Futurism (literature)
Encyclopedia
Futurism was a modernist
avant-garde
movement
in literature
that made its official debut with the publication of Filippo Tommaso Marinetti
's Manifesto of Futurism
(1909). Futurist poetry
may be characterised by its unexpected combinations of images and its hyper-conciseness (which should not to be confused with the actual length of the poem). Theatre
also played an important role within the movement. Futurist performances have scenes that are only a few sentences long, emphasise nonsensical humour, and attempt to discredit the traditions of theatre via parody
and other devaluation techniques. Longer forms of literature, such as the novel
, had no place in the Futurist aesthetic of speed and compression. Futurist literature primarily focus on seven aspects: intuition, analogy, irony, abolition of syntax, metrical reform, onomatopoeia, and essential/synthetic lyricism.
Soffici had a more earthly reasoning. Intuition was the means by which creation took place. He believed that there could be no abstraction of the values of futurist literature in logical terms. Rather, art was a language in and of itself that could only be expressed in that language. Any attempt to extrapolate from the literature resulted "in the evaluation not of artistic qualities but of extraneous matters". As such, the spontaneous creation brought by intuition freed one from abstracting (and therefore adding erroneous material into the literature) and allowed on to speak in the language of art.
In this way, Futurists rallied against "intellectualistic literature…[and] intelligible poetry". However, this idea is different from anti-intellectualism. They were not hostile to intellectual approaches, but just the specific intellectual approach that poetry had taken for so many years. Therefore, they often rejected any form of tradition as it had been tainted with the previous intellectual approaches of the past.
The means for creating these analogies is intuition. This intuition is "the poet's peculiar quality in that it enables him to discover analogies which, hidden to reason, are yet the essentials of art". The discovering of analogies is made possible by intuition.
Now, Marinetti believed that analogies have always existed, but earlier poets had not reached out enough to bring appropriately disparate entities together. By creating a communion of two (or more) seemingly unrelated objects, the poet pierces to the "essence of reality". The farther the poet has to reach in terms of logical remoteness is in direct proportion to its efficacy.
As analogy thus plays such an important role, it "offers a touchstone to gauge poetical values…: the power to startle. The artistic criterion derived from analogy is stupefaction". While an ordinary person's vision is colored by convention and tradition, the poet can brush away this top layer to reveal the reality below. The process of communicating the surprise is art while the "stupefaction" is the reaction to this discovery. Thus, analogies are the essence of poetry for the Futurists.
The practical realization of this ideal meant that many parts of speech were discarded: Adjectives were thought to bring nuance in "a universe which is…black and white"; the infinitive provided all the idea of an action one needed without the hindrances of conjugation; substantives followed their linked substantives without other words (by the notion of analogy). Punctuation, moods, and tenses, also disappeared in order to be consistent with analogy and "stupefaction."
However, the Futurists were not truly abolishing syntax. White points out that since "The OED defines 'syntax' as 'the arrangement of words in their proper forms) by which their connection and relation in a sentence are show". The Futurists were not destroying syntax in that sense. Marinetti in truth advocated a number of "substantial, but nevertheless selective modifications to existing syntax" and that the "Russian Futurists' idea that they were 'shaking syntax loose'" is more accurate.
In order to break free of the shackles of meter, they resorted to what they called "parole in libertá (word autonomy)". Essentially, all ideas of meter were rejected and the word became the main unit of concern instead of the meter. In this way, the Futurists managed to create a new language free of syntax punctuation, and metrics that allowed for free expression.
For example, in the poem entitled "Studio" by Soffici, he "describes the artist's studio—and by extension, modern man himself—as becoming a 'radiotelefantastic cabin open to all messages', the sense of wonder her being transmitted by the portmanteau neologism: 'readotelefantastica'". Here all notions of familiar language have been abandoned and in their place a new language has emerged with its own vocabulary.
Integral onomatopoeia was "the introduction of any and every sound irrespective of its similarity to significant words". This meant that any collection of letters could represent a sound. The final form of onomatopoeia did not reference external sounds or movements like the aforementioned versions of onomatopoeia. Rather, they tried to capture the internal motions of the soul.
often served as a target for Futurists because of its deep roots in classical societies. In its stead, the Futurists exalted the variety theatre
, vaudeville
, and music hall
because, they argued, it "had no tradition; it was a recent discovery". Vaudevillian acts aligned themselves well to the notions of "stupefaction" as there was the desire to surprise and excite and the audience. Furthermore, the heavy use of machinery attracted the Futurists, as well as Vaudevillian acts' tendency to "destroy" the masterpieces of the past through parody
and other forms of depreciation.
