Surrealism’s Curiosity: Lewis Carroll and the Femme-Enfant by Catriona McAra

Dorothea Tanning

"Abstract

This paper concerns surrealist artists‟ and writers‟ appropriation of Lewis Carroll. Predominantly focusing on the work of Dorothea Tanning and Max Ernst, it suggests that Carroll‟s work appealed to the surrealists‟ fascination with their childhood selves, and their wish to identify with the curious character of Alice as femme-enfant as a way of subverting their bourgeois family backgrounds. Whether stepping Through the Looking Glass or breaking the rules in Wonderland, Alice can be read as a transgressive character apt for surrealist appropriation. The paper traces Carroll‟s reception in the surrealist movement, and articulates the curious character of the surrealist femme- enfant in order to reinscribe her epistemophilia in line with surrealism‟s orientation towards research."

Catriona McAra

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Fig.1: John Tenniel. 

You‟re nothing but a pack of cards‟ in „Alice‟s Evidence,‟ Illustration for Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Macmillan and Co. London, 1865.

Fig.2: Max Ernst. 

you won‟t be poor anymore, head-shaven pigeons, under my white dress, in my columbarium. I‟ll bring you a dozen tons of sugar. But don‟t you touch my hair!‟ 1930, collage in Rêve d’une Petite Fille Qui Voulut Entrer au Carmel (The Little Girl Dreams of Taking the Veil), translated by Dorothea Tanning. George Braziller, New York, 1984, 81. © ADAGP, Paris and DACS. London 2009.