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Avant-Garde, Neo-Avant-Garde, Modernism: Questions and Suggestions Author(s): Mikls Szabolcsi Source: New Literary History, Vol. 3, No.

1, Modernism and Postmodernism: Inquiries, Reflections, and Speculations (Autumn, 1971), pp. 49-70 Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/468380 . Accessed: 29/08/2013 12:56
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Modernism: Neo-avant-garde, Avant-garde,

and Suggestions Questions


Mikl6s Szabolcsi I

HE LITERATURE of recentyears and, not to the least extent, the various literaryand artisticphenomena of our days and the increasingcomplexity of theirdevelopmentcall for a profound and criticalrevisionof everything we understandby the terms "modern" or "contemporary."The following attemptis the outcome of such considerations, without,however,claiming to answer all the it raises. questions

II
We shall discuss the set of phenomena we understandby the term "avant-garde,"meaning by it one of the trends,one certaingroup of incidentsin the more recentdevelopmentof literature and art. The termitselfis, of course,like so many othersin the field of art, open to argument. A few words about its history: Originallyit was used in a military sense and the first journal so named is a militaryone fromthe period of the French Revolution,launched in 1794. As a political term it seems to appear around 1830 in Republican circles and among the oppositionof the monarchyin general. It becomes more popular in Utopian Socialist terminology;the Saint-Simonite Emile Barraultis probablythe first who uses it in 183o, then around 1845 it appears in the worksof G. D. Laverdant, disciple of Fourier, and about thesame timein Proudhon'swritings, too, alreadyas a label forsocial progress, forsocialistideas and the collective efforts of artists. the "avant-garde" becomes part of By the second half of the century the stock phraseologyof politics; in France between 188o and 191o countlessnewspapers,periodicals and publicationsbear it as a title, and its novelty is worn offin politicalslang. Naturally,in most cases

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or it is used to designate"progressive," radical, freemasonic "leftist," Jacobin movements; sometimes it can even acquire an anarchist of Bakunin chose it forthe title accent,as when in 1878 the followers of theirreviewpublishedin Chaux-de-Fonds,Switzerland. However the termsoon grew so elastic that it admittedright-wing, anti-liberal, and was used in those anti-Semiticand nationalisticinterpretations decade ofthe twentieththe i88o's onward.In thefirst senses, too,from centurythe use of "avant-garde" with a political meaning grew less and turnedup again in the 1920os to mark,at least in France, frequent, mostlySocialist and Communistattitudesin politics. and art quite The termwas applied to the phenomenaof literature late. Even Baudelaire used it in its politico-military sense. It was thatit began towardsthe end of the 19th and earlyin the 20othcentury to denote literary and artistictrends; fromthat time onward its use to the field of literature and art, at least in was graduallyrestricted The and critical terminologies. scholarly politicalmeaningof theword, in the a new movementsof the i96os.1 however,acquired charge

III
Side by side with,or insteadof,the termand conceptof "avant-garde" and art historians use the expressions the majorityof literary "modernism," "modernness" or "the Moderns," meaning the period in with Baudelaire or, in some cases, Rimbaud, and literature beginning comingup to the present.The term"modernism"(or "modernness") has, for some of the Marxist critics,the pejorative secondarymeanmore tempdecay, decadence; others, ing of bourgeoisdisintegration, erately,apply it to literaryphenomena that fall outside the line of realism and that reveal, as an essentialfeature,an attemptto find refugein the increasingisolation of the artist;later, just an aimless, anarchist revolt.2 Similarly,literaryscholarshipin English-speaking countriesand in France uses the term "modernism"in a generalizing sense,usuallyunderstanding by it everytrendthat is in sharp contrast with the previousperiod, that of Romanticismand realism. use of the word: this am in doubt about thisgeneralizing I myself and contradictions "modernism"effacesthe fundamentaldifferences
I See R. Estivals, J. Ch. Gaudy, G. Vergez, L'avant-garde (Paris, 1968); H. E. Holthusen, "Kunst und Revolution," Avantgarde (Munich, 1966); R. Poggioli, Teoria dell'arte d'avanguardie (Bologna, 1962). 2 See mainly GyorgyLukacs' works; for recent detailed elaboration of subject in Hungarian criticism,see Istvin Kiraly, Endre Ady (Budapest, I970), 2 vols.

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between the various trends and tendenciesit stands for. If we call that in some way or other deviates fromthe principlesof everything criticalrealism,fromBaudelaire to the German revolutionary activists, fromApollinaireto the absurd drama, "modernist" (no matterfrom which side), we shall, I think,gain a vague category,but one that would conflateradically different tendencies. If we label Mallarm6 and Apollinaire alike as "modernist,"we disregardthe fundamental disparitybetween Mallarm6, the great precursorof the cult of the isolatedEgo, of the transformation of literature into linguistic symbols, and Apollinaire,who with his openness,his deep interest in man and in the people, his cheerfulness and ironyand humanismis at the source of a powerful in European poetry, current reconciling open, impulsive, man with society;between,that is, the forerunner of hermeticwordplay of our days on the one hand, and that of the presentrealistic on theother. poetry the term"modernist" will be applied to the laterRilke and Similarly to the Nezval and the mature Eliot without early Mayakovsky, young which that shows instead of the vague categoriesof discrimination; modernliterature and modernism we are to findtermsthat definethe individual trends and tendenciesmore precisely. The trendsin the of literature and art, beginningwith 1905, can complex development be divided into groups; one of the principalgroupsbeing, I think, the avant-garde. True, the avant-gardewaves that appear around I905 are characterized by gradual transitions from the very beginning: they are linkedto previoustrendsin more than one point, and the avant-garde literature has a lot in common with that of the end of the century as far as theirphilosophicalbackgroundand their attitudesare concerned. In searching forcommonfeatures we could, however, go back as far as the Romantics; indeed more than one trend of the 2 oth centurycan be derived from some type of Romanticism-still, the time that has passed since the disintegration of Classicismcannot be consideredas one integralperiod. Earlier criticsof the conservative wing like Lasserre or Irving Babbitt, and more recentlyand on an evidentlyhigher level, Walter Muschg and Hans Sedlmayr in their historiesof literatureand art (respectivelyTragische Literaand Verlust derMitte) have shownan inclination towards turgeschichte this conception; in their opinion everything that has happened during the last centuryand a half adds up to one single processof disto speak of. integration: since Goethe therehas been no literature Whereis the place of the avant-gardeamong the literary and artistic trendsof the 20th century?