By adding other Futurist ideals mentioned above, they firmly rooted their beliefs into theatre. They wanted to blur the line between art and life in order to reach below the surface to reality. In practice, this manifested itself in various ways:
However, the most important aspect of the work was the discrediting of the great works of theatre. These new theatrical ideal of the Futurists helped to establish a new genre of theatre: the synthetic play.
Automobile drunk with space,
Trampling with anguish, bit between your strident teeth!
O formidable Japanese monster with forge,
Nourished with flame and mineral oils,
Hungry for horizons and sidereal prey,
I unleash your heart to the diabolical vroom-vroom
And your giant radials, for the dance
You lead on the white roads of the world.
Lastly I loosen your metal reins and you soar,
Drunkenly, into freedom-giving Infinity!...
the he and the other the other
and the other was a real triangle a true
younger brother of the file
of steel rusty stell
that he in the frenzy
of possession only his only his alone
seized abruptly and thrust theeeeere
into the pure white velvet of her belly
plugging her new opening with his flesh
with his virile flesh
ah ah ah
ahh ahh ahh
ahe haaaahh
The curtain rises: a gentleman and a lady are seen locked in a close embrace.
Scene II
A second gentleman approaches noiselessly and shoots them both dead. The corpses remain in close contact, faces down. The killer draws near them, raises the man's head and starts back. He then raises the woman's head and shows even greater astonishment.
2nd gentleman: "My God! I've shot the wrong couple!"
Modernist literature
Modernist literature is sub-genre of Modernism, a predominantly European movement beginning in the early 20th century that was characterized by a self-conscious break with traditional aesthetic forms...
avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
movement
Art movement
An art movement is a tendency or style in art with a specific common philosophy or goal, followed by a group of artists during a restricted period of time, or, at least, with the heyday of the movement defined within a number of years...
in literature
Literature
Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...
that made its official debut with the publication of Filippo Tommaso Marinetti
Filippo Tommaso Marinetti
Filippo Tommaso Emilio Marinetti was an Italian poet and editor, the founder of the Futurist movement, and a fascist ideologue.-Childhood and adolescence:...
's Manifesto of Futurism
Futurist Manifesto
The Futurist Manifesto, written by the Italian poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, was published in the Italian newspaper Gazzetta dell'Emilia in Bologna on 5 February 1909, then in French as "Manifeste du futurisme" in the newspaper Le Figaro on 20 February 1909...
(1909). Futurist poetry
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
may be characterised by its unexpected combinations of images and its hyper-conciseness (which should not to be confused with the actual length of the poem). Theatre
Theatre
Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...
also played an important role within the movement. Futurist performances have scenes that are only a few sentences long, emphasise nonsensical humour, and attempt to discredit the traditions of theatre via parody
Parody
A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...
and other devaluation techniques. Longer forms of literature, such as the novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
, had no place in the Futurist aesthetic of speed and compression. Futurist literature primarily focus on seven aspects: intuition, analogy, irony, abolition of syntax, metrical reform, onomatopoeia, and essential/synthetic lyricism.
Intuition
In Marinetti's 1909 manifesto, Marinetti calls for the reawakening of "divine intuition" that "after hours of relentless toil" allows for the "creative spirit seems suddenly to shake off its shackles and become prey to an incomprehensible spontaneity of conception and execution".Soffici had a more earthly reasoning. Intuition was the means by which creation took place. He believed that there could be no abstraction of the values of futurist literature in logical terms. Rather, art was a language in and of itself that could only be expressed in that language. Any attempt to extrapolate from the literature resulted "in the evaluation not of artistic qualities but of extraneous matters". As such, the spontaneous creation brought by intuition freed one from abstracting (and therefore adding erroneous material into the literature) and allowed on to speak in the language of art.
