Exquisite corpse or Cadavre exquis is a method by which a collection of words or images are collectively assembled. It is based on an old parlour game known by the same name (and also as Consequences) in which players wrote in turn on a sheet of paper, folded it to conceal part of the writing, and then passed it to the next player for a further contribution.
Read more about this topic: Surrealist Techniques
Famous quotes containing the words exquisite and/or corpse:
“There is ... a class of fancies, of exquisite delicacy, which are not thoughts, and to which, as yet, I have found it absolutely impossible to adapt language.... Now, so entire is my faith in the power of words, that at times, I have believed it possible to embody even the evanescence of fancies such as I have attempted to describe.”
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849)
“Now Lady Maisry is gone home,
Made him a winding sheet,
And at the back of merry Lincoln
The dead corpse did her meet.
And all the bells of merry Lincoln,
Without men’s hands were rung,”
—Unknown. Hugh of Lincoln (l. 61–66)