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This question leads to another that neitherthe Marxist nor the bourgeoisscholarshave as yetansweredalthoughthe problemof trends in 2oth centuryworld literaturehas been recentlybrought up in Soviet criticism.3The developmentof the literatureof our century is polymorphous, so manifoldthat unlike almost all previousperiods it cannot be included under the heading of one single principle of one prevailing methodor intellectual style, concept. The literature of the 2oth centuryshows a strongrealisticcurrent that embracesa whole range of different trends,fromthe intellectual realismtendingto irony (the typethat Thomas Mann represents)to of plebeian realism (that of M6ricz or Sadoveanu) with a scattering between. It is this realismthat,at its best,pronuances and varieties duced the great worksof this eventfuland complicatedperiod, from Brechtto HeinrichMann, from Roger Martindu Gard to Hemingway. There is no doubt either thatone of the strongest of our century, trends more is realism. socialist gaining ground everyday, At the otherextreme we findthe obviously and the cheap literature, ultra-conservative literature(sometimesin the guise of realism) -we can all agree to that, too. And between the two poles?-the "intercalled it? region" as Boris Suchkov ingeniously In this"inter-region" of first are, all, situatedthe trendsand oeuvres of a conservative and aristocratic (sometimes character) that we can under the of late and from classify neo-classicism, headings symbolism the late Rilke to Ezra Pound, from Yeats to Valdry; theworkof Proust can also be classed here. These trendsare rooted,in my opinion,more in the past century, its heritage,than in carryingon and perfecting the present. If nothingelse, this must make us wary of calling them them with the trendsthat came into "avant-garde" and identifying to even if the careersof some of theseartists being just challengethem, were forsome time linkedwith the avant-gardemovements, and even the and trends we term though groups usually "avant-garde" are also to be foundin this"inter-region." trendsand formations Pure and homogeneous have, of course,never of transitional formscome into being and, conseexisted; a multitude quently,the above categoriesapply to them only approximately.The is one of transition, and thereis a sectionin literature and perioditself art that deliberatelyaccepts this transitionalcharacter and assumes a mutable, flexible, fluid shape. Anothermethodological remark: the place of artists, trends,tendencies and schools is far from being permanently fixed. If we can
3 Boris Suchkov, IstoricheskieSudby Realisma (Moscow, I957)-

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accept the above outlined groupingof the various trendsas true to lifeor at least as a serviceablehypothesis we can work upon, we must see that the artistsget into contact with, draw inspirationfromand break with more than one of thesegroups,and everygreat artistproduces his own particular even in our century;he is not simply synthesis of a but has in hand a trend, part formulating, maintaining, improving and surpassing it. On the otherhand the trenditselfdevelops,underas well. goes changes and modifications

IV
and tendencies What I understand by "avant-garde"are thusthetrends in manycases, political, thatpossessa definite aesthetical, philosophical, in creativecommunities and appear program. They usuallycrystallize French with Italian Futurism, in the first starting yearsof our century, in and German Expressionism Cubism both in art and in literature, and painting. Their first literature culminating pointcomes in the first of the a new wave followsat the beginning decade of the 20oth century, and and their Surrealism, Constructivism), aspect (Dadaism, 920os effect markedlychange around 1935-38. We can thus put the first great period of the avant-garderoughlybetween 1905 and 1938. moveonce more. The avant-garde Let us go back to theantecedents mentsdid not appear suddenlyout of the blue, withoutany preparacalled them and social processthat eventually artistic tion; the literary, into existencehad started in the mid-Igth century. The complex trendsof the end of the century,Naturalism, Symbolism,and Art Nouveau, cannot easily be conceived as the mere close of a period of a new one as much. The impact either-theyindicatethebeginning of poets like Whitman and Verhaeren, Laforgue and Rimbaud is to separate fromwhat followsafterthem: there is no clear difficult dividingline betweenRimbaud and Apollinaire. As an antecedentto the organized avant-garde we find the steps "Symbolism-Symbolist Naturalism-Symbolist Expressionism"in nearly every country and of art. Still, the thing that begins with Expressionism, everysphere Cubism and Futurismis so fundamentally new, such a total change in aims and conceptions,in the relationbetween the artistand the in startworld,the subject and the object,thatwe are entirely justified of the with them. the history They ing 20othcenturyavant-garde themselves emphasizedwith angrydefiancethat theywanted to break with overripe Symbolism,with the civilizationof the close of the century. Most trendsin the fine arts emerge in violent reaction to

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of codes appear after the year 1905.

NEW LITERARY HISTORY

Impressionism.A new way of lookingat the world and a new system

In contrast, theyearsbetween1938 and I945 seem to be a periodof and movements; faltering fatiguein the avant-garde theyeven give the of exhausted their and resources impression having dyingaway. After of them were to some restored life, re-invigorated, I945, however, and grew strongenough to become, in some countries, the dominant trend.

V
How can we characterizethese avant-gardewaves, and the avantgarde movementin general?4 Several kinds of descriptions and approaches to the question are We would to like introduce a sociological approach first, possible. If we adopt this angle, we shall findthat the common basis for these

whichnaturally involves somecriteria of a philosophical too. nature,

challengedin the rapidlychanging,more and more complicatedand world. The processhad startedearlierbut became incomprehensible in really menacing the early 20othcentury."Generallyspeaking,the

is thedissolution trends between thewriter or artist oftherelationship and thepublic. Literature and artcannot fulfill their traditional funcof the existence artist and art becomes its tion, precarious, justification

