The Surrealistic Dreams of Poetry by Hatto Fischer NY 1999

Introduction

"Surrealism breaks the promesse du bonheur [French: promise of happiness]. It sacrifices the appearance [Schein] of happiness, which mediated every integral form, to the thought of its truth." Th. W. Adorno, Minima Moralia, Aphorism 143

Surrealistic dreams about poetry having become dishonored – disgraced - according to Benjamin Peret [1] means ‘hidden wishes’ disturb us in our sleep as if something makes us want to regain linkages to true poetry. Those wishes seem to indicate that an effort is needed to criticize poets and poetry.
However, in light of many outstanding poets and their works, this criticism has to be specified. Dreams tend generally to withhold some vital information’s, in particular about their endings. We wake up to a different reality and recall but fragments of the dream. Differences matter in how reality is perceived through dreams as it is not self understood dreams are of such poetic nature that they make a difference.
As a matter of fact the difference between dream and reality is about what is visible and audible and what is similar to a silent movie just an expression of the imagination stirred by emotions. Certainly not every dream qualifies. As in the perception of reality so are dreams equally dependent upon a number of things, in particular upon a self-willingness to remember what has been dreamt.
To remember a dream the person must go through what Freud called ‘working through sources of agony and conflict’, but now more specifically: dreams may prepare themselves to be remembered, or else the way our recording or memory works can mean already that there is some filter to select dream materials at work. At no stage is there any ambivalence about the difference between dream and memory.
That is important to keep in mind when speaking about ‘surrealist dreams’ depicted very often by painters as a collage of pieces taken from reality and juxtaposed by introducing into reality dream-like images becoming more real at the point of departure from reality i.e. a locomotive sticking out of a fireplace in the living room.
Such differences can be viewed out of a descriptive stand identifying which dreams are of surrealist nature. To be sure not everything qualifies for that type of dream. To do so dreams have to be interpreted in the form of a subsequent poem reemerging itself in the materials produced by a dream like stance to reality.
Surrealism perceives ‘dreams’ and ‘dream materials’ as the stuff poetry is made off. The moment they start to describe dreams, they try not to follow everyday language. Rather Surrealism takes dreams as ‘raw materials’ and place them on pressplate to make possible the replica or the ‘frottage’ (Max Ernst). Once in front of a white sheet of paper, they start the ‘automatic writing’. In this process, or rather flow of associations ‘experience’ means a transition occurs to that of the poet in oneself. It starts a ‘discourse’ within the ‘self’, poetically speaking, with dream like images reflecting man’s actions. ‘Automatic writing’ is done so as to overcome limitations posed by memory upon dreams as by daily life upon man. It is a process of counter-selection but strangely enough does not end up being mere ‘wild associations’.
Andre Breton explains why: “We only amplified the ends toward which those dreams and associations were being collected; yes, still interpretation, but above all liberation from constraints - logical, moral and otherwise – with an eye toward recuperating the mind’s original powers.”[2]
The question to be asked here is, what difference does it make between a selection taking place prior to interpretation, in order to become a ‘remembered dream’, and what Andre Breton would consider to be ‘surrealist dreams’: liberations from constraints in order to recuperate man’s original powers.

Loss of ‘original Powers’

Surely the assumption of the Surrealists was after First World War with everyone having witnessed so much destruction, and not challenged due to false constraints – the soldier obeying to shoot at the other side as if an enemy although they were friends before (see the film ‘Jules and Jim’) - he shall be inhibited, to say the least.
Indeed creativity was low, even in New York at that time, so something had to be done to bring about man’s ‘original powers’ to express himself. That too could be called a dream, or just a fragment of what was a left over utopia: some reminder of the dream about paradise on earth. To Surrealists it made, however, no sense to talk about reality in such political terms since they had lost all meanings after 1918 and certainly by the time Second World War had come around.
How then to reenter that complex field of doubts and appealing theories by which it is meant to become creative again? Certainly that image of the past as having been a creative time was blended into self-reflections along those lines of ‘then compared to now’. When staggering through strange streets filled with other people and having to face a different reality after the war, they knew that it was naturally much more complex then dissociating themselves from bad dreams.
However, one painter comes immediately to mind when it comes to exemplify that dilemma between power of real expressions and leaving behind such a signature that all expressions could be counted as original works. There is a repeated flare-up of controversies around Rembrandt and his ‘oeuvre’. It is said that if you hang one Rembrandt in the room, it murders all the others – so powerful is his expression that it blends out all other art works. Then, and most important, art historians do not even agree on the list of paintings they consider as his original ones. Galleries often find themselves at a loss of words when new revelations are made and according to such newly developed technological tests the list changes as to what is an original Rembrandt or not. But this does not interest so much here.
Rather one Rembrandt painting comes to mind: the bather – a woman holding up her white dress and looking down at her feet while standing in the water. She is about to step further in the water. The whiteness of the gown illuminates everything else: legs, her downward looking face, the falling hair and the background. The water takes on a mysterious quality of a vibrant matter. Movements are about to be created in the water with her about to take another step.
By following a certain line of thought, including an overthrow of aesthetical constraints, Surrealism obtains a different view of such a painting. Surrealism does so through juxtaposition in order to attain the dream like image to the world. In the painting this is possible by hinting at the woman seeing her own image in the reflections of the water. Vibrant images conjured into stream lines of colors.
The crossing from the dream to reality, from illusions back to convictions is not done without any respect for borders but when it is done, that is known more to the sense than to some consciousness based on validated knowledge. That touches upon the subtle point of what are ‘our’ convictions about reality as opposed to facts. Indeed, by discourse – in reality associations brought about by ‘automatic writing’ - between dream and reality, convictions can be found where coincidence is the strongest force in bringing things and people together.
By letting free the force of associations Surrealism wishes to attain at a glance that what is about to unravel itself like a dream difficult to be remembered. In the painting by Rembrandt it is clear: as soon as the light alters, so does the image portrayed in the water. Reflections in a self disturbed surface and material – the water moved by the feet - means borders are flowing, a fluid in themselves. According to Andre Breton, the intention of dissolving these borders is to link “speculations of an Idealist such as Fichte to certain of Pascal’s radical doubts.” 3
This then comes close to combining a German search for the ‘I’ with a French dose of doubt – something Martin Jay attempted to do in his ‘The Disenchantment of the Eye’ brought about by a comparative discourse of intellectual thought evolving in the twentieth century out of the situations found in both France and Germany. The third dimension is added by searching for the ‘original powers’ in the New World, that is where many exiled stranded and found themselves grasping for air like fishes out of their own natural element: water.

