Magic realism

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Magic realism (or magical realism) is an artistic genre in which magical elements appear in an otherwise realistic setting. As used today the term is broadly descriptive rather than critically rigorous. The term was initially used by German art critic Franz Roh to describe painting which demonstrated an altered reality, but was later used by Venezuelan Arturo Uslar-Pietri to describe the work of certain Latin American writers. The Cuban writer Alejo Carpentier (a friend of Uslar-Pietri) used the term "lo real maravilloso" (roughly "marvelous reality") in the prologue to his novel The Kingdom of this World (1949). Carpentier's conception was of a kind of heightened reality in which elements of the miraculous could appear while seeming forced and unnatural. Carpentier's work was a key influence on the writers of the European "boom" that emerged in the 1960s.

1 Elements of magical realism
2 History
3 Literature
- 3.1 Authors who have written in the style of magic realism
4 Visual Art
5 Music
6 Relation to other genres and movements
7 See also
8 Further reading
9 External links

[edit] Elements of magical realism

The following elements are found in many magical realist works.

Contains fantastical elements
The fantastic elements may be intrinsically plausible but are never explained
Characters accept rather than question the logic of the magical element
Exhibits a richness of sensory details
Uses symbols and imagery extensively.
Emotions and the sexuality of the human as a social construct are often developed in great detail
Distorts time so that it is cyclical or so that it appears absent. Another technique is to collapse time in order to create a setting in which the present repeats or resembles the past
Inverts cause and effect, for instance a character may suffer before a tragedy occurs
Incorporates legend or folklore
Presents events from multiple standpoints - ie. alternates detached with involved narrative voice; likewise, often shifts between characters' viewpoints and internal narration on shared relationships or memories.
Mirrors past against present; astral against physical planes; or characters one against another.
Open-ended conclusion leaves the reader to determine whether the magical and/or the mundane rendering of the plot is more truthful or in accord with the world as it is.

[edit] History

The term magic realism was first used by the German art critic Franz Roh to refer to a painterly style also known as Neue Sachlichkeit. It was later used to describe the unusual realism by American painters such as Ivan Albright, Paul Cadmus, George Tooker and other artists during the 1940s and 1950s. It should be noted though that unlike the term's use in literature, in art it is describing paintings that do not include anything fantastic or magical, but are rather extremely realistic and often mundane.

The term was first revived and applied to the realm of fiction as a combination of the fantastic and the realistic in the 1960s by a Venezuelan essayist and critic Arturo Uslar-Pietri, who applied it to a very specific South American genre, influenced by the blend of realism and fantasy in Mário de Andrade's influential 1928 novel Macunaíma. However, the term itself came in vogue only after Nobel prize winner Miguel Ángel Asturias used the expression to define the style of his novels. The term gained popularity with the rise of such authors as Mikhail Bulgakov, Ernst Jünger and Salman Rushdie and many Latin American writers, most notably Jorge Luis Borges, Isabel Allende, Juan Rulfo, Dias Gomes and Gabriel García Márquez, who confessed, "My most important problem was destroying the lines of demarcation that separates what seems real from what seems fantastic." Mexican author Laura Esquivel also wrote in this vein when she penned Like Water for Chocolate. The book, which sold three million copies worldwide, was later made into a film. Upon its release in the United States, it became the highest grossing foreign film in U.S. history. (It has since been surpassed by the current record-holder Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.) The most widely read of the South American magical realism narratives is García Márquez's novel One Hundred Years of Solitude.

Today, magical realism is perhaps too broadly used, to characterize all realistic fictions with an eerie, otherworldly component, such as the tales of Edgar Allan Poe, or realistic fictions where magic is simply an overt theme in the narrative, such as The Stepford Wives or the Harry Potter books.

[edit] Literature

Note that it is common in some fantasy stories to include a frame story, in which the central, fantastic story is explained as a dream. Because the main story works equally well with or without the frame story, and since either way the reader feels no ambiguity about choosing between the magical and the real interpretation, these are usually not included in the category of magical realism.

