Créativité linguistique dans la poésie surréaliste (II)

At the beginning of Surrealism was a theoretical and practical engagement with language. This topic is presented in two parts in this review and is based on the author’s book Der Leser des Surrealismus. Untersuchungen zur Kommunikationsästhetik (Stuttgart, Klett-Cotta, 1977). The first part of this article discusses the search for a new language, a language as objective or device, and it considers language games as a challenge to the reader. The second part of this article focuses first on words examined in terms of belief, and on proverbs as a justification of words. On the basis of Paulhan’s reflections on semantic fields, the natural resources of words are considered, as well as the concentration of words – which explores the semantic reduction possibilities of the sentence. The question of the renouncement of meaning, or the discovering of a new meaning is also evoked. Further, the determination – the background, presuppositions – of the reader is another point developed here, which sheds light on the reader’s shock and consciousness when facing a whole semantic and syntactic upheaval. A general conclusion aims to recapitulate the results of the two articles

Consciousness · Epistemology · Humanities · Linguistics · Meaning (existential) · Presupposition · Sentence · German Literature and Culture Studies · Linguistic research and analysis · Linguistics and Discourse Analysis · Philosophy