Richter and Tzara-Joan

Poems in Richter’s text share similar Dadaist tones that also underlie Tzara’s manifesto. Both strive to dismantle conventions and defy logic. The works either demonstrate or perform a creative process involving the operation of chance and randomness. The assemblage of these aspects results in the nonsensical nature of the works, which is apparent in both Tzara and Ricther’s texts. The poem of Huelsenbeck’s is presented in Richter’s text as follows.  

“This is what things have come to in this world

The cows sit on the telegraph poles and play chess

The cockatoo under the skirts of the Spanish dancer

Sings as sadly as a headquarter bugler and the cannon lament all day” (p. 53)

This poem projects a nonsensical tone that is found in Dadaist work, and most certainly apparent in Tzara’s manifesto. Here, Richter illustrates how this poem dismantles conventions. The aspects that were strung together to create this poem seem to have been drawn from randomness and chance. For example, the subject being a cow, the setting being a telegraph pole, and the action of playing chess. Assembled together by chance, this seems to make no sense. Moreover, because of the divergence of conventions, this poem appears whimsical and humorous—it almost appears to have been extracted from a children’s book.

This particular nonsense also resonates in Tzara’s work. Both authors are responding to a post-war world, where things no longer seem to make any sense. That is, the movement was a response to a senseless war as well as the rejection of nonsensical traditions in society. Richter plays with the nonsense as a creative process by demonstrating Dadaist works such as Huelsenbeck’s poem. This humor and illogical twist resonates a Dadaist ideal in its response to a seemingly nonsensical world. Similarly, this tone underlies Tzara’s manifesto. Such a tone is partially created by illogical leaps within the manifesto. Tzara states the following about logic: “Logic imprisoned by the senses is an organic disease. To this element philosophers always like to add: the power of observation. But actually this magnificent quality of the mind is the proof of its impotence” (Tzara, 79). Moreover, the defiance of conventions is also apparent in which the author diverges from the systematic approach to things that are typical of society. This is present in his work by illustrating the notion of ready-mades. He states: “The new painter creates a world, the elements of which are also its implements….The new artist protests: he no longer paints….but creates—directly in stone, wood, iron, tin, boulders….” (78). This protest against conventions and promotion of illogicality are characteristics that are embodied by both Richter and Tzara. However, a major difference in the two works is that Huelsenbeck’s poem is placed into the context of Richter’s overall argument. This argument, unlike Tzara’s manifesto, follows a logical tangent whereas Tzara consistently demonstrates illogicality in his own argument. Therefore, while illogicality is present in both works, Richter demonstrates it with examples strung together in his overall text while Tzara performs it through his manifesto.