Birth of the Avant-Garde Response Papers

Response Paper #3

Due Wednesday, Nov. 7

1-2 pages, double-spaced

Write a response to the readings assigned from Velimir Khlebnikov's "The King of Time" (see under "Assignments").

Response Paper #2

2 pages, double-spaced

Due Monday, October 15, 2007

Mallarme ends his reflections on “Catholicism” by imagining a “future festival” that would have some of the mystery of the liturgy:

"Some magnificence will unfold, something analogous to the Shadow of former times.

Then we shall perceive, or, at least, experience the emotion that anguishes me: although perhaps not; and I have tried, from here, before it is time, to bring the Dream to the altar to lean against the tomb found once more – to have its pious feet touch the ashes. There is a cloud around it, of course: what now to make precise? …To do any more would be to intone the ritual and so betray, by too much sound, the sunrise of a priest’s cape, in the space that the chief priest garlands with incense, to mask it, an utter bareness of place."

Write 2 pages, double-spaced, on whether and how you think Mallarme’s comments illuminate Alexander Blok’s play “A Puppet Show.” (If you do not think Mallarme’s comments are relevant, simply discuss the play.)

A word of advice: Both Mallarme's and Blok's texts are obscure. Allow yourself to respond broadly and intuitively, even if you are puzzled by particular statements they make.

Colloquium 36

The Birth of the Avant-Garde

Response Paper #1

2-3 pages, double-spaced

Due Monday, September 24, 2007

Read in the Anchor Anthology the extracts from A Season in Hell (Une saison en enfer), pp. 124- 129, from “Once Long Ago” (Jadis) to “Morning” (Matin).

Then read the prose poems from Illuminations, especially “Bally” (Parade), “Lives” (Vies), “Departures” (Départs), “Cities” (Villes), “Dawn” (Aube) and “Flowers” (Fleurs).

A Season in Hell is an autobiographical and theoretical work. Based on Rimbaud’s tumultuous and ultimately tragic affair with fellow poet Paul Verlaine (Rimbaud’s very own “season in Hell’), the book also offers a poetic manifesto written in a visionary poetic prose.

What correlations can you find between A Season in Hell and the prose poems of Illuminations? Do these two texts illuminate one another, and how?

French majors please give all quotations in French and look closely at the original text; if possible try to write the essay in French.