From Art Nouveau to Surrealism
Belgian Modernity in the Making

Edited by Nathalie Aubert, Pierre-Philippe Fraiture and Patrick McGuinness

Legenda (General Series)

Legenda

5 July 2007  •  218pp

ISBN: 978-1-904350-64-4 (hardback)  •  RRP £80, $110, €95

ModernFrenchArt


This volume of edited essays is the first one in English to offer a critical overview of the specific features of Belgian modernity from 1880 to 1940 in a multiplicity of disciplines: literature and poetry, politics, music, photography and drama. The first half of the book investigates the roots of twentieth- century modernity in the Belgian fin-de-siècle across a variety of genres (novel, poetry and drama), not only within but also beyond the boundaries of Symbolism. The contributors go on to examine the explosion of Belgian culture on the international scene, the rise of the avant-gardes and Surrealism, and the contribution made in minor genres, such as the popular novels of Simenon and Jean Ray, and the Tintin comics of Hergé.

Nathalie Aubert is Reader in French at Oxford Brookes University; Pierre-Philippe Fraiture is Senior Lecturer in French at the University of Warwick; Patrick McGuinness is Reader in French and Comparative Literature at the University of Oxford, and a Fellow of St Anne's College.

Reviews:

  • ‘Discerning insights typify this volume, that sensitively examines sixty years of visual, literary, musical, and political avant-garde expression.’ — Silvano Levy, Modern Language Review 103.4, October 2008, 1130-31 (full text online)
  • ‘A welcome and wide-ranging picture of Belgian Modernity up to the Second World War.’ — Lénia Marques, Journal of Romance Studies 8.3, Winter 2008, 77-87
  • ‘This collection of fifteen essays is the first in English to present a wide-ranging overview of Belgian modernity between 1880 and 1950. The result is a richly detailed assessment of specifically Belgian cultural production and of its European context, divided into two sections, the first spanning 1880-1918, and the second the inter-war years... an invaluable study of a period whose cultural production the editors describe as "awkward and intractable, but also enriching and full of unexpected possibilities".’ — unsigned, Forum for Modern Language Studies 46.1, January 2010, 113

Contents:

1-7

Introduction
Nathalie Aubert, Pierre-Philippe Fraiture, Patrick McGuinness

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8-22

Belgian Literature and the Symbolism of the Double
Patrick McGuinness

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23-29

Maeterlinck and the Search for Music
Arnaud Rykner

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30-40

On the Art of Crossing Borders: The Double Artist in Belgium, between Myth and Reality
Laurence Brogniez, Charlyne Audin

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41-56

Belgian ‘Negro’ Fiction: Modernist Itinerary of a Didactic Genre
Pierre-Philippe Fraiture

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58-67

Modernity and Politics
Paul Aron

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68-77

Representation and Subjectivity: Belgian Playwrights and Modernity
Pierre Piret

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78-94

A Sulphurous Time: Les contes du whisky by Jean Ray, a Translation of ‘les Années Folles’
Thomas Amos

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95-109

Belgian Photography between the Two World Wars, or the Hesitations between Late Pictorialism and the New Vision
Danielle Leenaerts

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110-127

Hergé–Simenon, Thirties
Benoît Denis

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128-141

A Road Story of the Belgian Avant-Garde
An Paenhuysen

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142-151

The Avant-Garde on the Reworking of Tradition
Virginie Devillez

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152-160

‘Tranquil Independence’: National Identity and Musical Modernity in Belgium between the Wars
Valérie Dufour

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161-173

Surrealism in Belgium between the Wars
Bibiane Fréché

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174-189

Twenty Years On — Distances: Belgian and French Surrealists and ‘the’ Revolution
Nathalie Aubert

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190-198

The Splendours of Hatred: Louis Scutenaire between Surrealism and Situationism
Andrew Hussey

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Bibliography entry:

Aubert, Nathalie, Pierre-Philippe Fraiture, and Patrick McGuinness (eds), From Art Nouveau to Surrealism: Belgian Modernity in the Making (Legenda, 2007)

First footnote reference: 35 From Art Nouveau to Surrealism: Belgian Modernity in the Making, ed. by Nathalie Aubert, Pierre-Philippe Fraiture and Patrick McGuinness (Legenda, 2007), p. 21.

Subsequent footnote reference: 37 Aubert, Fraiture, and McGuinness, p. 47.

(To see how these citations were worked out, follow this link.)

Bibliography entry:

Aubert, Nathalie, Pierre-Philippe Fraiture, and Patrick McGuinness (eds). 2007. From Art Nouveau to Surrealism: Belgian Modernity in the Making (Legenda)

Example citation: ‘A quotation occurring on page 21 of this work’ (Aubert, Fraiture, and McGuinness 2007: 21).

Example footnote reference: 35 Aubert, Fraiture, and McGuinness 2007: 21.

(To see how these citations were worked out, follow this link.)


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