Magical realism,magic realism, ormarvelous realism is a style or genre offiction andart that presents arealistic view of the world while incorporatingmagical elements, often blurring the lines betweenspeculation and reality.[1]Magical realism is the most commonly used of the three terms, and refers to literature, in particular, withmagical orsupernatural phenomena presented in an otherwise real-world or mundanesetting, and is commonly found in novels anddramatic performances.[2]: 1–5 In his article "Magical Realism in Spanish American Literature", Luis Leal explains the difference between magic literature and magical realism, stating that, "Magical realism is not magic literature either. Its aim, unlike that of magic, is to express emotions, not to evoke them."[3] Despite including certain magic elements, it is generally considered to be a different genre fromfantasy because magical realism uses a substantial amount of realistic detail and employs magical elements to make a point about reality, while fantasy stories are often separated from reality.[4][5][6] The two are also distinguished in that magic realism is closer toliterary fiction than to fantasy, which is instead a type ofgenre fiction.[7] Magical realism is often seen as an amalgamation of real and magical elements that produces a more inclusive writing form than eitherliterary realism or fantasy.[5]
The termmagic realism is broadlydescriptive rather than critically rigorous, and Matthew Strecher (1999) defines it as "what happens when a highly detailed, realistic setting is invaded by something too strange to believe."[8] The term and its wide definition can often become confused, as many writers are categorized as magical realists. The term was influenced by a German and Italian painting style of the 1920s which were given the same name.[2] InThe Art of Fiction, British novelist and criticDavid Lodge defines magic realism: "when marvellous and impossible events occur in what otherwise purports to be a realistic narrative—is an effect especially associated with contemporary Latin American fiction (for example the work of the Colombian novelistGabriel García Márquez) but it is also encountered in novels from other continents, such as those ofGünter Grass,Salman Rushdie andMilan Kundera. All these writers have lived through great historical convulsions and wrenching personal upheavals, which they feel cannot be adequately represented in a discourse of undisturbed realism", citing Kundera's 1979 novelThe Book of Laughter and Forgetting as an exemplar."[9]Michiko Kakutani writes that "The transactions between the extraordinary and the mundane that occur in so much Latin American fiction are not merely a literary technique, but also a mirror of a reality in which the fantastic is frequently part of everyday life."[10] Magical realism often mixes history and fantasy, as in Salman Rushdie'sMidnight's Children, in which the children born at midnight on August 15, 1947, the moment of India's independence, are telepathically linked.[citation needed]
19th-centuryRomantic writers such asE. T. A. Hoffmann andNikolai Gogol, especially in their fairy tales and short stories, have been credited with originating a trend within Romanticism that contained "a European magical realism where the realms of fantasy are continuously encroaching and populating the realms of the real".[12] In the words ofAnatoly Lunacharsky:
Unlike other romantics, Hoffmann was a satirist. He saw the reality surrounding him with unusual keenness, and in this sense he was one of the first and sharpest realists. The smallest details of everyday life, funny features in the people around him with extraordinary honesty were noticed by him. In this sense, his works are a whole mountain of delightfully sketched caricatures of reality. But he was not limited to them. Often he created nightmares similar to Gogol'sPortrait. Gogol is a student of Hoffmann and is extremely dependent on Hoffmann in many works, for example inPortrait andThe Nose. In them, just like Hoffmann, he frightens with a nightmare and contrasts it to a positive beginning ... Hoffmann's dream was free, graceful, attractive, cheerful to infinity. Reading his fairy tales, you understand that Hoffmann is, in essence, a kind, clear person, because he could tell a child such things asThe Nutcracker orThe Royal Bride – these pearls of human fantasy.[13]
PhilosopherNikolai Berdyaev and poetAndrei Bely used the term "mystical realism" (Russian:мистический реализм) in the foreword to 1907'sPhilosophical, Social and Literary Experiences (1900-1906), in reference to a genre of literature that merges realism with mystical revelation, particularly noting its emphasis on the writer's own spiritual understanding, rather than established dogma.[14] The pair note the later works ofFyodor Dostoevsky,[15] particularlyIvan Fyodorovich Karamazov's storyline inThe Brothers Karamazov (1879–1880), as an example of this style, arguing that Ivan's relationship with Smerdyakov and the devil go "beyond reality and instead exists within a more abstract and metaphysical realm".[16] They also note similar divine features between Stavrogin and Shatov inDemons (1871–1972), the protagonist and Svidrigailov inCrime and Punishment (1866) and the protagonist and Nastasya Filippovna and Rogozhin inThe Idiot (1868–1869)[17] Other authors discussed include Gogol,Alexander Pushkin andLeo Tolstoy.[18] Academic Ceylan Özdemir noted this concept of "mystical realism" not as synonymous with magical realism, but as a style that precluded the more religious side of magical realism.[19]
In her essay "Russian Magical Realism and Pelevin as Its Exponent" (2009), Alexandra Berlina observed that seven years prior to Franz Roh's coining of the termmagischer Realismus,Viktor Shklovsky's essay "Art as a Device; Theory of Prose" (1918) discussed a topic "strikingly reminiscent". The essay largely discussed Tolstoy and his storyKholstomer (1986) and use of "the estrangement of familiar objects", due to its narrator being a horse.[20]
InSerge Charchoune's 1932 article "Magical Realism" (Russian:"Магический реализм"), he notes his own work's use of symbolism, emotional depth and blurring the distinction between reality and magic followEdmond Jaloux's definition of the magic realism genre.[21] In his response to this article, criticGleb Struve noted the works of himself,Gaito Gazdanov,Irina Odoyevtseva andNina Berberova as "quintessentially portraying magical realism".[22]Mikhail Bulgakov's novelThe Master and Margarita (written: 1928 and 1940; published: 1966–1967) was called "one of the great works of magical realism" byThe Cambridge Companion to European Novelists (2012), noting it as a continuation of the style of Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, and a sign of a separate lineage of magical realism to the Latin American school.[23]
The term first appeared as the Germanmagischer Realismus ('magical realism'). In 1925, German art criticFranz Roh usedmagischer Realismus to refer to apainterly style known asNeue Sachlichkeit ('New Objectivity'),[24][25] an alternative toexpressionism that was championed by German museum directorGustav Hartlaub.[2]: 9–11 [11]: 33 Roh identified magic realism's accurate detail, smooth photographic clarity, and portrayal of the 'magical' nature of the rational world; it reflected theuncanniness of people and our modern technological environment.[2]: 9–10 He also believed that magic realism was related to, but distinct from,surrealism, due to magic realism's focus on material object and theactual existence of things in the world, as opposed to surrealism's more abstract, psychological, and subconscious reality.[2]: 12
German magic-realist paintings influenced the Italian writerMassimo Bontempelli, who has been called the first to apply magic realism to writing, aiming to capture the fantastic, mysterious nature of reality. In 1926, he founded the magic realist magazine900.Novecento, and his writings influenced Belgian magic realist writersJohan Daisne andHubert Lampo.[2]: 13–14
Roh's magic realism also influenced writers inHispanic America, where it was translated in 1927 asrealismo mágico. Venezuelan writerArturo Uslar-Pietri, who had known Bontempelli, wrote influential magic-realist short stories in the 1920s and 30s that focused on the mystery and reality of how we live.[2]: 14–15 Luis Leal attests that Uslar Pietri seemed to have been the first to use the termrealismo mágico in literature, in 1948.[26] There is evidence that Mexican writerElena Garro used the same term to describe the works ofE. T. A. Hoffmann, but dismissed her own work as a part of the genre.[27] French-Russian Cuban writerAlejo Carpentier, who rejected Roh's magic realism as tiresome pretension, developed his related conceptlo real maravilloso ('marvelous realism') in 1949.[2]: 14 Maggie Ann Bowers writes that marvelous-realist literature and art expresses "the seemingly opposed perspectives of a pragmatic, practical and tangible approach to reality and an acceptance of magic and superstition" within an environment of differing cultures.[2]: 2–3
