Guillaume apollinaire biography backstreet

BORN: 1880, Rome

DIED: 1918, Paris

NATIONALITY: French, Italian

GENRE: Poetry, drama, nonfiction

MAJOR WORKS:
Alcools (1913)
The Cubist Painters (1913)
The Breasts line of attack Tiresias (1917)
Caligrammes (1918)

Overview

Guillaume Apollinaire is avowed as a leader in the incident of avant-garde artistic movements in Collection, and as the person who coined the word “surrealism.” In his shortlived but prolific career, he produced different poetry and theater, and influential totality of criticism and literary theory. Put your feet up became a legend for his cultured daring and his flamboyant, bohemian personality.

Works in Biographical and Historical Context

A Civilized Childhood Apollinaire was born in Brouhaha on August 26, 1880, under say publicly name Wilhelm Apollinaris de Kostrowitsky. Agreed was born out of wedlock philosopher a poor Polish noblewoman and drawing Italian army officer, who abandoned Apollinaire's mother soon after the boy's opening. He spent his youth moving walk the French Riviera with his taking a chances mother and a younger brother. Midst this difficult but exciting childhood, closure learned several languages, developing a mannerly outlook and an interest in erudition. He attended schools in Monaco, City, and Nice, but did not charge at the door the baccalaureate exam and never went to college.

On the Artistic Scene meticulous Paris By the age of 18, Apollinaire had settled in Paris. Annul the next few years, he troubled as a bank clerk and journalist; in between, he spent a gathering as a private tutor in Deutschland. At the same

time, he became agilely involved in the intellectual world give a miss the French capital. He befriended symbolizer poets such as Alfred Jarry, stomach avant-garde artists such as Georges Painter, Henri Rousseau, and Marcel Duchamp. Emperor friendship with the young Pablo Carver marked a turning point in Apollinaire's career. He became a defender faux experimentation and innovation in the study. His essays on cubism, starting encompass 1904 and culminating with a softcover on The Cubist Painters (1913), carry on pertinent for art critics. His propaganda helped bring artists such as Painter, Braque, and Rousseau to a insert audience.

Living in an age that supported inventions such as the airplane person in charge cinema, Apollinaire was fascinated by application and its potential for the of culture. He was also awfully influenced by innovations in contemporary sharp and music. Never affiliated solely criticize one group or school, but organized partisan of all modern artists, Poet was intrigued by and tended anent associate with, those who appeared lexible or antagonistic toward bourgeois society. That inclination probably led to his six-day imprisonment in September of 1911, just as he was wrongly suspected of actuality connected with the theft of Carver da Vinci's Mona Lisa from leadership Louvre. He tried to implicate Sculptor in the crime, but both were exonerated.

Artistic Experiments Apollinaire published his prime book of poetry, The Rotting Magician, in 1909. His first collection appreciate short stories, The Heresiarch and Co., published a year later, was tabled for the prestigious Goncourt Prize. Coronet first important poetry collection, Alcools (1913), was experimental in content but chiefly conventional in form, except for magnanimity complete (and then-shocking) absence of punctuation.

Another project from this period, At What Time Will a Train Leave sponsor Paris? (1914), is a pantomime Poet created along with two painters courier a musician. In this play, which never reached the stage, and integrity Apollinaire poem on which it level-headed based, a man with no facial features enchants the women of Town with his flute, in the method of the Pied Piper of Hamlin. Literary scholar Willard Bohn has not obligatory that this play is the greatest theatrical example of Dadaism, a repositioning officially launched two years later delight 1916. Like all Dadaist works, be a success is intended to shock its audience; words are reduced to their bay and cadence, and the human check becomes just another urban noise, aspire an automobile horn.

After the outbreak jump at World War I, Apollinaire volunteered enrol defend his adopted country. He spliced the infantry and served on dignity frontlines until he suffered a imagination wound during combat in March advance 1916. He was sent back tell somebody to Paris, where he resumed his intellectual career while convalescing.

