Translation Rights TQE / Dalíctionary. Images, Objects and Concepts of Salvador Dalí’s World

Several times over the last few years I have visited the different Dalí museums and, in the course of these visits as well as in the many lectures I have given on Dalí, it has surprised me that people always ask the same basic questions: What do the ants, the rotten donkey, the severed hands, the landscape, the grasshoppers, the melting clocks all mean?

At first glance, the works of Salvador Dalí appear easy to understand, due to the tendency toward figurativism.  But, in reality, they are far more difficult to comprehend than a first reading may suggest, because the meaning of the figures and objects which appear obsessively in his works is not entirely clear.  Understanding their significance is one of the keys to the artist’s enigma.

The primary objective of the Dalíctionary is to provide the lay reader with a brief guide to the world of Dalí, based on the most characteristic images, names, and concepts which appear in his work.  The Dalíctionary explains the meaning of some of these images, as well as discussing changes in their use and meaning.  The explanations are based on concrete examples, localized in representative works from Dalí’s various periods and styles, with special attention paid to those from the Surrealist period, since these works contain a significant concentration of the symbols which are recycled in later years.  Each entry includes a list of the most important works in which the objects are found.  Whenever possible, explanations include a complete or partial citation from one of the artist’s text.

Complementing the Dalíctionary is an extensive chronology in which special attention is paid to those names and places which help in understanding the entirety of the artist’s career, his literary and cinematographic work, as well as his many extra-artistic collaborations. 

Enric Bou (Barcelona, 1954) is a Spanish and Catalan Literature professor at Brown University.  He specializes in contemporary Spanish literature, and has edited epistolaries of some of the writers of the generation of 1927, including Cartas de viaje, 1912-1951 (Travel Letters, 1912-1951) and Cartas a Katherine Whitmore (Letters to Katherine Whitmore), both by Pedro Salinas.  He is the author of monographic works about poets such as Joan Maragall, Josep Carner, and Guerau de Liost.  He is also author of a series of essays and poetic anthologies.