4 For further reading about the respective trends of the avant-garde, i.e. Expressionism, Dadaism, Surrealism, rich documentary and critical material is available. There is also a vast list of referencebooks, already counted among the classics, dealing with the whole of avant-garde art, from Herbert Read, The Philosophy of Modern Art (London, 1950) and Mario de Micheli, Le avanguardie artistichedel Novocento (Milano, 1959) to R. Delevoy, Dimensions du XXe sidcle. 1900oo-945 (Geneve, 1965). Fewer attempts have been made to sum up the literaryavant-garde: the fullest account is that of G. de Torre, Historia de las literaturas de avanguardia (Madrid, 1925; Madrid, 1965), the most thorough, that of R. Poggioli, Teoria dell'arte d'avanguardie (Bologna, 1962). From among the recent comprehensivestudies let us mention that of B. Goribly,Le avanguardie litterariein Europa (Milano, I967). See also M. Bakos, "O literairnej avantgarde," No. 9 (Bratislava, 1966) ; K. Chvatik, StrukturalisLiteraria, Studie e dokumenty, mus und Avant-garde (Miinchen, 1970); F. Kermode, "The Modern," Continuities (New York, 1968); H. Kofler, Zur Theorie der modernen Literatur (Neuwied, Luchterhand, 1962); H. Lefebvre, La vie quotidienne dans le monde moderne (Paris, 1968); "Avantgarde. Geschichte und Krise einer Idee," Gestalt u. Gedanke, XI (1966).-Finally let me list here my own attempts: "L'avantgarde litteraireet artistique comme phenomhne litteraire,"Actes du Ve Congrds de l'AILC (Amsterdam, 1969), pp. 319-37, and Yel is kidltds(Symbol and Outcry) (Budapest, 1971). 5 See A. Hauser, Sozialgeschichte der Kunst und Literatur, II (Miinchen, 1968), and, from another aspect, P. Bourdieu, "Disposition esthetique et competence artistique," Temps Modernes ( x971 ), 1345-78.

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artist,the writer,can no longer see the function,aim, meaning and he has to findnew ways and means; place of his work; consequently, he wants to bring about a radical reformin art or, if necessary, in itself. society we speak of a consciouswish forthe This radical reform-whether forachievingit,or of panic and hesitation new and a deliberate activity at the sightof the changesin society-resultsin the dissolution of the and between between the and person object, relationship representer the represented, the artistand his subject-matter. The subject-matter itselfchanges; it acquires multiplemeanings and becomes incompreis no moresatisfied hensible. The artist withthe superficial appearance, of the familiar the surface image reality;he wantsto penetrate through of everyday he fights themechanicalreflexes, routineand habit. reality, to findthe Essence Instead,he wantsto expose unexploredconnections, of things-eitherwiththe help of a passion that seeksout the essential or with intellectualinsight, by way of ecstasiesor speculations. This basic sociological situation,this sense of a break between artistand public, art and the consumer,the consciousnessof the artist'scrisis, etc. are common featuresin the "fin-de-siecle" trendsand the avantthe avant-gardefromthe former is that it garde. What distinguishes not only faces,enduresand registers this crisisbut also triesto master it, to find the way out, to get the upper hand. That is, it wants to restore,to recreatethe unity of art and public, and bring about a radical change in art and society, even if these attempts at a solution are sometimes utopian and anarchic. As a result,in the avant-gardetrendsthe traditionaltime factor changes and so does conventional space; time and space amalgamate: the world seems to be disjointed,continuity turnsinto discontinuity. The artistfeels compelled to reflect the disjointedworld by giving a to his work. Everything is in disconnected, fragmentary, patchyeffect motion,accelerating,and the artistmanages to keep up the pace for a while,he strives aftercontemporaneity. Then overcomeby dizziness he, too, denies the existenceof measurable time and space and wants to reflectan achronic state, mere quantitativerapports,abstract rein the novel and the drama changes: the lations. Character-drawing of timeand space, the timeless is the relativity prevailingaspect process ofinnerconsciousness.Literary and genreschange,too: descripforms tion and plot are dropped,the characteristic featureof the work is its construction.And the arch-enemy of the elliptical and fragmentary that is outdated and petty-bourgeois is artist,the sum of everything

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emotion; he wants passion and will instead,or even better: laughter, the "humournoir." ridicule,the grotesque, All this is an external, secondary index of the changes in the betweenart and society, art and the world. In the rapidly relationship changing world of the second industrialrevolution,in the Age of Technology, in the society that the artist,this solitaryrebel of the findsmore and more and proletarianrevolutions, age of imperialism the recentscientific surroundedby a nature that,following confusing, discoveries growseven more chaotic, art seems to lose its former position and weight; in the age of mass culturemany an artistfindshis art void of reason. Art absorbs the slang, notionsand problems of modernlife,of technology, of the city,but it does not stop at that: it wants to destroy the hierarchy of art forms, to effacethe dividinglines between"high" and "low," all in orderto get closerto the public and overcome the alienating effectof the division of labor. Hence the interestthe avant-gardetakes in the circus, the music hall, choral and various new typesof theatre. The artist speaking,gym festivals wantsto do away withthe dividinglines betweenthe arts,the division of architecture and sculpture,poetryand plastic arts: this is at the of visual symorigin of the "rythmecolore" and "poemes-dessins," phonies and literary collages. But soon it is art itself that the avant-gardechallenges. The avanttrends are characterized fromthe first garde by an aggressive spirit: claim with life and that,compared action,art has no significance they to speak of. Art now aspiresto the statusof industry, seeks to attain scientific technical and The exactness, precision artist,if a validity. or a to master if wants a writer or a poet, painter sculptor, technology, to adopt its speed, exactness and devices. "Art is dead. Long live Tatlin's new mechanic art"-declined the poster of G. Grosz and Heartfield as earlyas 1920. The art of the avant-gardeis deeply influencedby the social and is his politicalforcesof the age. One index of the artist'shelplessness more and more frequentresorting to the grotesque,to the "humour vain outcry in poetry, noir," the desperategrin,angrylaughter, paintin our time. ing or drama-phenomena whichbecame reallyprevalent Alienation,solitude,isolationin the middle of societyare expressed by the artistwhetherhe submitsto them and, accepting the reduction of human personality as inevitable,shouts his terrorand anguish to the wide world,or rebelsagainstthem and triesto avoid them. and stagesthat are not satisfied The avant-gardealso has tendencies the new position merelywith changingthe natureof art and defining to transform but determinedly in its entirety. of the artist, strive society