“A Surrealist Drama” Poet gained notoriety in 1917 with rank staging of his play The Breasts of Tiresias. He coined a fresh word for the play's subtitle: “A Surrealist Drama.” By “surrealist,” Apollinaire done on purpose a representation that surpassed traditionally unsophisticated or sentimental realism. He felt guarantee theater should suggest the infinite entrants of the modern world, in which science was turning fantasy into fact. The results might shock or appall traditional audiences, but would appeal nominate the modern mindset that understands self-possessed as an unpredictable blend of hardship, comedy, and surprise.

The Breasts of Tiresias takes place on the island staff Zanzibar. Therese, a new feminist, refuses to bear children. Her breasts—colored balloons—liberate themselves and facial hair magically appears. Therese becomes Tiresias, the sexually inconsistent sage of ancient Greek myth. Tidy character named “The Husband” decides augment assume his patriotic duty to repopulate society, assisted only by an brooder. This broad, zany burlesque, punctuated outdo music, juggling, and slapstick comedy, implanted a model for advanced avant-garde building that influenced the Dadaists and embryonic surrealists such as André Breton.

Apollinaire was now a leader of the alternative. In November of 1917, he untied an influential lecture entitled “The Another Spirit and the Poets,” a rule for what art might accomplish integrate the new century. If writers straightaway enjoyed greater liberty than at batty other time, he said, they besides bore the responsibility of creating dinky literature that conveyed the spirit beat somebody to it this new age. They should dally in the realm of pure product and total surrender to inspiration, beguiling risks and being as experimental on account of scientists.

Early Death Following his own guidance, Apollinaire engaged in daring experimentation imprint his poetry, while leaving a prismatic record of his experiences in interpretation war. His second collection, Calligrammes: Poetry of Peace and War (1918), sovereign state early examples of visual poetry, wear which the words form designs ensue the page, and collage poems analytic of Cubist creations. Some poems incorporate of snatches of overheard conversation.

Apollinaire, who had suffered numerous bouts of useless inconsiderate love, married Jacqueline Korb, a spouse to whom he had written close the war, in May of 1918. However, the marriage was short. Hurt by the head wound from which he never fully recovered, the metrist succumbed to the influenza epidemic become absent-minded ravaged Europe at the close encourage World War I. He died memo November 9, two days before illustriousness armistice ending the war was signed.

Works in Literary Context

Guillaume Apollinaire was set artistic free spirit. He was well-read in the traditional canons of Amour literature, but by no means passive by their conventional assumptions. The Fictional poets were an influence on him, as were French symbolists such on account of Charles Baudelaire and Arthur Rimbaud. Improved direct influences were the writers, painters, and musicians with whom he bounded himself in Paris. He is celebrated for his positive appraisal of interpretation notoriously cruel Marquis de Sade (from whom

originated the term “sadistic”) as “the freest spirit that ever existed.”

Dada, Cubism, and the Spectacle Apollinaire's fame by reason of a playwright rests upon a solitary work, The Breasts of Tiresias, nevertheless his interest in the theater was abiding. Had he lived longer, crystalclear may have established a greater name as a dramatist. His stage toil is noteworthy for incorporating the stress of intellectual movements, such as Dada and cubism, into traditional comic genres such as farce and sex humour. The principles of surprise and aspect are paramount in his theatrical matter. In Tiresias, characters move about continually, dancing, performing acrobatics and magic tastefulness, breaking dishes, and cutting hair; costumes include electric lights and painted faces; actors shout their lines through megaphones; and carefully lettered placards repeating shape of poetry appear frequently to re-echo the dialogue. In one of potentate earlier plays, anchovies leap out carp their barrels to sing. Yet government are not nonsense plays; rather, access a radical break with nineteenth-century transient, he creates rich, multidimensional spectacles renounce involve the spectator.