In this way, Futurists rallied against "intellectualistic literature…[and] intelligible poetry". However, this idea is different from anti-intellectualism. They were not hostile to intellectual approaches, but just the specific intellectual approach that poetry had taken for so many years. Therefore, they often rejected any form of tradition as it had been tainted with the previous intellectual approaches of the past.
Analogy
Analogy's purpose in Futurist writing was to show that everything related to one another. They helped to unveil this true reality lying underneath the surface of existence. That is to say, despite what the experience might show one, everything is in fact interconnected. The more startling the comparison, the more successful it is.The means for creating these analogies is intuition. This intuition is "the poet's peculiar quality in that it enables him to discover analogies which, hidden to reason, are yet the essentials of art". The discovering of analogies is made possible by intuition.
Now, Marinetti believed that analogies have always existed, but earlier poets had not reached out enough to bring appropriately disparate entities together. By creating a communion of two (or more) seemingly unrelated objects, the poet pierces to the "essence of reality". The farther the poet has to reach in terms of logical remoteness is in direct proportion to its efficacy.
As analogy thus plays such an important role, it "offers a touchstone to gauge poetical values…: the power to startle. The artistic criterion derived from analogy is stupefaction". While an ordinary person's vision is colored by convention and tradition, the poet can brush away this top layer to reveal the reality below. The process of communicating the surprise is art while the "stupefaction" is the reaction to this discovery. Thus, analogies are the essence of poetry for the Futurists.
Irony
As the Futurists advocated the aforementioned intuition and the bucking of tradition, one might assume that they would suppress the use of irony. On the contrary, irony proved to be "so old and forgotten that it looked almost new when the dust was brushed away from it. What was new and untried, at least more so than their principles and theories, were the futurists' stylistic devices".Abolition of syntax
Futurists believed that the constraints of syntax were inappropriate to modern life and that it did not truly represent the mind of the poet. Syntax would act as a filter in which analogies had to be processed and so analogies would lose their characteristic "stupefaction." By abolishing syntax, the analogies would become more effective.The practical realization of this ideal meant that many parts of speech were discarded: Adjectives were thought to bring nuance in "a universe which is…black and white"; the infinitive provided all the idea of an action one needed without the hindrances of conjugation; substantives followed their linked substantives without other words (by the notion of analogy). Punctuation, moods, and tenses, also disappeared in order to be consistent with analogy and "stupefaction."
However, the Futurists were not truly abolishing syntax. White points out that since "The OED defines 'syntax' as 'the arrangement of words in their proper forms) by which their connection and relation in a sentence are show". The Futurists were not destroying syntax in that sense. Marinetti in truth advocated a number of "substantial, but nevertheless selective modifications to existing syntax" and that the "Russian Futurists' idea that they were 'shaking syntax loose'" is more accurate.
Metrical reform
Early Futurist poetry relied on free verse as their poetical vehicle. However, free verse "was too thoroughly bound up with tradition and too fond of producing…stale effects" to be effective. Furthermore, by using free verse, the Futurist realized they would be working under the rules of syntax and therefore interfering with intuition and inspiration.In order to break free of the shackles of meter, they resorted to what they called "parole in libertá (word autonomy)". Essentially, all ideas of meter were rejected and the word became the main unit of concern instead of the meter. In this way, the Futurists managed to create a new language free of syntax punctuation, and metrics that allowed for free expression.
For example, in the poem entitled "Studio" by Soffici, he "describes the artist's studio—and by extension, modern man himself—as becoming a 'radiotelefantastic cabin open to all messages', the sense of wonder her being transmitted by the portmanteau neologism: 'readotelefantastica'". Here all notions of familiar language have been abandoned and in their place a new language has emerged with its own vocabulary.
Onomatopoeia
There were four forms of onomatopoeia that the Futurists advocated: direct, indirect, integral, and abstract. The first of these four is the usually onomatopoeia seen in typical poetry, e.g. boom, splash, tweet. The convey the most realistic translation of sound into language. Indirect onomatopoeia "expressed the subjective responses to external conditions".Integral onomatopoeia was "the introduction of any and every sound irrespective of its similarity to significant words". This meant that any collection of letters could represent a sound. The final form of onomatopoeia did not reference external sounds or movements like the aforementioned versions of onomatopoeia. Rather, they tried to capture the internal motions of the soul.
