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Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers Graduate School
1961
Paul van Ostaijen, the poet
Hidde Van Ameyden van Duym The University of Montana
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Recommended Citation Van Ameyden van Duym, Hidde, "Paul van Ostaijen, the poet" (1961). Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers. 3187. https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd/3187
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HIDDB VA* AKEYDB* VA* DOB*
B.A. yOWTABA STATE UNIVERSITY, 1997
Presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts
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Foreword 1 Biography 4 Mueic H all 24 Hit llimsl 39 fmM at SM£ ma ixtax., qssmn&ma Ciiz 93 FosthufiBous Poem# 8 9 summary 110 L le t of %ork# C ited 111 FCBEWORD
The introduction of a new acquaintance can be made in two ways: either by providing extensive proof that for years one has missed intellectual pearls which apply to this and that particular problem which one likes to hear discussed, or by providing enough m aterial to enable the acquaintance's merits to stand by themselves ... if he has them; the latter consideration is superfluous since we assume that the hostess would not bother without that prerequisite.
In this essay on Paul van Ostaijen, the second approach has been used. The first chapter tries to show briefly what kind of period, what kind of man, and what kind of thoughts we are dealing with. The period of 1915-1928, the period during which van Ostaijen wrote, is characterized by great cultural and political activity. On the one hand we find the development of fauvism, futurism, dadaism, expressionism, Suprematism, neoplasticism and vorticism, all of which are 1 2 movement# ehlch applied t© every field ©f artietie création, from painting to poetry and architecture, and cwi the other hand we find World War I, the Huaalan Revolution, laaiie* and Plamimgantlam, The men van Ootaijen *a# a man of great intelligence and high oenaltivenoaa. lot only did he have the premise# of every one of those activities at his fingertips, but be kept exhorting himself and his contemporarie# on the basis of standards which thee# movements had provided. He expressed his thoughts in poetry, essays, mani festoes , short stories and satir es, each equally worthy of a tte n tio n #
The four following chapters discuss the four main periods into which van Ostaijen*# poetry can be divided. Koch chapter gives a survey successively of content, form and outlook m life, followed by excerpts from van Ostaijen's literary theory and selected translations of the poetry of the period con ce rn e d .
The reader may feel that he is spending too much atten tion to a local scene which is not of immediate interest to him, but he w ill find that van Ostaijen* s art goes beyond the lo c a l.
Unfortunately, it was not possible to obtain more mate rial on aul van Ostaijen than the list of cited works indi cates $ it must be observed that da Hoover* s Paul van Ostaijen is a source of dubious quality which was only consulted for 3 biographical Informâticm. A look at the bibliographie® on van 0 #taijen reveal® that the only translation of hi® work ha® been made into French by 2 . Sehoonhoven in a work c a lle d J&BLLaUM&ihUadjjWU aLEL&iriMllWglIjLiU) JB h» f.(MllUklU# (*nt~ »erp, 1951)• BlOORAMBr
Leopold Aodr*## v#B *o# bora February 22, 1 8 9, 6 la Aat»#rp* H# *a# tb# Imot child of # family of oovoa, Th# oixth child woo Coaotoat who * 0 # mime year# old whom Fail am# bora. Dooplt# hi# early death la 193# Paul eurvived a ll hi# other brothers aad sifters except Ceaetaat who died a few mmathe after him* Coast eat oared much for Paul aad helped him several times; he helped him finaaelally whea Paul was ill with tuberculosis! Paul's father ess a rich plumber who had retired* He bad mot much faith in Paul, of whom be said that he was "not even fit to be office boy because of his bed handwriting.
^ A, de hoover, faul vpa Oateiian (Bussum, I 9 6O ), p . 22# ^ Q* Bergers, latreductlon to p# van Ostaijen*# Music gall (Den Baag, 1*99), p. I 6 . 5 After having attended three high echoola, he ended up in the Koninklijk Athenaeum at Antwerp* The only subject in which he was good was religion^ but hie extra-curricular Intereete Included German and French literature, painting ana the Flemish movement.3
3 Since van eteijen was very active in the Flemish movemnt it w ill be useful to give a abort survey. In the second half of the nineteenth century the Flemish started objecting to the domination of the Walloons but the electoral system pre vented the breaking of the political power of this French- speaking bourgeoisie. This movement called ‘’Flamingantism** did achieve in 1873 that some laws were established concerning the use of the Flemish language in eourtroxm# end public lews, but it reached a deadlock because clerical and anti-clerical elements could not come to an agreement. The movement did have a social ideal in that it considered education of the people necessary for the development of Flanders but there is no Immediate relationship between Flamingantism and socialism. Throu# the cooperation with Holland in the area of literature and philology, the literary element was predominant. In 1910 some of the differences were overcome and a united party was formed under a Catholic, a Liberal and a Socialist, when the Germans Invaded Belgium, the Flamingants who had emphasised their Germanic character were immediately accused of collabo ration by the Walloons. The Flamingants were divided; some wanted an alliance with Holland, some wanted an independent state of Flanders, some a federal Belgium and some an alliance with Germany, ie find these views expressed in such magasines as Jona Vlamderea, which had pan-Germanic aspirations, p@ Ylaamae Fmst, which was not anti-Belgian but wanted an independent Flanders, and Dg Ylaamsc which was run by Flemish refugees in Holland. The latter coined the word "acti vism" after analogy with the Swedish movement which sympathised with the Germans, but it also published anti-German poetry. When it turned out that the Walloons were rather contemptuous of the Flemish language in the army, and especially after the King bad declared that "the Flamingants had no other cmre then the liberation of the territory,* many of the sceptic Flamin gants became aetivistie, i.e. tried for help from Germany. The Germans, vho wanted fleet bases on the Belgian coast, were willing to negotiate. They separated the Flemish and the Wal loons in concentration camps and later split the Belgian Ministry of /rts and Sciences in a Flemish and a Walloon department; also the occupied part of Flanders was enabled to 6 In 1912 the family van Ostaijen was living in the coun try. In the neighboring village lived the composer Jef van Hoof who formed the center of a group of artiste, journalists and Flamingants. Paul m s introduced to this circle end met among others F rits Francken, contributor to the magazine Carolus y and Rene Victor, who later helped him with the typo- gzaphy of Occupied City.* In 1913 Paul quit school. The next year ho became clerk at the Antwerp townhall. He used hie s;:«rc time to improve his French end Gera&n and kept in touch with both cultures through the Mercure de Prance &rd the Weisee Blttf^y.^ He saw the first silent films brought out by Nor disk Film Co., in which As ta Nielsen starred. Vm O sta ije n called a section of Occupied Citv after her. He also visited the «tintergarten," a music hall which formed the theme of his first collection of poems, f^ere also he met the painter Florls despers who played cello in the orchestra. Paul was very interested in painting, with which he became acquaint-
cont. ) create a council of representatives but it bed no legislative power. The collaboration soon turned out to be dicopoointing especially when it was found out that the Ger mans would make peace with a united Belgium. As a whole Pla- mingantism was a boost to Flemish intellectual life and it created pacifistic and humanitarian ideals in politics as well as literature; the activists saw the Flemish question as a question of International politics and the struggle for Flanders was stmiggle for a better world (summary from A.W. wiliemsen's # 1 ÏMmë& MüUmêU§m [Groningen, 1 9 5 8] )• * de Hoover, p. 6. ^ Hoc, cit. 1 #d mor# througjk book# than through exhibition#. He oleay# felt that painting we# for ahead of liter#t%ir#, aaylng "the painter# are to be envied,"^ a reaaon why he alway# kept atrong tie# with painter#. Only later In hi# Ufa did be make teo literm rr friend#. The alliance of painting and lltem tnre la not unuaual If we conalder that Cendrara dlaoovered Chagall^ that T ex Jacob and Apolllrmlre were defender# of cublam and that Klrchner warn enraptured with Walt Whitman.
The van Oataljen of thle period waa a dandy, l aul GlUlama deacrlbe# hi# appearance* "In the evening, on the Keyaerlel, 1 met Orpheu# In Bledermeler coatume. Ife waa gaped at on account of hi# unfoahlonable red tie, hi# red velvet veet, and hla peculiar black dreaa. Gametime# he had a pearl-grey hacParland, and when there wa# a breexe It looked a# though he had the wings of an imperial eagle. In the winter he wore a fur cap; he alao wore a high #tand-up collar. He wa# the dandy, the lord in mighty and grey Antwexp."^
Frit# Frencken Introduced van Oataljen to the editor of Caroluo, which meeting reaulted in an article by van Oataljen In the beginning of 1914 about Vincent van Qogh, Jacob Gmlta (both painter#) and Rik woutcTW (a aculptor). At the end of the aame year he met the brothere Alfon# and Peter Baeyen# who
6 itiâ., p. JO. ' vuoted by Bergers, p. 6. 8 *@r# ruxmlng the Vl&mmm# Gazet. To i t b# oontributod four artielee, of whieh on® #mo dovotoA to Aim in Foomlor and on# to Hugo von Hoffmnnothml* lotor Bmoyona, m ricb mon*# oon, beoomo bis friend (he i# the Mr. So-and-So of Qefiimied Citv). He 1# also the man who took him to nigbtelubs and mequaintod him with the use of dope, a habit whloh it took van Ostaijen several year# to be rid of.® During the following years, van Ostaijen was clerk a t the townhall and worked at the same time for several {mblications. for tW Antwerp## Courant be worked as a reporter of boxing and wrestling me tehee. After the matches he went to the theater in order to write a criticism of the plays; these he contributed to One Land. For the latter magasine be also wrote articles on the brothers florls and Oskar Jaspers, a painter and a sculptor, and on Paul Joostens, a p a in te r .