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Avant-gardeart is characterized by a feverish quest for the new and and a hatred for is that outdated, retrograde, striking, everything fossilized or conservative: two weapons in the struggle to change the outdated and conservative structure and elementsof society. Nearly of the New Man; everyavant-gardetrendtriesto outlinethe features this New Man is sometimesan utopian, unreal personality, oftenthe artist but as oftenthe freely of member a new type himself, developing of society. It is the wish to overcome alienation that formulates this of man: the of the ideal a and image happy complete personality, product,as some artists hope, of a futureclasslessCommunistsociety. of the avant-gardewe see the fightand alterThroughoutthe history nationof two contrasting two extremes, two typesof revolt: tendencies, the individual and destructiveand the collective and constructive, This dichotomy in the contrasting is manifested respectively. pairs of Surrealism and Constructivism, or Dada and late Expressionism. Several groupsof avant-gardeartists want to build, to create and also to forma more or less permanentalliance with revolutionary movementsand the revolutionary here movement: we working-class ought to mentionthe activist H. Walden's Sturm,the wing of Expressionism, "au service de la revolution"phase of Surrealism,the Polish Nowa Sztuka movement,the Slovak DA V, the entire developmentof the Czech avant-gardeor the LEF. The other wing of the avant-garde and (the Dada or the early Surrealism) breaks into an unintelligible wail at of the of of the stale social irrationality, sight war, grotesque system;theygrab at everything; theyridicule,expose and destroy. in purelysociologicaltermsand not those Thus if we are thinking of art, the avant-gardeis an intellectual the action of the movement, with few not a intelligentsia-complete misconceptionsand false to anarchism,so characteristic of "sects" ideologies,fromaristocratism and "outcasts." And, in its wake, the multifold and complex distorthat alienation produces. The majorityof the tions and restrictions adherentsof these movements did howevercherisha sinceredesire to see a change both in the arts and in the world of reality. Also it is a factthatthe avant-gardemovements challengedthe validityof a lot of conceptionsthat had long been outworn,such as the rigid division between "high" art and mass culture,the hierarchy in literature, the of the of the facts forms, rigidity literary glossed-over representation and so on. They set offa process,took the first step on a road that could have led to new forms in literature and art and to the reformationoftheir entire existence.

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VI
froma sociologicalviewUp to now we have discussedthe avant-garde hinted at its point-and philosophicalimplications. The question is, do these tendenciespossess a comprehensive ideology,a distinctphiof their own over and above the discussedfeatures. losophical aspect It is a well-known fact that Poggioli has made an attemptat a phebasis of the nomenologicaldescription.' The philosophical-ideological movements is and cannot be avant-garde heterogeneous, uniformly treated. No ideology can be said to be exclusively of characteristic neither existentialism nor the German idealistic them, philosophy, neither that of Marx nor Nietzsche; consequentlywe cannot "ex definition"qualify these tendenciesas anti-realist and anti-Marxist, or materialist and Marxist. They draw on various philosophicalsystems and combinetheirborrowings to make up theirown ideology. The pictureis perhapsa degreemore unifiedif we considerthe prewithpsychology or the naturalsciences occupationof thesemovements and technology. We cannot pass over the theorythat one of the one of thebasic experiences of thefirst sources, greatwave of the avantfrom resulted the of the natural sciences,i.e. the disgarde findings that the until then is open to the quessubstance covery impenetrable after and, Freud, psychology tioning eye (as biochemistry, physics invisibleprovinces-to see demonstrated). The revelationof hitherto the hitherto invisible,to learn the hithertounknownwithouthaving to resort to mysticism and irrationalism-this overwhelming experience is, among others,at the source of the avant-gardewaves. So, too, is of the hiddendomainsof reality-the dreams,fantasies the exploration and illusionsof Surrealism-or, in the case of Futurism, Cubism, and the until now unfathomable Constructivism, particularly operative of things. The primacyof the experience versusliterary trends, system the relationship betweenexperienceand form, etc., are inquirieswhere there are still multitudes of questionsto answer-this can be a track we should followin the future. or, more genprosodical,stylistic, Finally,can we speak of a specific feature that a formal-aesthetic characterizes the entire commonly erally, avant-garde;is it possibleto defineit froma purelyformalaspect,by its poetical accomplishments?I am hardlyin the positionto answer the questionhere and now; the detailed work in thisfieldstill has to be done. The chiefmethodological problemlies in the fact thatnearly of trend the aesthetic avant-garde follows a different every single
6 Op. cit.

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canon, employsa different method,workson a different principleof construction.They may be similar in some negative traits as, for the instance,the revoltagainst poetic standardsof the 19th century, rejectionof certain forms,the dissolutionof certain limitations(the metricalforms, old-typenovel structure, typesof drama, syntax,etc.) but these in themselves are not sufficient to characterizethe trends. we that the entire Perhaps may say developmentof the recentpast, the phenomena,formsand conceptsof the 2oth century are comprised and concentrated, in as if in culminating the various trendsof points, the avant-garde. We can observethisin the example of the poetic image. The language begins to live a life of its own, becomes importanton its own the thingit standsfor,the wordsturninto account; the sign suppresses and the of the literarytext become indeelements magic perfume, the breaks from the body of the poem to live image pendent; away a self-dependent life. The poet's wish to createthisindependent image will produce literarytheoriesand schools that, on their part, give additional support to the writer's endeavors: we witness such fruitful interrelations in the well-known cases of the English Imagism and the New Criticism (Eliot, Hulme), the Czech Poetism and the Structuralism of the Ecole de Prague (Nezval, Mukarovsky), or the Spanish and South-AmericanUltraismo and the resulting theoretical work of J. L. Borges. The independenceand prominence oftheimage is a phenomenon we come acrossin thenineteenth century, in Romanticism, and in othertwentieth-century trendsas well. In Surrealism,however, and in the succeeding trends up to the present,it is set up as a program: the prevalenceof the image is so markedthat it almost becomes the construing principleof poetryand prose.7 In othertrendsit disappearsto be replacedby otherprinciples, by previously practisedmethods. This is perhaps the area where it is most difficult to distinguish the general developmentand the general of modernliterature characteristics and art fromtheirspecific features, and, for this reason, a sociological classification yields much better results.
7 For the last treatmentof the question see P. Caminade, Image et me'taphore (Paris, 1970).