Speculative Doubt

If common interpretations of realism are followed, the realistic nature of dreams is left aside. At the same time, the philosophical bent in Surrealism towards idealism and radical doubt at one and the same time poses the problem of how to identify such an attempted synthesis. For it leaves open the question as to how poetry can still be expressed in an authentic way especially if the realistic side of dreams is either missing or being forcefully ignored.
In real life, there are many and varied responses to ‘radical doubt’. They range from suppressions or outright oppressions to all kinds of denials. The compulsion to respond in such a condition of being without any ‘original power’ of creativity is really to escape, to give way, but then after the surging times in Paris that had become already ‘the’ lived reality by the time they left for America. In particular it augmented into a conjecture of ‘fear’. Some of the paintings by Max Ernst show that transition from 1928 to 1938. Fear of the ‘unknown’ was replaced by the fear of the ‘known’ that new barrier were going up rapidly and thereby impeding ever more so the flow of creative energies amongst people. It was to be experienced as a terrible loss of human reality. No longer in such a dream like state fixed upon reality did it suffice to quote a human gesture as could still Giotto. To poets like Andre Breton, painters such as Magritte, photographers like Man Ray, the expression had to take place, but with the dinner table becoming the operating one. Vincent Van Gogh had perceived such obscure conversions of a waiter being suddenly a butcher of time if dressed in white while serving coffee or beer to those men gone unemployed – completely disillusioned and without perspective ever to make it home with dignity. ‘Strandgut’, a German term for materials spilled up by the sea and onto shore, left the rest-offers of life to anyone else who would come along and pick them up. While they had to accept that the so dreamt reality appeared to have become impossible, except for putting messages into bottles before casting them into the waters, they sensed that the other side would still perceive that as a dangerous force of destruction rather than an attempt at communication with the ‘I’ staring at words as the only witnesses. The latter would be Paul Celan without thereby doubting that he exists, but he existed only within very limited and confined spaces, almost like a flower growing not on the ground but between barks of a tree so as not to be seen by those who would like to pick these beautiful flowers. There are vantage points, and of course, references, but it is amazing on how he survived National Socialism, but could not survive in the world thereafter. He committed suicide, and as such as a heart broken poet like dreams without words.
The further it goes into the depth of despair, the clearer it becomes that no one understands to phantom man’s own self reflection. This he has to do by himself, alone, and without any outside help. Still, that was for the Surrealist too early a demand, namely how to cope without certainty. To turn it then around into radical doubt while still hoping for a personal identity which is identical not with the other, but with that super-institution called ‘state’, that too would offer possible explanations, if taken not as a literary truth, but as a philosophical premise leading to a political outcome. This was, however, something the Surrealists did not wish to do, namely to get involved in some political debate without knowing their own base.
Hence ‘the truly lived reality’ would be the dreamt one, but one which had to be realized without thereby negating the dream. Yet if reality was anything but a dream, then next to being impossible to reflect upon, it would never enter the dream world. As such the immediate solution would be to perceive reality as filled with things that have no meaning, and therefore no power to affect man in his search for originality. Adorno would call it the ‘sui generis’, or the thought that each individual is unique and cannot be reproduced, as would Walter Benjamin claim when speaking about art having become like the industrial mass production just a way to produce things over and again.
All this is said because there has to be left the freedom to imagine things as to be different from what takes place in reality. Freedom is realized if the ‘sovereignty of the imagination’ is the outcome of the ‘integrity of memories’ (Michael D. Higgins) and vice versa, that is life in freedom becomes the ‘dialectic of being oneself’ in a place of meaning shared with others.

