Experimental traditions part one West Germany Austria and

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Experimental traditions, part one: West Germany, Austria and Switzerland Dr Nicola Thomas nicola. thomas@sthildas.

Experimental traditions, part one: West Germany, Austria and Switzerland Dr Nicola Thomas nicola. thomas@sthildas. ox. ac. uk

Experimental traditions, part one 1. Overview and background • Definitions of key terms •

Experimental traditions, part one 1. Overview and background • Definitions of key terms • Heritage of experimental traditions • Brief chronology 1960 -1990 2. Close reading(s) 3. Interpretative and theoretical frameworks

Definitions: experimental, visual, concrete • Visual poetry • any poem which makes the material

Definitions: experimental, visual, concrete • Visual poetry • any poem which makes the material of its construction ‘visible’ to the reader, or which needs to be seen for its meaning to be fully grasped • Concrete poetry • generally associated with mid-century (and later) visual poetry movement. • Asemic/pansemic writing • word-like signs without meaning (‘scribbles’)

 Eugen Gomringer, ‘schweigen’ (1953) – visual/concrete/’constellation’ Christian Morgenstern, ‘Fisches Nachtgesang’ (1905) - visual

Eugen Gomringer, ‘schweigen’ (1953) – visual/concrete/’constellation’ Christian Morgenstern, ‘Fisches Nachtgesang’ (1905) - visual

 Cy Twombly, from ‘Poems to the Sea’ (1956) pansemic/asemic? a painting/drawing?

Cy Twombly, from ‘Poems to the Sea’ (1956) pansemic/asemic? a painting/drawing?

Definitions: experimental, visual, concrete • Visual poetry don’t they all? ? • any poem

Definitions: experimental, visual, concrete • Visual poetry don’t they all? ? • any poem which makes the material of its construction ‘visible’ to the reader, or which needs to be seen for its meaning to be fully grasped • Concrete poetry • generally associated with mid-century (and later) visual poetry movement. aren’t these paintings? ? • Asemic/pansemic writing • word-like signs without meaning (‘scribbles’)

Definitions: experimental, visual, concrete • Performance again, don’t they all? ? what about instrumental

Definitions: experimental, visual, concrete • Performance again, don’t they all? ? what about instrumental music? Is the ‘poem’ on the page or in the performance? • including music and sound poetry (which is often abstract sound) • any poetry in which the performed or embodied text is integral to the meaning • Experimental • umbrella term, might also include work that’s closer to the visual arts • Innovative • even broader term, generally used in the Anglophone context to differentiate from lyric poetry with a single, stable ‘lyrisches Ich’ • ‘difficult’ poetry? • Avant-garde who gets to say? • deliberate provocation, artistic self-awareness, historically contingent?

The heritage of C 20 th experimental poetry 1. very old: pre- and early

The heritage of C 20 th experimental poetry 1. very old: pre- and early modern macaronic/talismanic poetry 2. pretty old: Renaissance religious (and later secular) ‘shape poems’ 3. late 19 th/early 20 th century Modernism: Morgenstern and Mallarmé 4. 1920 s and 30 s Dada: collage, performance, nonsense 5. Post-WW 2: Wiener Gruppe

 1. (4 th century B. C)

1. (4 th century B. C)

The heritage of C 20 th experimental poetry 1. very old: pre- and early

The heritage of C 20 th experimental poetry 1. very old: pre- and early modern macaronic/talismanic poetry 2. pretty old: Renaissance religious (and later secular) ‘shape poems’ 3. late 19 th/early 20 th century Modernism: Morgenstern and Mallarmé 4. 1920 s and 30 s Dada: collage, performance, nonsense 5. Post-WW 2: Wiener Gruppe

 2. ‘Gerechtigkeitsspirale’, Hesse, 1510 George Herbert, ‘Easter Wings’ (1633)

2. ‘Gerechtigkeitsspirale’, Hesse, 1510 George Herbert, ‘Easter Wings’ (1633)

