Vie et rêve, « vases communicants »
Life and dream, "communicating vessels"

Author(s): Maria Tronea
Subject(s): Cultural history, History of ideas, French Literature, Cultural Essay, Philology
Published by: Editura Junimea
Keywords: real; unreal; dream; the fantastic; oneirism; magic realism; surrealism;
Summary/Abstract: This paper explores the relationship between reality and dream, between the real and the unreal in the Francophone imaginary. It describes the evolution of this relationship in all its aspects and approaches starting from the Romantics. The analysis is based on Francophone literature in Belgium, which is characterized by an intricate tension between the real and the unreal. Ulenspiegel’s Legend by Charles De Coster is considered to be the founding text on human propensity to dream and it paves the way for Modernist aesthetic theories. The same approach can be found in Maurice Maeterlink’s works where the threshold between reality and unreality is widely discussed. Franz Hellens, who promoted the fantastic in his works, wrote what can be termed as an extension of surrealism in Belgian literature, while Michel de Ghelderode associated onirism with painting-ness. The power of dreams in Marguerite Yourcenar’s characters relied on the theory of the communicating vessels, and Jean Ray adopted a classical fantastic centered on the paranormal. The paper ends with Paul Willems whose works are imbued with onirism and magic realism.

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