Futurism

Futurism is an art movement in the 20th century, found by poet Fillippo Tommaso Marinetti to give formal expression to dynamic energy, movement and mechanical processes.

- mainly occurs in Italy from 1909 to 1915
- occurs in all forms of art
- against the past (arts and politics)
- Marietti (and followers) called themselves Futurists
- they admire speed, technology, youth, violence, human over nature
- emphasized dynamism, speed, energy, power of machine, vitality, change, restlessness of modern life
- dismiss old cult and imitation
- exhalt originality
- celebrating change
- inspire public anger & amazement

Futurism was also said to occur not only in Italy, but Russia, and in all forms of art. Futurism in painting has created a new term, Cubism which is defined by expressing dynamism and energy through paintings. Im not going to look into paintings that much though cos my focus here is poetry.

Futurism in Literature

- unexpected combinations of images \ hyper-conciseness
- free expressions

7 aspects to futurist literature, namely intuition, analogy, irony, abolition of syntax, metrical reform, onomatopoeia, and essential/synthetic lyricism.

1. Intuition whereby art is expressed (conceptually and execution wise), through spontaneity and intuition.

2. Analogy; to show how everything is interconnected by combining two non-related subjects and piecing it together, the more startling, the better.

3. Irony; "so old and forgotten that it looked almost new when the dust was brushed away from it. What was new and untried, at least more so than their principles and theories, were the futurists' stylistic devices"

4. Abolition of Syntax; dismisses the old way of arranging words in proper form, but not thoroughly.

5. Metrical reform; using words as a main uni instead of verse, to allow more expression and less of syntax, puntutaions

6. Onomatopoeia; 4 kinds of onomatopoeia; direct, indirect, integral and
abstract. Direct; uses of sound. Indirect; responses to external conditions.
Integral; using any collection of words to represent sound, and abstract; to
capture motion of the soul.

7. Essential \ synthetic lyricism; promote hyper conciseness, compressing down superfluos objects to to express a language unseen elsewhere. Also the reason why Futurists did not write any novels.

Sources:
wikipedia
http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/glo/futurism/