Sharing of meaning

The sharing of meaning is not easy. After all, the missing link in our perception of the world is how to include our self’s with such certainty that we are convinced, it is our own unique identity we refer to when interacting? Consciously this question recalls notions of Existentialism that different models can apply here as to how we think to gain an experience of our self in relation to the world. The latter includes the others and it was Sartre who made that dependent upon our own decision to whom we wish to relate to, that is who we let exist in our perception of things and of people.
Still, such an existentialist model is not sufficient to come anywhere close to the problems involved in wishing and having the possibility to share meanings. Two aspects intertwine here: ‘how real is reality’ under such preconditions and what about sharing requiring a minimum of consensus about the definition of reality? And then, is it possible to share something without trusting that what is shared, if it does not mean truth and honesty in terms of humanity.
The inner working of a trustworthy logic is replicated in communities coming to life and passing on values to future generations. Sharing experiences of life becomes in this process the most valuable, as it demonstrates the ‘connectedness’ of people regardless of race, religion, educational background, occupation and gender. Clearly its existence, but also strength expresses itself in a cultural consensus. The latter is indicated by outstanding artistic and cultural achievements but also how daily language is used to attain orientation in all walks of life.
Cultural consensus is by all means not the same as the ‘inter-subjective’ logic Karl Popper proposed, in order to gain objectivity as to what is commonly known. The scientific logic is based on everyone accepting that this table is a table, and not a chair. But the sharing of meaning in terms of self as to what this self means to the other(s) is a much more subtle and important process of clarification of our possibilities to do things in this world. The prerequisite is equality. It cannot be reduced merely to a give and take, since meaning depends itself upon simultaneous incidences of cultural significances.
There is the subtle hint made by Andre Breton in his ‘Conversations’ with regards to different movements of the twentieth century and their claims of ideological ‘truths’. It lead to a breaking up of first any human consensus and then, if not directly to war, to such massive oppressions since only the parties in power claimed to know the truth. To stay clear of such one sided ideological claims, he indicates that not only political dispositions, but philosophical and aesthetical reflections do matter especially when turning towards questions of self and identity. It is, however, enough here to ascertain that all too often the strife for certainty as much as for continuity of identity leaves out the difference brought about by conviction. The latter is exactly a repetition of the ideological mistakes made in the past and transforms truths into dogmas.
One thesis might be, therefore, that ‘our identity depends upon being able to convince others as well as ourselves as to who we are’. Such self convincing truths exist when we depart from usual patterns of manipulations, deceptions and even propaganda, and become truthful. It would depend upon being able to share the meaning of taking on such an identity. Here such advises as that of Robert Musil, one should not take one’s personal identity that ‘serious’, at least not so much as to be willing to kill someone if he would not give full recognition to such identity, matter. As such it matters to what extend man is honest with himself – something not at all that easy.

As Edmund Husserl realized at the end of his philosophical life, the greatest question he had left unanswered until then is that of honesty. Truth comes out differently when not trying to produce a result, but if there is the freedom to let things happen in a moment of complete openness and vulnerability. To reach such moments, things should not be forced, nor is it advisable to go against resistance; instead it is crucial to learn on how to swim in the human stream as a fish of the many.
If others are kept out of one’s life as much as the own ‘self’ hidden away, then there prevails fear. That is very important to perceive. The common mistake is to take that as an allusion to reality when it is really the ‘unlived’ which disquiets us: about not being true enough to one’s own dreams and therefore unable to stand up to serious challenges of life. They are less heroic ones on the battle field as being honest in a moment of truth when a woman asks if there is love as prerequisite for sharing meanings of life or not.
There is a danger in following the principles of Surrealism, and what causes varied reactions from Picasso to Max Ernst. There is a risk due to the method being based on moral principles to go against human streams of current times. Dali, with his method of paranoia, exemplified that risk.

Justice and the ‘just’ society

Things have changed tremendously since 1945 while at the end of the twentieth century the key question is how justice can be achieved by oneself becoming just to others, including what they do, think and conceive to be possible? The Surrealistic attitude is based merely as to what is of ‘political significance’ or not. That is too general, but as Andre Breton puts it, they set themselves after the First World War adrift, in order to find “different ways of understanding the implications of events”. (op.cit. p. 29)
Basically ‘surrealistic dreams’ are about the fear of being a conformist, but once adrift from general norms, it is not clear how questions with regards to ‘identity’ can be reformulated within reality. It should not be overlooked that this can lead easily to such assertive practice having nothing to do with the unique self, but much more with common politics based on the belief by excluding others, their disturbing elements, one’s own ethnical defined identity can be established. The crude mechanism of exclusion is being answered by policy measures meant to introduce ‘social inclusion’ but the results here are until now within Europe more confusing than reassuring.
All this is to say, how to be convincing is sometimes very hard to figure out since it depends also on where, when and in what context this can be possible, if at all. When it happens we seem to know immediately, and yet forever we seem to deviate from it even to extremes perhaps due to a hidden doubt and conviction this cannot be the full truth. It is a refreshing experience and gives energy especially if such convictions result out of our relationships to others becoming very honest. It releases us from the need to define ourselves while we take more notice of the others, their needs. Cocteau and Aragon in their discussion about paintings hanging in Dresden name the prerequisite for such social orientation as being a ‘self forgetting’. Once that is possible, we do not to have to undertake constantly a conscious effort to be our 'self', but instead come close to the self relating to the world. That is, experiences are made possible by going through a river of forgetting, that is a moment ‘positive self forgetting’. Once that happens, memories based on real experiences begin to flow while this authentic past is an orientation into the unknown future. Such moments make indeed a deep imprint upon the soul.

