Tristan Tzara’s “African” Impressions and Performances: from Mpala Garoo to Poèmes nègres Cover Image

Impresiile și performanțele „africane” ale lui Tristan Tzara: de la Mpala Garoo la Poèmes nègres
Tristan Tzara’s “African” Impressions and Performances: from Mpala Garoo to Poèmes nègres

Author(s): Edoardo Giorgi
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies, Studies of Literature
Published by: UNIVERSITATEA »ȘTEFAN CEL MARE« SUCEAVA
Keywords: primitivism; Tristan Tzara; performance; Mpala Garoo; poèmes nègres;

Summary/Abstract: This paper aims to analyse the most peculiar components of Tristan Tzara’s ‘black’ production, trying to identify a certain evolution between his very first collection of poems, never published in its entirety by the author, Mpala Garoo, and the later Poèmes nègres, also never published in their entirety by Tzara. Great importance will be given to the concept of Dadaist performance, which differs from that of aboriginal performance, and to that peculiar concept of intertextuality that Tzara applied to these poems, which does not refer to real texts, also because African songs were oral and transcribed by Europeans, but rather to what Henri Béhar calls ‘intertext of the world’. In other words, we could say that Tzara’s texts are well inserted in Genette’s concept of ‘architextuality’, although with some peculiarities.

  • Issue Year: XLVII/2025
  • Issue No: 2
  • Page Range: 35-44
  • Page Count: 10
  • Language: Romanian
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