Angela Carter and Surrealism: 'A Feminist Libertarian Aesthetic' (Studies in Surrealism) by Anna Watz

"...this study will show that major strands of surrealist thought structure her writing of the 1960s and 1970s. The presence of surrealism can be traced in her work, albeit in an attenuated form, right up to her death in 1992. Drawing on Carter’s fiction and non-fiction, as well as her newly available private journals and manuscripts, I will illuminate the ways in which Carter appropriated, experimented with and developed surrealist aesthetics and politics throughout her work. Moreover, whereas Carter herself often mentioned the surrealists as a source of inspiration for her writing, she de-emphasised the crucial significance scholarship on surrealism played in her understanding of the movement – a significance that has also eluded earlier scholars of her work."