As Flamingant he made a name for hiawelf through a mul- titude of articles which ho camtribnted to magasines of dif ferent views; he wrote for (Ms Land, which believed in a fedem l government, and for the Goedendaa, which wanted Belgium to join Holland. In the latter he proclaimed the slogsn, "Every youth is an aetiviat,*' adding that the new generation bad only one principle* "To look through the prism of Flamingantism."9
G de Hoover, p. 8. 9 IbidA, p. 1 0 . 9 Fer these activities he was taken te court in 191? when he participated in a demonstration against Cardinal Mercier, who was visiting Antwerp. He was sentenced to three months in pris on I the execution of this sentence was prevented by the Germane, but when the war was over van Ostaijen thought It wiser to go abroad.
In 1916 van Oataljen published Music Hall.^ a collection of poems of the years 1914-1919. It waa printed in an edition of 206 copies at Gust Janssens In Antwerp and consists of threo parts: "Music Hall," "Songs for the Princess of Jl-Jl,** and "Diverse Songs," The collection represents both the influ ence of and the reaction against some of the old schools such as Impressionism and a Dutch group of poets, who at the end of the Nineteenth century started a literary revival and who a re known as th e "p o ets o f 1880." As he always d id when he had developed new views, van Ostaijen later condemned Music Hall and wanted to buy back as many copies as possible In order to bum them. His friend Du Perron had to beseech him to lend a copy in 1 9 2$ .^
Bergers, p. 10, Dutch title is also Music lall} parts are called "Music H all," "Verson voor da Frinses van Jl-Ji*' and "Diverse Versen, ^ Bergers, p. 9. 10 A momtb b e fo re th e tra c e o f 1918 Slgnal^^ wee pa- blished at "Met Sleejaal" Im Antwerp* The frontiepieee had a llneleam cat by Pierla Jeapera* It waa printed in an edition o f 226 coplea and conei#ted of three partes "Songe of Real Life," "Me and the City" and "The Signal," The poem# were the frtsite of the year# I 9I 6-I 9 1 6, They ahew a strong influence from what la called tsnanimiam or htsmanitarlan expreaaloniem; i.e ., a belief in the baeic goodneee of hnemnity (Whitman) and in the performance of the group rather than the indivi dual (Jules Eoiaaine, Arne dee Hommea).
A couple of month# hefmre, van Ostaijen had published an article called "Enpreaaioniem in Flanders^ in a recently found ed magazine gg Stroom. In the article he denounces impressio nism, the l*art poar l»art doctrine and the wwk of Crane and Morris in England as "co^romise art.* Tracing the development of expressionism in fiend mr# in the work of Ena or, font era, Florls and Oskar Jeapera, and Joostens, he cmepares tM ir work with that of their c ^3 Dutch title is Met Sieniaalt parts are called* "Liederen van het Werkelljke Levea,** "Ik en de 8tad* and "Met Slenjaal. 14 F or orientation it may be useful to mention the following events, 1905* Klrchner, Meckel, B leil and Schmidt-aotluff founded "Die Brdcke" ; their Interest waa in Munch who was in Germany frmo IB 92 to 1 9 0 6, in African sculpture aM in Walt Whitman of whom Kirchner says that he possesses the true 11 Jumt before the truce ï«ul van Oeteljem left for Berlin because of hie motlvletlo leaning# end the priaan eentenee far three months. Berlin wee a hotbed of numerou# actlvitlee when he arrived. Thera wa# the etrife between the aoeleliat# under Frit* Ibert and the eemnuni#t Spartecue League# under Roam LuxeaAurg and Karl Liebknecht, with mhm van Oataljen aympathlaed. Llebkneeht and #eaa Imxenburg were calculatedly murdered In the beginning of 1919* Then there were the artle* tic aotlvltle# of "Der aturm,'^ "Bauhaua, ' and "*Dada.* The expreaaionlat movement "Der Stum” had aeveral aspect#. It# amgaeine aoqualntad van Oataljen with the poetry of Otrem and Else Laaker-Sehdler. It# exhibition# acquainted hlr with the ■rorks of Hare, Chagall, Klee, Paume later, Schwltter# and Schle»- mar, and he made friend# with Campendank, Sthckenberg, Felmlngar and Kandlmaky. It# art evenjUige made him appreciate the poetry cent.) spirit o f tW a r t l a t who can give and love without d#airing." I9 0 8: h a tla a e publish## "Rote# of a painter* in ig Gronde Revue . 1 9 0 9: CanNk,^Bocclonl and severini publish th e ■flrat manifeato of fUturiam in b ila n . 1910* landinaky and Marc omani## D e r filaue Reiter" exhibition in Berlin, which con tain# work# of Eousaeeu, D elaunay, Kandinaky, Mare, Macke and Campendonkf in Faria the "S ectio n d*Or" exhibit# work# of V illon, Duchamp, Delaunay, Gris, la Freanaye, Olelaea and Met- linger of whom tW latter two had just published gg Cabisay. 1 9 1 1* Frans Pflemmort fonnda the expressloniat magasine Mg Aktion. 1913* The ’feisse Blatter publish Klee*# llluetrmtlona of Cmndide; Apollinaire ^bllshe# "Lea eintrea Cubiste#.” 1915* K urt Miller starts the pacifia tic movement c a lle d "activism” by which the •Citeraten” are to promote the activation of the spiritual. 1 9 1 7* Thao van Boesburg found# the neo-plastleiat group "Do S t l j l ” to which belong among ether# Mondriaan, van der Lack and HUasar (Selected from M. Raynal*# Modem Fainting 12 ©f Stram* tàreugh the âceleauitlone of Rudolph Blôamer.^^ th en in 1 9 1 9 Gropima fmmded the "Bauhaua” in Weimar, van Oataljen knew aWdenta (Feininger) and faculty (Klee, Sohlem- mar and Thee van Deeaborg who lectured in 192I ) . In 19IB Hdlaenbeok had founded the "Dada Club" in Berlin after having been two year# before one of the fouMera of the Cabaret Voltaire" In Zurich together with Arp, Taare and Ball, Haua* mann founded the magaaine Der Dada. Together they tried to be "eubvereive," It waa their teak "den Deutachem ihre lultur- ideologie auaaanenauaehlagen ... und mit alien Mitteln der Sa tire, dee Bluffe, der Ironie, am Inde aber aueh mit Gewalt gegen dieae Kultw voraugehen,*^^ One of the movement*a great events waa "die Irate Internationale Dada lease" held In 1 9 2O in Berlin and Cologne where it created a riot. Its slogans were "Dada ist Politiach" and "Die Kunat iet tot* Is le be die neue laachlnenktinst Tatlinsl**^^ The principles of every ow of these movements were used and commented on by van Ostaijen. In Berlin van Ostaijen could find no work; he stayed alive by doing oM jobs and by receiving financial aid from hie brother Constant, The atmosphere made him abend on all his humanitarian ideals, and when in Belgium in 1920 Eugene de de Hoover, p, 1 3 , i t i d . , p . 1 2 . iitfi, c it. 13 Bock fouBdod the «agazlce Ralate^ « publication for faunanito- rlmn tsq^reogionieni he wrote dleappointedly to a friend# «Why didn't they go beyond The signal?**^ He made tM same commmt to de Bock, but did send aome material to be published in spite of the controversy. Van Ostaijen'# productivity in Berlin was great, in the three years that he we# there, he wrote two poetic cycles, grotesques, essays, a film-scenario and two manifestoes for an organ of «"emaneipated cubism* which organ was discontinued. The first cycle is called Feasts of Fear apd Agony. I t con sists of 106 handwritten pages in purple, green, blue and red inks. This collection *as not published because van Ostaijen gave it to his friend the sculptor Cskar Jeapera. k few single Oft poems like "Barbaric Dance" were published in literary mage- sines. About the poem a psychiatrist concluded that it must have been written under the influence of dope. It seems that the relationship with a woman whom van Ostaijen loved very 21 much was able to make h i quit the habit, however. Van Ostaijen called Feasts of Fear and geny "a poison used as antidote," thereby explaining his lose of belief in humanity* Ibid., p. 14. Dutch title* Feeaten van Angst an Plin. Dutch title : "Barbaarse Dana." da hoover, p. 9. 14 The work i# m ette^pt to eound the depth# of the tool end he# a very my# tie el character a# enggeeted by such name# a# Eekhardt and Dion;^ee, For the ftre t time van Oataljen uee# typographical device#, via. different color# of Ink, the arrangement ef the letter# of a ^ord In aeveral geometrical ebape# and different letter #1»##. The aeoond cycle of poem# la called Occupied City; It conalata of teanty-flve part# called "Order to Mr. So-and-So," ^Threatened City," "The Shell over the City," "Abandoned for- treaaee," "Lonely City," "Hollo* Fort,* "Bordello," "Zeppelin," "Empty Clnwrn," "Nomenclature of Abandoned Thlnge," "City S tllllfe," "Deadennday," "Sou# lea Ponte de faria,' "Mourn* city," "Banal Dance," "Hou#e*Clty*I"Good Hews," "The Grand Clrc%i# o f th e Holy Q ho et," "Muelc H a ll," "Aeta H lelaen ,* "Mo- bile," "Bar," "Folies Bar," "The Sadness In the Morning," and ^T^e R e t r e a t . I t *a# publlabed In 1921 at "Het Slenjaal" In Antwerp in an edition of 540 copie#, Rene Victor and Oskar Jasper# did the typography according to ven Oataljen*s Inetruc* tlon# which f'skar Jeapera fetched fr 22 Dutch titlet Besette Stad. Dutch titles of parts* "Opdracht man Mijnheer Zoen##," "Bedrelgde Stad," "Da Obus over de Stad," "Verla ten For ten," "Menaam# Stad," "Holla Haven," "Bordel," "Zeppelin," "Lege Bioakoop," "Momenelatuur van Verlaten Bingen,' "Stad Stllleven," "Dodaaondag," "Sou# lea Ponts de Parla," "Rouestad," "Banale Dana," "Hula Stad Ik," "Goad Hlauwa," "Grata Zlrkua van de H, Qeeat," "Music Hall," "Asta Hlelaan," "Mobile," "Bar," 'holies Bar," "Da Trlestdgheid ' a Morgens,^ and "Da A ft© chi." 1 $ the publishing* About ‘♦Sous les Fonts de Paris* ven Ostaijen w rote to h is frie n d Baeyen## '•Of th is poem I am n o t su re whether I should kick it out. It is a half-mystical poem, deals about Christ. Yet it contains much occupied city and so I don’t know yet what I should do.”