Magic realism was later used to describe the uncannyrealism by such American painters asIvan Albright,Peter Blume,Paul Cadmus,Gray Foy,George Tooker,Brian Connelly and Viennese-bornHenry Koerner, among other artists during the 1940s and 1950s. However, in contrast with its use in literature, magic realist art does not often include overtlyfantastic or magical content, but rather, it looks at the mundane through a hyper-realistic and often mysterious lens.[11]
The termmagical realism, as opposed tomagic realism, first emerged in the 1955 essay "Magical Realism in Spanish American Fiction" by critic Angel Flores in reference to writing that combines aspects of magic realism and marvelous realism.[2]: 16 While Flores namedJorge Luis Borges as the first magical realist, he failed to acknowledge either Carpentier or Uslar Pietri for bringing Roh's magic realism to Latin America. Borges is often seen as a predecessor of magical realists, with only Flores considering him a true magical realist.[2]: 16–18 After Flores's essay, there was a resurgence of interest in marvelous realism, which, after theCuban revolution of 1959, led to the termmagical realism being applied to a new type of literature known for matter-of-fact portrayal of magical events.[2]: 18
Literary magic realism originated in Latin America. Writers often traveled between their home country and European cultural hubs, such as Paris or Berlin, and were influenced by the art movement of the time.[28][29] Cuban writerAlejo Carpentier and VenezuelanArturo Uslar-Pietri, for example, were strongly influenced by European artistic movements, such asSurrealism, during their stays in Paris in the 1920s and 1930s.[2] One major event that linked painterly and literary magic realisms was the translation and publication of Franz Roh's book into Spanish by Spain'sRevista de Occidente in 1927, headed by major literary figureJosé Ortega y Gasset. "Within a year, Magic Realism was being applied to the prose of European authors in the literary circles of Buenos Aires."[11]: 61 Between 1940 and 1950, the precursors of magical realism appeared in Latin American literature, including[30]Jorge Luis Borges and his storyHistoria universal de la infamia in 1935.[30] Alejo Carpentier's novelThe Kingdom of This World, published in 1949, is often characterized as an important harbinger of magic realism, which reached its canonical incarnation inGabriel García Marquez's novelOne Hundred Years of Solitude (1967).[31]García Marquez citedKafka's "The Metamorphosis" as a formative influence: "The first line almost knocked me out of bed. It begins: 'As Gregor Samsa awoke from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.' When I read that line I thought to myself I didn't know anyone was allowed to write things like that. If I had known, I would have started writing a long time ago." He also cited the stories told to him by his grandmother: "She told me things that sounded supernatural and fantastic, but she told them with complete naturalness. She did not change her expression at all when telling her stories, and everyone was surprised. In previous attempts to writeOne Hundred Years of Solitude, I tried to tell the story without believing in it. I discovered that what I had to was believe in them myself and them write them with the same expression with which my grandmother told them: with a brick face."[32]
The theoretical implications of visual art's magic realism greatly influenced European and Latin American literature. ItalianMassimo Bontempelli, for instance, claimed thatliterature could be a means to create a collective consciousness by "opening new mythical and magical perspectives on reality", and used his writings to inspire an Italian nation governed byFascism.[2] Uslar Pietri was closely associated with Roh's form of magic realism and knew Bontempelli in Paris. Rather than follow Carpentier's developing versions of "the (Latin) American marvelous real", Uslar Pietri's writings emphasize "the mystery of human living amongst the reality of life". He believed magic realism was "a continuation of thevanguardia [oravant-garde] modernist experimental writings of Latin America".[2]
The extent to which the characteristics below apply to a given magic realist text varies. Every text is different and employs a smattering of the qualities listed here. However, they accurately portray what one might expect from a magic realist text.
Magical realism portrays fantastical events in an otherwise realistic tone. It brings fables, folk tales, and myths into contemporary social relevance. Fantasy traits given to characters, such aslevitation,telepathy, andtelekinesis, help to encompass modern political realities that can bephantasmagorical.[33]
The existence offantastic elements in the everyday world provides the basis for magical realism. Writers do not invent new worlds, but rather, they reveal the magical in the existing world, as was done byGabriel García Márquez, who wrote the seminal workOne Hundred Years of Solitude.[34] In the world of magical realism, the supernatural realm blends with the natural, familiar world.[35]: 15 Importantly, for the characters in a work of magical realism, what may seem extraordinary or even uncanny (e.g. an angel falling from the sky) is considered ordinary for the characters themselves.
Authorial reticence is the "deliberate withholding of information and explanations about the disconcerting fictitious world".[36]: 16 The narrator is indifferent, a characteristic enhanced by this absence of explanation of fantastic events; the story proceeds with "logical precision" as if nothing extraordinary had taken place.[30][36]: 30 Magical events are presented as ordinary occurrences; therefore, the reader accepts the marvelous as normal and common.[37]
In his essay "The Baroque and the Marvelous Real",Cuban writerAlejo Carpentier defines thebaroque by a lack of emptiness, a departure from structure or rules, and an "extraordinary" abundance (plenitude) of disorienting detail. (He citesMondrian as its opposite.) From this angle, Carpentier views the baroque as a layering of elements, which translates easily into the postcolonial ortranscultural Latin-American atmosphere that he emphasizes inThe Kingdom of this World.[38] "America, a continent of symbiosis, mutations ...mestizaje, engenders the baroque",[29] made explicit by elaborate Aztec temples and associativeNahuatl poetry. These mixing ethnicities grow together with the American baroque; the space in between is where the "marvelous real" is seen. Marvelous: not meaning beautiful and pleasant, but extraordinary, strange, and excellent. Such a complex system of layering—encompassed in the Latin-American "boom" novel, such asOne Hundred Years of Solitude—aims towards "translating the scope of America".[29]: 107
Magical realism plot lines characteristically employ hybrid multiple planes of reality that take place in "inharmonious arenas of such opposites as urban and rural, and Western and indigenous".[39][40]
This trait centers on the reader's role in literature. With its multiple realities and specific reference to the reader's world, it explores the impact fiction has on reality, reality on fiction, and the reader's role in between; as such, it is well suited for drawing attention to social or political criticism. Furthermore, it is the tool paramount in the execution of a related and major magic-realist phenomenon:textualization. This term defines two conditions—first, where a fictitious reader enters thestory within a story while reading it, making them self-conscious of their status as readers—and secondly, where the textual world enters into the reader's (real) world. Good sense would negate this process, but "magic" is the flexible convention that allows it.[41]
Magic realist literature tends to leave out explanation of its magical element or obfuscate elements of the story, creating a sense of confusion and mystery.[42][43] For example, when readingOne Hundred Years of Solitude, the reader must let go of pre-existing ties to conventionalexposition, plot advancement, linear time structure, scientific reason, etc., to strive for a state of heightened awareness of life's connectedness or hidden meanings in order for the book to begin to make sense.Luis Leal articulates this feeling as "to seize the mystery that breathes behind things",[44] and supports the claim by saying a writer must heighten his senses to the point ofestado limite ('limit state' or 'extreme') in order to realize all levels of reality, most importantly that of mystery.[45]
Magic realism contains an "implicit criticism of society, particularly the elite".[46] Especially with regard to Latin America, the style breaks from the inarguable discourse of "privileged centers of literature".[47] This is a mode primarily about and for "ex-centrics": the geographically, socially, and economically marginalized. Therefore, magic realism's "alternative world" works to correct the reality of established viewpoints (likerealism,naturalism,modernism). Magic-realist texts, under this logic, aresubversive texts, revolutionary against socially-dominant forces. Alternatively, the socially-dominant may implement magical realism to disassociate themselves from their "power discourse".[47]: 195 Theo D'haen calls this change in perspective "decentering".
