The Changing Vocabulary of Literature: On the Migration and Transformation of Literary Concepts in Europe 1900–1950 (Part 2)

Pieter Verstraeten; Bart Van den Bossche

doi:10.1515/arcadia-2016-0003

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The Changing Vocabulary of Literature: On the Migration and Transformation of Literary Concepts in Europe 1900–1950 (Part 2)

Pieter Verstraeten und Bart Van den Bossche

Veröffentlicht/Copyright: 7. Juni 2016

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Aus der Zeitschrift arcadia Band 51 Heft 1

The following three essays are part of a larger series that focuses on the meaning, function, migration, and transformation of the concepts that played a crucial role in the metaliterary discourse of the first half of the 20^th century. While the former issue of Arcadia (50.2/2015) included contributions on rhetoric, littérature pure, and Kulturpessimismus, the present issue follows up by closely exploring the notions of life, Kulturrevolution, and the discursive we (nous) of group formation processes. The central premise of the entire series is that literary change can only be grasped if one takes into account the constant interplay between literary repertoires on the one hand and the literary metalanguages used to describe, interpret, and evaluate literary phenomena on the other. The concepts discussed in the forthcoming essays are important cornerstones of these languages and, as such, they are part of a literary doxa shared by different participants in the process of literary communication (writers, critics, literary historians, publishers, readers, etc.) at a given moment in history, viz. the era commonly associated with the rise of modernism.

As it was pointed out in the introduction to the first three concepts, migration and transformation both occur across three different dimensions: time, place, and the discursive domain. Monica Jansen, Srećko Jurišić, and Carmen Van den Bergh focus on a specific geographical region (Italy) and canvass the changes in meaning of the omnipresent notion of life (in relation to art) during the successive stages of Italian ‘modernism’ (ranging from D’Annunzio’s aestheticist ‘lifestyle,’ over futurism, to the documentary realism of the 1930s). The contribution by Sami Sjöberg is about the idea of Kulturrevolution in Jewish avant-garde aesthetics, and it reveals how this essentially transnational concept showcases a complex temporality, as in Jewish avant-garde circles the aim to revolutionize the world and to make things new is almost necessarily intertwined with a rediscovery of and reconnection with tradition (in the form, for instance, of messianism). On top of that a notion such as Kulturrevolution is also based on shifts from the domain of politics to the domain of culture (and vice versa), which has strong repercussions on its meanings and functions. Finally, Bart Van den Bossche and Barbara Meazzi explore the uses of the personal pronoun we/nous in the historical avant-garde (with an emphasis on Italian futurism), as part of a whole cluster of concepts denoting processes of group formation. By highlighting the complex performativity of these discursive markers, the essay illustrates that the semantics of literary concepts should be conceived of in close relation to a literary pragmatics, as the terms and discourses used to identify groups are strongly intertwined with a wide range of cultural, social, and artistic practices (such as manifesto writing) and institutions (such as the literary review). In the final analysis, a history of concepts and discourses is also a history of practices and institutions.

Published Online: 2016-6-7

Published in Print: 2016-6-1

Artikel in diesem Heft

https://doi.org/10.1515/arcadia-2016-0003