^^ The book la an acute observation of a group of war scenes around a city, observa- tlons which van Ostaijen undoubtedly had made during the time he was in Antwerp when the Oermans occupied that city. The typography of Occupied Citv is of an extravagant variety, some letters are more than an inch tall. Both the manner of observation and the typography show influences from Dadaism. Among the grotesques which van Ostaijen wrote in Berlin are; The Bordello gf Ika Loch (Iks Loch is a play on the word "logic") which was illustrated by Magritte, The Gang tb# T runky a romen-a-clef about European politics and "The Prison in Heaven," the story of a man who wee happiest in prison. In these he satirises the fashionable psycho-analytical, po l i t i c a l , p h ilo s o p h ic a l and a r t - h i s t o r i c a l humbug o f th e p e rio d . His prose is more the cerebral development of an argument than a narration, and both theme and style wmind us of Kafka. "The Frison in Heaven" reminds us of "Der Hungerk«nstier" for instance, but van Ostaijen wrote his story two years before ^ p. van Ostaijen, Versameld lerk (Antwerp, 1992-1956), I, 248. Versameld Hark is van Ostaijen'a collected works in four volumes; Foe try % and contain poetry, Prose % contains short stories and Prose II contains essays. Hereafter these will be cited as I, II, III or IV followed by the page number. 16 Kafka*# place ### pobllehad; other atorlea of both aathora alao aho» parallel# ehlch can only be explained by a alml* larlty of thinking. Aa regarda the almllarlty it la im- portant to note that van Cataljen eaa the flrat to tranalate any of Kafka*# atoriea before thla eaa done In Spain, Prance or Rnglend.^9 Hi# eaaaya of the Berlin period ahoe the aame critical aplrlt aa befora. They display a peculiar kind of dogmatlam ehlch can be llluatratad by the folioelng "bulla" ehich he aend to hie friend Jooatena. Excommunication of a member of mir Holy ApoatoUc Church in the region Antwerp by the name of Paulua Jo o a te n a , BOLLA Aa *e long with atrong dealre. aa our neede do desire, that the cubistic faith flourish and groe, especially in countries of disbelief and immorality, aa we want to broaden the borders of the Cubiotic Church, ao we declare in free decision the following through which be fulfilled our ploua dealre and promlae that a ll remnant# of heresy end the early heathen belief of imprsaalonlsm be rooted out ... and we decide that to our aorro# and grief, but to our happlneaa In serving the Holy Cubistic Church, Paulua Jooatmaa be expelled from the community of our Church Done at Halenaee ,,,, Pope Paulua Here he la dogamtlcally aerloua im dmseunclng his friend, but manage# at the aame time to smile at hi# own dogcatlam; 24 H. Uytteneprot, a Kafka scholar, discusses this relation- ahlp in Ijga yaa QgWAgO JÊD &UD (Rotterdam, 19^9). P* 1 )' 2 6 %noted In Borgera, p. 14. 17 thia paraâex 1# cawed by the fact that van Oataljen*# dog matic arguing aleaye led him to argue about his own tenet# so that he ended up a relativist. Im 192 1 van Oataljen decided to return to Antwerp; for eight day# he stayed with a friend and then he reported him self* Amnesty was granted but be waa immediately drafted and sent back to Oemny with the ara^ of occupation* He was atatlMoed near Ore fold where CampeMomk lived. Two years later he returned home to Antwerp. The death of his mother during the aame year broke his ties with home because he had no con tact with his fb her with whom *he lived under one roof, ate and drank at the same table and spoke —by way of speaking— btcause nothing else was possible, about conmon everyday thing , and even those when they were necessary and inevitable. In 1923 Josef Mule, a man with the ideals of William Morris, who had founded a Catholic monthly called J2& Vlaamae A rbeld in 1 9 0 5, asked van Ostaijen to take the place of the poet and writer Karel van den Cover. Since the disappearance of Ruimte. Dg Vl&amse Arbeid had been drawing the interest of the younger generation. Van Ostaijen accepted the place end in the last five years before his death he contributed aome seventy-five pieces to this monthly. Among them ie "Modernis- 27 I.E. Tralbaut, quoted in de Hoover , 1 6. 18 tie Foet*" %Aloh ended e controveMy that affected three mag- aeinea among %hlch *ae gg Arbeid. In the ertiele van Oataljen rejected the idea that there existed a collective Flemish movement and accused several critics of emotional instead of technical criticism , and of a lack of knowledge which caused them to fall in making necessary distinctions. Other essays include a review of some works of Cocteau, Vac- Orlen and Jacob, an essay on Campendonk, whom he considered to have developed in the right possible direction and of whcm he said that *'be observed as Kant thought,' and on f loris Jaspers whom he crltisised for having been too tardy in his developm ent. I t seems t h a t the name F lo ria J a s p e rs in "Homage to linger' was meant to alleviate the painter's feelings on that score. Although this Apiendship did not break off, another friendship did, that between the poet wies Koens and van Ostaijen.In a collection called Self Defens#^^ which contains work from the years 1923-1926 there is a piece called "Wise t'oens and I*^ in which he calls koens a romanti cist who was unable to go further than the humanitarian ideals o f 1 9 1 8$ and who was unable to und rstand that van Ostaijen after The Sjgnal had not gone back to sensualism but in Occupied City had done what was logically ineveitable* "The ik W " , p . 1 8 . 29 Borgers, p. 1 8. 30 Dutch title is the same. 19 nihilism of Qcc»pltd City cured roe of a diahonesty, which I Imagined to be honesty and of am extre-lyrieal stuck-up air. Afterward I became a normal poet, which is somebody #io cakes poems because he likes to do so as a pigeon fancier keeps pigeons. I have no claim to the medal of civic v i r t u e . "31 This statement shows van Ostaijen*s great personal integrity in doing what he considered the only right thing to do. How strongly he felt about this is shown by a piece called **Humbug and Sense of Reality," again from Calf Defense. Charlie, his little brother, mother and an aunt arc out walk ing and pass a balloon salesman. Aunt buys a balloon for the little brother but says to Charlie* **You don't want one, you're too big for that." "The true poet," says van Ostaijen, "is the Charlie who declines the honor of being a big boy but who says in spite of the proverbially correct opinion of the critics, *1 think I would also like o balloon.* The critics are angry. As if they didn't know what is proper for f harlie."3^ This is also the period during which van Ostaijen published his "pure poetry" to which belong poems like "Per ceuse presque Pegre" which appeared in a magazine for "inter national avant-garde constructivism" called ggS Overzlcht, 31 IV, 361 32 Ibid.. p. 3 6 8. 20 which was edited by Michael Seuphor, later a j^ibliciet of abstract art in Faria, and Josef Pesters, painter and promotor of modernism in Flanders. Poems of this kind van ostaijen was planning to pcbliah in a first "définit collection" under the name of First Book of Schmoll, the title of a piano book for beginnere * The same year he tried with Cskar Jaspers to organise a group of post-impressionistic painters and sculptors. He sent a circular letter to Permeke, de Smet and others but the enterprise failed*^* Also in 1924 van Ostaijen became book salesman in a shop called Iris, branch of the B. Sele Antiqueriat to Antwerp, hen in the next year Het Oversicht collapsed because of a break between Peuphor and Pesters the latter talked to van Oataljen and Du Perron about plans for a new magasins, Bfe' Srlehoftk, ; t the same time he met Gaston Bprseens, the only Flemish expressionist poet whom ven Ostaijen recognised, Du Perron and Gaston Burssens are the first and only literary 23 Dutch title* ami smrsiA W k z&a asAmBli. For orientation about Flemish painting it can be sold that Gustaaf de Smet and Constant i-ermeke belonged to a group called '"The Second Group of Latem" which contained many ex p ress lor* its ts , In 1 9 1 4 the group splits Frits van den Bergh and do Smet went to Holland: rermeke, Daeye, van de s oestijoe and Tytgat went to Eng^M (From* CAWgggg M zmmiixlg %2BX SÊT- .##rt [Brussels, 1957J ). 35 da Aoover, p, 1 7 , 21 friends van Cetaijen t © this triumvirate he devoted an article called '‘Eureaens, Du rtrron and |," in which he ssys that amidst the greet seriousness ef Dutch literature it is a lack of eerioueneea thich keeps them together; espe- ciolly since +seriou 8n e s8 ie a specific Dutch consodity," Me concludes; "Therefore Du Perron arc Eurssens, if %e like to see our praise in print, let us praise each other, because it*a useless to wait for other praise, &e*ll never be able to catch the Dutch seriousness (this Dutch seriousness, which is guilty of the fact t at Erussels, that lighter city, ass lost for Holland The same year he went to Brussels end with a friend opened on art shop, c&lltd "La Vierge Poupine," which lasted about a year. The selection of artists who exhibited their works at "La Vierge Poupine" illustrates again van osteijen's grcsp of what was representative of his time; insor, Magritte, Brueselmene, the brothers Jespers, Frit® van den Eerghe, de Smet, Picasso, Matisse, Derain, Braque, Marie Laurencin, Kandinsky, Klee, Campendonk, Kokoschka, Archipenko, Eroncusi onu others./.t the end of 1 9 2$ he started giving lectures —he aspired to becoaie a professor of poetry— of which one, 3u f o rg e rs , p . 1 8. IV, 373. 38 ûe Hoover, p . 20. 22 befpr# the nruseela alumni circle, "La Lanterne uourde," ie called "Directiona far llee of Poetry," In It he decribed GOwe of h l 8 poetical premi&ea which he defined In an eaaay, "Evidence of Parallela betae^n Modem minting and Modern ^oetry."39 There he zekea & dlatinctlon between "romantic' and organic'" expreaalonlmm, terme to which we w ill return l a t e r . The next year he needed a reat becauae of tuberculosis, und in the spring of 1 9 2 7, when be was trying to become a contributor to the Volkegazet and get a job at the tounhall of .Antwerp, be had a breakdow n.His friend Rene Victor took bim to a retreat and after a couple of month# waiting he was taken to the sanatorium Miavoye-Antbee between ’amen and Dinant. Hjs activity did not decline ; be wrote to Jozef Mule, Du Perron, Bure sane and Jeapera, and read the book# ana maga zines which they kept sending him. Financial aid came from bis brother Constant since his father would not help him, "the old miser" as Bursaens called him. At the end of the year Du .