LITERARY FUTURISM: BEGINNING, CHARACTERISTICS AND REPRESENTATIVES - LITERATURE - 2025

The literary Futurism was a movement that developed during the first half of the twentieth century. Its representatives emphasized in their work their concern about the changes that modern life and the development of machines brought to society.

During its early years, the Futurist exponents were mainly concentrated in Italy. However, from the second decade on, his influence transcended the borders to most of Europe, especially among the authors of the Russian avant-garde.

the beginning

Futurism was named as a movement for the first time on February 20, 1909, in the Parisian newspaper Le Figaro. In this publication, the manifesto of the Italian poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (who is portrayed in the previous image) was released.

This author coined the word futurism to designate his purpose to discard traditional art forms and celebrate the changes of modernity.

Fundamental changes, because they transcended the industrial field and made reference to the social and cultural transformation that occurred at this time.

Marinetti's manifesto highlighted automobile technology, the beauty of speed, strength, power, violence, dynamism, and movement. It even invited the repudiation of traditions, reflected in institutions such as museums and libraries.

His rhetoric was characterized by being passionate and aggressive, aimed at inspiring anger and stirring up controversy. However, until 1914, the poets who were declared Futurists preserved many traditions in their themes and in the use of language, in contrast to what is stated in Marinetti's manifesto.

In 1913 the most important literary manifesto of Futurism was published, entitled "Destruction of Syntax-Wireless Imagination-Words in Freedom."

This publication did share the criteria set out by Marinetti regarding a language stripped of adjectives, adverbs and infinitive verbs.

Later, the desire to use a more intense language led to a marked use of onomatopoeia in poems. This feature was especially present in those poems that made reference to machines and war.

An example of this is the poem entitled "Zang, tumb tumb", which was intended to evoke the sound of weapons.

Main features

The writers of the current of literary futurism addressed in their works the urban and modernist characteristics of their time.

They also created alternative media, notably futuristic evenings, mixed media events, and the use of manifest brochures, poster poems, and magazines containing a mix of literature, painting, and theoretical pronouncements.

Futurist writers went beyond the mere intention of capturing the characteristics of the time: they sought to develop an appropriate language to express the speed and cruelty typical of the early twentieth century.

These intentions were reflected in new genres and new forms of diffusion, which were revolutionary at the time.

Genres born of literary futurism

1- Free word poetry

As part of their innovative endeavor, the Futurist poets established new genres and methods of writing. The most significant of these was the so-called "free word poetry."

This was intended to move away from the limitations of linear typography, conventional syntax, and spelling.

2- The calligrams

Calligrams were an innovative genre that was part of the typographic revolution proposed by the futurist poets. This creation proposed that poetry could be dynamic in its graphic distribution, in addition to its content.

This genre proposed a typesetting that would adopt some graphic form related to the content of the poem. This is how poems were created whose graphic distribution gave them the shape of cars, trains, airplanes, explosions, etc.

Russian Futurism

The different exponents of Italian Futurism had quite common characteristics among themselves. However, Russian Futurism was fragmented into different groups, such as the Ego-Futurists, the Cubo-Futurists, and the Hialeah.

Russian Futurist poets were not as interested in machines, speed, and violence as the Italians were. Instead, they shared with them the intention for the renewal of language and the breakdown of established canons.

The three

1- Marinetti

Filippo Tommaso Marinetti was born in Egypt in 1876 and passed away in 1944 in Bellagio, Italy. He is considered the ideological founder of literary futurism, thanks to the publication of his Manifesto of Futurism, in 1909.

His poetry was characterized by anarchic experimentation, which was consolidated with the passage of time. In fact, at first his work was characterized by violence, racism and misogyny.

However, he is also recognized for innovations in the creation of a novel futurist vocabulary, which represented a significant break with the current poetic tradition.

Marinetti's ideas were adopted by various Italian writers. Among his most important disciples are the writers Aldo Palazzeschi, Corrado Govoni and Ardengo Soffici.

2- Guillaume Apollinaire

Wilhelm Apollinaris de Kostrowitzky, better known as Guillaume Apollinaire, was born in 1880 in Rome and died in 1918 in Paris. He was a fundamental poet in the development of Futurism and, in general, of all the avant-gardes in the 20th century.

His work was mainly poetic and presented different characteristics of Futurism, such as controversy and the invitation to abandon traditions.

For example, in his work "The Murdered Poet" he ironically proposed a campaign to exterminate all the poets in the world.

One of his most outstanding contributions was the development of graphic poems in the form of calligrams, which he published in two volumes. In these works innovations are presented in terms of the metrics of traditional poetry.

3- Giovanni Papini

Giovanni Papini was born in Florence in 1881 and died in 1956. He was one of the most important Italian poets, especially in the literary renovation that took place at the beginning of the 20th century.

He worked as a teacher and librarian, and was characterized as an avid reader. From 1903 he ventured into journalism as the founder of the Leonardo magazine. Later he would found two more magazines: Anima, in 1911; and Lacerba, in 1913.

In the latter, he defended the futuristic tendencies promoted by Marinetti, especially with regard to questioning cultural and poetic traditions to scandalize his readers.

References

1. Biographies and lives. (SF). Giovanni Papini. Recovered from: biografiasyvidas.com
2. Encyclopedia of World Biography. (2004). Guillaume Apollinaire. Recovered from: encyclopedia.com
3. Literary Encyclopedia.
4. Poets. (2004). A Brief Guide to Futurism. Recovered from: poets.org
5. White, J. (2016). Futurism. Recovered from: britannica.com