍然是推测性的。结果将是对超现实主义领域研究的原创性贡献，以及作为人工制品和反思性证据的实验性小说；从批判性阅读和写作的综合中涌现出来。文化背景：女性在超现实主义萌芽时被边缘化，但她们参与了超现实主义早期的实验。他们作为“精神电流”导体或“缪斯”的“指定”角色是有据可查的。然而，在20世纪20年代的两份超现实主义宣言中，只有一位女性签名。“局外人”，指的是“国际公认的自学艺术类别”，作为一个术语来解释这个项目的元素似乎很有用。虽然这三位女性的作品经常被描述为超现实主义，但它们往往与超现实主义宣言中提出的创造力概念不符。提出的批判性调查将质疑对超现实主义的传统理解，并将质疑这些女作家是否最好被理解为超现实主义者，或者她们是否呼吁打破批评惯例，从而重新构建她们在经典中的地位。研究背景：对超现实主义女性小说的批评相对有限。凯瑟琳·康利（Katherine Conley）的作品（2008）代表了最重要和最一致的焦点，分析了超现实主义女性写作与平行男性等同（通常由布列塔尼和苏波）的关系，并倾向于重新构想女性的自我概念。其他地方的许多讨论都对超现实主义项目中隐含的厌女症进行了批评。虽然这是必不可少的工作，但到目前为止，人们很少考虑这些女性艺术家以自己的优点为创作过程提供新的见解，并在文学和艺术分类之外代表真正的新鲜材料。方法：小说将通过对小说的分析发现来塑造，并将反射性地提炼出一套以前不存在的与超现实主义有关的技术思想。在我对所选文本的批判性分析中，将追踪以下策略：-小说作为自传体的折射-文本中人物的文字掩饰-伪装的旅程-反拟人化的表现-神话般的重新塑造-类型原型的模仿-超现实主义项目本身的模仿

This research comprises two interrelated elements: a critical thesis exploring the distinctive ways inwhich the above writers' work, situated as an 'outsider' version of Surrealismi, offers new insights regardingits canon and philosophy; and an experimental novel which will extend these insights via practice-based investigation.The fiction will provide opportunities to conduct formal experiments suggested by the critical enquiry andgenerate insights which would remain speculative without this praxical testing ground.The outcomes will be an original contribution to research in the field of Surrealism and an experimentalfiction functioning as artefact and reflexive evidence; emerging out of the synthesis of critical readingand writing.Cultural Context:Women were marginalised at the inception of Surrealism but participated in its early experiments. Their'assigned' role as conductors of 'mental electricity'ii or as 'muses' is well documented. Yet there is onlyone female signature on either of the two Surrealist Manifestos of the 1920's.iii'Outsider', denoting that 'internationally recognised category of self-taught art'iv, seems useful as a termto account for elements of this project. Though the work of the three women is frequently described assurrealist, it often doesn't fit comfortably with notions of creativity set out in surrealism's manifestos.The proposed critical investigation will interrogate conventional understandings of Surrealism, and willquestion whether these women writers are best understood as surrealists, or whether they call for a destabilisingof critical conventions, hence a re-framing of how they are situated in the canon.Research Context:Criticism of the fiction of surrealist women is relatively limited. Katherine Conley's work (2008) representsthe most significant and concerted focus, analysing surrealist women's writing in relation to parallelmale equivalences (often by Breton and Soupault), and tending towards a re-visioning of the conceptof selfhood for women. Much discussion elsewhere stages a critique of the implicit misogyny of the SurrealistProjectv. Whilst this is essential work, so far there is scant consideration of the ways these femaleartists on their own merit offer new insights into the creative process and represent genuinely fresh material,outside the literary and artistic taxonomy. Methodology:The novel will be shaped by the discoveries made during analysis of the fiction and will, reflexively, distila set of technical ideas which did not previously exist in relation to Surrealism.In my critical analysis of the selected texts, the following strategies will be traced:- Fiction as an autobiographical refraction- Literal masking of character within text- Journeys in disguise- Anti-anthropomorphic manifestations- Mythic re-figurings- Impersonation of genre archetypes- Impersonation of the surrealist project itself