Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Magic Realism |
Magic RealismNoun1. Genre of meticulously realistic painting of imaginary scenes and fantastic images. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
| Domain | Title | ||
Books |
| ||
Music |
| ||
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
The term magic realism was first used by the German art critic Frank Roh, initially to describe a group of painters in the 1920s who were in the process of recreating traditional depictions of reality. Today, magical realism is used especially when referring to Latin American literature; it was first applied to such literature by the critic Uslar Pietri, but only came in vogue after Nobel prize winner Miguel Angel Asturias defined his novels as fitting into the style.
It is difficult to distinguish magic realism from conventional fictional realism. After all, the very plots, characters, and narrator of conventional fiction are not truly realistic. However, stories of magic realism tend to treat reality as completely fluid and have characters who accept this as normal. An encyclopedia reshapes the world to fit its descriptions or a stream of blood travels to tell a woman of the death of her husband, and the characters simply accept these unprecedented happenings as more events in their lives.
Note that magic realism often arises in societies with repressive, authoritarian, or totalitarian governments, and may represent an accommodation to a severely dangerous form of political reality. On the other hand, magic realism has spread beyond these confines.
Unlike hard science fiction, which is limited by the laws of physics (or at least pretends to be) or some types of fantasy which have consistent rules within themselves (you have to throw a specific ring into a particular volcano), magic realism is whimsical, or at least very particular to the society it depicts.
For instance, many of García Márquez's novels appear on the surface to be journalistic accounts of real-world events, but on closer inspection the stories have a sheen of unreality and mystery that cannot be explained by any journalistic techniques. Magical realism is not a movement or school, it is a prose style. It has no formal connection with surrealism.
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Magic realism."
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
magic realism | 46 |
definition magic realism | 4 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "magic realism"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Pig Latin | agicmay ealismray.(various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-a-c-e-g-i-i-l-m-m-r-s" | |
-3 letters: racialism, scrimmage. | |
-4 letters: aglimmer, airmails, alarmism, almemars, camelias, caramels, casimire, ceramals, claimers, clammers, clammier, gasalier, glaciers, glimmers, graciles, gracilis, gremials, grimaces, macrames, marasmic, miracles, misclaim, racemism, ramilies, reclaims, remigial, semigala. | |
-5 letters: aerials, agarics, airmail, alegars, almemar, argalis, camails, camelia, cameral, cameras, camisia, caramel, ceramal, claimer, clammer, claries, eclairs, gammers, gammier, garlics, gimmals, gimmies, girlies, gisarme, glacier, glaires, glimmer, gracile, grammes, gremial, grimace, imagers, imagism, laagers, laicise, laicism, limmers, macrame, magical, mailers, maimers, malaise, malices, malmier, marcels, megrims, melisma, miasmal, miasmic, milages, milreis, mimical, miracle, mirages, ramilie, realism, reclaim, regalia, remails, scalage, scalare, scalier, similar, slammer, slimier, slimmer. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-a-c-e-g-i-i-l-m-m-r-s" | |
+4 letters: grammaticalities. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)4D 61 67 69 63 52 65 61 6C 69 73 6D |
| Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)
|
Binary Code (1918-1938, probably earlier) (references)01001101 01100001 01100111 01101001 01100011 00100000 01010010 01100101 01100001 01101100 01101001 01110011 01101101 |
HTML Code (1990) (references)M a g i c   R e a l i s m |
ISO 10646 (1991-1993) (references)004D 0061 0067 0069 0063 0052 0065 0061 006C 0069 0073 006D |
Encryption (beginner's substitution cypher): (references)4767737569252716778758579 |
| 1. Definition 2. Usage: Commercial 3. Expressions: Internet 4. Translations: Modern | 5. Anagrams 6. Orthography 7. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
