Book Review: Surrealism and the Politics of Eros 1938–1968

Abstract

Today in the popular imagination, Surrealism is all too often fetishized and stripped of politics ' (p. 215). This, the sentiment that closes Alyce Mahon's book, has been a consistent, albeit thin thread in recent scholarship on Surrealism. David Bate (2004, 2005) and Vincent Gille ( 2005) have both declared that it is important to understand the political positions of Surrealism if we are to grasp the nature of the movement and of the works that it gave rise to. This contribution from Mahon is a move towards establishing the political credentials of the Surrealists in the post war period. The fact that the author focuses on the three decades after 1938 is also novel as many accounts of Surrealism regard the movement as obsolete in this period.