Automatic writing

Still the Surrealists would say that there is something very deep inside of our self’s which can be convinced only under special, certain conditions. This may be the case when dreams come true. Especially the dream of a just society relates to the dream to do justice to man.
Hence the convincing powers of dreams become stronger as the censorship inside ourselves subdues and the receptivity of the dream is undisturbed by not trying to have it spelled out for us through a fixation upon something. That is why Freud started with writing things down to come closer by association to the flow of changes and what has been transformed by the Surrealists into ‘automatic writing’.
Writings in the twentieth century have suffered due to the ‘human spirit’ being broken not once, but many times. There are the experiences of First World War and then came Second World War with Auschwitz provoking Adorno to say that no more poetry was possible despite Paul Celan continuing to write and Guenter Grass painting his poems in the color of gray taken from ashes to mark the mourning. No doubt when looking at this European drama out of the perspective of the exile in America, there is a difference between what native Indians suffered in terms of their ‘Great Spirit’, and what the Jewish people, but also others like the Gypsies had to go through. It made suffrage into almost an endless, equally hopeless task to find that trust again in the human being. Trust comes with the ability to love deeply someone else and through that person find again proximity to all others. If these forces of love and trust do not coincide in reality, then there is the danger if not producing misunderstanding about motivations of mankind to succumb to pure cynicism. That is noticeable in different forms of ‘resignations’ according to Klaus Heinrich. Naturally it does not bring out the best sides in man. Instead there prevails some kind of dogmatic moralization. Its foundation is clinging rigidly to ‘social norms’ without asking whether or not they stand really in the way of some very much needed human development. Consequently all this affects both writing and practice. If they give in to the ‘broken spirit’, then it appears as if things are done best by immortalizing the wrong things. This is clearly a given state of mind dictating many affairs and outcomes of the outgoing twentieth century.

The matter of spirit

The term ‘spirit’ needs some further qualifications. According to Hegel’s definition, it is something more than just a concept. In his philosophy that transcendent power of even reason means that the ‘spirit’ is something superseding everything else: a being – “der Geist” – taken to the absolute. Hegel furthered that into a cause of reality being suspended into the expanding state upheld by this absolute spirit. Given that political equation, the question remains still unanswered as to how man can live not only in freedom, but in equality with others on earth that is with nature. Unfortunately Heidegger labeled anything linking the ‘self’ to the world by means of ‘with’ as a ‘lie’. Implicit in such critical snipe at things is the assumption to know what authentic relationships are. So despite Heidegger’s version of Existentialism would it be not, therefore, more appropriate to speak about ‘living in nature’, even though the earth no longer surrounds man’s inhabitation while cities have become gigantic under the impact of global development. As if man’s world surrounds and encompasses nature, this has changed also the term ‘natural’. Earthquakes are deemed nowadays as no longer natural events, if this would mean to exclude man’s activities and what he causes through his doings.
There is still another problem linked to these overall developments, and although an old or rather familiar problem, there is a need for reformulating the question as to what shall be in the twenty-first century the response to the loss of values? Nothing was more disturbing in that sense during the twentieth century than the nihilistic attitudes expressed by Nietzsche and displayed already in the era before Surrealism by Paul Valery and what impression this made upon T.H. Eliot but also Andre Breton. Already at the end of the First World War he deemed himself to being just ‘adrift’, for “there was no possible compromise with a world that had learned nothing from such a horrible adventure?” (op.cit. p. 28)

