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A Changing of the Guard: The Evolution of the French Avant-Garde from Italian Futurism, to Surrealism, to Situationism, to the Writers of the Literary Journal Tel Quel

Papalas, Mary Laura
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1211977685

Abstract Details

2008, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, French and Italian.
The avant-garde is an aesthetic movement that spanned the twentieth century. It is made up of writers and artists that rebelled against art and against society in a concerted effort to improve both, and their relationship to one another. Four avant-garde groups, the Futurists, the Surrealists, the Situationists, and the writers of the journal Tel Quel, significantly contributed to the avant-garde movement and provided perspective into whether that movement can exist in the twenty first century. The first Futurist Manifesto, published in the French newspaper Le Figaro in 1909 by Philippo Tommaso Marinetti, instigated the avant-garde wave that would be taken up after the Great War by the Surrealists, whose first 1924 Manifeste du Surréalisme echoed the Futurist message of embracing modern life and change through art. The Surrealists, however, focused more on Marxism and psychoanalysis, developing ideas about life and art that combined these two ideologies in order to link the improvement of society with the unconscious individual experience. The Situationists, whose group formed in 1957, took up the themes of social revolution and freedom of the unconscious, developing a method for creating situations that were conducive to both of these things. The writers of the journal Tel Quel, who published from 1960-1982, claimed to be part of this literary history, and continued the discussions begun by the others, providing insight into how language and its structures, which paralleled those of society, needed to be changed in order to change society. This dissertation aims to define the twentieth century avant-garde and to inquire about its existence in the twenty-first century. The first chapter examines the socio-historic and philosophical context from which these groups emerged and against which they reacted. The second and third chapters analyze the themes of the city and politics in avant-garde works to demonstrate the aims and ambitions of the groups. The fourth chapter looks at avant-garde membership from a gender perpective, focusing on the example of the female Surrealist poet, Joyce Mansour. Taking these criteria into consideration, the conclusion opens a discussion about the relevancy of these groups nearly a century after the publication of the first Futurist Manifesto and looks into the possibility of a twenty-first century avant-garde.
Jean-François Fourny, Phd (Advisor)
Karlis Racevskis, PhD (Committee Member)
Judith Mayne, PhD (Committee Member)
Charles Klopp, PhD (Committee Member)
202 p.
Literature
French Avant-Garde; European Avant-Garde; Literary Avant-Garde; Futurism; Surrealism; Situationism; Tel Quel; Joyce Mansour

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Papalas, M. L. (2008). A Changing of the Guard: The Evolution of the French Avant-Garde from Italian Futurism, to Surrealism, to Situationism, to the Writers of the Literary Journal Tel Quel [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1211977685

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Papalas, Mary. A Changing of the Guard: The Evolution of the French Avant-Garde from Italian Futurism, to Surrealism, to Situationism, to the Writers of the Literary Journal Tel Quel. 2008. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1211977685.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Papalas, Mary. "A Changing of the Guard: The Evolution of the French Avant-Garde from Italian Futurism, to Surrealism, to Situationism, to the Writers of the Literary Journal Tel Quel." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2008. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1211977685

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

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This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.