In his doctoral thesisMagical Insurrections: Cultural Resistance and the Magic Realist Novel in Latin America, (University of Essex, 1996),William Spindler argues that there is an underlying theme of cultural resistance in the Latin American magic realist novel,[48] which draws its sustenance from the counter-hegemonic characteristics ofpopular culture. The thesis explores how the notion of cultural resistance has been incorporated into five Latin American magic realist novels:Men of Maize byMiguel Angel Asturias,The Kingdom of This Worldby Alejo Carpentier,Jose Maria Arguedas'Deep Rivers,Gabriel García Márquez'One Hundred Years of Solitude andAbel Posse'sDaimón (1978). Other Latin American texts are also used for comparative purposes. The thesis explores the literary, historical and ideological characteristics of the Latin American magic realist novel in relation to cultural resistance, language, hegemony and popular culture in what Spindler calls the "political economy" of magic realism.[48]
"El realismo mágico", magic realism, at least as practised by Márquez, is a development out of Surrealism that expresses a genuinely "Third World" consciousness. It deals with whatNaipaul has called "half-made" societies, in which the impossibly old struggles against the appallingly new, in which public corruptions and private anguishes are somehow more garish and extreme than they ever get in the so-called "North", where centuries of wealth and power have formed thick layers over the surface of what's really going on. In the works of Márquez, as in the world he describes, impossible things happen constantly, and quite plausibly, out in the open under the midday sun.[50]
Mexican criticLuis Leal summed up the difficulty of defining magical realism by writing, "If you can explain it, then it's not magical realism."[51] He offers his own definition by writing, "Without thinking of the concept of magical realism, each writer gives expression to a reality he observes in the people. To me, magical realism is an attitude on the part of the characters in the novel toward the world", or toward nature.
Leal and Guenther both quoteArturo Uslar-Pietri, who described "man as a mystery surrounded by realistic facts. A poetic prediction or a poetic denial of reality. What for lack of another name could be called a magical realism."[52]
The critical perspective towards magical realism as a conflict between reality and abnormality stems from the Western reader's disassociation withmythology, a root of magical realism more easily understood by non-Western cultures.[28]: 3–4 Western confusion regarding magical realism is due to the "conception of the real" created in a magical realist text: rather than explain reality using natural or physical laws, as in typical Western texts, magical realist texts create a reality "in which the relation between incidents, characters, and setting could not be based upon or justified by their status within the physical world or their normal acceptance by bourgeois mentality."[53]
Guatemalan authorWilliam Spindler's article, "Magic realism: A Typology",[54] suggests that there are three kinds of magic realism, which however are by no means incompatible:[55]
European "metaphysical" magic realism, with its sense of estrangement and the uncanny, exemplified byKafka's fiction;
"ontological" magical realism, characterized by "matter-of-factness" in relating "inexplicable" events; and
"anthropological" magical realism, where a Native worldview is set side by side with the Western rational worldview.
Spindler's typology of magic realism has been criticized as:[56]
[A]n act of categorization which seeks to define Magic Realism as a culturally specific project, by identifying for his readers those (non-modern) societies where myth and magic persist and where Magic Realism might be expected to occur. There are objections to this analysis. Western rationalism models may not actually describe Western modes of thinking and it is possible to conceive of instances where both orders of knowledge are simultaneously possible.
Alejo Carpentier originated the termlo real maravilloso (roughly 'the marvelous real') in the prologue to his novelThe Kingdom of this World (1949); however, some debate whether he is truly a magical realist writer, or simply a precursor and source of inspiration. Maggie Bowers claims he is widely acknowledged as the originator of Latin American magical realism (as both a novelist and critic);[2] she describes Carpentier's conception as a kind of heightened reality where elements of the miraculous can appear while seeming natural and unforced. She suggests that by disassociating himself and his writings from Roh's painterly magic realism, Carpentier aimed to show how—by virtue of Latin America's varied history, geography, demography, politics, myths, and beliefs—improbable and marvelous things are made possible.[2] Furthermore, Carpentier's meaning is that Latin America is a land filled with marvels, and that "writing about this land automatically produces a literature of marvelous reality."[35]
Alejo Carpentier
"The marvelous" may be easily confused with magical realism, as both modes introduce supernatural events without surprising the implied author. In both, these magical events are expected and accepted as everyday occurrences. However, the marvelous world is a unidimensional world. The implied author believes that anything can happen here, as the entire world is filled with supernatural beings and situations to begin with. Fairy tales are a good example of marvelous literature. The important idea in defining the marvelous is that readers understand that this fictional world is different from the world where they live. The "marvelous" one-dimensional world differs from thebidimensional world of magical realism because, in the latter, the supernatural realm blends with the natural, familiar world (arriving at the combination oftwo layers of reality: bidimensionality).[35]: 15 While some use the terms magical realism and lo real maravilloso interchangeably, the key difference lies in the focus.[35]: 11
CriticLuis Leal attests that Carpentier was an originating pillar of the magical realist style by implicitly referring to the latter's critical works, writing that "The existence of the marvelous real is what started magical realist literature, which some critics claim isthe truly American literature."[57] It can consequently be drawn that Carpentier'slo real maravilloso is especially distinct from 'magical realism' by the fact that the former applies specifically toAmérica (the American content).[40] On that note, Lee A. Daniel categorizes critics of Carpentier into three groups: those that do not consider him a magical realist whatsoever (Ángel Flores), those that call him "amágicorealista writer with no mention of his'lo real maravilloso' (Gómez Gil, Jean Franco, Carlos Fuentes)", and those that use the two terms interchangeably (Fernando Alegria, Luis Leal, Emir Rodriguez Monegal).[40]
Ángel Flores states that magical realism is an international commodity but that it has aHispanic birthplace, writing that "Magical realism is a continuation of the romantic realist tradition of Spanish language literature and its European counterparts."[58] There is disagreement between those who see magical realism as a Latin American invention and those who see it as the global product of apostmodern world.[28] Guenther concludes, "Conjecture aside, it is in Latin America that [magic realism] was primarily seized by literary criticism and was, through translation and literary appropriation, transformed."[11]: 61 Magic realism has been internationalized: dozens of non-Hispanic writers are categorized as such, and many believe that it trulyis an international commodity.[28]: 4, 8
Some have argued that connecting magical realism to postmodernism is a logical next step. To further connect the two concepts, there are descriptive commonalities between the two that Belgian critic Theo D'haen addresses in his essay, "Magical Realism and Postmodernism". While authors such asGünter Grass,Thomas Bernhard,Peter Handke,Italo Calvino,John Fowles,Angela Carter,John Banville,Michel Tournier,Willem Brakman, andLouis Ferron might be widely considered postmodernist, they can "just as easily be categorized ... magic realist".[59] A list has been compiled of characteristics one might typically attribute to postmodernism, but that also could describe literary magic realism: "self-reflexiveness, metafiction,eclecticism, redundancy, multiplicity, discontinuity,intertextuality,parody, the dissolution of character and narrative instance, the erasure of boundaries, and the destabilization of the reader".[60] To further connect the two, magical realism and postmodernism share the themes of post-colonial discourse, in which jumps in time and focus cannot really be explained with scientific but rather with magical reasoning; textualization (of the reader); and metafiction.