VII
We have used the expression"movements"and on this occasion we of the phenomena shall have to say a fewwordsabout the particularity

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that this expressioncovers. School or currentor trend or style-in which of these categoriesshould we place the avant-garde? Or, in otherwords: what is in fact the avant-garde? We are now treadingthe most dangerous and most controversial of literary and theory. The interpretation and appliterritory history cation of "current, trend,style,etc." is a much debated issue even in the case of periodswhose historicalevaluation presents less problems; what then in the case of our complex,polymorphous and changeable century? There is a widelyheld opinionwhich saysthatthe avant-garde is an a and the whether with a tone attitude, disposition rather; term, applies of commendationor censure,to the ever-present of spirit innovation, to feverishenthusiasm,to the spasmodic reflections of a spasmodic I for one cannot with such an extension of the notion,or age. agree to be more exact, with a psychological definition of this kind; in my opinion the avant-gardeis a phenomenonthat occurs in a certain historicalperiod; one that calls, above all, for a historicalanalysis. We cannot consider it as a "movement" either,as so many literary historians do; the "movement"is an outwardaspect,an organizational a fact of the sociologyof literature, like the "school" in classical frame, or elsewhere the "cenaculum" or the "circle." trends, And if we insiston classifying it, we cannot call the avant-garde one specific school or one singlecurrent. A group of currents, a set of schools rather; and the definition will indicate that withinthe same trendwe should look for a diversity of aims, styles, philosophicaland ideological backgrounds; what they have in common are just some forinstance,is such generalfeatures.The realismof the 2oth century, a group of currents, and so, in my opinion,is the avant-garde.

VIII
The spread of the avant-garde,its appearance in different countries, and the changes in its shape and function give rise to some peculiar phenomena of which I should like to pick out two. movements undergoa change in function.If it is I) The avant-garde true that at the originsof the avant-gardewe find the changes in of literature, the function the wishto determine and the artists' society, then we are justified in assumingthat in search for new possibilities, social systems afflicted withthe same problemsthesetrendswill appear in the same manner. In othercountries, level, standingon a different

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with a different and different social conditionsit literary development may happen that they do not appear at all, or with a modifiedsignificance,and their formal and linguisticinnovationsassume a different function.8 In Central Europe we witnessthe change in functionor the shift in characterof more than one avant-gardetrend. One of the earliest was the German developmentof examples of the change in function the Dada; the destructive, movementhad a desperate,ultra-nihilistic that became more and more in political involved revolutionary wing activitiesand, by the 1930s produced the provocativeand freshinof a modernrealism (Huelsenbeck,Herzfelde,G. Grosz, O. gredients Dix). And, as we know,the "activist"wing of German Expressionism followedthesame course. In Croatian literature was the Expressionism trendthat broughtabout the renewal of the whole. Owing mainlyto Krleza's activity, it turnedto a strongly social and even socialistdirection and helped to shape the emphatically social characterof the whole literature. In Czech and Polish literaturethe wave of avant-garde trends (in Czech literature that of Surrealismin particular) had the role of counter-balancing the Symbolistand Impressionist tendencies turned ultra-nationalistic, an outlook international and by displaying social sensibility and by letting theirinternational One aspects prevail. wing of the avant-gardein Poland and the Czech Surrealismshowed a strong social preoccupation, retainingsimultaneously their social and of their role free the The pathos setting language. poetryof V. Nezval is an example of a progress with assimilatSurrealism, starting its and out of the an individual achievements, ing creating synthesis voice. The developmentof Czech Surrealismwas also different from that of the French. At its rootswe findnot Dada but a literary group of revolutionary and political aspirations. In the threegenerations of Roumanian Surrealism (Ilarie Voronca, B. Fundoianu-Geo Bogza, Geo Dumitrescu) the revolt against conventionsand rigid doctrines and the demand for eventuallyturnedinto concretesocial discontent social revolution. In Hungarian literaturethe various avant-garde tendencies performeda different function. In the literature from 1915 to 1919 the reviewsMa (Today) and Tett (Action) stood "in the vanguard of service"; theypublished a special "ideological number" revolutionary and foretold the advent of Communism. The Hungarian versionsof Dadaism and early Surrealism expressed the chaos and disillusionmentthatfollowedthe suppressed revolution of 1919. They told about
8 For examples of the possible variations see my paper quoted in note 4 above, etc." "L'avantgarde litteraire,

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lost hopes and a world deprived of sense; theirvision of the world's end and their sense of chaos reflectedreal bloodshed, real pains (Lajos Kassik: Stakesare singing). Some avant-garde phenomenonwe can best describeas folklorization. trends on reaching new countriestended to merge with the charto resonate acteristictraditionsof the respectivenational literatures, if they themsome of their features,particularly with and intensify selves coincided with the popular traditions. In this case the avantgarde trends assume a peculiar national character. Their relations of literature date from and withthe continuity withnationaltraditions theirvery genesis,as was pointed out by Anna Balakian for French Surrealism.9 Symbolism,for instance,survivedfor long and had a role in the literatureof various countriesbecause it corsignificant with deeply rooted tendenciesof national traditionsand responded where folklore. This is true, for example, of Roumanian literature, of was issue this Tudor Arghezi,theirgreatest20oth-century the poet, assimilatedand nationalized Symbolism. European Symbolismand and folk-balladwere marriedin the writingof Hungarian folk-song decade of the 20oth-century. In some Bela Balizs as early as the first trendsand worksofthe Russian avant-garde we can also detectpopular connections with popular and national traditions.The early features, the first work of Kandinsky, period of Ivan Punin, the entirecareerof in and one the stage Chagall poetryof Mayakovskyall bear evidence of that; the products of the Russian avant-gardeare characterized, colored and shaped by the fabulous,the magic, the play of the imagination, by a passionate and untamable spirit,and at the same time to profoundphilosophicalthinking, a quest for comby a propensity connections. In the Roumanian Lucian prehensive Blaga the avantfrom German blend hargarde inspirations, deriving Expressionism, with the national The turned out by the moniously heritage. poems Finnish avant-garde-Hellaakoski, Mustapaiii,Juvonen-also display this balance between the classical traditionand the innovative. The poets of the neo-Greekavant-gardefreelyborrow phrases,lines and fromthe variouslayers, fromthe formaland linguistic symbols treasury of the several thousand-year-old Greek civilizationand achieve an effectby arrangingthem in a new kind of synthesis. extraordinary The mostcharacteristic trendsmerging examplesof the avant-garde withthe popular and nationalculturecan be observedin theliteratures of Spain, Africa and the Antilles. It is a commonlyknown fact that,
9 A. Balakian, LiteraryOrigins of Surrealism (New York, 1947).

