"Surreal" is what? Meaning, synonyms and examples

Let's talk about a fashionable word that is familiar to many, but there is no clear understanding, but what does it mean. Attention is given to the adjective "surreal". It will be interesting, at least.

Surrealism is ...

A fascinating and bold movement of the early 1920s20 th century. The founder is Andre Breton (1896-1966). It was from under his pen in 1924 that the first manifesto of surrealism came out. The basic concept of teaching is "surreal," that is, if one translates literally from French, "super- and supra-reality". The movement wanted to rejuvenate the old woman-reality, sated it with new meanings. The main principle of direction is a mixture of real and dreaming reality. Two opposite entities were combined in freakish collages quite the way it usually happens in a dream, or by moving non-artistic, everyday objects into the artistic medium, thus art was created. This technology is called a ready-made overseas word-combination.

It is not surprising that the representatives of the movement wantedfreedom and revolution, but first of all - the restructuring of consciousness, rightly assuming it was the beginning of all changes. What is the use of putting a person in new conditions of being, if he is not ready for this mentally? That's right, no! In order to fully understand what surreal means, it is necessary to penetrate deeper into the ideas of the movement itself. Consider the latter even a little.

Ideological basis and main themes

Surrealists, not hesitating, experimented: They created under hypnosis, alcoholic and narcotic dope, starved themselves - all this only in order to disperse their own unconscious. Freud's term here is not accidental, since it was his ideas that inspired the Surrealists, but not all. For example, Rene Magritte was calm about the doctrine of the unconscious. By the way, his picture is on the first photo. The reader probably knows it.

Surrealists were primarily interested in magic,erotica, the subconscious. From this listing is already breathtaking. Therefore it is not surprising that Surrealism remained in culture and language. The reader has probably already thought that we have forgotten why we came here at all. But no, we remember: we are expected to explain the adjective "surreal". This is not a problem, because we already know the main content of the teaching, from which it went. Everything is very simple. Surreal - not related to reality, at least, to the one that everyone is used to. This is reality, different, different, saturated.

Synonyms

The words-replacements are especially useful here. Sometimes, of course, this subsection seems to be a formality, but not now, when such a complex concept is considered. Synonyms are really necessary. So, here they are:

• absurd;
• magic;
• magical;
• unrealistic;
• dreaming.

Unfortunately, to give an unambiguous interpretationThe adjective "surreal" is sometimes a difficult task. But usually people use it in the sense of "absurd". Hardly anyone climbs into dictionaries and reads about the history of the movement that Andre Breton founded. Although we do not rule out that there may be such people. Then the latter use the term with full understanding.

"Route 60" (2002)

The film came out a long time ago, 15 years have passed since then. But in the space of culture, time no longer matters. The most interesting thing remains, and the passageway disappears and falls out of human usage and disappears from memory. But the "Rail 60" continues to look. And not least because the film is applicable adjective "surreal". This will become obvious if you refer to the material again, or for the first time enjoy the film.

And even the protagonist, Neil Oliver, pronouncesthe word "sur", when an interview takes place when you receive a "job". And this is a clear reference to our today's topic. And here it is necessary to return to the fact that "surrealism", as a concept and a certain sense of being, actually has no analogues. Yes, people say "sur" when it becomes obvious the absurdity of existence, but still philosophical absurdism (A. Camus, L. Shestov) or literary (D. Harms) has little in common with genuine surrealism.

What should I add? The phrase "surreal impression" is closer, rather, to a magical sensation. But there are no canons here. Now the reader knows the history of the movement and its main ideas and can perfectly understand what surrealism is. The true mastery of some knowledge is not so easy, because they are complex in themselves.

"Alice in Wonderland"

By the way, speaking of the dream reality,You can not forget the wonderful work of Lewis Carroll. "Alice in Wonderland" - this is surrealism before its official recognition. And what? All features on the face. Unless there is no eroticism in the work. But, we must understand that, firstly, it's the Victorian era, and secondly, it's still a fairy tale for children. Although the original addressee, that is, the child, she does not understand much. Rather, he is not available to the depth of the author's mockery of reality. Surrealistic impression of prose is captured without difficulty. Probably, Lewis Carroll was the forerunner of surrealism, one way or another. But we agree with the fact that putting the action of history in a dream is a convenient method. If there is criticism, you can always say: "This is a dream, only a dream." What in this case can be a claim to the author? True, in the Soviet Union, the trick did not always work.

So, we realized what it means to be surreal. It can not be said that the adjective is claimed by the broad masses, but sometimes it is used. There remains one more white spot in the problem: can the surreal be a nightmare? However, we deliberately leave this question unanswered, so that the reader would have something to think about in the cold summer of 2017.