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Tristan Tzara, Surrealism and the Postwar Era, Part One (Prague Dada Miscellany – Part Eight)
Tristan Tzara’s lecture, delivered in March 1946 in Prague, is introduced with an apology for “the Munich betrayal” and French political participation in it. Tzara then presents a thorough reflection on the birth and development of the Dada movement. Emphasising the feelings of frustration of the 1914-1918 war generation, he shows how “Dada was born out of moral necessity, out of the unshakeable determination to achieve moral absoluteness.” As one of Dada’s lasting contributions he singles out choosing “spontaneity” as “our one life rule”. Without disregarding the movement’s scandalous aspects, Tzara carefully and eruditely points out its continuity with the revolutionary spirit of French poetry, esp. Rimbaud, Verlaine, Jarry and Apollinaire.This excerpt ends on Tzara’s noting how “out of the ashes of Dada that saw its role as finished” surrealism was born.
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- EQUUS PRESS was established in 2011 between Paris, London & Prague with the objective of publishing new writing that is innovative & conscious of being doubly marginalised: outside the literary establishment defined by the Anglo-American publishing industry, & outside the confines of nationalism, pursuing a broadly cosmopolitan “agenda.” // EQUUS believes that such a doubly marginalised position allows for a writing both idiosyncratic & authoritative in its distance from which it can take a stand, make a change, & matter; an ability increasingly rare in titles conforming to the dictates of the book market & tastes of mass readership. // EQUUS considers its mission to offer the possibility of publication to writers & writing that matters, focusing mainly, though not exclusively, on Anglophone writing written outside of its native emplacement.