In search of the poetic spirit beyond Nihilism

Thus the First World War left more than just a bitter taste in the mouth. Realizing that everyone, including oneself had been pushed into deception, traps of heroism etc., while censorship kept vigilance over any possible outburst of social anger, then what to do in such a situation? A new kind of poetry was needed, if one wished to be no longer an idealist but also wanted to avoid from becoming a total cynical person. There lurked even the greater danger that of becoming an even more radical nihilist than what Nietzsche had ever been. For it would mean becoming a spiritual anarchist against all social norms in order to keep some mental balance. Despair was close at hand because everything appeared to be completely out of control that is beyond even one’s own imagination of a possible decent life. Thus it seemed to a Surrealist like Andre Breton to be merely consequently at the end of such ‘adventure’ that this was going to be a life without any “social conscience”. As he puts it, “under such conditions, why should I devote even one iota of my time and availability to things not motivated by my own desire?” (op.cit. p.28)
The language of poetry departed, therefore, strongly from the ‘language of the origin’ and turned to the ‘language of desire’ as if following the path James Clifford describes with regards to Josef Conrad’s departure from Poland to Africa. The question of identity was then not ‘whom am I’, but ‘where am I’. Andre Breton adds to that the explanation that “perhaps I was expecting some kind of – strictly personal – miracle that would start me down a different path.” (op.cit., p. 28)
Still, James Clifford reminds at the same time by citing the example of Josef Conrad, that after the ‘language of desire’ has replaced the ‘language of origin’, there looms on the horizon still another one. Josef Conrad did not stay with his passionate love from Paris in Africa, but suddenly married an English woman and departed to her world. He started to write in the English language.
James Clifford concludes that there is this very powerful third language, one everybody must achieve, if he or she is to exist in society. It is the ‘language of norms’. The language refers to social conventions and accepted moral standards being recommended while regulating the daily life’s of peoples. This applies to marriage, the raising of children, professional conduct at work and fairness in political conflicts. As a legal, practical framework it sets the final agenda for things to do and to come. Its finite nature gives mankind many different kinds of orientations, but also problems since never satisfactory in terms of what an aspiring self for the authentic way of life filled with personal and cultural meanings. This is where the need for poetry becomes crucial in knowing as to what makes finally a difference.
However, one crucial question would be overlooked if only this possible outlet of the creative spirit was followed, namely the fulfilling of the social norm and thereby a way of remaining conscious of a ‘conscience’. Instead a breaking with all norms drives the consciousness towards such brutalization until sheer survival becomes accessible to something known as terrorism. In such a state of mind anything and nothing is possible. It is in reality a frantic search for truth but because all linkages have been terminated negatively, there is no return to social normality. Freud would say, the libido has been ruptured, sending the person into a constant state of panic due to having no longer any resistance against the death drive being externalized at every step. But as the ‘Robbers of Liang Shan Moor’ still maintained, namely knowing that they need the ‘grace’ by authority as a way of re-entry into society, this becomes impossible in those cases where things go beyond any human decency. It has no sense of justice and, therefore, makes in the final end no sense. Still this darker side of humanity is too often overlooked until too late. And it leaves any true poetic spirit almost speaking in vain for there is no longer any language that could reach. As realized Brendan Kennelly, ‘learned hatred is the most difficult to unlearn’, instigations in that direction are more than mere revenge against humanity. They exceed the normal term of ‘crime’ and cannot be answered as did Dostoevsky still in the nineteenth century with a mystic like ‘unbroken spirit’. By the time the Second World War had receded, no problems emerged making it ever more necessary to go back also to the times leading up to First World War and what happened thereafter.

The broken spirit

Thus, if it is to be only a reflection within ‘normal’ measures about the broken linkage between our self’s and poetry, then this criticism is not meant to be one-sided denial of poetry alone. It may very well be that we have departed in our own lives from the poetic path. To bring about the authentic in our self’s, true poetry but also knowing what attitude to adopt is needed to continue life as a search for that honest self in ourselves and others.
This need for poetry is, however, neither fully understood nor clearly articulated as such. The often sad truth, but who shall purchase a book of poetry, is a general, but valid indication as to how this need is if not outrightly rejected, then at the best ignored or considered as something outside common understanding.
Certainly many people have adopted due to the lack of such to an artificial way of life. They can cope by clinging to all sorts of distractions. Propaganda as much as advertising campaigns aiming to whip up enthusiasm for something suggests as to what is important, what not. Thus it becomes suddenly crucial that their favorite team wins or not at the game. It lets them forget that in the face of death such things are not nearly as important as they are made to appear, but if they give in, they can forget for a moment the agonies of life. By putting nothing at risk, but everything at the disposal of outcomes not really decided upon through their own inputs, it means that they do not breathe really the airs of freedom.
The human spirit consolidated in a mass of people turned into being enthusiastic for the one or other side is but the extension of the negation, the tool of the nihilistic spirit, of the authentic. It is an unlived dispute about what is still real, what not. Since Second World War and especially due to the increase of the Information Society, it means that the image as norm has become the world. People live by these images and no longer call upon others to become true. In the past, this was called conformity. Nowadays living according to images implies being adapted to the modern world. In it becomes impossible to invest very much in relationships to others, in order to encourage further human development. Rather everyone tends to judge very fast and to turn away from the ‘other’, if it appears that things are incompatible, that is not in terms of one’s taste desirable as a path of further development.
The lack of coping with modern problems, while no longer facing ‘dreamed realities’ comes with people feeling disappointed and tired of idealistic notions because they never worked out in reality. The loss of utopias as much as ideologies have given to the language of images the power it appears to have. It is the usual case that the own weakness makes the other appear stronger than what is the case in reality. There may be one relevant explanation for giving up the search for the authentic self.
As suggested by Brendan Kennelly, there is a ‘Judas’ spirit in all of us as not wishing to recognize how many of our own dreams we have betrayed, and, therefore, rather than facing that reality, we no longer speak. It means being cut-off from the past or else a tremendous sadness. The latter is often hidden underneath the surface of the formed self in realization that these true losses cannot be recovered.