The heritage of C 20 th experimental poetry 1. very old: pre- and early

The heritage of C 20 th experimental poetry 1. very old: pre- and early modern macaronic/talismanic poetry 2. pretty old: Renaissance religious (and later secular) ‘shape poems’ 3. late 19 th/early 20 th century Modernism: Morgenstern and Mallarmé 4. 1920 s and 30 s Dada: collage, performance, nonsense 5. Post-WW 2: Wiener Gruppe

3. Stephan Mallarmé, ‘Un coup de des’ (1897)

3. Stephan Mallarmé, ‘Un coup de des’ (1897)

4. Hannah Höch, Schnitt mit dem Küchenmesser Dada durch die letzte Weimarer Bierbauchkulturepoche Deutschlands

4. Hannah Höch, Schnitt mit dem Küchenmesser Dada durch die letzte Weimarer Bierbauchkulturepoche Deutschlands (1919)

4. Kurt Schwitters, ‘Ursonate’ (1922 -3)

4. Kurt Schwitters, ‘Ursonate’ (1922 -3)

5. h. c. artmann ‘blauboard 1’ (1958) i bin a ringlgschbüübsizza und hob scho

5. h. c. artmann ‘blauboard 1’ (1958) i bin a ringlgschbüübsizza und hob scho sim weiwa daschlong und eanare gebeina untan schlofzimabon fagrom. . heit lod i ma r ei di ochte zu einen libesdraum – daun schdöl i owa s oaschestrion ei und bek s me n hakal zaum! so fafoa r e med ole maln wäu ma d easchte en gschdis hod gem – das s mii amoe darwischn wean doss wiad kar mendsch darlem! i bin a ringlgschbüübsizza (und schlof en da nocht nua bein liacht wäu i mi waun s so finzta is fua de dodn weiwa fiacht. . )

The 1960 s – classic ‘concrete’ mit der konstellation wird etwas in die welt

The 1960 s – classic ‘concrete’ mit der konstellation wird etwas in die welt gesetzt. sie ist eine realität an sich und kein gedicht über […] das neue gedicht ist deshalb als ganzes und in den teilen einfach und überschaubar, es wird zum seh- und gebrauchsgegenstand: denkgegenstand – denkspiel. es beschäftigt durch seine kürze und knappheit. es ist memorierbar und als bild einprägsam. (Eugen Gomringer, vom vers zu konstellation, 1954) • Eugen Gomringer (Switzerland, 1925 - ) • Ernst Jandl (Austria, 1925 -2000) • Friederieke Mayröcker (Austria, 1924 - ) • International contacts including Edwin Morgan, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Dom Sylvester Houedard in UK, Augusto and Haroldo de Campos in Brazil. • Helmut Heißenbüttel (1921 -1996) – a figure slightly apart

The 1970 s and 1980 s • 1970 s: • Continuation of concrete poetry

The 1970 s and 1980 s • 1970 s: • Continuation of concrete poetry • Gomringer, Jandl, Mayröcker in Austria and Switzerland • Heißenbüttel in Stuttgart • Mid-late 1980 s • Thomas Kling (1957 -2005) emerges as pioneer of new generation of punk performance poetry • Early 1990 s • Afro-German performance poetry: May Ayim’s ‘blue in schwarz-weiss’)

Examples of work for you to read 1. Ernst Jandl - ‘drei visuelle lippengedichte’

Examples of work for you to read 1. Ernst Jandl - ‘drei visuelle lippengedichte’ (1957) 2. Helmut Heißenbüttel – an extract from Textbuch 9 (from 1986; containing work from 1981 -1984) 3. Thomas Kling - EFFI B. ; DEUTSCHSPRACHIGES POLAROID (and performance) (1991) Questions • What kind of ‘poem’ is this? • Is there semantic content? i. e. is the form the only thing that is important or is it also ‘saying something’? • How do you think it relates to the various sets of traditions I sketched out above?

Jandl’s ‘visuellen Lippengedichte’ • Embodied, performative – but also text-based. • Sound and silence

Jandl’s ‘visuellen Lippengedichte’ • Embodied, performative – but also text-based. • Sound and silence – a sound poem? • Dada tradition but only gently comical – no overt political target. • Among his most radical forms – he also wrote more ‘traditional’ poems.

