Modernism in art and literature was characterized by a reaction against the rationalism and scientism of the late nineteenth century and by a desire to open up enexplored areas of the mind, including the unconscious realms that were being uncovered by Freud and others. Modernism and the European Unconscious is a systematic study of this modernist flight from reason and of the impact of this movement on European culture in the twentieth century. In a comparative and comprehensive way, the contributors to this volume examine the interaction of modernist forms and new models of the mind. They focus on literary texts as well as on theatre, cinema and painting. They analyze not only the classic canon of great modernist novelists, such as Kafka, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, D.H. Lawrence and Thomas Mann, but also avant-garde movements like Surrealism and influential figures like Magritte, Max Ernst, Breton and Artaud. The result is a major work of comparative and cultural analysis. Among the contributors are Malcolm Bowie, Elizabeth Wright and Edward Timms.