Concerning attitude toward audience, the two have, some argue, a lot in common. Magical realist works do not seek to primarily satisfy a popular audience, but instead, a sophisticated audience that must be attuned to noticing textual "subtleties".[30] While the postmodern writer condemns escapist literature (like fantasy, crime, ghost fiction), he/she is inextricably related to it concerning readership. There are two modes inpostmodern literature: one, commercially successful pop fiction, and the other, philosophy, better suited to intellectuals. A singular reading of the first mode will render a distorted or reductive understanding of the text. The fictitious reader—such as Aureliano from100 Years of Solitude—is the hostage used to express the writer's anxiety on this issue of who is reading the work and to what ends, and of how the writer is forever reliant upon the needs and desires of readers (the market).[41] The magic realist writer with difficulty must reach a balance between saleability and intellectual integrity. Wendy Faris, talking about magic realism as a contemporary phenomenon that leaves modernism for postmodernism, says, "Magic realist fictions do seem more youthful and popular than their modernist predecessors, in that they often (though not always) cater with unidirectional story lines to our basic desire to hear what happens next. Thus they may be more clearly designed for the entertainment of readers."[61]
When attempting to define what somethingis, it is often helpful to define what something isnot. Many literary critics attempt to classify novels and literary works in only one genre, such as "romantic" or "naturalist", not always taking into account that many works fall into multiple categories.[30] Much discussion is cited from Maggie Ann Bowers' bookMagic(al) Realism, wherein she attempts to delimit the terms magic realism and magical realism by examining the relationships with other genres such as realism, surrealism, fantastic literature, science fiction and its African version, the animist realism.
Literary realism is an attempt to create a depiction of actual life; a novel does not simply rely on what it presents buthow it presents it. In this way, a realist narrative acts as framework by which the reader constructs a world using the raw materials of life. Understanding both realism and magical realism within the realm of a narrative mode is key to understanding both terms. Magical realism "relies upon the presentation of real, imagined or magical elements as if they were real. It relies upon realism, but only so that it can stretch what is acceptable as real to its limits."[2]: 22 Literary theorist Kornelije Kvas wrote that "what is created in magic(al) realism works is a fictional world close to reality, marked by a strong presence of the unusual and the fantastic, in order to point out, among other things, the contradictions and shortcomings of society. The presence of the element of the fantastic does not violate the manifest coherence of a work that is characteristic of traditional realist literature. Fantastic (magical) elements appear as part of everyday reality, function as saviors of the human against the onslaught of conformism, evil and totalitarianism. Moreover, in magical realism works we find objective narration characteristic of traditional, 19th-century realism."[62]
As a simple point of comparison, Roh's differentiation between expressionism and post-expressionism as described inGerman Art in the 20th Century, may be applied to magic realism and realism.Realism pertains to the terms "history", "mimetic", "familiarization", "empiricism/logic", "narration", "closure-ridden/reductive naturalism", and "rationalization/cause and effect".[63] On the other hand, magic realism encompasses the terms "myth/legend", "fantastic/supplementation", "defamiliarization", "mysticism/magic", "meta-narration", "open-ended/expansiveromanticism", and "imagination/negative capability".[63]
Surrealism is often confused with magical realism as they both explore illogical or non-realist aspects of humanity and existence. There is a strong historical connection between Franz Roh's concept of magic realism and surrealism, as well as the resulting influence on Carpentier's marvelous reality; however, important differences remain. Surrealism "is most distanced from magical realism [in that] the aspects that it explores are associated not with material reality but with the imagination and the mind, and in particular it attempts to express the 'inner life' and psychology of humans through art". It seeks to express the sub-conscious, unconscious, the repressed and inexpressible. Magical realism, on the other hand, rarely presents the extraordinary in the form of a dream or apsychological experience. "To do so", Bowers writes, "takes the magic of recognizable material reality and places it into the little understood world of the imagination. The ordinariness of magical realism's magic relies on its accepted and unquestioned position in tangible andmaterial reality."[2]: 22–4
Fabulism traditionally refers to fables, parables, and myths, and is sometimes used in contemporary contexts for authors whose work falls within or relates to magical realism.
Though often used to refer to works of magical realism, fabulism incorporates fantasy elements into reality, using myths and fables to critique the exterior world and offer direct allegorical interpretations. Austrian-American child psychologistBruno Bettelheim suggested that fairy tales have psychological merit. They are used to translate trauma into a context that people can more easily understand and help to process difficult truths. Bettelheim posited that the darkness and morality of traditional fairy tales allowed children to grapple with questions of fear through symbolism. Fabulism helped to work through these complexities and, in the words of Bettelheim, "make physical what is otherwise ephemeral or ineffable in an attempt ... of understanding those things that we struggle the most to talk about: loss, love, transition."[64]
Author Amber Sparks described fabulism as blending fantastical elements into a realistic setting. Crucial to the genre, said Sparks, is that the elements are often borrowed from specific myths, fairy tales, and folktales. Unlike magical realism, it does not just use general magical elements, but directly incorporates details from well known stories. "Our lives are bizarre, meandering, and fantastic", said Hannah Gilham of theWashington Square Review regarding fabulism. "Shouldn't our fiction reflect that?"[65]
While magical realism is traditionally used to refer to works that are Latin American in origin, fabulism is not tied to any specific culture. Rather than focusing on political realities, fabulism tends to focus on the entirety of the human experience through the mechanization of fairy tales and myths.[66] This can be seen in the works ofC. S. Lewis, whose biographer, A.N. Wilson, referred to him as the greatest fabulist of the 20th century.[67] His 1956 novelTill We Have Faces has been referenced as a fabulist retelling. This re-imagining of the story ofCupid and Psyche uses an age-old myth to impart moralistic knowledge on the reader. AWashington Post review of a Lewis biography discusses how his work creates "a fiction" in order to deliver a lesson. Says the Post of Lewis, "The fabulist ... illuminates the nature of things through a tale both he and his auditors, or readers, know to be an ingenious analogical invention."[68]
Italo Calvino is an example of a writer in the genre who uses the termfabulist. Calvino is best known for his book trilogy,Our Ancestors, a collection of moral tales told through surrealist fantasy. Like many fabulist collections, his work is often classified as allegories for children. Calvino wanted fiction, like folk tales, to act as a teaching device. "Time and again, Calvino insisted on the 'educational potential' of the fable and its function as a moral exemplum", wrote journalist Ian Thomson about the Italian Fabulist.[69]
While reviewing the work of Romanian-born American theater directorAndrei Şerban,New York Times criticMel Gussow coined the term "The New Fabulism". Şerban is famous for his reinventions in the art of staging and directing, known for directing works like "The Stag King" and "The Serpent Woman", both fables adapted into plays byCarl Gozzi. Gussow defined "The New Fabulism" as "taking ancient myths and turn(ing) them into morality tales",[70] In Ed Menta's book,The Magic Behind the Curtain, he explores Şerban's work and influence within the context of American theatre. He wrote that the Fabulist style allowed Şerban to neatly combine technical form and his own imagination. Through directing fabulist works, Şerban can inspire an audience with innate goodness and romanticism through the magic of theatre. "The New Fabulism has allowed Şerban to pursue his own ideals of achieving on sage the naivete of a children's theater", wrote Menta. "It is in this simplicity, this innocence, this magic that Şerban finds any hope for contemporary theatre at all."[70]
Fantasy and magic realism are commonly held to be unrelated apart from some shared inspirations in mythology and folklore. Amaryll Beatrice Chanady distinguishes magical realist literature from fantasy literature ("the fantastic") based on differences between three shared dimensions: the use ofantinomy (the simultaneous presence of two conflicting codes), the inclusion of events that cannot be integrated into a logical framework, and the use of authorial reticence. In fantasy, the presence of the supernatural code is perceived as problematic, something that draws special attention—where in magical realism, the presence of the supernatural is accepted. In fantasy, while authorial reticence creates a disturbing effect on the reader, it works tointegrate the supernatural into the natural framework in magical realism. This integration is made possible in magical realism as the author presents the supernatural as being equally valid to the natural. There is no hierarchy between the two codes.[71] The ghost of Melquíades in Márquez'sOne Hundred Years of Solitude or the baby ghost inToni Morrison'sBeloved who visit or haunt the inhabitants of their previous residence are both presented by the narrator as ordinary occurrences; the reader, therefore, accepts the marvelous as normal and common.[2]: 25–27
To Clark Zlotchew, the differentiating factor between the fantastic and magical realism is that in fantastic literature, such as Kafka'sThe Metamorphosis, there is a hesitation experienced by the protagonist, implied author or reader in deciding whether to attribute natural or supernatural causes to an unsettling event, or between rational or irrational explanations.[35]: 14 Fantastic literature has also been defined as a piece of narrative in which there is a constant faltering between belief and non-belief in the supernatural or extraordinary event.