Helmut Heißenbüttel – from Textbuch 9 • Visual poem – typewritten script cut with

Helmut Heißenbüttel – from Textbuch 9 • Visual poem – typewritten script cut with painting and manuscript • References to literary heritage - metapoetic • Asemic forms in background – multiple layers • ‘Eigentlich ist ein Liebesgedicht aus tausend menschlichen und künstlerischen Gründen ein Ding der Unmöglichkeit’ – interaction between form and content

Kling’s EFFI B. ; DEUTSCHSPRACHIGES POLAROID (1991) • Looks the most like a traditional

Kling’s EFFI B. ; DEUTSCHSPRACHIGES POLAROID (1991) • Looks the most like a traditional poem – both a published text and a performed one – ‘gedicht ist nun einmal’ (Kling); ‘Sprach. Installateur’ (Kling) • Also links to German literary heritage and the visual arts (via Gostner’s sculpture) • Clear satirical target – iconoclasm and humour

Interpretative frameworks? • ‘Gimmicks’ and ‘tricks’? Or worth discussing? 1. Situating in literary history

Interpretative frameworks? • ‘Gimmicks’ and ‘tricks’? Or worth discussing? 1. Situating in literary history – late modernism/postmodernism • loss of faith in ‘meaning’, ‘truth’, ‘language’ (Sprachskepsis) • play with literary history and heritage • anti-rational, anti-Enlightenment, anti-meaning – provocative (drawn from Fredric Jameson’s definitions of postmodernism) 2. Situating in theoretical context – textual materiality

Postmodernism – lack of faith in language When the traditional way of saying things

Postmodernism – lack of faith in language When the traditional way of saying things failed, it became a matter of penetrating, so to say, into the interior of language to break it open and question it in its most hidden connections. The result of this cannot be a new language. It is a way of speaking that plays on its contrasts with traditional syntax and word usage. . This essential indeterminacy never permits it to arrive at what one could call image or metaphor. Image and metaphor, as something clearly identifiable, would be part of that language which is withdrawing itself. Helmut Heißenbüttel

Postmodernism – recycling of tradition Ich möchte noch vorausschicken, daß ich kein Avantgarde-Fetischist bin,

Postmodernism – recycling of tradition Ich möchte noch vorausschicken, daß ich kein Avantgarde-Fetischist bin, daß dieser Ausschnitt an Tradition mir gleichwohl immer verteidigenswert erschienen ist. Wie, um zwei Dichter der europäischen Moderne zu nennen, Giuseppe Ungaretti und Federico Garcia Lorca, wie die ältesten, von Rhapsoden überlieferten Dichtungen der Menschheit überhaupt. Thomas Kling

Materiality in text • Language is made up of ‘signs’ – the sign =

Materiality in text • Language is made up of ‘signs’ – the sign = signifier + signified (Saussure) • Jerome Mc. Gann (1993) argues that Modernist and postmodern interest in the materiality of the text belongs to a long tradition of exploring the relationship between what can and can’t be named. • ‘Confronting the verbal with the non-verbal, the symbol with the icon, time with space, alphabetic writing with the ideogram, the dressing with words of ideas and feelings with the nakedness of the stuff language is made of’ (F. M. de Melo e Castro in Vos and Drucker, 1996) • ‘[a vector] from artistic innovation through an intermedial revision of the disciplinary framework of the arts, [to] social innovation through subverting the oppressive mechanisms of mass media, consumerist society or even totalitarian regimes’ (Eric Vos and Johanna Drucker, 1996)

Conclusions • International/transnational movement – but based largely outside metropolitan centres • Not a

Conclusions • International/transnational movement – but based largely outside metropolitan centres • Not a gimmick – part of a long history • Not ‘nonsense’ – genuinely utopian, radical, anti-establishment • Destablising form as a way of addressing the question of whether or not language can signify or ‘mean’ – related to postwar Sprachskepsis in the broadest sense.