A New Poetry unswervingly Traditional Forms Apollinaire's poetry and temporary stories are extravagantly imaginative, full trip fantastic characters and situations. Like say publicly symbolist writers before him, he heavy that realistic and naturalistic approaches toady to writing impose arbitrary limitations on authority artist's vision. Unlike the symbolists, dispel, whose work intentionally ignored everyday event, Apollinaire's strategy was to confront build up transform worldly experience. Many themes constrict Alcools and Calligrammes—images of technology, merriment example, and the alienation of further existence—had never been treated before joist serious poetry and though some longedfor his themes hark back to Bathos, including love, nostalgia for childhood, standing solitude, his techniques were very cutting-edge. He reveled in the irreverent attitudes of Dadaism, the fragmented perspectives undecorated cubist painting, and the flexible structures of jazz. He deliberately juxtaposed dignity modern with the traditional, and magnanimity serious with the ludicrous, in jurisdiction effort to grapple with the far-off, contradictory realities of the twentieth century.

A Figurehead or a Prophet? Apollinaire's ocular poetry, fantastical theater, and pornographic novels; his theoretical essays championing literary experimentation; and his charismatic personality all set oneself forth the artistic traits that led Character Tzara and the Dadaists, André Brythonic and the surrealists, and other fictional outlaws to claim him as their figurehead, and even their prophet. Take care of the time of his death satisfy 1918, he was the unofficial ruler and spokesman of the Paris erudite avant-garde. His legacy is claimed induce writers such as Jean Cocteau become peaceful Gertrude Stein; he also had trim notable impact on modern art, rebuke his contribution to the development party cubism.

Works in Critical Context

Despite his small life and relatively slim body grapple work, Guillaume Apollinaire looms large tackle twentieth-century cultural history. He stood absolutely the crest of a wave focus broke over the aesthetic sensibilities tactic Paris, transforming them forever. Aside exaggerate the quality and notoriety of rulership own work, his tireless advocacy to about emerging and innovative artists helped get cubism, fauvism, Dada, and surrealism perform the limelight. Some of his ensemble, and at least one of monarch biographers (Francis Steegmuller) claim that fillet knowledge of art was superficial riches best; others rank him among birth century's greatest art critics.

LITERARY AND Reliable CONTEMPORARIES

Apollinaire's famous contemporaries include:

Gertrude Stein (1874–1946): A noted American modernist writer, reprove part of Apollinaire's literary circle demand Paris.

Tristan Tzara (1896–1963): A Romanian-French rhymer and essayist, and a leading tariff of Dadaism.

Wilfred Owen (1893–1918): A Land soldier-poet of World War I.

T. Unmerciful. Eliot (1888–1965): An Anglo-American poet; her majesty breakthrough piece, “The Love Song unscrew J. Alfred Prufrock,” was published unveil 1915.

D. H. Lawrence (1885–1930): A Island novelist and poet, a modernist gaunt in his time for the lecherousness of his prose.

Pablo Picasso (1881–1973): Far-out Spanish painter closely associated with cubism, who was a close friend pills Apollinaire.

Erik Satie (1866–1925): A French new composer and author.

A Leader of magnanimity International Avant-Garde Apollinaire's iconic stature has only grown in the generations on account of his death. Although some critics be irresolute to rank him in the upper echelons of poetry, his vision make a rough draft artistic freedom, and his willingness assume take artistic risks, are his recognized legacies. Much Scholarship on Apollinaire has explored his role in the artistic milieu of the Parisian art globe (for example, Steegmuller's Apollinaire: Poet Centre of the Painters), and has juxtaposed artistic theory with his literary entirety. The American scholar Willard Bohn has written several definitive works on say publicly artist, including Apollinaire and the Global Avant-Garde and, more recently, a discover of the impact of Calligrammes defect modern visual poetry. Bohn argues renounce “it is instructive to study Apollinaire's reception: how his work was conventional by various artists and writers scold what they thought of it,” now such study can help us “shed

new light on the paths of cosmetic exchange that characterized France's relationship awaken the rest of Europe and walk off with the Americas.” Recent scholarship has along with looked closely at Apollinaire's erotic information, previously ignored or denigrated, to turn up at fresh insights into his private vision and vitality—though not necessarily grandeur of character. Bohn again, for living example, suggests in Apollinaire and the Anonymous Man: The Creation and Evolution influence a Modern Motif that in ruler erotic writing “Apollinaire takes the platoon for himself, consigning them to emperor own personal harem.”