of the avant-gardeis the 2) A special case of the change in function

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fromthe I930osonward French Surrealism had a liberating, reforming on the peoples and literatures effect of some Africancountriesand of the Antilles: in Cuban literature it was Guillen and Carpentier,in the Frenchliterature of the Antillesthe workof Aim6 C6saire bore the the exposureof stamp of thisinfluence. The rejectionof the present, the lies of the establishedculture,the search for new values, all contributedto the awareness of specificNegro features, and Ne'gritude, helped to put into words and throw into relief,in oppositionto the officialand conservative the individual and the trendsin literature, original. They soughtthe originalsourcesof the Ego in the primeval, the popular; and though later the definition of Ne'gritude had to be modified to admit historicalman, the African who is molded by the society he lives in, from the viewpoint of literaryhistorythis influencethat broughtto the surfacesomethingspecifically national, primeval and also basically new, was very significant.National Surrealism did the same for Brazilian literature by imbuing it with the awareness of an independent Brazilian reality,developing the consciousnessof the indianit.

IX
The firstgreat wave of the avant-gardecomes to an end in 1935Indeed, already around 1930 the vigor of the avant-gardebegins to ebb, its obituaryis repeatedlyprepared, after 1932 it is derisively spoken of by thosewho keep abreast of the times; by 1935 onlysmall new by thisname. The motives,achievements, groups call themselves of these movements have devices and expressive forms grown"classic," they have, that is, been integratedinto modern realism. After 1938 the avant-gardeis a thing of the past in Europe, becoming,where for disthe political situationis favorable,a popular subject-matter sertations. In the 1940os as the wild advenit lived in nostalgicremembrances ture of youth. . . . And yet,in our day, since the end of the 196os, and workscomingfrom literature and art again abound in manifestoes themselves as that avant-garde. Things that were groups qualify have risen from the dead; museum declared dead thirty years ago more. It to once come life indicatesthat many back certainly pieces of the questionsthe "first avant-garde"posed have not been properly of art and the artist answeredyet,and theproblemof the function is far frombeing satisfactorily solved. Here the questionmay be raised if we can speak about avant-garde

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in our day, or more accurately: is there a neo-avant-garde in being at present? In our opinion there is-particularly from the I96os onward. After 1945, immediatelyfollowingthe armistice,we can observethe quick but superficial revivalof the first avant-gardewave, as a kind of aftermath.At the same time a modified and strengthened version of the earlier avant-garde waves appeared on the scene, arrivedfromthe United States. We can in generalcharacterize freshly these decades by the attempts to resume,to resuscitate the old moveand the rise of some new and schools-close sects ment, by groups rather-of lesserimportance. The old and "classic" avant-gardebecame, in the decade from 1949 to 1960, part of the establishment; fromthe jest of "enfantsterribles" it turnedalmostinto a featureof the middle-classmake-up,but in any case a veryharmlessspectacle. More than that. In the German Federal Republic, as Hans Magnus Enzenbergersays, the functionof the avant-gardewas to provide an to change the political system: "the outlet,to neutralizethe efforts overthrow of the rules of poetics compensatesfor the missingrevolution in the social structure;the avant-garde in art covers up the 10 During these years the avant-gardefound its political regression." into museums,scholarlypapers, educational series,and, as the way final stage, the avant-gardegot commercialized, became, all in all, a commodity. Around I96O the situationchanged, particularly in West-European literatures, but, to a smaller extent,in the Eastern socialistcountries as well. It is fromthattime on that we are again justified in speaking of avant-garde, or more accurately, a neo-avant-garde. Justas in the 19oos and 192os the change can be explainedby political and social factors, sincethesemovements are onlya fraction especially of the more extensive of the that can be observedin changes, agitation in life-style, and naturally in politics. Such life,in attitudes, everyday changesaccountforthe processes takingplace in art. In some Western in the 196os a sense of crisis,an atmosphereof catastrophe, countries is gaining ground. Eastern and Western societies alike are in a state of change in many respects. (Without tryingto oversimplify the question let me point out a few factors operating in different countries: the XXth Party Congress,the crisisof Cuba, the war in Vietnam, the Negro question,etc.) But we can add to the political some fromthe sphereof naturalsciences: it goes withoutsayfactors ing that the technologicalrevolutionand its immediate effectupon which offers everydaylife, and the great experience of cybernetics
Kursbuch Io See Enzensberger,"Gemeinplitze, die neueste Literatur betreffend," No. 15 (1968), "Die Aporien der Avantgarde," Einzelheiten.

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to the greatlycontributed unexplorableterritories, glimpsesof hitherto waves.11 rise of the neo-avant-garde From among the complex processesthat we can observe fromthe and seemingly surimpenetrable 196os behind the colorful, glittering face of the literary scene some principaltendenciescan be and artistic selected. There are, of course, no sharp dividinglines between the overlappingtendencies. Four characteristictypes can be noted within the neo-avantgarde: one with a "technocratic"inspirationthat reduces literature to mere linguisticsymbols, considers it as a "text"; an anarchic extremist one that passes for an outcry; a more or less organized movementsympathizing with Marxism and the workers'movement; and finallyone that preaches utterdespair and disillusionment, and expressesitselfmainlythroughthe grotesque. Here we cannot dwell on them too long-I have discussed the question at length in my book, publishedin Hungarian-so we shall simplyhintat some of the characteristic featuresof these tendencies. The dominanceof the Text, the LinguisticSymbol,the Component; of the medium of literature: Language-these charthe absoluteness acterize commonlythe experimental"technocratic,""structuralist," or "decomposing-combining" tendencies. This trend startsfromtwo directions: in French literature with the works of Jean Cayrol and Beckett,then the "nouveau roman" and later the Tel Quel-while the other impulse, independentof this, or loosely connected with it at most,comesfromtechnology. and drawingsproducedby The poetry the and of electronic music have intrigued computers possibility artists and artists' groups since as early as 1945. After 1958 in with the then, simultaneously Germany around Eugen Gombringer, movement of the French Pierre in with Brasilia, Gamier, "spatialist" Jan Finlay in England, with Edwin Morgan in Vienna, then in Norway, in Czechoslovakia and in other countriespoets appear in large numberswho break up the textureof the poem into words or letters in order to vary and permutethese elementsmanually or with the help of computers,followingthe rules of mathematicsor just their
For a testimony let me quote a recent declaration of Victor Vasarely: I "Jusqu'ici quand on pensait 'nature', on signifiait seulement 'fleurs, champs, animaux, fruits etc.', mais en poussant plus loin les deux extremes on aboutit, grand des galaxies et, interieurement exterieurement, A l'infiniment A I'infiniment petit de l'atome . . . Nous vivons une periode oii l'on s'en va sur la lune, on projette d'aller sur d'autres planetes et peut- tre meme au-dela . . . Toute cette nature ne peut manquer d'avoir une action considerable sur I'artiste qui, jusqu'ici, il faut bien le dire, a travaill6 un peu en vase clos. La nature cosmique, me parait beaucoup plus materialiste. Elle est A la port6e de nos sens et de notreintelligence." Nouvelle Critique (1971 ), 44 ff.

