Tzara- Dada- Michelle Wolff

When I read this piece, I was sort of confused as to what Tzara’s main points were. I learned about Dadaism last semester in another class and thought my knowledge based on what I learned would aid me in reading this piece. At first I did not understand the style but then I came to a conclusion. But as I continued to read and analyze I came to the conclusion that Tzara’s style is greatly reflective of the term he talks about: Dada. His ideas and language absolutely reflect the nonsense and absurdist ways of Dadaism. In the first paragraph of the Tristan Tzara’s “Seven Dada Manifestoes” there are points that strike me as contradictory. Tzara writes, “Dada is life without carpet-slippers or parallels; it is for and against unity and definitely against the future.” This sentence completely contradicts itself. First, Tzara claims that there are no “parallels” in Dadaism, and then goes on to say Dadaism contains but also does not contain “unity.” The strange idea about this is that a “parallel” to another idea is saying that the two ideas are alike. So, Tzara is saying that Dadaism is not alike anything but then he goes on to say it might have some similarities to something.  

            Tzara might be trying to hint that Dadaism does in fact have parts of it that relate to other ideas but at the same it is unique in itself. He could be getting at the idea that Dada is the only movement that has this unique property. According to the New Oxford American Dictionary, “Dada,” is defined as “an early-20^th century international movement in art, literature, music, and film, repudiating and mocking artistic and social conventions and emphasizing the illogical and absurd.” I think that this idea of contradicting statements really enhances the overall nonsensical quality of how Dadaism is defined.

            Something else that also struck me as a little different was Tzara’s use of the phrase “carpet-slippers.” When I first read this part, for some reason, I immediately thought of Aladdin. I thought about a “magic carpet ride.” This was maybe what came to my mind because of the similar wording of “magic carpet ride” and “carpet slippers:” they both share the word “carpet.” But immediately, when I thought about that, I thought about nonsense because going on a magic carpet ride is impossible. The words, “carpet-slippers” made me think of something magical and something full of nonsense. The interesting use of this wording makes Tzara’s piece seem almost magical. Later on in the piece, Tzara writes, “The magic of a word—Dada—which has brought journalists to the gates of a world unforeseen, is of no importance to us.” Even Tzara himself might think Dadaism has some sort of magic element to it. He goes on to contradict himself further because he is basically saying that we should not care about the word “Dada” but at the same time, the majority if not all of his piece is based on the so-called “magic of a word—Dada…”