Places of silence

The loss of the ‘authentic’ self goes beyond silence resulting out of repression and oppression. Here needs to be reminded also an acute observation by Michel Foucault, who said at the beginning of his historical and structural analysis of insanity that ‘we need to find out the places of silence before the lyrical protest covers them up’. Foucault meant also such poetry which becomes a sort of political representative in terms of reactions to certain events. He meant people have to be given the time to find out for themselves what is important to them. They need to find out by themselves what can be done to correct the situation that is not to let it go too far or out of hand, so that the basis of all dreams is destroyed, namely life itself.
In the light of so many political atrocities, people tend to uphold the negative truth of the impossible because it touches upon their ability to speak out critically. They know that it cannot be done without consequences. Above all they would wish to be able to do things without completely exposing themselves. They tend to give in before anything else to the sheer helplessness to affect anything or at least it is their belief that they cannot alter the world. At the same time, they realize any changes can be done only under conditions of openness, but this means being vulnerable to failures and other kinds of set-backs. Altogether that makes the practice of criticism more precarious especially if people consider themselves to be too exposed and fear rightly so a possible destruction of their last illusions. This is why Foucault would advise ‘to take away the illusions, but to leave those needed to survive’.
In short, it cannot be a radical reduction to nothing totally free of any illusions as this would end any relationship to the outside world and to other people. But this is not all. Again at a very simple level people fear already of being labeled as crazy outsiders if they dare to go outside the social norm and so they end up standing all alone with their opinion after having abandoned too many others. It is indeed difficult to be objective and convincing while still being able to share significant meanings with others and even more so to stand up for their kind of truths they may be still hiding in their self’s.
The many measures undertaken in and by society to make life possible, underline the existence of strong fears. The over-exaggerated answers given to security and safety needs make evident that there is a tendency towards over protection of the self. The artificial life ends in self made prisons. Designed to keep as much the dangers outside, as the fear of freedom (Erich Fromm) inside, all that amounts to a desire not to be affected too much by what others say and do with regards to one-self.
The ‘illusion of fears’ is the wrong protective walling. That was mentioned already above. It means limiting extremely the process of interacting with the world in order to validate the model by which one intends to live by. Thus artificial limitations shut down the self in places of silence and no matter what the others think and judge, the model of strict exclusion is applied out of sheer necessity. It is perceived as integral part of self-survival and prevalence. Petra Kelly showed where that ends.
Effectively this exclusivity prevents giving recognition to those still trying to be authentic, and who are as of yet not lost completely. Unfortunately the prevailing cultural filter allows not only certain things through, but more often the wrong things. Consequently such meanings are more often attached to things in a way that makes any problematization impossible. Above all it prevents the questioning of the many hidden assumptions about the ‘self’ despite them blocking the way to an open that is human development. This cover-up leads to such a definition of reality, which makes people in general appear to be limited in their capabilities of understanding. Due to the lack of trust and conviction, this draws then the ‘tough’ borders of the world.
However, it would be a mistake to call this the human limitations everyone has to realize while growing up in such a world. For that would act at the same time as a kind of censorship to whatever kind of criticism may be allowed in the realms of human understanding. The latter is only possible if the discussion’s go if not deep, then at least take into account the need for further considerations before reaching a final conclusion. It is a way to get out of any kind of self deception.
Indeed Plato’s cave analogy may still hold true today. For people seem to be more interested in the guessing game about which images convey the most powerful norms for living, than hearing that there exists another world, more beautiful, true and filled with scents of flowers while water runs over rocks. What makes it worse is that this outside reference point has become even less convincing with problems appearing to be everywhere the same due to cities transforming the surface of the earth into one huge urbanization process. It leaves nature, natural space, completely aside or else just a derivative of man’s overall activities. They compound into a dialect between life in the city and outside, that is in a second home which has become but a repeat of the pattern of all human settlements which crowd in finally at the center. There is no periphery. There is only a terrible silence marked by the inability to speak to someone else not belonging to the place of meaning. The latter is covered by the logic of privatization.
Naturally there is also the dream about greatness which has been often answered in a purely classical, indeed monumental manner and therefore leads to a wrong conception of the ‘self’ since in reality a mistaken identity. Some of the most violent people in history are prone to give in to some kind of mission with their own person having been selected by destiny or a higher being to carry out the job. By contrast the greatness of a Nelson Mandela is that he stayed within human limits; it is not great to exceed them even though it may have come out of a longing to do something great. These are the tragic flaws of humanity, as would Shakespeare describe them. What people need more than greatness is self-confidence.