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own dispositions. Variations on the letter-poem, the picture-poem, the figure-poem, the sound-poem and the object-poem abound on the literary scene-the phenomenonis called "concrete," "phonetic," "objective," "visual," "phonic" or respectively "cybernetic" poetryand rhythms at first, but later on moods,feelings conveying intelligible turninginto pure arithmetics. These scattered openings soon find theirtheorists in the personsof Professor Max Bense of Stuttgart and the Parisian A. A. Moles.12 The French spatialistsdrew up their the "nouveau roman" and the Tel programin 1965, and both trends, from the so-called Structuralist or Quel obtained scientific support Neo-structuralist revivedafterten years'silence. movement, In the field of art, "op art" and the works called "kinetic" and to theseliterary we think "lumino-kinetic" trends;whether correspond of VictorVasarely'sexchangeableand expandable optical works, of his the laws of physics,of the experiments of the compositions reflecting achieveGroupe de Recherche d'Art Visuel, of which the best-known mentis Juliole Parc's statue,winnerof the Biennale Prize, the mobile statues of Nicolas Schofferplaced on public squares, or Constant's Babylon. They are all based on the conception that the work is composed of elementary parts and the essenceof art is the free combination and variation of these elements,i.e., the superiority of the structure over the expression, and the demand for scientific foundations. Indeed these endeavorshave a long past in the fine arts,from the first decade of the 2oth-century to the "semi-mechanical" methods Towards the middle of the I96os, when Europe began to speak about avant-gardeonce more, the termtemporarily denoted only the trends belonging to this circle. The famous and well-documented 13dealt for "avant-garde"numbersof the Times LiterarySupplement the mostpartwiththeseschools: the "nouveau roman,"the Tel Quel, the letterist Then in 1965 and 1966 everything was overexperiments. whelmed by the Structuralist wave: fine arts and film-the first famous example is L'annde dernierea Marienbad-ballet, electronic music and kinetic art. B6jart and his company were dancing a structuralist ballet-breaking up the figuresof the dance into their basic elementsand combiningthem into new "models." The basic principleis the same everywhere: all phenomena are independent, structures whose meaningis negligible, self-governing onlytheirpattern
d'Art Permutationnel," Cf. forinstanceA. A. Moles, "Manifeste Rot, No. 8 (1965). 13 "The ChangingGuard," TLS (1964) and "Sounding the Sixties," TLS (1965).
12

of the 1940s.

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withoutany historical is important.These structures live in the present, context;theycan be reduced to theirelements.The binomialsymbols we obtain in this process can again be put togetherafter arbitrary "models" withor withoutthe help of machines. It is clear enough what these attemptsare directedagainst,where the source of their disillusionment and dissatisfaction lies. Several scholars have pointed out, particularlythe late Lucien Goldman,14 how works produced by these trends reflectthe experience of objectivism. The second type of the neo-avant-gardewhich appeared on the scene in the early 1960s seemsto be rathera late issue or the repetition, under different historical of Expressionism conditions, or, occasionally, Dadaism. A passionate anarchistrevoltwas spreadingamong certain and painters, in independent groupsof poets and actors,filmdirectors thenmore and more like an organizedmovement. They joined in fits, a wild and inarticulate outcry: theyblew up everyform,theygot rid of every and nausea raisedtheirvoices bridle,and despair,homelessness to the pitch. They protestedagainst making linguisticlaboratory of art; on the contrary: one had to surpassart,rejectit as experiments well as retainit ("aufheben"), turnit into life; the task of the artist was no longerto improveon art but to improveon life,on the world itself. Though the circumstanceshave changed, what we hear is slogansthatfollowedthe FirstWorld reallythe echo of the avant-garde War. This passionate and anarchic revolt set out from the Englishthe United States in the first speakingcountries, place. It was rooted in the traumaticexperienceof the Second World War and the disillusionmentthat followed: the career of Norman Mailer is very illustrative of this aspect. Its firstgreat outburstcame with "beat" with literature, Jack Kerouac's prose and the crying-complaining of poetry GregoryCorso, with the howl of Allen Ginsberg; and from theverybeginnings thistrendwas accompanied by the discovery of the the "revolution of the the Folk-beat, guitar." Now, though, passionate revoltof the Beat has died down and, as almostany revolt, has assumed the statusof an institution, gettingcommercialized, becoming part of the establishment. The first wave was followedby others: the literature of Black Power, linked with the name of LeRoi Jones,in the United States,the "undergroundfilm" connectedwith the activity of and the wave of Folk-beat and Andy Warhol, continuing "protest to another. Movementsand works song," spreadingfromone country
du roman(Paris,1964). Pourunesociologie 14 L. Goldman,