Essential/synthetic lyricism
In order to better provide stark, contrasting, analogies, the Futurist literature promoting a kind of hyper-conciseness. It was dubbed essential and synthetic lyricism. The former refers to a paring down of any and all superfluous objects while the latter expresses an unnatural compactness of the language unseen elsewhere. This idea explains where poetry became the preferred literary medium of Futurism and why there are no Futurist novels (since novels are neither pared down nor compressed).Futurism in the theatre
Traditional theatreTheatre
Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...
often served as a target for Futurists because of its deep roots in classical societies. In its stead, the Futurists exalted the variety theatre
Variety show
A variety show, also known as variety arts or variety entertainment, is an entertainment made up of a variety of acts, especially musical performances and sketch comedy, and normally introduced by a compère or host. Other types of acts include magic, animal and circus acts, acrobatics, juggling...
, vaudeville
Vaudeville
Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...
, and music hall
Music hall
Music Hall is a type of British theatrical entertainment which was popular between 1850 and 1960. The term can refer to:# A particular form of variety entertainment involving a mixture of popular song, comedy and speciality acts...
because, they argued, it "had no tradition; it was a recent discovery". Vaudevillian acts aligned themselves well to the notions of "stupefaction" as there was the desire to surprise and excite and the audience. Furthermore, the heavy use of machinery attracted the Futurists, as well as Vaudevillian acts' tendency to "destroy" the masterpieces of the past through parody
Parody
A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...
and other forms of depreciation.
By adding other Futurist ideals mentioned above, they firmly rooted their beliefs into theatre. They wanted to blur the line between art and life in order to reach below the surface to reality. In practice, this manifested itself in various ways:
- "Collaboration between the public and the actors was to be developed to the point of indistinction of roles—such cooperating confusion was to be partly impromptu…e.g. chairs were to be covered with glue so that ladies' gowns would stick to them; and tickets sold in such a way as to bring side by side men of the extreme right and those of the extreme left, prudes and prostitutes, teachers and pupils. Sneezing powders, sudden darkening of the hall, and alarm signals were all means to insure the proper functioning of this universal human farce".
However, the most important aspect of the work was the discrediting of the great works of theatre. These new theatrical ideal of the Futurists helped to establish a new genre of theatre: the synthetic play.
Synthetic play
This type of play took the idea of compression to an extreme, where "a brief performance in which entire acts were reduced to a few sentences, and scenes to a handful of words. No sentiments, no psychological development, no atmosphere, no suggestiveness. Common sense was banished, or rather, replaced by nonsense". There did exist some plays similar to this before the Futurists, but they did not conform to the Futurist agenda. The creator of the first modern synthetic play is thought to be Verlaine, with his aptly titled work Excessive Haste.Excerpt from Marinetti's free verse poem To a Racing Car
Vehement god from a race of steel,Automobile drunk with space,
Trampling with anguish, bit between your strident teeth!
O formidable Japanese monster with forge,
Nourished with flame and mineral oils,
Hungry for horizons and sidereal prey,
I unleash your heart to the diabolical vroom-vroom
And your giant radials, for the dance
You lead on the white roads of the world.
Lastly I loosen your metal reins and you soar,
Drunkenly, into freedom-giving Infinity!...
Farfa's parole in Libertá poem Triangle
they were three threethe he and the other the other
and the other was a real triangle a true
younger brother of the file
of steel rusty stell
that he in the frenzy
of possession only his only his alone
seized abruptly and thrust theeeeere
into the pure white velvet of her belly
plugging her new opening with his flesh
with his virile flesh
ah ah ah
ahh ahh ahh
ahe haaaahh
Excessive Haste, a play by Verlaine
Scene IThe curtain rises: a gentleman and a lady are seen locked in a close embrace.
Scene II
A second gentleman approaches noiselessly and shoots them both dead. The corpses remain in close contact, faces down. The killer draws near them, raises the man's head and starts back. He then raises the woman's head and shows even greater astonishment.
2nd gentleman: "My God! I've shot the wrong couple!"
Italy
- Libero Altomare
- Paolo BuzziPaolo BuzziPaolo Buzzi was an Italian futurist playwright and poet.-Biography:Buzzi studied law in Pavia, and at the same time attended lectures in litterature. In 1891, he won the milanese Concorso di Poesia award. In 1898 with Rapsodie leopardiane his poetry career begun in ernest...