Self-confidence and poetic freedom

It appears as if many poets of the twentieth century have not been able to do what Homer managed in his times, namely to give people a confidence in their self’s to live in a more authentic way. Yet in face of how people live at the end of the twentieth century, surrealistic dreams are not so much about restoration efforts of poetry. Rather they have to do with this search for authenticity. Its spirit is needed to carry forth freedoms of expression in honour of poetry as a ‘measure of things’.
The relationship to dreams was a matter for Freud to discuss, but poetic dreams make the spirits fly. Yet if their wings have been cut, then not so much by the behaviour of poets, but by what they think to write down may be worth a try while they tend to forget to oppose their own inclinations to use sharp categories as replacements of political actions. Thus if some critical judgement is to be heard in that direction, then Brendan Kennelly made a start with “Poetry my Arse”.
This then is not a manifest of Surrealism repeated at millennium conditions. Any manifest declares merely that the surface of the earth is flat. Yet because of the prevailing confusion about poetry, this kind of situation calls for freedom of speech. Once that exists, then culture can draw upon such poetry that exaltations of liberty begin to shine again upon the words, so that they stay free of a possible risk to loose their meanings.

Surrealism – methodological elements of criticism

Surrealism as such has undergone various interpretations since Andre Breton’s efforts to carry forth a kind of programme into the arts.
Mark Polizzotti remarks in the introduction to his translation of “Andre Breton: Conversations – the Autobiography of Surrealism” (New York 1993): “Breton’s remarks on the 1920’s, just as much as his dyspeptic assessments of the post-World War II era (particularly in the newspaper interviews …), are constantly subtended by an ardent involvement in current developments, and by a desire to keep Surrealism’s precepts alive. Breton was wary of doing what he had accused Maurice Nadeau of doing in his 1945 History of Surrealism: turning the movement into an artifact, good only for museums and study guides. To the end of his life he fought, wrote, and argued for Surrealism’s continued relevance, stressing those aspects that both concerned and transcended the political and social realities of the moment. Some of his assertions, particularly about the future of Stalinism, now seem remarkably prescient; while others, such as his belief in a Fourieristic utopia will no doubt appear naïve. But above and beyond the specifics, Breton’s plea for a redefinition of human values, particularly in an age of corporate cynicism and spiritual impoverishment, rings with even greater urgency today than it did forty years ago.”
Mark Polizzotti concludes that Breton’s Conversations “might be (his) swan song as a writer, but his preservation of Surrealism’s works and days, and his delineation of its philosophical constants”. In brief, he hopes that they could assure that Surrealism as movement is recognized for its historical significance. This would mean that these thoughts continue to contribute towards overcoming ‘cynicism and spiritual impoverishment’ in an effort to express human values through poetry and other forms of artistic expressions in a most authentic way.

Surrealism in Greece: Fundamentalism of Dreams

The receptivity of the idea followed different cultural patterns in Greece as compared to Germany. Elytis was known to be friendly towards the idea at the early start of his poetry writing, but later he distanced himself and wanted his expression to be understood free from such a categorization. However, the best way to understand the Greek affinity towards Surrealism is the belief in the fundamentalism of dreams. It is imposed upon reality rather than attempting any kind of mediation between intellectual concept and reality as perceived by the senses. This is why in a very strange way fundamentalism of dreams does not ignore reality, but maintains independence thereof as if the individual is not respected within utopian concepts of life. Naturally this interpretation requires further qualifications.
The question of fundamentalism raises itself many problematic questions, given the claim by religions to interpret directly a written text as meaning such and nothing else. Taking everything by the word, understanding a text literally lead to dogmatism and an assertion of the orthodox spirit. Ernst Bloch refers to this as the turn in thought from belief in reason to claiming just fundamental truths as being the only truths. The latter cuts off the process of learning as formulated by the enlightenment and especially by Descartes with his belief in doubt as a way of connecting the ‘I’ with society.
With things having turned from bad to worse, many things shattered in their beliefs and many experiencing inabilities to continue when confronted by the new forms of dogmatism, fanaticism’s and especially fundamentalism’s. Hence the loss of meaning makes Spyros Bokos propose as philosopher of religious thoughts, that there is a need to criticize fundamentally things without becoming ourselves in the process fundamentalists. While efforts can be misunderstood, since fundamental criticism implies that there are some fundamental things worth upholding, the denial of‘ontology of being’ cannot be taken to mean any desire to uphold such political ideology as fundamentalism.

Poetic Surfaces – Gravestones or Home Page

Once poetry enters a new, that is unknown page, the whiteness of the paper may be out of date. Many things are written no longer with an old type writer or even feather or fountain pen, but with the silent touches of the computer keyboard of a laptop. The means change but the search for expression remains to be a question of form in which time and timing becomes audible as a rhythm of words. The sense follows often intuitively once the forgotten word reenters and illuminates what everyone feels and even understands, but has not as of yet been able to express it in just that same way.

Poetic Inscriptions at the end of twentieth century

In history, poetry goes a long way back and yet the recurrent theme is whether or not it is spoken and written in the language of the people.

