Automatic writing contains self-consciousness, and Surrealism’s idea eclipses its actual texts

Evidence

The liberating and exalting effect of Surrealist practice can be accounted for precisely by this notion of figuration. To put it in slightly different terms, we may observe that, contrary to what is generally supposed, automatic writing includes a reflexive moment, a dimension of self-consciousness: thus Breton castigates those “who are generally satisfied to let their pens run on across the page without taking the least trouble to observe what is going on inside them at such a moment—this self-consciousness being, however, both easier to seize and more interesting to contemplate than that of ordinary conscious writing.” … It is only when they are perceived as examples of Surrealism that they once again begin to take on the stronger colors of their origin. This is to say, if you like, that the idea of Surrealism is a more liberating experience than the actual texts. — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 205

Categorization

• XREF: This reflexive dimension and the priority of the collective idea over the individual text echoes Jameson’s broader dialectical method as well as Benjamin’s notion of the work’s afterlife and critical redemption. — connects to: Postmodern painting simulates surrealism’s forms while lacking its psychic charge — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 406

Broader Connections

• Postmodern painting simulates surrealism’s forms while lacking its psychic charge #complicates (0.85) — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 406