In Leal's view, writers of fantasy literature, such asBorges, can create "new worlds, perhaps new planets. By contrast, writers like García Márquez, who use magical realism, don't create new worlds, but suggest the magical in our world."[34] In magical realism, the supernatural realm blends with the natural, familiar world. This twofold world of magical realism differs from the onefold world that can be found in fairy-tale and fantasy literature.[35]: 15
Prominent English-language fantasy writers have rejected definitions of "magic realism" as something other than a synonym forfantasy fiction.Gene Wolfe said, "magic realism is fantasy written by people who speak Spanish",[72] andTerry Pratchett said magic realism "is like a polite way of saying you write fantasy".[73]
Animist realism is a term for conceptualizing theAfrican literature that has been written based on the strong presence of the imaginary ancestor, the traditional religion and especially theanimism of African cultures.[74] The term was used byPepetela (1989)[75] and Harry Garuba (2003)[76] to be a new conception of magic realism in African literature.
Whilescience fiction and magical realism both bend the notion of what is real, toy with human imagination, and are forms of (often fantastical) fiction, they differ greatly. Bower's citesAldous Huxley'sBrave New World as a novel that exemplifies the science fiction novel's requirement of a "rational, physical explanation for any unusual occurrences". The protagonists' dystopian experiences, while fantastical, are communicated in reference to real-life technologies and social developments, such asindustrialization, mood-altering chemicals, orin vitro fertilisation. Bowers argues that "The science fiction narrative's distinct difference from magical realism is that it is set in a world different from any known reality and its realism resides in the fact that we can recognize it as a possibility for our future. Unlike magical realism, it does not have a realistic setting that is recognizable in relation to any past or present reality."[2]: 29–30
Although critics and writers debate which authors or works fall within the magical realism genre, the following authors represent the narrative mode. Within the Latin American world, the most iconic of magical realist writers areJorge Luis Borges,[77]Isabel Allende,[78] and Nobel LaureateGabriel García Márquez, whose novelOne Hundred Years of Solitude was an instant worldwide success.
Plaque of Gabriel García Márquez, Paris
García Márquez confessed: "My most important problem was destroying the line of demarcation that separates what seems real from what seems fantastic."[79] Allende was the first Latin American woman writer recognized outside the continent. Her best-known novel,The House of the Spirits, is arguably similar to García Márquez's style of magical realist writing.[2]: 43 Another notable novelist isLaura Esquivel, whoseLike Water for Chocolate tells the story of the domestic life of women living on the margins of their families and society. The novel's protagonist, Tita, is kept from happiness and marriage by her mother. "Her unrequited love and ostracism from the family lead her to harness her extraordinary powers of imbuing her emotions to the food she makes. In turn, people who eat her food enact her emotions for her. For example, after eating a wedding cake Tita made while suffering from a forbidden love, the guests all suffer from a wave of longing. The Mexican authorJuan Rulfo pioneered the exposition through a non-linear structure with his short novelPedro Páramo that tells the story of Comala both as a lively town in times of the eponymous Pedro Páramo and as a ghost town through the eyes of his son Juan Preciado who returns to Comala to fulfil a promise to his dead mother.[80]
In the English-speaking world, major authors include: British-Indian writerSalman Rushdie, whoseMidnight's Children mixes history and fantasy; African American novelistsToni Morrison (although she has contested this descriptor of her work[81]) andGloria Naylor; American Latino writers such asAna Castillo,Rudolfo Anaya,Daniel Olivas,Rudy Ruiz, andHelena Maria Viramontes; Guatemalan authorMiguel Ángel Asturias; Native American authorsLouise Erdrich andSherman Alexie; English authorLouis de Bernières; and English feminist writerAngela Carter. Perhaps the best known is Rushdie, whose "language form of magical realism straddles both the surrealist tradition of magic realism as it developed in Europe and the mythic tradition of magical realism as it developed in Latin America".[2] Morrison's most notable work,Beloved, tells the story of a mother who, haunted by the ghost of her child, learns to cope with memories of her traumatic childhood as an abused slave and the burden of nurturing children into a harsh and brutal society.[2] The Welsh authorGlyn Jones's novelThe Island of Apples (1965) is often overlooked, perhaps because it appeared before the term 'magic realism' was commonly known in English, perhaps because too much was made of the supposed influence of Jones's friendDylan Thomas on his work, but this phantasmagorical blend of reality and myth with a twelve-year-old narrator set in a dreamlike version of the early 20th century clearly[opinion] merits inclusion in the genre.[82]Jonathan Safran Foer uses magical realism in exploring the history of thestetl andHolocaust inEverything Is Illuminated. The South African-Italian authorPatricia Schonstein uses magic realism in examining theHolocaust, theRhodesian War andapartheid inA Time of Angels andA Quilt of Dreams.