Duchamp let beauty go down stairs, but since then the notion of beauty has been disturbed deeply by Auschwitz.

Yet no more poetry would be a repetition of the kind of insanity which swept Europe during World War II, although redemption requires poetry to carry forth some new notions. Paul Celan sees, therefore, in poetry the possibility to relate to words as imaginary witnesses.

The lives of women are such that their suffrages become silent tears. With that they pour the cement to be used for the pavements they walk every day.

When the moon shines, it is really that the sun blends out the darkness as if light dominates all alone over the rocks. It leaves sea gulls at distance search for a suitable landing place.

Hands of children manifest something. That gives them the peace of mind and with a grip on the sand they fall asleep to wake up amidst their dream worlds.

Alice in Wonderland tumbled and fell not like Humpty Dumpty, but as a figure of speech looking through the looking glass became a great fall to the other side of the world.

Tamed are words, tamed are wings, tamed are tongues in the land of the Indians having no where to go but back to their reserves. For it is a message of the Great Being which tells them all by feathers of some wounded bird having fallen from the skies to the ground and there they bite the dust forever.

The Great Lakes create many shorelines for memories build on friendship, but the recollections are dimmed, as these bondages have become weaker with time. There is hardly anything left to hold onto. Time can be watched as the white haired woman passes by. Her eyes drink in deep your glance of wonder. She knows by passing by there are no time bridges to reach the final destinations, since everything is not just a moment, but a series of moments extended into infinity like the glance into the sky. Its whiteness reminds you of the white hair you have just seen a moment ago.

The reverse of remorse as nerve language, the body speaking through fibers made to coincide with thoughts of builders, is at the back of the dreams. If left alone, it remains a broken off conversation with poetry.

Poetry written in the language of backaches foresees the jerking ride back home. Something is wrong in the stomach area. The flexibility of running ahead, while parents follow is thus gone and instead the thoughtful walk tries to stay inside the barriers of secret pains.

Over here, shouts someone. All rush over to see what he discovered. It is nothing but an endless hole. He claims that here Alice disappeared. Others shake in disbelief their heads and continue their way. They leave him doubting the powers of his imagination.

At night eyes of people’s face stare out of fatigue into the anxious world of indefinite decisions. They have not completed what they set out to do that day, but the options or choices what to do the next day are limited. The thought thereof makes the head even heavier. Best is to open a secret door and to walk out of the mind into twilight zones.

Reality – American Dream (New York 1999)

Reality is different. The response to that is to criticize the prevailing idealism without making sense, or else to claim that reality is different to what had been presupposed. The manifest is then a kind of torn tension between anger and desire. The distances glare at the eyes while stones hurt the way. No progress, any single definition of value could provide in such a moment orientation. Even though it is futile to seek the finite, the failure to escape the infinite is like a dream and yet not the same. Here then comes the task: how to formulate such moments of lapses, junctures in time, when things could have gone other ways but the past in the present expresses resentment, changes and ruptures. What is missing in this negatively updated present is the touch, the sense of being outside the man built constructs of status and buildings, imagined forms of life under circumstances of well-off material conditions to allow dreams to be realized. No wonder that the constant of dream over reality holds only as a sign of impoverished language about reality. There needs to be made a careful distinction between reality lived devoid of any meaning, reality infatuated by dreams or dream-like states and reality carried forth through the sense of experience without necessarily identifying things said with the status things gain only through the apprehension and response of that reality. It has been asserted, however, that the concept standing usually above the language of the dreams can no longer be upheld at the sacrifice of reality. Assertion is also a dangerous clause bringing about hybrid states of outdated ideological reasons to justify war, violence and separation, but the answers to that have caused new forms of conflicts in this world of the outgoing twentieth century.

Mistaken Identity

Naturally there is also the dream about greatness which has been often answered in a purely classical, indeed monumental manner. But that is not the approach to things, once the problematic nature of Surrealism as genre of literature, poetry, painting and film is contemplated more seriously. It means not as of yet to embrace the Surrealist method as indicated by Andre Breton, or developed further by Max Ernst. For the political positions of the movement covered a wide spectrum from left to right. There is, for instance, Dali’s siding with Franco in Spain. It is but one example of a mythical idea about the ‘self’ becoming in reality an irrational outburst due to the dream about greatness.

But what is truly greatness in this modern world: to be human and at the same time an outstanding artist. Usually someone is able to do great things, but in terms of personal behaviour towards others, in particular wife and children, friends, anything but ‘human’ whereby this moral category of judgement can be extended to all human relationships. Others are very human, but they deliver no great works of art, philosophy or else of knowledge (science). It is only when in combination of both something outstanding is achieved, and then the stretch of the imagination uplifts the spirits and allows for different thoughts to enter the mind.

1. See own article on “Benjamin Peret’s ‘Le Deshonneur de poetes’”, October 1999
2. Conversations: The Autobiography of Surrealism, Andre Breton, Radio Interviews with Andre Parinaus, New York 1993, p.20
3. op.cit. p. 21

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