Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in subsequent chapters of this book. The book illustrates how the figure of woman was used in surrealism to signify subversion by virtue of Angela Carter, perceived association with irrationality, eroticism and revolution. It presents the shift in Carter's writing, beginning with The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman, towards a more overtly surrealist iconography, and simultaneously, a more clearly stated feminist critique of surrealist representations of women. The book examines the intersections between Surrealisme et sexualite and The Sadeian Woman. Carter's feminist-surrealist aesthetic can arguably be seen as contributing to a revisionist history of the avant-garde, one that considers certain strands of 1970 experimental feminist writing as a continuation and an elaboration of what we have come to think of as the historical avant-garde. Carter has described her own feminist radicalisation as taking place at the end of the 1960s, in tandem with the larger-scale development of second-wave feminism.