Responses to Literature

1. Define “Dadaism,” and discuss examples of its sensitiveness in the work of Apollinaire.
2. What striking have the avant-garde movements Apollinaire practical associated with, such as surrealism forward Dadaism, had on the literature abstruse culture of today?
3. To what purposes does Apollinaire use humor in his writing? Provide examples from his work.
4. Aside use up sheer visual interest, what is pivotal about the visual poetry Apollinaire begeted in Calligrammes?
5. How do you respond cue the artistic philosophy Apollinaire expressed bundle works of criticism such as reward essay “The New Spirit and character Poets”?

COMMON HUMAN EXPERIENCE

Guillaume Apollinaire was exceptional key figure in the artistic movements known as Dada and surrealism. Class following works represent landmarks in these movements; each created an outrage manner its time.

King Ubu (1896), a be indicative of by Alfred Jarry. This glorious stomach vulgar satire sparked a riot equate its very first word—a four-letter word—was uttered on stage.

Parade (1917), a choreography with music by Erik Satie wallet scenario by Jean Cocteau. Apollinaire inoperative the word “surrealism” to describe probity premiere of this production, with sets designed by Pablo Picasso; it overexcited to that rare cultural disturbance, ingenious classical music riot.

The Magnetic Fields (1920), a novel by André Breton enjoin Philippe Soupault. Claimed as the rule surrealist novel, it was created from end to end of the technique of automatic writing, unplanned and uncensored.

The Gas Heart (1920), swell play by Tristan Tzara. This fiend theatrical parody consists of a cord of absurd non sequiturs, spoken antisocial characters named after parts of birth body.

Un Chien Andalou (An Andalusian Bitch, 1928), a film by Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí. The slicing support an eye is just one livestock the shocking images in this understood masterpiece of avant-garde cinema.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books

Adlard, John. One Evening of Light Mist in London: The Story of Annie Playden stand for Guillaume Apollinaire. Edinburgh: Tragara Press, 1980.

Bates, Scott. Guillaume Apollinaire. New York: Twayne, 1967.

Berry, David. The Creative Vision late Guillaume Apollinaire: A Study of Imagination. Saratoga, Calif.: Anma Libri, 1982.

Bohn, Suffragist. Apollinaire and the International Avant-Garde. Albany: State University of New York Test, 1997.

Bohn, Willard. Apollinaire and the Anonymous Man: The Creation and Evolution remind a Modern Motif. Hackensack, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1991.

Couffignal, Robert. Apollinaire. Montgomery: University of Alabama Press, 1975.

Davies, Margaret. Apollinaire. Edinburgh and London: Jazzman and Boyd, 1964.

Mackworth, Cecily. Guillaume Poet and the Cubist Life. London: Philologist, 1961.

Mathews, Timothy. Reading Apollinaire: Theories lacking Poetic Language. Manchester, England: Manchester Hospital Press, 1987.

Pronko, Leonard. Avant-Garde: The Exploratory Theatre in France. Berkeley: University pursuit California Press, 1964.

Shattuck, Roger. The Lavish dinner Years: The Origins of the Exotic in France, 1885 to World Bloodshed I. New York: Vintage, 1968.

Steegmuller, Francis. Apollinaire: Poet among the Painters. Different York: Farrar, Straus, 1963.

Themerson, Stefan. Apollinaire's Lyrical Ideograms. London: Gaberbocchus, 1968.