-erron came with plana for a new magazine. They decided to ct 11 it Avontuur and van Ostaijen wrote the introduction. He wGs sorely disappointed to find out that üu erron had decided uuich title s are consecutively; "QebruikaeanmijzIng der lyriek, iaralipomena" and "Froeve van Farellellen tùaaen Modem# Daeldende Kunat en Modem# Diohtkunat. " Borgers, p. 21. 23 on two minor figures #s contributors for poetry end criticism . He bad considered Du Perron as one of bis supporters and wrote to him: "I lost e vote today on which 1 counted and that should be enough for me for a ebile,* but he added: "All right, 1*11 go ahead without supporters," sod helped ^ith the admini- 41 stratlon and contributed some poetry. Kerch 17, 1 9 2 8, be wrote enthusiastically to Oskar Jaspers that he would come to Antwerp to spend the good months there. The next day he tas found dead in hie bed. Two days later he was buried by six inhabitants of the village anr his friend Gaston Burssens, who had come from Antwerp; none of hie family were at the funeral.March 19, 1932, he was buried nesr Ant- warp and NoV#Bb*r 8, 195%, he &as reburied officially in the Honorary Perk of the Antwerp Cemetery under a memorial stone designed by Oskar Jaspers. cl: Hoover, p. 24, 42 ibid., p. 2?. Ab can be *aid of m y first collection of poem# and c e r ta in ly o f th e poem o f s n in e te e n y ear old boy, the poema of Mnslc Hell shew an nnevanneae in content, style and out lo o k . fit their best they introduce the reader to the poet's awareness of hie inner self, hi# medium and the world around him. The themes of Mmslc Haljl vary considerably. The first poem, "Music Hall," from which the collection received its name, describes a single evening at a music hall. It con sists of five parts. The first part (four lines) describee the music hall with red and green lights waiting for the cus tomers. The second part (2 7 linos) describes how the music hall draws its visitors; the third part (249 lines) describes what goes on in the music hall; a danseuse, an old gentleman 24 29 in th« public thinking: Little dancerI little dancer, So many hundred per month, Be a little primceee, a little princese For eo much p e r month. So much saved p e r month, Often a email gift. Oh, mjf l i t t l e b e a u tif u l woman. Isn't that worth your love? And moreover. I'm no botheraome man. Per week I only come so many times, Mover any more, . I couldn't do it, the years do hurt me."*" Further on there is a movie, a juggler end the audience, which is like One living soul# Every person is another person, And all the others are again this one person. Who knows himself happy. Because he suffered with the heroes [of the movie] And in its soul ««the soul of all Bnited here in the Music Hall,»» Struggled for goodness, And was glad, when Momore « C owmnrdice d id win The fourth part (3 0 lines) describes the narrator's reaction to the Music Hall and the fifth pert (41 lines) describes what has happened when the people have le ft the hall# Thus the Music Hall is without soul. When the people Have left the house # # # The soul of the Music Hell lives along the streets. ^ I, 11. Translations are verbatim; the rhymes, when given, are the Dutch rhymes; in this case abab cdec fff. ^ ;bid.. p. 16. 26 Thousandfold la broken talking. The aoui baa baan torn to shred®, And haa forfeited Ite unity*3 A nother poem c a lle d «Remembrance*’ d e sc rib e s the s p e a k e r's love for all people in a park where he is taking a walk. Besides these two poems we find a poem about a bicycle (which enables the speaker to enjoy the spring landscape), about the age of chivalry (in which the l&dy for whom the battle is fought la seduced by *'the lowest stable boy”), about autum (which is either the season of "fusty sadness” because the sun goes away or is a happy season because the sunrmys make the speaker feel that «life, good as e mother, did pour/a horn of I"don* t*know»how"plenty/over the heart of the lost zhn/ as reward for his unthsnkfUlness" while before he had told himself "you shouldn't expect too much of life"^), about a relationship with a g irl, about being drunken and about a p assin g woman. Then th e re i s a group o f poems the themes o f which are strongly dependent on form. The text of two short exas^les is as followst low is of Californien gold the time; The dying sun gathers Its forces for a long trip, The last of that day, towards earth. There the sun for the last time Her dying woeful golden splendor , Has collected in a glass tram porch. 3 p . 2 0 . ^ Ibid.. p. 48. ^ Ibid. p. 68; rhyme is abbb ccc 27 @mA* Oto, #y «©111 1# pore «©und In thi® hour of pur* *ol©r; Sound* which tendril high , In a frantic garden of «cent#. we find thle variety «f theme# reflected In the poem* which have heen tranelated from lAieie "Young Spring" deal# ahout "brief happlne##" enjoyed with two g lrla, *^Song" belong# on the one hand to the aequemce of "Sew 1# of Californian gold W t, on the other hand* look# ahead to the poem# of F eaete p f F e a r and Aaony, and "It*# #o that past the boundary reflect# van Oetaljen*# Individualism which we find In hi# eeaaya. Although van Oetaljen*# vocabulary reflect# an Inherl- tance from the poet# of 1 8 8 0 (see p. 8) In such word# a# *aun thread**" "allken rain web*" "white virgin dre##" and "faran* dole*" we alao find that he Introduce# aom# neologiem# ( "tlngeltangeltingellng, " "«lemperslieren") and such modem word# a# "pennle#*" *"clnema*" "cigarette*" "bike*" "nickel*" "electric bulb#*" "tent*" "office" and "bordello." HI# Imagery still Include# "parental hearth" or "friendly hearth" for ^ Ibid. * p. 8l| rhyme is abab. 7 The translated poem# have been selected on the basis of t h e ir t r a n e l a t a b l l l t y (some good poem# a re n o t tr a n s la ta b le because of their dependence on rhyme and rhythm which cannot be transferred Into English), of their quality a# a whole (some other poem# contain better passage# but are lesa aucceae* ful In other parts) and of their representativeness. 26 horn# *nd much mmtaphorm mm "muabmmmm of hmpplDmmm,*^ m h e a rt mm "hmrd am m dlmmond, " ©r mm beautiful am m "very fine crym* t a l glamm," b u t we almo find give my heart like a tenmim- ball,** "th e g rey fa Ida of the mimt" end the **white»mmlled am ." Van Omtmijen im already very eonmcimum of rhyme end meter. He umem alliteration abundantly ("mchltterende achat- termnde praal") and we find fb ll rhyme ( "beapaard-waard" ), rim e riche ( "maand-maand"), ammonmnce ("vrouwtje-cadeautje" ), double rhyme ( "menten-prenten") and internal rhyme ("lije n gramg-vrijerm graag" ) ; in meter he either letm rhetorical accent coincide with metrical accent, am ini Qroene.hoepel© komen, l^W#rk4r%n l6me, , ' Oroeni h«#p%lm oraaien m dir lichtin la a i% ." or juKtapomem the word accent with the rhetorical accent, am ini Ook treurenlm 0& h d t ggbmda y ^ V&n i6 t niet im,9 Here and th e re occur# a wrenched accent am in; *Haar m ijn lle f d e ontetond/op men Herfmtavond." The î*egulsr p a tte rn of the lamt word im **Hwfmtmvdnd," The grammer of the poemm mhowm the following particular## He makes some contractions fo r th e make of th e form, much am "verrmaa** instead of "verraden" and "d'eoj^e hoop" instead of de enige hoop, ® I , 141 the f i n a l n drops off in every-day speech. 9 UiUIm p. 15. 29 He Inverta the eequence of parte ef speech In eeme cases a# in "van ton en van sen leatat gelak doorweven is de dag^ instead of **de dag is doo%**even van son en van een laetet geluk*^ (in Snglieh: Intervoven is the day" instead of "the day is interwoven We fii^ mn-on lines* "From my cigarette rises Salome, end also/Her veils are veven Arom the round smoke," and end-stopped lines as in "I can*t find my purpose for life, today/How difficult I carry the burdens of the day." There are many poems in which the lines consist of short parts of speech or even single words. Two exasqples are* Filterregen sljpel sacht In mijn hart u* kiaseie klaoht Kn ontmaoht, Me sacht, in de necht Die «* in purper wacht.*'' **• Juffer Lola, dit is vaar, Danst met stappen, a , Op hat klanken .. Van een lustige gitaar,** Also, the translated poems show van Ostaijen's capacity of utilising form* "Young Spring" receives its light irony from short sentences and diminutives t the rhyme and rhythm of “It's so that past the boundary •••" give the poem an ironic tone by emphasising iho friends' disapproval and the poet's 10 U iia., p. 69 11 im -. p. 73. 