Surrealism, or Art of the Unknown Real. Max Hoelzer and German-Language Surrealism

Theodor W. Adorno writes a short essay concerning Surrealism, thus facing - and meeting halfway - the man who articulated the impulse initiating the movement, André Breton. The meeting takes place, however, when both partners are rooted in the essentially different historical situation. The power of imagination that could be advocated by Breton before the Holocaust is anything but catching of shadows for Adorno. Every subject addressed by pre-war Surrealism has changed its coordinates. Though Surrealism still searches 'la vrai vie', it finds only the death underlying the ground of being. That meeting concurrently comes into dialogue with the meeting of two languages, and, naturally, that of two literary traditions. Nevertheless, it is paradoxically Adorno who after the trauma of obliteration opens German-language literature to Surrealist revolution. Max Hoelzer is a post-war Surrealist poet, who draws upon and deepens that very opening.