Dino Buzzati's novels and short stories are often cited as examples of magic realism in Italian literature.[citation needed]
In Norway, the writersErik Fosnes Hansen,Jan Kjærstad and the young novelist Rune Salvesen have marked themselves as premier writers of magical realism, something that has been seen as very un-Norwegian.[by whom?][citation needed]
InKannada literature,Shivaram Karanth'sJnanpith award winning novelMookajjiya Kanasugalu andDevanur Mahadeva'sKendra Sahitya Akademi award winning novelKusuma Baale are two prominent works that dabbled in magical realism. Both the works are widely read and have been adapted into a movie and a limited TV series, respectively.Mookajjiya Kanasugalu is a novel that traces the evolution of 'gods' in a grounded setting via Mookajji's (the main character) preternatural ability to touch and see everything an inanimate object has witnessed in its entire existence. The novelKusuma Baale blends magical realism and surrealism while telling the story of lives of people from the oppressed castes in rural parts of Karnataka.[citation needed]
Dimitris Lyacos's Poena Damni trilogy, originally written in Greek, is also seen as displaying characteristics of magic realism in its simultaneous fusion of real and unreal situations in the same narrative context.[citation needed]
The painterly style began evolving as early as the first decade of the 20th century,[84] but 1925 was whenMagischer Realismus andNeue Sachlichkeit were officially recognized[by whom?] as major trends. This was the year thatFranz Roh published his book on the subject,Nach-Expressionismus, Magischer Realismus: Probleme der neuesten europäischen Malerei (Post-Expressionism, Magical Realism: Problems of the Newest European Painting) andGustav Hartlaub curated the seminal exhibition on the theme, entitled simplyNeue Sachlichkeit (translated asNew Objectivity), at theKunsthalle Mannheim in Mannheim, Germany.[11]: 41 Guenther refers most frequently to theNew Objectivity, rather than magical realism, which is attributed to that New objectivity is practical based, referential (to real practicing artists), while the magical realism is theoretical or critic's rhetoric. Eventually underMassimo Bontempelli guidance, the term 'magic realism' was fully embraced by the German as well as in Italian practicing communities.[11]: 60
New Objectivity saw an utter rejection of the precedingimpressionist andexpressionist movements, and Hartlaub curated his exhibition under the guideline: only those "who have remained true or have returned to a positive, palpable reality in order to reveal the truth of the times"[85]: 41 would be included. The style was roughly divided into two subcategories: conservative, (neo-)classicist painting, and generallyleft-wing, politically motivatedVerists.[86]: 41 The following quote by Hartlaub distinguishes the two, though mostly with reference to Germany; however, one might apply the logic to all relevant European countries.[86]: 41
In the new art, he saw a right, a left wing. One, conservative towards Classicism, taking roots in timelessness, wanting to sanctify again the healthy, physically plastic in pure drawing after nature ... after so much eccentricity and chaos [a reference to the repercussions of World War I] ... The other, the left, glaringly contemporary, far less artistically faithful, rather born of the negation of art, seeking to expose the chaos, the true face of our time, with an addiction to primitive fact-finding and nervous baring of the self ... There is nothing left but to affirm it [the new art], especially since it seems strong enough to raise new artistic willpower.[87]
Both sides were seen all over Europe during the 1920s and 1930s, ranging from the Netherlands to Austria, France to Russia, with Germany and Italy as centers of growth.[86]: 41–45 Indeed,ItalianGiorgio de Chirico, producing works in the late 1910s under the stylearte metafisica (translated asMetaphysical art), is seen as a precursor and as having an "influence ... greater than any other painter on the artists ofNew Objectivity."[86]: 38 [88]
Further afield, American painters were later (in the 1940s and 1950s, mostly) coined magical realists; a link between these artists and theNeue Sachlichkeit of the 1920s was explicitly made in the New York Museum of Modern Art exhibition, tellingly titled "American Realists and Magic Realists".[89] French magical realistPierre Roy, who worked and showed successfully in the US, is cited as having "helped spread Franz Roh's formulations" to the United States.[86]: 45
When art criticFranz Roh applied the termmagic realism to visual art in 1925, he was designating a style of visual art that brings extremerealism to the depiction of mundane subject matter, revealing an "interior" mystery, rather than imposing external, overtly magical features onto this everyday reality. Roh explains:[90]
We are offered a new style that is thoroughly of this world that celebrates the mundane. This new world of objects is still alien to the current idea of Realism. It employs various techniques that endow all things with a deeper meaning and reveal mysteries that always threaten the secure tranquility of simple and ingenuous things ... it is a question of representing before our eyes, in an intuitive way, the fact, the interior figure, of the exterior world.
In painting, 'magical realism' is a term often interchanged withpost-expressionism, as Ríos also shows, for the very title of Roh's 1925 essay was "Post-Expressionism, Magical Realism".[90] Indeed, as Lois Parkinson Zamora of theUniversity of Houston writes, "Roh, in his 1925 essay, described a group of painters whom we now categorize generally as Post-Expressionists."[91]
Roh used this term to describe painting that signaled a return torealism afterexpressionism'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. One could relate this exterior magic all the way back to the 15th century. Flemish painterVan Eyck (1395–1441) highlights the complexity of a natural landscape by creating illusions of continuous and unseen areas that recede into the background, leaving it to the viewer's imagination to fill in those gaps in the image: for instance, in a rolling landscape with river and hills. The magic is contained in the viewer's interpretation of those mysterious unseen or hidden parts of the image.[92]Other important aspects of magical realist painting, according to Roh, include:
A return to ordinary 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.
The pictorial ideals of Roh's original magic realism attracted new generations of artists through the latter years of the 20th century and beyond. In a 1991New York Times review, critic Vivien Raynor remarked that "John Stuart Ingle proves that Magic Realism lives" in his "virtuoso"still life watercolors.[93] Ingle's approach, as described in his own words, reflects the early inspiration of the magic realism movement as described by Roh; that is, the aim is not to add magical elements to a realistic painting, but to pursue a radically faithful rendering of reality; the "magic" effect on the viewer comes from the intensity of that effort: "I don't want to make arbitrary changes in what I see to paint the picture, I want to paint what is given. The whole idea is to take something that's given and explore that reality as intensely as I can."[94][95]
While Ingle represents a "magic realism" that harks back to Roh's ideas, the term "magic realism" in mid-20th century visual art tends to refer to work that incorporates overtly fantastic elements, somewhat in the manner of its literary counterpart.[citation needed]
Occupying an intermediate place in this line of development, the work of several European and American painters whose most important work dates from the 1930s through to the 1950s, includingBettina Shaw-Lawrence,Paul Cadmus,Ivan Albright,Philip Evergood,George Tooker,Brian Connelly,Ricco, evenAndrew Wyeth, such as in his well-known workChristina's World,[96] is designated as "magic realist". This work departs sharply from Roh's definition, in that it (according toArtcyclopedia) "is anchored in everyday reality, but has overtones of fantasy or wonder".[97] In the work of Cadmus, for example, the surreal atmosphere is sometimes achieved via stylized distortions or exaggerations that are not realistic.[citation needed]
Recent "magic realism" has gone beyond mere "overtones" of the fantastic or surreal to depict a frankly magical reality, with an increasingly tenuous anchoring in "everyday reality". Artists associated with this kind of magic realism includeMarcela Donoso[98][99][100][101][102] andGregory Gillespie.[103][104][105]
Magical realism is not a clearly definedfilm genre, but characteristics of magic realism present in literature can also be found in many moving pictures with fantasy elements. These characteristics may be presented matter-of-factly and occur without explanation.[106]
Many films have magical realist narrative and events that contrast between real and magical elements, or different modes of production. This device explores the reality of what exists.[2]: 109–111 Fredric Jameson, inOn Magic Realism in Film, advances a hypothesis that magical realism in film is a formal mode that is constitutionally dependent on a type of historical raw material in which disjunction is structurally present.[107][108]Like Water for Chocolate (1992) begins and ends with the first person narrative to establish the magical realism storytelling frame. Telling a story from a child's point of view, the historical gaps and holes perspective, and with cinematic color heightening the presence, are magical realist tools in films.[109]
In his essay "Half-Real",MIT professor andludologist Jesper Juul argues that the intrinsic nature of video games is magic realist.[114] Early video games such as the 1986 text adventureTrinity combined elements of science fiction, fantasy and magic realism.[115]Point-and-click adventure games such asKentucky Route Zero (2013) andMemoranda (2017) have also embraced the genre.[116][117] TheMetal Gear franchise has also frequently been cited as a notable example of magic realism, because of its combination of realisticmilitary fiction with supernatural elements.[118][119][120][121]
Inelectronic literature, early authorMichael Joyce'safternoon, a story deploys the ambiguity and dubious narrator characteristic of high modernism, along with some suspense and romance elements, in a story whose meaning could change dramatically depending on the path taken through its lexias on each reading.[122]
^Cortes, Eladio (1992).Dictionary of Mexican Literature. Greenwood Publishing Group.ISBN0-313-26271-3.Magical realism is not pure fantasy because it contains a substantial amount of realistic detail (...)
