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• February 8, 2025
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If you are preparing for the UGC-NET English Literature, you must have come across the term “magic realism”. What does it mean? Where did it even originate from? Have you ever thought of this? Obviously, if you have attended our UGC-NET online classes or offline classes, you must have deeply engaged with this topic. Prof. Vineet Pandey has always taught English Literature from a historical perspective and connects different aspects of lives to literature. That is the magic realism involved with his pedagogical essence. But what does magic realism look like? It looks like one of Franz Roh’s paintings. How is it associated with Franz Roh? Let’s uncover the essence of magic realism. 

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What is magic realism?

To understand magical realism, there’s a lot of homework involved. How? You need to have an understanding of art history and conduct a thorough survey of German art during the Weimar period along with assessments of impacts of Naïve art, Metaphysical art, and surrealism during the four decades that followed World War I. You need to deeply engage with both content and style to understand the concept. 

Origin of magic realism 

Franz Roh coined the term magic realism in Nach-expressionsmus, magisher Realismus, Probleme der neuesten europaischer Malerei, published in 1925.He called it post-expressionism, and contrasted it with expressionism. His idea was promoted by Gustav Hartlaub. Both Roh and Hartlaub focused on similar art when focusing on post-expressionism. What is post-expressionism? It is an art form that was moving away from abstraction and emotionally charged imagery. Hartlaub emphasized that he saw a division of two separate wings within this type of art, a classically oriented right wing and a socially critical left one. However, Roh did not approve of Hartlaub’s views. 

Franz Roh also stated that magic realism should not simply bring back “the more neutral art of Courbet and Leibel.” Further, he opposed revival of 19th century academic art, feeling that artists should avoid regression. According to Roh, magic realism resembles an artistic style that merges realism with elements of fantastical, mythological, and dream-like. 

In 1955, Angel Flores used the term magic realism and defined it as an “amalgamation of magic realism and marvelous realism.” Soon, magic realism became a trend in German literature in 1950s which included works like Gunter Grass’ 1959 novel Die Blechtrommel (The Tin Drum).

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Contradictions associated with magic realism 

The term itself combines two opposing views. It does not support completely magical or purely realistic views. Thus, magic realist works incorporate the magical within the mundane. For instance, in Gabriel García Márquez’s seminal magical realist novel One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967), Remedios the Beauty ascends to heaven while folding a sheet.

Magic realism draws on elements of the fantastical. However, the distinction between commercial genre fiction (in this case, fantasy) and high literary fiction can be blurred in magic realist works. It is in being so described, however, that magical realist works assert their elevated literary value.

Magical realist works are thus conceived as experimental. They are fundamentally considered literary works that test the boundaries of what literature can do, all while further distancing themselves from the supposedly “low” fantasy genre. Thus, magical realist works are more likely to win prestigious literary prizes than commercial fantasy works, and it is of little surprise that magical realist novels are frequently awarded the Man Booker Prize for Fiction – which, in turn, serves to maintain the prestige surrounding magical realism as a literary style.

Nowadays, magic realism is about incorporating elements of magical, mythological, and folkloric within realist novels.  For instance, Ben Okri’s The Famished Road, for example, builds on Yoruba mythology, Toni Morrison draws on the gothic and the supernatural to explore the psychological toll of slavery following abolition in Beloved, and Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children incorporates myth and magic into a reimagining of Indian national history.

There is more to this. But why just satisfy yourself with one blog on just one literary term? Join our UGC-NET online classes or offline classes to attend full-fledged lectures by Prof. Vineet Pandey on different aspects covered in the UGC-NET English literature syllabus. After joining the best UGC-NET coaching, you will receive UGC-NET paper 1 classes​. You will also get UGC-NET paper 1 study material​ and UGC-NET English notes pdf. So, what are you waiting for? 

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