The Greek surrealist movement gained momentum in the 1930s, at about the same time that the French surrealists were dispersing and searching for a new base due to the onset of World War II. The war and subsequent political problems the Greeks faced during the first half of the twentieth century stimulated surrealism instead of quelling it. The aim of this thesis is to investigate the reasons for the differences in Greek and French surrealism by analyzing the history of both movements, and by studying the work of three surrealists who typify the Greek movement.
The first chapter of the thesis discusses the history of surrealism, beginning with the French movement and its roots in modernism. Because the nature of the surrealist movement is to rebel against tradition, it is important to understand modernism, the tradition against which surrealism was reacting. Modernism in France culminated in an aesthetic movement vocally opposed to the ideals of bourgeois society. The French surrealists maintained their predecessors' rejection capitalism, but decided to express these ideas in a radically different way. The Greek surrealists, because their modernist precursors were not concerned with capitalist society, were not so much interested in it as they were in Modem Greek identity, a theme addressed by the Greek modernists. Like the French surrealists, the Greek surrealists appropriated the topics addressed by the modernists, but treated them in a totally original "surrealist" manner.
The subsequent chapters of the thesis each deal with a Greek surrealist. The second chapter singles out Nicolas Calas and aims to prove that his writing contributed to the surrealist effort to undermine the modernist legacy. The third chapter analyzes the poetry of Nikos Engonopoulos, whose writing also challenged his predecessors and the traditional use of language. Andreas Embeirikos, who is the subject of the fourth chapter, was different from the rest of the surrealist poets, and indeed from the rest of Greek literature, for his erotic writing. The explicit descriptions of sexuality subverted traditional morals and social standards while challenging concepts of high and low literature.
The three writers discussed in this thesis played a significant role in the Greek surrealist movement. The analysis of their poetry in light of the development of surrealism in France a decade before provides a clear picture of the aims and outcomes of surrealism in Greece.