La position ambigüe des femmes dans le surréalisme : Le cas d’Irène Hamoir dans l’expérience collective bruxelloise

Details

Supervisors

Piret, Pierre

Faculty

Faculté de philosophie, arts et lettres

Degree label

Master [120] en langues et lettres françaises et romanes, orientation générale, à finalité didactique

Abstract

enBeing a woman in Surrealist circles can be complicated. The movement was conceived in its beginnings for and by men. They delimited a surrealist language that exalted women as abstract entities and not as real concrete people. Put in difficulty by this language which is not intended for them, the surrealist women invented a new language or simply distanced themselves from the movement. The present study is therefore interested in the artistic productions of women while questioning the idea of a "feminine art" with the help of gender studies and in the light of psychoanalysis. Irène Hamoir (1906-1994) is the only woman to have really participated in the actions of the group of the Brussels surrealists. She had a double activity : on the one hand, she was a real unifying figure of the group and served as an inspiration to her husband, the poet Louis Scutenaire, and to her friend, the painter René Magritte ; on the other hand, she wrote a novel, six tales, a collection of poems, an experimental film script, a collection of journalistic chronicles and a great number of participations in the collective publications of the Surrealists. Some of her productions, however, have been pointed out by some who claim that she’s only responsible for the signature of the books. The creative activity of Irene Hamoir is minorized by the posterity to the profit of her activity of inspirer which, in a surrealist environment, is more assigned to the women. The study is divided into four chapters. The first examines the polemic around the maternity of Hamoir's work and questions the collaboration in literary circles. The second analyzes the social and literary condition of women in Belgium in the 20th century and raises the question of a "feminine art". While the third chapter questions the place of women in surrealism, the last chapter exemplifies it through the case of Irène Hamoir. This last chapter is divided into two parts: Irine the creator and Irène the inspirer.