^abWexler, Joyce (2002). "What Is a Nation? Magic Realism and National Identity in Midnight's Children and Clear Light of Day".The Journal of Commonwealth Literature.37 (2):137–155.doi:10.1177/002198940203700209.S2CID161325155.The oxymoron "magic realism" (...) It is a more inclusive form than realism or fantasy.
^Strecher, Matthew C. 1999. "Magical Realism and the Search for Identity in the Fiction of Murakami Haruki."Journal of Japanese Studies 25(2):263–98. p. 267.
^Owen, Christopher (2020)."Transgression of Fantastika".Introduction to the Special Issue: The Two-Hundred-Year Legacy of E. T. A. Hoffmann. London: Anglia Ruskin University.
^Lunacharsky, Anatoly (1924)."Романтическая литература".История западноевропейской литературы (in Russian). Moscow: Gosizdat.
^Özdemir, Ceylan (21 December 2023). "Multidimensional view of magical realism in Russian literature".World languages, cultures and literatures (37): 1346."mystical realism (мистический реализм)" can often be used interchangeably with the term. Notably, Nikolay Berdyaev, a Russian philosopher, and Andrei Bely, a symbolist poet, are among the first to use this term. In the preface to his "Philosophical, Social and Literary Experiences (1900-1906)" (Опыты философские, социальные и литературные (1900-1906 г.)), published in 1907, Berdyaev objectively states that the term that best describes his philosophy is "mystical realism". Berdyaev elucidates that this philosophical viewpoint involves a balance between mystical revelation and realism. This approach is founded on the concept that actuality can be apprehended not through rationalism but by means of profound mystical experiences. In this context, Berdyaev maintains a critical perspective towards religious dogmas and posits that it is crucial for individuals to establish a connection with a spiritual reality based on their own inner encounters.
^Özdemir, Ceylan (21 December 2023). "Multidimensional view of magical realism in Russian literature".World languages, cultures and literatures (37): 1346.Berdyaev evaluates the realism of Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky, asserting it closely aligns with his philosophical principles, particularly in its examination of themes like individual autonomy and humanity's relationship with the Divine. This is particularly evident in the latter portion of Dostoyevsky's artistic career, which Berdyaev views as "mystical."
^Özdemir, Ceylan (21 December 2023). "Multidimensional view of magical realism in Russian literature".World languages, cultures and literatures (37): 1346.Therefore, it is argued that Dostoevsky's portrayal of Ivan's duality and inner turmoil in "The Brothers Karamazov (1880)" via the interactions between Ivan, Fyodor Pavlovich's legitimate son, and his illegitimate son Smerdyakov, cannot be described as entirely realistic. It is suggested that the connection between Ivan and the devil in the novel goes beyond reality and instead exists within a more abstract and metaphysical realm. He argues that the portrayal of the relationship between Ivan and the devil in the work is far removed from reality.
^Özdemir, Ceylan (21 December 2023). "Multidimensional view of magical realism in Russian literature".World languages, cultures and literatures (37): 1347.He supports his stance by drawing parallels between characters in Dostoevsky's novels. For example, Berdyaev argues that Myshkin, the protagonist of "The Idiot (Идиот, 1868)," is influenced by both Nastasya Filippovna and Rogozhin, while Raskolnikov, the protagonist of "Crime and Punishment (Преступление и наказание, 1866)," has a similar relationship with Svidrigailov. He suggests that the mysterious connections between Ivan in "The Brothers Karamazov" and Smerdyakov, as well as Stavrogin in "The Devils (Бесы, 1872)" and Shatov are of a divine nature.
^Özdemir, Ceylan (21 December 2023). "Multidimensional view of magical realism in Russian literature".World languages, cultures and literatures (37): 1346.Berdyaev evaluates the realism of Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky, asserting it closely aligns with his philosophical principles, particularly in its examination of themes like individual autonomy and humanity's relationship with the Divine. This is particularly evident in the latter portion of Dostoyevsky's artistic career, which Berdyaev views as "mystical." The Russian scholar posits that the realist movement, epitomized by the creative endeavours of key figures in Russian literature during the nineteenth century such as Alexander Pushkin, Leo Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, and Gogol, constitutes a symbolic form of art that serves as a link between two worlds.
^Özdemir, Ceylan (21 December 2023). "Multidimensional view of magical realism in Russian literature".World languages, cultures and literatures (37): 1347.Berdyaev asserts that Dostoevsky's view of realism precedes and gives rise to a specific literary category, known as mystical realism, by connecting the tangible and the metaphysical. This perspective prompts a comparison between this genre and magical realism. The deep mystic foundation that informs Novalis's concept of magical idealism is the primary resonance in the genre emphasized by Berdyaev. In contrast, Roh's aversion to promoting the term "mystical" separates twentieth-century magical realism from a purely religious atmosphere, if not exclusively. However, since sacred beliefs exert significant sway in magical realism, it is conceivable to suggest that Berdyaev's mystical realism and this genre have substantial shared ground.
^Berlina, Alexandra (2009). "Russian Magical Realism and Pelevin as Its Exponent".CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture.11 (4): 2.This phrasing from 1925 is strikingly reminiscent of an essay written in Russian seven years earlier by Viktor Shklovsky, Isskustvo kak priem (Art as a Device; Theory of Prose): Shklovsky's ostranenie ("estrangement") is a means to experience anew in art what has been merely recognized automatically in life. In his essay, Shklovsky deals mainly with Tolstoy: calling him a precursor of magic realism would mean overstretching the term, but the title character (and parttime narrator) in his Kholstomer, a horse who looks with wondrous eyes at human doings, illustrates a crucial aspect of Roh's magischer Realismus.
^Gleb, Struve (1956).Russian Literature in Exile. New York: Izdatel'stvo imeni Chekhova.
^Bell, Michael (14 June 2012).The Cambridge Companion to European Novelists. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press. p. 442.ISBN9780521515047.Meanwhile, in more formal terms, the Gospel story, itself one of the great works of magical realism, becomes a secular narrative while atheistical Moscow becomes the site of supernatural intervention. If such an inversion were done from the standpoint of religious faith, it would have a more limited and two-dimensional meaning. But Bulgakov's supernaturalism is a literary device invoking the imaginative powers of the great Russian novelists: Alexander Pushkin, Nikolai Gogol, Dostoevsky and Tolstoy are not just alluded to, they inform its narrative energies. The late-twentieth-century vogue for magical realism is often attributed to Latin American origins and is said to reflect a pre- modern sensibility. But works like The Tin Drum and The Master and Margarita, which were composed long before the Latin American 'boom' of the 1960s, point to internal literary traditions which moreover are thematically foregrounded in the work. In effect, magical realism is not a sign of ethnographic exceptionalism but a signature of literariness, a clear hint that the work is making truth claims of a psychological or mythic order which cannot be contained within a narrow conception of realism. At the same time, the phrase 'magical realism' suggests a form of realism as much as a departure from it and in that respect it indicates a further modern phase of the originary dialogue of realism and romance which gave birth to the novel.
^abcDaniel, Lee A. (1982). "Realismo Mágico: True Realism with a Pinch of Magic".The South Central Bulletin.42 (4):129–130.doi:10.2307/3188273.JSTOR3188273.
^abThiem, Jon. "The Textualization of the Reader in Magical Realist Fiction". InMagical Realism: Theory, History, Community.