30 eotual happin#»#, an ampbaal# ableh la not loat through trazialatioa; unfortomatelj th# ## hb co rhym# of the Dutch vermlon of "Song" could not be maintained In Englloh. Van Oataijan'a outlook on life awaya from one extreme to anothw In %Maic Tht^ apeaker of Mualc Hall*^ and "Rmaembranca" feela a dlatlnct union with mankind, feela that being together *lth hie fallow*n ia^liaa a purpoaa of goadnaaa, while the apeaker of Autumn* feel# alone and la aatlafled with being alone becauae he find# a apecial beauty in hi# aolltude. The apeaker of uarrel with Oreta" display# a sort ef fatalistic attitude toward the Inevitabi lity cf a quarrel while the apeaker of "Retribution" haa great confidence In the goodneaa of life. Th# speaker of the "Bicycle Trip" feels happineaa and light pouring Into him, while the apeaker of "Boceur' and "Boredom" tries to cope with life*# enmii and darkneaa. Then alao the apeaker of "Return" feela hla growing love for Flamingantlsm and feela that love aa a support for hla unrewardlrg work, while the apeaker of the"Age of Chivalry," "Young Spring," and "Tune" la a relativist who feela that huswr will save him from life's harahneaa. Than there la a oat of poems which stand by itaelf becauae of Its lack of a clear viewpoint ("Evening," "Klee Lola," and "Song"). Of course, there have been poets yho have brought these extremes together, but van Oetaljen clearly has as yet no standard by which he dl^tlngulahes what 31 he want» to denounce or subscribe to. At this stage his poems are a record of a greet sensitivity, of the translations “Young Spring“ and "It’s so that post the boundary ...” are good exasiple» o f van O etaljen* e busior. Both poem# show a detached and light-hearted spirit which #e find in The First Book of Bchmoll. The *'Song“ is representative of the poems of the type of *îîow is of Californian gold ...." Some influences on the van Oetaljen of M usic H a ll are fairly easily discernible. Th# clearest influence derive# from Guido Sessile and Hermn Sorter . A few examples from Sessile which suggest van Oetaljen* a cadence of Greene hoe pe ls or "Ook tr e u r e n is . . . " are* De wlntermuggen sijn aan *t dansen, emaentomms, so wit als muidsrsmeel, so wit als molkenblomms. *#* »t m is van U h iem ed erw aard , geschildsrd of geschrevem, m ij, moederken, geen beeltanls, geen baeld van D g e b le v e n .^ And from G orter* '-ee I Zonder een rImpel, AUeen met de #impel Hoeg In de mast, dor ssnl^^ From Guido G azelle's Als da Ziele Lulstert (Amsterdam, 1944), 2-3 V>T>nm = Amk'W'* ' #d. P. RodsnkO (Th# 32 The f e e lin g o f u n ity w ith mmnklod me w fin d I t expreeeed in "Remembrence*^ may be tra c e d to J g le e Romaine* Ame ^ee (i$04) In whlch the latter expreeaee the concept that a group of Indlvlduala can have a alngle aoul; the concept etarted a aort of phalanatere in 1906 called "la Vie Una nime," Thia movement of "unanlmlam" wee atrongly influenced by ^hitman* a poetry which aaa much In vogue at the time end which amphaelaed the baeic good of hinaanlty. Another Influence on "Oh, my aoul la pure aound*^ la the principle of "correapon- dancea" which came from BatKdelaire; the piinclple of thia "mystic participation" cauaed an associative context to take the place of a loglcal-conetructlve context, something which van Oataljwi capltallaed on la te r,^ In Holland the reaction agalnat rhyme aa an %mdaalrable Imposition on language and the choice of vorda aa being too romantic had actually set in around the turn of the century (Thao Reeder, for example) but it la during the time van Oetaljen etarted writing that Arp purpoaely made the Image autonomous in the poem and that A. Kok and Thee van Do'^oburg (from "Do S tljl") did the same to aound. An example fro# Kok la* Da Domb Da Domb Da Domb ao M sà Da Domb Ï* Discussed by Rodenko, p. 11, 33 Da Domb , e- â î l s s à ^ In trying to determine where van oataij^n'* achievement Ilf8 in Music Hallf we find that he ie more successful in hie handling of sound and rhythm than in hie handling of metaphors, He depends rather heavily on such commonplace functional images as friendship compared to a "strong ta ll tree," a misunderstanding compared to a wall which is being built between the speaker and hie love or a music hall com pared to a woman "hiding the poverty of her body, but he is able to make them interesting, through his adaptation of sound and rhythm; for example, the following excerpt from a poem in %hicb the speaker goes to visit his girl* I am in the well-known street and count The houses past which I still have to go, so that I quicken # step, Because I feel close. I rin g And w a it And co u n t The tim e, 'T ie s t i l l In the street !':o complaint Through the solitude.^ The shortness of the second part suggests that the speaker is h o ld in g him b r e a th , b u t a f t e r a moment re la x e s and looks ^5 itiij.. p. ♦* I, 50; rhyme scheme is abab cdcefghe. 34 through the atreet. Hie e&rd cenaelouaneaa can be illuatrmted by ar example from of Chivalry" in vhich the lady aay# that only the knight who wlna "wil Ik dome necht, mla eoht»/ genoot," meening "do I want tonight a# huebend"; the effect 1 # created by breaking the eord "echtgenoot-huaband" In t*o parte, eo that "eoht" meaning "marriage" In "eohtgeooot" reoelvee Ite other meaning In Dutch which la "true." The re* eult ie "true companion" beeldee "huebend." Van Oetaljen'e humor la already well developed; It maybe aomewhat heavy In "Age o f C h iv a lry ," b u t i t le e u b tle r in th e eam& poem of above in whloh the narrator goea to visit his girl, when it turns out that she is not at home; he looks at the candy he la holding In hla hand and adds in brackets* "100 gram." We find the earns irony in the intermeeeo of the gentleman In "kueio Hall." Actually he le at hie beet when he Is ab le to rellnquieh his melancholy tone for a light and detached irony such aa we fin d In th e tr a n s la te d poeme "Young Spring" end "lt*e eo that paet the boundary ...." Another example is the last etanea of "Tune" «here the epecial rhythm of & light eong together with the reAraln "Palderidelne, r'&lderidom" lend the tune it s irony* Sometimes I have wiebed I were dead, Falderldeine, No* I hope that a new darling w ill b rin g new h ap p in ess in my h e a r t, Feldcridelne, felderidom. 39 %h#n %# coDëlder that at thia time hla atrangth ll#a in hi# a#ar#n### of the oouad and rhythm of language, it become# clear ^hy acme of th# boat poem# of lluwlc ^^11 a%^ poem# like "ITow la of Callfomien gold ... and tranelated poem like "Song"* because vhen capltallelng on eoond a d rhythm he la moat In commend of his materiel. 36 I t 'ü * 0 that past the boundary 3 etand, At which every normal man Does have to h a l t . Not long ego a friend did me rebuke, Beqauae It's past the normal --whloh to him is good-- that 1 do look. But fnte --or *hoY-- did want It Go, because for me uncommonness %as kept apart. Not I am uncommon b u t i t is my f a te of l i f e . ith my friends it was always the grestect longing After B great love, in the new spring. Rut my love arose On an evening of the fall, Ky great love just outside the town, In the wide park, by people —shall %e say the normal ones;-- entirely deserted, ky love grev strong in the cold winter,— L:ome very beautiful flowers grow then.— Thet's why my love is of a beauty infinitely fine, Although it be uncommon --perhaps regretted by that friend^of m in e .l^ 18 1 È M ., p . 57. 37 m m 19 In my heart a peculiar creature that dances a bimarre tango I did reeurrect,— I don't know how, so vague it ia— From an old oarcophmgua, vhlle it dance#, 1 hear it alnga ith motley mirw about melancholy-pregnant thing# 38 Young s p rin g 20 In the young spring— Oh, ho* foolish. No more myself I mansge-- In the young spring T%o little Jewesses, ry heart seduced And leed me to brief happiness. No* I go without s penny-* aemember in the spring ere we— olltarlly the streets along, Contents of my puree are gone. Like of noble states the treasury On the posters of election day. &hlle along the streets I wander. My entire capital I did Invest— Oh what fun— In dev from heaven Hoping that in the young spring I t may b ring me many d iv id e n d s, High because of large percents. p . 7$. Th# flrm t groupe of poeae from g&g aigM l# under the title **Songe of Real Llfe"^, i# introdueed »lth a quote from Suarea' Portrait d'Ibaen which aeya* ^ e premier homme en qutte de Dieu eat %m artiate. La recherOe do ie vie a A it le religiw et non la crainte de la mort .... Thia quote together with quotea from Llae l^aker-SohBler and Kurt H iller ("Held iat ear aloh opftrt, nleht war geopfert wird,*) indeed deaoribe the aplrit that pervadaa the entire collection. Th# themee are th e fo llo w in g . In vsummer Rein Song' th e rain which cleane the world before the aun cornea through ia compared to John who prepared the world for the t^eaaleh; after the %%ln ia over the sun looks over the defeated army of olouda. In *"Hvening Sun" evening ia c e le b ra te d aa b rin g in g 1 Lee Pio raphy, p. 9. 39 40 the enjoyment of veryday life' end »e bringing to life the eleughterhouee of llluelone, the tentacular malnetreet." "The till Song" ahowe ue that it la our divine task to be prepared becauee he"eho leevea the bridegroom of life outelde/ *111 etay eterlle fOr life," In "Song for M^eelf" the poet compares hla life to a boat which ha* to be navigated to the "rich harbor." In "Song" be eaye that "you have to fbel happi ness like a bath/you yourself are pert of happlne#* Gf a number of poem# devoted to van Gogh, Enaor, Elee Leaker- S c h d le r, chwob and Jammea, th e poem "V incent van Gogh" apeak# of a rt a# being "the all-overwhelming and all-encompaaalng love." The taak of life la to "tranaform everything, to torment, to k ill into beauty," and when "aufferlng become* llfe/iife ceaae# to be aufferlng." Finally, the title poem (conaiating of four part#) draw# in th# first part a parallel betwe n Christ and the Jews, and Chrlat and the Flemiah* But God was in hla eon the godliness of the resurrection; so God w ill ^ in our stnxggle for freedom.'^ Another part ("To a Mother") sayei Your son, dear Mother, fell not for the right cause, but hla blood was dletorted by all, becauae no more do we have human goodness. But I, we, we all are murderere of ywr son and every word like honor and hero Is acorn and . d e risio n .^ ^ 1, 135. 3 m a - , p . 