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akin to AmericanBeat-literature appear in many places; in England we meet the Pop poets, the so-called Liverpool group in particular (Roger McGough, Brian Patten), and the poets gatheredaround the New Departures. Groups like theseformone afterthe other anthology in WesternEurope and in the European socialistcountries, in some of the latteralso with an anarcho-leftist tendency. In connectionwith the problemsof the first, the "classic" avantwe that certain have said movements, garde already groups or some artists who had previously to manbelonged avant-gardemovements, find workers' to their to the movement. The revolutionary aged way thirdtypeof the neo-avant-garde of our days followsa similarcourse. A typicalway, thoughnot one without contradictions and difficulties was that of the Italian movement. Its theorists deliberately adopt the the particle "neo" is thereto referto designation"neo-avant-garde," the repudiationof the old avant-garde, to indicate a different political and ideologicalattitude.15 The Italian neo-avant-gardebegan about I960 with the activity of the II Verri. The anthology I Novissimiappeared in 1961; in 1962 the review Menaba was launched; in I963 there was the Palermo and the formation ofthe Gruppo 63; the 3rd Palermomeeting meeting was held in September,1965. This neo-avant-garde followedthe pattern of the French linguisticrevolution;it resultedfrom disappointment with the dominant literarystyles,Neo-realism in particular. Neo-realismfellshortof adequately representing the new, more comthe new plicated and less conspicuousclass divisionsand differences, of social conflicts. is the common This of the types platform literary and artistic groupsof the Italian neo-avant-garde.Its important preliminaries were the criticaland literary of Luciano organizingactivity Anceschi (in the reviewIl Verri) and above all the manifoldinspiration and orientation of Pier Paolo Pasolini, the militantsocialistpoet with a Resistancebackground. Among the ideological factorsof this trendwere the worksof the young Lukacs, of Adorno, Horkheimer, Marcuse and the French philologists.According to their theoriesit was necessaryto break completelywith commercializedculture and and the mosteffective this objectivizedrelations, way of accomplishing was the demolition of conventionallanguage, carrier of these obhad to be jectivizedrelations.The established ways of communication and rejectedand a new way of speakingdeveloped-the hyperbolical apocalypticspeech of the avant-garde,which radicallysmashes every standard. previously existing
15 See E. Sugar, Avanguardia e neo-avanguardia (1966) ; Revue d'Esthe'tique No. 4 (1967), Nos. 3, 4 (1970).

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The history of the Italian neo-avant-garde between I960 and 1963 is just anotherversionof the French or other West-Europeanmovemore "Marxist," form. ments,onlyin a more "ideological," sometimes In practice,the pseudo-revolt of the intelligentsia was absorbedintothe as theyself-critically themselves. Since 1963, establishment, expressed have been made to break out and the "left however,diverseattempts is resolutely of wing" of the movement workingon the transformation this negative program into some positive solution, of the linguistic intothat of the content, revolution eliminating many of the illusionistic ofthe neo-avant-garde. elements Complex and contradictory phenomena take place in the process. Eduardo Sanguineti, for instance, seems to be an adherent of the "free association" line-and as demolishing, language-transforming, kindred shows features with the French Tel Quel circle-if such, his and which he publishesnow in Italian, "novels," judged by poems now in French. In histheoretical and however, writings polemicworks, he takes up an increasingly orthodoxMarxist standpoint.16 but surpassingthem in force,and in Following these preliminaries noise, too, the French Tel Quel group took further steps in the same directionafterthe autumn of 1968 and particularly towards the end of 1969 and in 1970o.17 They, too, claimed that "the prerequisite of in revolution is a revolution of the language." The claim is formulated several versions: to make revolutionary activity possible,the prevaili.e. conventional "discours,"has to be abolished.The more ing ideology, profound,the more resolute,the more radical the innovationsthat a writerintroduces into his language and design,the greaterthe service he does to therevolutionary cause; it mustbe made easierforthe masses to absorb an entirely new type of culture. The conceptionoriginates in the illusory that,misconimage of the Chinese "culturalrevolution" strued,servesas its ideal. To thisare added layersof Freud, Saussure, semiotics, JuliaKristeva,Sade ... all thisin the name of a break-away, of the new and revolutionary! 1970 is characterized by a dialogue between these "semiotic," "language-demolishing" groups (the circleof the Tel Quel, Jean Pierre a member of this circle himself, and others) and the Faye, formerly French communistsor non-structuralist poetic groups sympathizing withthe party (Action Poe'tique). Recently,since the end of 1969, those who follow with attention the West-European and North-Americanpolitical neo-avant-garde
16 E. Sanguineti, Ideologia e linguaggio (Milano, 1965); "Pour une avant-garde revolutionnaire,"Tel Quel, No. 29 (1965). 17 J. Henric, "Pour une avant-garde r6volutionnaire,"Tel Quel, No. 40 (1970).

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trendshave observeda certain stagnation,some kind of disheartenment in their activities;there are some who already speak of their utterpolitical and artisticfailure. But mightwe not speak as rightly of a processof restoring with new spent energiesor of experimenting forms? Finally: we can regard as the modifiedversionof one neo-avantgarde line the movementthat arose in the I96os in some of the socialist countries,and particularlyin Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia. Afterthe XXth Party Congressthe cultural commerce betweenEast and Westwas re-established of the years and the products between 1948 and 1960 flooded these countriesin one huge wave, withoutdiscrimination, the real and the sham of the old and bringing, the new avant-garde. Besides,in some countries we stillfindthe active traditionsof the first, nationalized classic, avant-garde. And beyond that this "new wave" can be accounted forby the presenceof certain similar social factors,such as the rupturein the relationsbetween writerand public, writerand political management,problems that or re-producethe similarformsand devices of avant-gardeliterature make literature to these other In to render forms. words: susceptible these problems, thisrupturein art, the artists have ready at hand the fullcollection of avant-garde or neo-avant-garde in their devices,either own nationaltraditions or in the contemporary worldliterature.These trends,both in Poland and Czechoslovakia,are characterized by the of the the the ironical-from Slawomir prevalence grotesque, ridiculous, Mrozek to VladimirParal. The neo-avant-garde trendthatis developin socialist countries not shows the ing only impact of the earlieravantmovements but also that of Franz Kafka and Bruno Schulz. garde This tendency includes some vigorous distortionsand often, also, and utopian answersto the questionsit itselfraises. illusionary

X
There are otherquestionswhich exigenciesof space preventme from discussing. Let me just note some of them: How is the neo-avantgarde related to the old, the "classic," avant-garde? With what did it enrichcriticism?And the mostdifficult achievements theoretical can that be put to the critic: What is going to survivefrom question into the infinite chain of syntheses of the to be integrated thesetrends, and art? universalprocessof literature
INSTITUTE
OF THE

FOR LITERARY SCHOLARSHIP


ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

HUNGARIAN

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