- Enrico Cardile
- Loris Catrizzi
- Enrico Cavacchioli
- Auroa D'Alba
- Escodame
- FarfaFarfaFarfa is an Italian name which can refer to:*A place name in the province of the Lazio in Italy, as:** Farfa River** Farfa ** Farfa Abbey, one of the main medieval abbeys in Italy* A personal name, as:...
- FilliaFillìaFillìa was the name adopted by Luigi Colombo, an Italian artist associated with the second generation of Futurism.-Biography:Fillìa was born in Revello, Piedmont....
- Luciano Folgore
- F.T. Marinetti
- Armando Mazza
- Bruno G. Sanzin
Poland
- Tytus CzyzewskiTytus CzyzewskiTytus Czyżewski was a Polish painter, art theoretician, Futurist poet, playwright, member of the Polish Formists, and Colorist.In 1902 he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow in the painting studios of Józef Mehoffer and Leon Wyczółkowski. Czyżewski travelled to Paris and learned from the...
- Jan Hrynkowski
- Jerzy Jankowski
- Bruno JasienskiBruno JasienskiBruno Jasieński was a Polish poet and the leader of the Polish futurist movement.Bruno Jasieński was born Wiktor Zysman on 17 July 1901 in Klimontów in southern Congress Poland, Russian Empire to a Polish family of Jewish and German roots, but from his mother's side he was a descendant of the...
- Anatol SternAnatol SternAnatol Stern was a Polish poet, writer and art critic. Born October 24, 1899 to an assimilated family of Jewish ancestry, Stern studied at the Polish Studies Faculty of the University of Wilno but did not graduate...
Russia
- Nikolay Aseev
- BozhidarBozhidarBogdan Petrovich Gordeev aka Bozhidar was a Russian poet-futuristic of Ukrainian origin....
- David BurliukDavid BurliukDavid Davidovich Burliuk was a Russian avant-garde artist of Ukrainian origin , book illustrator, publicist, and author associated with Russian Futurism...
- Vasily KamenskyVasily KamenskyVasily Vasilevich Kamensky was a Russian Futurist poet, playwright, and artist as well as one of the first Russian aviators.Kamensky was born in the Perm district, where his father was an inspector of goldfields...
- Velemir Khlebnikov
- Aleksey Kruchenykh
- Vladimir MayakovskyVladimir MayakovskyVladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky was a Russian and Soviet poet and playwright, among the foremost representatives of early-20th century Russian Futurism.- Early life :...
- Vadim ShershenevichVadim ShershenevichVadim Gabrielevich Shershenevich was a Russian poet.-Earlier years:Shershenevich was born in Kazan, Russia on 25 January 1893 . He was the son of professor of Law Gabriel Feliksovich Shershenevich, a Polish national and a deputy of the first State Duma from the Constitutional Democratic party and...
Portugal and Brazil
- Mário de AndradeMário de AndradeMário Raul de Morais Andrade was a Brazilian poet, novelist, musicologist, art historian and critic, and photographer. One of the founders of Brazilian modernism, he virtually created modern Brazilian poetry with the publication of his Paulicéia Desvairada in 1922...
- Tyrteu Rocha Vianna
- Alvaro de CamposÁlvaro de CamposÁlvaro de Campos was one of the poet Fernando Pessoa's various heteronyms, widely known by his powerful and wraithful writing style. Campos' works may be split in three phases: the decadentist phase, the futuristic phase and the decadent phase...
- Sérgio MillietSérgio MillietSérgio Milliet da Costa e Silva, generally known as Sérgio Milliet was a Brazilian writer, painter, poet,essayist, literary and art critic, and sociologist.-External links:* in...
Ukraine
- Vasyl Aleshko
- Mykola BazhanMykola BazhanMykola Platonovych Bazhan was a Soviet Ukrainian writer and poet. He was awarded the Stalin Prize ....
, former member of Komunkult - Oleksa Slisarenko, former member of Komunkult
- Mykhailo Symenko
- Mykhailo YalovyMykhailo YalovyMykhailo Yalovy was a Ukrainian communist poet-futurist, prosaic, drama writer.-Yearly years and the Revolution:Yalovy was born in a family of volost scribe...
, former member of Komunkult