139 41 Th# l* # t p a r t aaaerta* Me *ho ie called by GoJ to give the elgnal, he should gather first for forty days in the desert the force to find the image of God in himself* # e * The desert that ie the immensity of searching. There is no path, no track; the voice only says* 'Mere starts your life, find * th e p a t h .' Then there are sevrai poems of which the theme is love; to tills group belong tht t%o translated poems "^Desire" and "Lullaby of the reloved One." The imagery of the poems, as the themes already suggest, Is predominantly religious, we find this quality in a choice of words and names like "jubilation," "chastening," "Hosonnah," "Pethlehem," "Jordan," "Nazareth," "Paul," "David," "Tobias," hn," ^Baptist" and "Saviour," and in &uch metaphors as the sun being the Saviour and the rain being John. In "Song for liyself" and "The Signal" the temptations of Christ's forty days in the desert are either mentioned or alluded to. In "Song for Myself" the narrator tellB himself to trut^t his boat (first temptation* do not recoil from your task), he asks htmealf whether he is not following the voice of the Loreley (second temptation* do not misconceive your task), and he won der* whether his boat can be wrecked (third temptation: use the right method to achieve your goal). *The S till Jong" refera to the parable of the ten virgins as an admonition to be * m i x , p . 42 prepared for God, and n/lncent van Gogh," "Babel" and parte of the "Signal" all refer to one or more meanings of the re- eurrectlon of Chrlat. If not rallgioue, the Imagery is at l e a s t l o f t y and th e poeme have much a lab o red form th a t one cannoi anpprees the idea that the poet bad to force himaelf to give tiio entire collection Ita unanimiat ideal. The coming of the evening In 'Evening Song" la deacribed aa "the avenir^ vine the battle' and a atreetcar in Summer Rain Song ia des* cribed aa a poodle "which riaea fto? the water/carefully puehea aside the reed/aevea a fan of water grains." It ia the choice of superlative* and the use of the formal "you" that creates a 1< fty atmosphere in "Kvening Song * "The greatest glory ie vanity &nd small/but the amalleat atom of the life granted to thee/thou w ilt accept in thankfulness," The trans lated poems show the same long metaphors as for instance in "Lullaby for the Beloved One" the day ie compared to a vase of florera and the metaphor of the 'Esatem ilng" gives the poem its lofty tone. The emphaala on the content of %hs Signal is such that contrary to Kpalc #aii where rhyme and rhythm often took 8 place next to content, their role ia subservient In The lignai. Almost everywhere long vowels enhance the lofty text; notice the "ef "a-aa," "el-ij" and "oe-o sounds in the following example from "Apple"* Toon mijn ggen de rgnde vrucht hadden bekjtken 43 eo toen hedden b#jgrg^#n de eppel zoala bid eerkelljk mane^xl^ wme, to eo 0^ die vnicht* er is lete in de vg#k verl^ten bpomcaard van TKBt voorbjj J^a, d; t nu eerat ala goddelijk echo on ta beg%^%Jpan ^ a , amdat geao herlavan ean dfz# barlnn#rl/ g nog ^ varboDdan ia .' [Itallca mine] and aim llarly In **Summer Rain Song" the *'e-aa'^ and "o#-an" and the alliteration of the "g" and "r"; Wit gevaaaan vegan, atratao na omhalzlng, in vrangde an baruating naargalagan, boman dar boulavarda, berautao van da lavarKla taga, klara klaroanan. roaa van barlavanda lavan, rain van rainiglng.*^ In the tranaleted poems a find the aajna aubaarvlancy of form ee wa do in the other poame. Both "Lullaby for the Beloved One" and "Daaira" hove long santancea and novkera do %a find such coopération betvaan form and content (,a, for example, in the excerpt quoted from Wpaip Hal% on page 3 2 . Moat poeme have long llnea with the exception of * few aucb aa "Vincent van Gogh." The following lines are from the fifth part of that poem. The English text ia* "Chrlat, Redeemer. The Croaa/pather. ed all suffering.Ahen ha threw away the houaa/of his suffer ing." The throwing away of the house refera to the abandonment of the body at the resurrection. The poem ia one of the few example# of the aucceafUl use of form; van Csteijen placed "hat krula" so thet there is a natural emphasis on "het hula" . 1 0 6, I p * 6 6 . 44 Which no* get* the D*c*#**ry attention; Krl*tu*, V#rloa#*r» Het krui* yergaard* al het leed. Toen wlarp blj_^eg bet hula van aljn laad.' Another example of the a&me la; de aoua-chef aiet in aijn brilleglaaen hoe achter hem, bij het eanateken, da groene llckten even nljpen en danaen, kort-breed: reverence en crinoline,** In %hich the word* *'danaen" en TeveMnce" rhyme *lth the reault that "crinoline" receive* the emphaala. A very good e?am le of ho* van Oetaljen links together the parta of a poem can be found In *The 9 tlll Song' where eaaonance, me trical and rhetorical accent work together; Vcor de rovtelete ma&l heb Ik B otticelli over het land elen g&an, die bloemen zaalt, tn wear atrek^en de boman hnn geweldlge bottende takken, levenadrlft die de Japanneaen beareoen. Da avond weerhoudt zlch te vallen. de menaen haaa- ten aich in dit jong getlj, arme achelpvlaaere met da elide hoop; tana %al da vloed hun rljkdom zljn. Da hulaevlakken an hun toonprojekalea, die aljn de afatend tueaen hun an mij, verdrlngen mij naar het dlepat van mijn mevet^n." [l tallca lainej Aa waa noticeable In th* example from 'Vincent van Gogh van Ostaijen a till uaea run-on and end-etopped llnea. ^ U W . , p . 1 0 3 . ^ Ibid;, p. 92. ^ ijbiÛa, p. 104. 45 Be * l 8 0 e till inverta the eyntax of his eentencee me in the following line: Ik elechte vaaK *eet mijn leven incompleef' instead of ' wijl ik alecto veee mijn leven in- compleet weet" (it&llcü mine). In determining ven Oetaljen*a outlook on life in Muaio Hall, ee found that one of hie dilemmae wae whether to be unenimlst or Individualiatic, In The f^lanal he emphasize# unanlmiem with all the possibilities at hie command; the unanimiat dream returns everywhere* To be wind, onà bio* in the tree, in all trees, The world ie brimful of goodne##^ Oh young man, who goes yonder, oh Lrother, oh.^ my equ&l $ »* Sing the glorious song of the Internationale, but don't do this while d4M%y:b%g e*K& other's ethos, but in understanding it, that is to love. Judge the Germans aecoMing to their ethos and the French according to theirs; # a e Understand the old race of the French spirit, which still grows in the ever-renewing shfdOA of the c&thedrals of Chartres, of Reims and of Rouen; Understand the yjung sp irit of Germany %hich ia_ looking for room;4j Ibid., p. 119. Ibid.. p. 128. 12 m id., p. 117. 13 Ibid., p. 147. 46 B* even goee #o far aa to call the lighte of the ahope in .A the main atreeta the * imagea of beautiful aecurity of exla- tence amidet the great doubt of the evening,or to cell the people who return ffom work ^en unknown army agalnat thoae who oppoae their righteoua march, Thia aort of imagery might au"geat that the a,eaker of The Uianal fully managed to be *^8ucked into the atream,/the powerful, the renewing;/ aong of my father whitman, aong of the Mlaelaalppi/aong from an &ng- liah aallor tavern, paalm of noatalgia and longlngl*^ But thia ia not quite true. On the one hand, he ia obliged, once he haa taken hla atand, to critloiae thoae that cannot be in- eluded in hie new world and he calla the people in a cafes Blaae raataa; next to them homely A t belliea— a ll appearance again— ladlea ever nicely winking; ell Babel builder* of the aame drivel profouodneaa.^? On th e o th e r hand, i t io h ia humor which cornea through, a l - though encumbered by his serious missionî Hunting for riche#, unting for glory, hunting for lo v e , eapecially ntlng for love, opened again by royal d ecree, * # * the newly rich butcher, virgin body coveter, pay# with a aupper, a bowtie and a hat, aame ayatem a# that of the clviliaera in the ^opice: for hunting is unting and hunting ia opened.^ The attempt at unity of form and content in The Signal m i - . p. 19 Ibid.. p. 1 1 8 | "raata" come# from "raotaqueur"; i.e ., a man living richly from obscure or unknown financial means, I , 9 5. 4? prevented vmn Oetaljen from reaching the level that we were looking for after having read the beet of Kuelc Hall. The metaphor® of The are too heavy; in the poem "Joy” he eaye* ”A carriage could go over my body/thle could not even hurt #y joy,” or In ''Summer Rain 3ong”% "Villagee em braced In the deelree of the wind/forgotten and thrown away after pleaeure;/loo#e, soft careaeed wheat head of helr/of the beloved one.” Both his humor and hia eenee of rhyme and accent are drowned In the lengthy llnea. For instance, if we coneider the tranelated poem "Deelre” we may aeaume from auch iforda as "beauteous babe” (the translation maintains the con- notation of the Dutch worde), ”%Khlte bed” and "kleaed the pillow* that an ironic tone la meant, but it la lost in the lofty Imagery of the second and third etanea. An exasq)le where rhyme and meter beat cooperate with the theme are the first lines from "Song”* Heel licht la het geluk; niet aaam te dringen. Earn woord is noolt so licht ala 't wel bchoort; vle%%els die wljd opengespreid aljn, trillen in da ^ lu o h t, maar afstandloos van de huizen, waaleren open, in brader vlucht en verdwijnen sonder spoor. Maar het geluk b lijft eanweslg, el is gesn spoor ook merkbaar,^* In Fngliah* *Very light la happiness* not to compreaa. A word/ ia never aa light aa should be/wings widely spread, flutter in the air/but without distance from the houses/fan open, in I b i d . , p . 