[edit] Authors who have written in the style of magic realism

[edit] Visual Art

Magic realism is a style of visual art which brings extreme realism to the depiction of mundane subject matter.

In painting, magical realism is a term often used interchangeably with post-expressionism. In 1925, art critic Franz Roh used this term to describe painting which signaled a return to realism after expressionism's extravagances which sought to redesign objects to reveal the spirits of those objects. Magical realism, according to Roh, instead faithfully portrays the exterior of an object, and in doing so the spirit, or magic, of the object reveals itself.

Other important aspects of magical realist painting, according to Roh, include:

A return to mundane subjects as opposed to fantastical ones.
A juxtaposition of forward movement with a sense of distance, as opposed to Expressionism's tendency to foreshorten the subject.
A use of miniature details even in expansive paintings, such as large landscapes.

Artists associated with magic realism include:

[edit] Music

Magic realism has very recently become a little known but rapidly developing genre of music. Music of this genre is regarded as particularly expressive of its creator's emotions through the use of modern instruments as opposed to traditional instruments. In some cases "instruments", as they are traditionally thought of, are not used at all, with the musician fusing certain noises with others (such as the gentle rustling of leaves with the harsh noise of a kettle whistling) to create a surreal listening experience that is deeply emotive. Juxtaposition of sounds, like in the example mentioned above, is a common trait of magically realistic music.

[edit] Relation to other genres and movements

Magical realism often overlaps or is confused with other genres and movements.

Postmodernism – Magical realism is often considered a subcategory of postmodern fiction due to its challenge to hegemony and its use of techniques similar to those of other postmodernist texts, such as the distortion of time.

Surrealism – Many early magical realists such as Alejo Carpentier and Miguel Ángel Asturias studied with the surrealists, and surrealism, as an international movement, influenced many aspects of Latin American art. Surrealists, however, try to discover and portray that which is above or superior to the “real” through the use of techniques such as automatic writing, hypnosis, and dreaming. Magical realists, on the other hand, portray the real world itself as having marvelous aspects inherent in it.

Fantasy and Science fiction – Fantasy and science fiction novels, using strict definitions, portray an alternate universe with its own set of rules and characteristics, however similar this universe is to our world, or experiment with our world by suggesting how a new technology or political system might affect our society. Magical realism, however, portrays the real world minus any definite set of rules. Some critics who define the genres more broadly include magic realism as one of the fantasy genres.

Slipstream – Slipstream describes fiction that falls between "mainstream" literature and the fantasy and science fiction genres (the name itself is wordplay on the term "mainstream"). Where science fiction and fantasy novels treat their fantastical elements as being very literal, real elements of their world, slipstream usually explores these elements in a more surreal fashion, and delves more into their satirical or metaphorical importance. Compared to magical realism the fantastical elements of slipstream also tend to be more extravagant, and their existence is usually more jarring to their comparative realities than that which is found in magic realism.

McOndo – McOndo is a literary movement favored by several younger Latin American writers. It seeks to distance itself from magic realism and the stereotypes about Latin literature that some McOndo writers argue were perpetuated by magic realists and magic realism.

Bizarro fiction - Bizarro is a genre of transgressive, often surreal literature. Bizarro literature encompasses many writing styles, including magic realism.

[edit] See also

[edit] Further reading

Bowers, Maggie. Magical Realism, Routledge, 2004. ISBN 0-4152-6854-0
Carpentier, Alejo. (1993 Fall). "Prologue to The Kingdom of This World," Trans. Alfred Mac Adam. Latin American Literature and Arts (47) : 28-31.
Schroeder, Shannin. Rediscovering Magical Realism in the Americas, Praeger, 2004. ISBN 0-2759-8049-9
Zamora, Lois Parkinson and Wendy B. Faris, eds. Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community, Duke University Press, 2003. ISBN 0-8223-1611-0