PhD students 2nd cohort

Maria Safenreiter (born 1988) obtained a teacher training degree in French language and literature and Art at the Friedrich- Schiller- University of Jena and the Bauhaus University of Weimar from 2011 to 2018. During her studies, she worked as an assistant at the Institute for Romance Studies (chair for French and Italian Literature) and the Studierendenwerk of Thuringia (department of social affairs & culture). Maria Safenreiter has been a PhD student at the ‘Romanticism as a Model’ research training group since October 2018.

The 'Marvellous' in Surrealism: Reception, Transformation, and Effectiveness of a Romantic Model

This PhD project aims to analyse the relationship between Romanticism and Surrealism by examining the re-introduction of the romantic motif the ‘marvellous’ (le merveilleux) in surrealistic literary works. Based on the literary representation of this and other concepts within the romantic narrative and lyric literature, the project will portray the ‘marvellous’ as a romantic model that has been reborn repeatedly in the twentieth century. The key objective here is to explore surrealism as a central point of productive reception and appropriation of romantic models – in particular, the ‘marvellous’ – which will thus serve to clarify its importance, effectiveness and exemplary role.

Thus, this research will investigate whether it is possible to consider a new conceptual approach regarding Louis Aragon’s merveilleux quotidien (the ‘daily marvellous’) and whether this method is necessary to be able to reflect upon and understand today’s cultural contexts. Assuming that it is the ‘daily marvellous’ (Le Paysan de Paris, 1926) that is adapted into mass and pop culture, the romantic model can then be considered an essential framework for looking at our present every-day life, even though in this case the romantic ‘marvellous’ would be presented in a much more condensed form.

The purpose of the dissertation project lies in extending the traditional investigation of textual influences and sources to allow a systematic analysis of the work of surrealist authors such as André Breton, Louis Aragon or Guillaume Apollinaire. Unlike the romantic concept of the ‘marvellous’, the surrealist’s merveilleux quotidien could only be discerned while maintaining in direct contact with reality. Many surrealists, however finding themselves in a ‘disenchanted’ and ‘cold’ postwar France of the nineteen-twenties considered the ‘daily marvellous’ already partly lost.

Varia

Rezension zu Sebastian Lübcke, Johann Thun (Hgg.): Romantik und Surrealismus. Eine Wahlverwandtschaft?, Bern (Peter Lang) 2018, in: Gestern | Romantik | Heute (20.01.2021).

‚[Re]faire justice à la haine du merveilleux‘ – zu Präsenz und Funktion des Wunderbaren in Virginie Despentes’ Vernon Subutex, Frédéric Beigbeders 99 francs und DOAs LYKAIA [36. Forum Junge Romanistik: ‚Alt & Neu: Neue Quellen, alte Fragen – alte Quellen, neue Fragen?‘, Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg, 31.03.2021]