1 2 1 . '46 *ia*r fllght/erd dl#*ppear tracelee#. But hepplnese stays there/preeent ev#n though no trace le noticeable." The year of publication of ^\be Signal la also the year of publication of van 0 #talj#a'#*article "Expressionism in Flanders." Mere van Cst&ijen defines what the new art —and rightly so in nis opinion— tries to dox The work of the impressionists mss the sum of object plus its subjective interpretation after a sensual end consequently limited investigation. ... The expressionists have e greater appreciation of the value of the object. The object as a means of oommunlcstion between subject and spectator --it is as such that the bourgeois opinion of art attaches so much importance to the object— has dis appeared completely as absolute necessity. The object re ceives its greater value from elsewhere, although in ex pressionism it is seldom fully objectively communicated in its entirety and according to its outer proportions; the great value of the comxaunicated object as "Idee an sioh** n o t only keeps on e x is tin g b u t on the c o n tra ry a f t e r centuries of neglect is brought beck by this conception of art. The i*art nour I'art formula is an elevation of esthetics to cover a complete leek of ethics. ... The inner socialist spiritual communion was replaced by an outer formalistic beauty. ... The 1*art pour I'art formula was actually a compromise through which the artist could believe in his independence necessary for hie vitalism , without this independence being so complete that it could hurt the bourgeois ... in hie sovereignty,... Impressio nism gave the objective expression a shortly analysed Im pression, while the reverse is now becoming of primary importance, i.e. the subjective expression of an impres sion aimed at synthesis. This as far as the artist la con cerned. As far as the public is concerned this subjective expression, comix% from the artist, has to operate through a synthetic impression. In impressionism the objective expression operates through investigation of the episodic correctness in the treated subject, which is an analytical operation. The subjective impression, on the contrary, has to effect a synthesis in the spectator, as the word "table" evokes the object "table" and a color immediately evokes a psychological value (suffering-happiness). This is the first method of understanding the subjective impression. The second possibility is to find the Inner necessity of the forms end colors, which amounts to the spectator's adaptation to the essence of the creating subject. As far 49 me the epectster le concwned, the œeâiu» between the immediate etrlklngnee# of * repreeemte* idee and the re- eearoh after lamer motlvee 1# gone; the media* which 1* impreaelonietlc critlclem . at the aame time accepted by the bourgeoi* art taate, le the iatellectaal eeerch efter the etyllalag value of the artiat. Thua we aleo have eub- jeotlvla* In Impreasloalom but It# #%pre##ien Is deter- mined by external neceeeity, i.e. the generally recognlaed end traditional standard. ... Cublam, futuriam and Expre#» aioniam together with the politico-philoeophical and llte- rary activism represent the spiritual as opposed to the materialism of the bourgeois, or in a general art-histori- cal sense, the ideoplastio after centuries of physio-plas tic .... Isyressionism is something beautiful like a work of Renoir, that ia all* something beautifbl one doee not rant to possess nor be. Admiration but no love. Impressio nism is intellectualisme it does mot affect the heart, ... then the public no mere tests a work of art on allowed art stereotypes but only tries to understand the life of the work of art* when it understands this work of art as a living being, like anisml or plant, and when it makes the logical conclusion that the spectator, in order to approach this work of art, must put his mind in the place of the supposed mind of the work of art, then it has made a simple but necessary step# As people are carried sway by a musical not because of external content, but because they really put themselves in the spirit of theirnheroes, so they will h VP to understand a plane of color. In other words, van Ostaljen* s criticism of the impressionist artist is that he did not take the wrappings off hla object, wrappings meaning the social connotations *hich both artist and spectator attached to the object* consequently, the l*art pppy l'a;*t formula did nothing but emphasize these social connotations which is a repetition of appearance rather than essence. Van Ostaijen rejects the analytical perception which is preoccupied with appearance and substltutus a synthetic perception which is preoccupied with the essence vf an object* IV . 11-21. 50 tble ia tne *ub#tltBtlon of tb# Ideopiaatle for tb@ p%y#lo- plastic* Th* r##ult ia \Jtiat the apaotator has to abandon all hope of finding familiar connotations %hen entering Into a %ork of nrt in order to understand it. The connection between the spectator entering into c %ork of art an^ the a r t i s t entering Intc th e common Id e a l o f humanity It obvious, but the connection It baaed on assumptions too hopefbl for a man ae relativietlc aa van Cataljen. 5^1 T het 8lowly will cloao the lido of your eyoo to carry the languid imlimt of our might. Like timorou# white vaee# ha# been our day vaeeo, which happily airaaged the flowere of amoroue play. Row you'll go to eleep, my eoftly loved child. for your eyea muat open tomorrow: a freeb leer trembling in morning breem#. Mow you'll go to eleep, my eweet child, in the valley of your h a ir ; eoon it w ill be day and w e'll go gathering bouquet* again. Tomorrow an Eaetern King w ill come, with, for both of ue, new bridal olothea; him, arm in arm, like children in a wood, we'll be awaiting b o th . Do acuint your ayee now. my weary leopard end Btretch your loine to }our delight. Acb du, ... du. 19 I , 106. ^2 20 Lany m beauteous babe through the dumb loftg nl^ht for the naked presence of her lover pitifully tried, she kissed the pillo* in the large emptiness of her white bed, &e if she wanted to lull asleep hi# weary heed. I er head as anxious amidst eild scent of hair, her arms grasped in fearful desire for that uncertain joy that did not offer Itself, as a bitter order to her desire, through the night non-r^elstent door--. Her fingers caressed the body's nakedness end shl ered; her own body which was left unsatisfied and tired, concealed by this caress, thr night like a single living breath, q u iv e re d . Her breath was dissolved in the breath of night, her desires languished Into final sleep. lany a brsuteous babe in the heavy, s%ü.try night. p . 113 The content# of OecBoleA City can all be gathered from the individual titles of it# part# (see p. 1 3 ), but with Feast# of gear and A^eny we do not arrive as easily at a topical sense of what the collection has to say. The latter Is a collection of very mystical poems which try to arrive at a sense of world order which encompasses both murderers and housefathers (*"The Kurderers")* and which encompasses both a conscious @od outside our#el\m# and an unconscious God within wars elves ("Barbaric Music"), Thus we find that "Fatalistic Tune" tries to go a step stothsr than the "Song for My#elf" of The Slanal, in which life Is compared to a boat and in which the speaker relates Christ's three trials in the desert to the nevi#tion of his boat} in "Fatalistic Tune" the speaker enters into the possibility that his boat Is wrecked} i.e . whether he used the right method to achieve 93 $4 him divin# tamk. In the Trlm r# Impromptu# 1-3" th# poet mmmrohem f o r the God m lth in hlmm elf whom he le not able to fin d because, while he is bound to the tree of good and avll,** be cannot find the reason of the fall, in other mord# he doe# not know where he is being tempted. In **Song d*' he trie s to make h im se lf susceptible to th e 11-beginning s t a r t . " The words of Ooennied City are from a ll aspects of every day life and the words o f F e a sts of Pear and Asonv are predom inantly sexual < "whores," "birth," "afterbirth," "im pregna tion," "monthly period," "bellies,* "breasts," "hips," "thighs" " f le s h ," "sterile," "vaginas," "nude," "naked," "sex," " le s bian" and%omose«ual") or religious and mystic (Christ, Dio nysos, Logos and Eckhardt). Although the Imagery of Fasmta of Fear and Anamr is distinctly different, some of the flesh imagery has been carried over in to Oecusied City, such as the "balloting breasts football bellies" in "Threatened City,* In neither work are there any sim iles. Instead, one image follows after another, witness the following passage from Feasts of Peer and Agony, describing a fight between a mur derer and his victim: shoes shod with iron a re s o lid firm shot in the belly l e t go l e t go L e t go eighs c o lla p s e s softly % collapses the guard'*’ 1 I , 158. 99 In order to moke o otmtemont about rbymo^ motor or oyntox, #o hove to look at wb&t von Oootmijon doe# typogrooblcally. Kelthor vork boo any punctuation except a very fo exclamation and queatlon marka. Occanlad City lo dona in auch a wide va riety of typographical device# that no copy *111 do th e poem# juatico unie## it be a facalmlle copy; in eome caoea the text repreaent# an exact reprint of the text# found in advertioe* monta (ouch aa th e e n t ir e u n it e n t itle d *1timmel*a Na* Coame* tique" in the tranolated poem ''Order to Mr. So-and-So") or nevapaper headline# (ouch a# "3ieg%" at the end of the trano* la ted poem *Threa toned City," ehich ia printed in letter# of one inch oioe)# The typewritten copie# of the tranalated poeme try to make all the neceaaary dlatinction# %here poosible. In Feaata gf, EddiC Aconv van Oataijen uaeo oeveral colored ink# and different oiae# of writing; in the tranolation foot note# give the naceeoary informât on. In creating a *^rhymed" %mlt, van Oataijen make# uoe of aaaonanca, a# for inotance the "e" in the following quote from "Threatened City," in which the oeparation of the fira t ayllable from 'Sxoduo'" create# the e f f e c t : y s OD E Aitijd %n#en 2 oonderllng owkrlonetteopal van God de Veder , [italic# mln^ Eloewhere in the aame poem we find that aooonance, cmoonance ^ I I , 34. end typography serve to crests contlauity* ^KKsrsen KNoken gfameleD &ibben,^ ehieh em# trsnslsted* ^Washing Klfuokles Settling gibs. In Ocoanied Cltv typogrs by is more a device to crests oomtlnuanoe of e unit than in Feasts P*sr and Agoov. share *# s till find some of the methods of The Signal* eltness the following example in which the rhyme of "meer" and *hew*' creates the relationship betwetn the two images (English text: "%here there is a golden chain