^Angel Flores, quoted inSimpkins, Scott (1988). "Magical Strategies: The Supplement of Realism".Twentieth Century Literature.34 (2):140–154.doi:10.2307/441074.JSTOR441074. p. 142.
^Cited inAniballi, Francesca (June 2010)."Ceremony: A Case Study in Literary Anthropology"(PDF). In French, Matthew; Jackson, Simon; Jokisuu, Elina (eds.).Diverse Engagement: Drawing in the Margins. Proceedings of the University of Cambridge Interdisciplinary Graduate Conference. Cambridge, United Kingdom. pp. 9–15. Archived fromthe original(PDF) on 2012-01-19. Retrieved2024-01-11.
^D'haen, Theo L. "Magical realism and postmodernism". InMR: Theory, History, Community. pp. 193
^D'haen, Theo L. "Magical realism and postmodernism". InMR: Theory, History, Community. pp. 192–93. D'haen references many texts that attest to these qualities.
^Faris, Wendy. "Scheherezade's Children: Magical Realism and Postmodern Fiction". InMR: Theory, History, Community. p. 163.
^Kvas, Kornelije (2019).The Boundaries of Realism in World Literature. Lanham, Boulder, New York, London: Lexington Books. p. 29.ISBN978-1-7936-0910-6.
^abSimpkins, Scott (1988). "Magical Strategies: The Supplement of Realism".Twentieth Century Literature.34 (2):140–154.doi:10.2307/441074.JSTOR441074.
^abMenta, Ed (1995).Magic World Behind the Curtain. New York: Peter Lang. pp. 89–105.
^Chanady, Amaryll Beatrice (1985).Magical realism and the fantastic: Resolved versus unresolved antinomy. New York: Garland. pp. 30–31.
^Wolfe, Gene; Baber, Brendan (2007)."Gene Wolfe Interview". In Wright, Peter (ed.).Shadows of the New Sun: Wolfe on Writing/Writers on Wolfe. Liverpool University Press.ISBN9781846310577. Retrieved2009-01-20.
^Paradiso, Silvio Ruiz. 2014. "Postcolonialism and religiosity in African literatures". Proceedings of the 4th International Congress in Cultural Studies. Aveiro, Portugal. pp. 73–79.
^Pepetela (1989).Lueji, o nascimento de um império. Porto, Portugal:União dos Escritores Angolanos.
^Garuba , Harry. 2003. "Explorations in Animist Materialism: Notes on Reading/Writing African Literature, Culture, and Society".Public Culture.
^Parkinson Zamora, Lois; B. Faris, Wendy (1995).Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community. Durham & London: Duke University Press.
^Jaggi, Maya (5 February 2000)."A View From The Bridge".The Guardian.Archived from the original on 15 January 2018. Retrieved15 January 2018.
^Interview inPrimera Plana 5(234):52–55. Quoted in"Diario Digital del Choapa" (in Spanish).Archived from the original on 2009-03-06. Retrieved2009-01-25.Mi problema más importante era destruir la línea de demarcación que separa lo que parece real de lo que parece fantástico. Porque en el mundo que trataba de evocar esa barrera no existía. Pero necesitaba un tono convincente, que por su propio prestigio volviera verosímiles las cosas que menos lo parecían, y que lo hicieran sin perturbar la unidad del relato.This agrees well (minor textual variants) with other quotations found in"Gabriel García Márquez cumple hoy 80 años y lo festejará todo el mundo".Territorio.Archived from the original on 2009-02-05. Retrieved2009-01-25.El problema más importante era destruir la línea de demarcación que separa lo que parece real de lo que parece fantástico porque en el mundo que trataba de evocar, esa barrera no existía. Pero necesitaba un tono inocente, que por su prestigio volviera verosímiles las cosas que menos lo parecían, y que lo hiciera sin perturbar la unidad del relato. También el lenguaje era una dificultad de fondo, pues la verdad no parece verdad simplemente porque lo sea, sino por la forma en que se diga.Other quotations on the Internet can be found in
All of these quotations reinforce the rough English translation of the first sentence given in the main text of this article. For those who wish to seek the original interview, the front cover and table of contents are reproduced at"Revista Primera Plana la Gran novela de América, Gabriel García Márquez" (in Spanish).Archived from the original on 2009-02-02. Retrieved2009-01-25.
^Berlina, Alexandra (2009). "Russian Magical Realism and Pelevin as Its Exponent".CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture.11 (4): 3.Apart from Pelevin's Omon Ra, it includes Moscow-Petushki by Venedikt Erofeev and Russian Beauty by his namesake Viktor Erofeev, The Soul of a Patriot by Yevgeny Popov, The Manhole by Vladimir Makanin and Forty years in Chanchzhoe by Dmitrii Lipskerov which "unashamedly owes something to García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude" (483). Several works by women writers such as Tolstaya, Ulitskaya, and Petrushevskaya could be added to the list, although in them elements of magical realism tend to be combined with dystopia, narration of madness, and absurdism, respectively. Porter concludes: "If magic realism came about in South America in the wake of the post-war processes of modernization and relative liberalization, then the appearance of such writing in the post-Soviet era is perfectly understandable"
^"AustrianAlfred Kubin spent a lifetime wrestling with the uncanny, ... [and] in 1909 [he] publishedDie andere Seite (The Other Side), a novel illustrated with fifty-two drawings. In it, Kubin set out to explore the 'other side' of the visible world—the corruption, the evil, the rot, as well as the power and mystery. The border between reality and dream remains consistently nebulous ... in certain ways an important precursor [to Magic Realism] ,...[he] exerted significant influence on subsequent German and Austrian literature." Guenther, Irene. "Magic realism in the Weimar Republic".MR: Theory, History, Community. p. 57.
^See also:Schmied, Wieland. 1980."'Neue Sachlichkeit' and German Realism of the Twenties". InGerman Realism of the Twenties: The Artist as Social Critic, edited by L. Lincoln. Minneapolis:Minneapolis Institute of Arts. p. 42.
^Luber, Katherine Crawford (1998). "Recognizing Van Eyck: Magical Realism in Landscape Painting".Philadelphia Museum of Art Bulletin.91 (386/387):7–23.doi:10.2307/3795460.JSTOR3795460.
^"Magic Realism".Artcyclopedia.Archived from the original on 1 October 2009. Retrieved25 April 2018.
^Elga Perez-Laborde (10 October 1999). "Marcela Donoso".Jornal do Brasilia.
^Elga Perez-Laborde (December 2002). "Prologo".Iconografía de Mitos y Leyendas, Marcela Donoso.ISBN978-956-291-592-2.
^"with an impressive chromatic delivery, images come immersed in such a magic realism full of symbols",El Mercurio – Chile, 22bJune 1998
^Antonio Fernandez, Director of the Art Museum of Universidad de Concepción: "I was impressed by her original iconographic creativity, that in a way very close to magic realism, achieves to emphasize with precision the subjects specific to each folkloric tradition, local or regional", Chile, 29 December 1997
^Hegerfeld, Anne (January 13, 2005).Lies that Tell the Truth: Magic Realism Seen through Contemporary Fiction from Britain (Costerus NS 155). Rodopi. p. 147.ISBN978-90-420-1974-4.
^McMullan, Thomas (2014-07-27)."Where literature and gaming collide".Eurogamer. Retrieved2020-03-24.Some of our first points of reference when sketching and imagining Kentucky Route Zero were in fiction - the magical realism of Gabriel Garcia Márquez and the southern gothic of Flannery O'Connor
^"Memoranda".Steam. Digital Dragon.Archived from the original on 22 June 2017. Retrieved24 June 2017.
