Part of what allows this poem to fit into the idea of surrealism is that it sounds like a villanelle, but that format is actually much stricter than the one that Reed's poem follows. Apart from form, this poem also echos some of the key thematic elements of the surrealist movement.
]]>Henry Reed is a poet with whom the Birmingham Surrealists associated. He's best known for the series he wrote Lessons of War, but most specifically for Part 1: "Naming of Parts." "Naming of Parts" is an excellent link between surrealism as an art movement and the topic of war that was so prevelant in Europe during the first half of the 20th century. Although "Naming of Parts" is about WWII, I saw a connection between this poem and Rebecca West's Return of the Soldier because of the routine it implied. The women in West's novel live routine lives while they wait for their soldier to return, just as this soldier learns to use his weapon.
Part of what allows this poem to fit into the idea of surrealism is that it sounds like a villanelle, but that format is actually much stricter than the one that Reed's poem follows. Apart from form, this poem also echos some of the key thematic elements of the surrealist movement.
Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in wonderland was a work that might have eaisly slipped into the cultural movement of surrealism if not way ahead of his time. The dream state created, to reflect the political times, fits the understanding of what the cultural movement was about. Carroll's imaginary land could not be viewed for it's importance in its time because of the political environment. It would have been a hit during the Surrealist cultural movement because Carroll would have been allowed to present this idea with a different understanding.
Jean Rhys has also created a work that falls after the the Surrealist movement. Wide Sargasso Sea hold many of the same characteristics of Carroll's childrens novel. When placing the novels story line into a side by side viewing many similarities can be detected in the use of colors, the characters constant feeling of being in a dream state, the reflective nature of the political turmoil and social roles of individuals with in the story.
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