there le more/ stab yell blood bears gold/the yell is fearfhl gold notes of the state bank/best hits the knife an intoxicated gentleman): sen gouden ketting is is meer steak gil bleed heart goud de gil is bang gondnoten van de rljksbank Best treft hot mes sen beschonkan haer^ As for a# accent is concerned, van Ostaijen juxtaposes metrical, ehtorical and word accent very intricately and every page provides examples. An example from "^Thraatened City*" where rhetorical and metrical accent csinoide is* "wrak* ken ante's rU ten dw*kare lappen van de nacht" (Knglish: "wrecks antomobilea tKAr dark patches of the night") where the natural accent both in English and Dutch fails on the verb; an exemple of a wrenched accent would arise in a word lik e "makaBBRe" where th e n a tu ra l word a c c e n t f a l l s on the second syllable instead of the third* Syntactically, van Ostaijen creates his Images by both 3 I , 196. ÿ7 rmgular and Inverted order of perte of op*eoh, end by let ting noune, edjeetivee, adverbe end verb# etend by tbemeolvee, gremaatloelly bat not poetleelly unrelated. Thie eevee him from having to make oentencee ehlcb dietrect the reader'# attention from tht central image# Here too he uee# typojgra- phy extenelvely. For example; In the evening g a th e r# a nevepeper women th e piece# of a cracked heart which dropped from a car* The reeult of thie method i# that "in the evening" aleo belong# to the pert that went before, that "gathera/the piecee/of a cracked Iwart" become# a unit and that "in the evenirg/e newepaper woman" become# a unit# If van Oataijen want# a ll part# to etand by themaelve# he put# them centrally; in the depth alt# quartet aound# whirl not in depth a tay v An example of how effective thee# device# can be; IhuaBg a country all it# leg# dump# a country a ll it# arm# dump# a country all it# araenal# all copper iron tin a ll ooldier# button# all that it find# dump# a country^ ^ ikU", p. :8a# ^ ibid*; P' 180# 6 I I , 39. 96 Both Emc mnA Silx «r# « reaction agalnet th# unanlmlam of Twe f^lcnaly the former of ahlch GhowB a eeerch for & deeper truth eithin oreeelf and th# latter ehora e aearch for aoclal truth. %hen van Oataijen arrived In Tserlln, tro Rovenenta »ere thriving; Dada, vblch bed juat etarted, and exprosolonlna, %hlck had reached Ita creative peak during the laat ye era of the var. Dade exerted greeteet Ixifluence on Occupied Gitv end it la a apeclel eepect of expreacionlrm »blch ye find In Peaata of Fear end Aaonv. W# find thia deacribed In an introduction of Ltto Kann to Oxpreationiamua* Fa eebelnt dam geblldeten keoachan aelbatverat&ndllch daaa er nlcht mehr B#llglon$ aandem elne philoaophlacbe Weltanachauung bealtat Der Dlchter erfahrt alch aeltdem auerat ale valtanachaullge# Offanbarungaorgan und aeine Dlchtimg ala Mediim, vorln alch Weltalcht m anlfeatiert, Vor dleaer nauen, glelchaam rellgloaen Sendung dea Dlohtera tr itt die Aufgabe dea Sunatlerlachen Geataltena surdck. Ea erachelnt elchtlger vaa er offenbart ^1# *1* er offenbert# ... Der Expreaeionlat aucht weltan* achaulig %u dam nlchtadkularialerten kenachen aur&ck,... Der Kenach aoll "hier" daa Belch dea alch aelbat- gehdrenden Nenachen errlchtwi# ... Der Bxpreaalanlamua let elner la ta ter radlkaler Veraoeh dea Verhdngnla da modemen adkularlalartan Kultnr durah dan mataphyalaehan Beaug daa Kenachen aof elne wleder al# fRet&physlach begrlffena w irkllehkalt dach vom Manaehan her au bannen. Seine Thaaa la t nlcht Gott, aonderm der metaphyalach arfBllta und baaagta Manach. Die klrchlloha Rallgian achaint Ihm auf dlaeem Wega ain Ramnla; die Elrcha achaint ihm au dan Tradltlona Ordmungan au gehbran* die nlcht mahr Gefeaaa dea uraprungllchan rallgicayi Labena aind. ... Ea glbt ain neuar Nut aur Dlchtung.^ Lat ua take another look at Peaata jEBAC &0l Aaonv and at 7 a. Prledmann, 0. Bann, ad., (Heidelberg, 199b), pp. 11~26. 29 what called a d##p#r truth within oneaalf. The speaker, Kho la in eeataay, flmis within himself anether aelf which has the appearance of a wcman and which frentlcly "dances everythlhg a#ay"$ my feet are different shape# which 1 do p lay to the law of myself so a re my arm# #y belly which challenge# itself I who watch the dear that d&ncsa end that am I* When finally the real self stabs a knife "between the breasts" it dies because "the dance dies" and the speaker*# last word# are# carry me aw#y as long Q 6 0 my body is warm^ The distinction between the body and its heat Is related to the watching aelf and the da#%ing aelf. The dance originated in fear# my for fear of the word fearing life in fear dancing body,^® which is fear of an %mcontrollable power in spite of which one has to live (the murderer# are afraid of the police, the gentlem an 1# afraid of the murderers, the dancing self is afraid of the body which it wants to "tear to pieces/till the/body/hangs in rags") or better* * I , 194. ^ W a., P# 199. 10 Ibid.. p. 245. 6 0 FEAR IS the danoe of the things.hli that h«ve become toward on - becemlhgJp il The meaning ef the dene# 1# that It lead# te the ne* leeo# ( Ipmem - e e rd , a# In " in th e beg in n in g *a# th e word**) o f o n e a e lf: Dancing la being Impregnated being pregnant tim id ity of the word which became f e a r dancing la being fall belly of the seed of the merd^ The old logo# haa loot it# valne becauae "all becoming ha# un*beoome/ln the Being Verd,*^ or eleeehere "%hat ia bom /ia deed," The old lemo# and the nee loco# interact and the higheat unity ia where "th# BLirX: of «11 things is striving Sot to Be/to BF I:' NOT TO BE." Thia aayatlclam, the aexual Imagery and the amntloning of Chrlat and Dionyao# together, make# clear why van Oataijen #aya# ppofeaaora, here ia the le#t gnoatic he oMokoe a cig^krette while he pertnkea of the ^chariat and y e t and y e t I would like to be nude*^ In the tranalationa we find thia gnostlolam in Priera Impromp* tue 2" where Christ and Dlonyaoa are linked in the aeereh for II itiii. p. 2 ? ; . “ i m - , p . 243. P ' 2 3 0 , 61 the "light of Qoa," or Ih "Song 6" where the epeaker eqmtee the abeence of th* knoeledige of good and evil with phyeical nudity. In order to decide whet the outlook of life ie in OocAiDied City we can ooneider th* trmnelationa which are repreeentetive of the entire collection. What above wee celled * eearch for eocial truth ie found in the juwtopoeition of eucb event* ae the huildix^ and ehooting down of cathédrale, in putting together the rom ntic eong "Puppohen du blet mein Augenetirn" with a deecriptlon of torn bodiee, or in ehowiog the conqueror* waiting before a brothel; the truth which the epeaker eetabllahee in thie manner reveal* a mieanthroplc o u tlo o k which doe* n o t c u e e tio n God b u t r a th e r ehowe Him a* a protector of brothel* and ae a collaborator, Ae a reeult, in looking for van Oataijen** humor in Feaets of Faaf and Aconv or Occur led gjLÜT* ^ farmer, and a himor not fhr removed from cynlclem In the eecond; witneee euch line* ae **tell me eonge and I w ill te ll you/whether/you left the city or wma," and * poeter of the "Grand Circua of the Holy Ghoet" announcing "the appearance of Religion, Emperor and Htate, the World Pamoue Trlo."^^ During the earn* year in which he published Occupied City van Oataijen wrote a menifeato called "Et Voila" for a megeeine Sleniaal. Parte of that menifeato follow below* ^ I I , 91. 62 The content 1# dotormlnod by the enbjectlv* vleion, by the view point of the ertiet. From anelyele the contente of & vork of ert cannot be approached coiqpletely. The content ha# no expediency for the epeotetor or the reader. The content of the work of ert cannot be defined or explained. The content either 1# there or it la not. Coraecuently it cannot be avoided that eoM w ill imeter the fore of a certain achool of art while eeaentially they have nothing in conmoR with it. The fira t premlce ataya: the vialonary or aynthetic energy of the artiat. T)s# graaping after end the graeping of hannena^ Thia greaping can only be aynthetic. coamicly Intuitive; not analytical, not acientifioally dividing. It ia going to tht laat atop of the intelligible. There ia the K^onder which can be underetood only rhfrn the Wonder entera into the eubject and the aubject into the wonder* The higheat form of art la Ecataev. Form end content ahape cn indlvi- aible whole In the work of art. If we conaidAr fcrm and content aa aeparat# elementa then this happene only aa an aiding ewaatructlon for criticiam . In reality form and content in the work of art cannot be aeparated. The content la not related to the form like ceuae to effect, aa criti cism ueually thlnka. In the work of art the form dose not dete%%lne the content any leas than the content does deter mine the form. In the completed work of art nothing la left of thia cauaal connection. The work gf art d luiitv. T^e *ork of art it cloeed and without beginning like a circle. work of art la an organiam. The work of ar^ Id & llvin& beinjg. Aa euch It ie itaalr^ individual in the firat aenae of the word* in itaelf. unidlvisible. ThPt l 3 why the taek cornea out of the artiati deindlvidu- aliaation. Becauae the work of art haa to be an organiam through itaelf end ie ao in Itself, Aaeity, Thet'a why a work of art haa to be determined by ita own matter and spirit and not by law of a foreign body and foreign apirlt, ... Poetry ia word art. N^t the communication of emotions. But the form of the %ord does localize the vision. Certainly not communication of thoughta. Po*try commonication of thoughtof thy not* poetr% a morality codex in rhymel A carpenter h&a to make a good table* Mot a moral table, not an ... ethical table. The same way kfith the poet. Only the poem which ia good in the aenae of poetry juetlflea the poet's existence. IRthlcally the poet meets the phenomenallty lA&mm, but ogi% hla viewpoint* Hthics are in every artiat'a attempts* attempts for de-in- dlvidualisation. Printed poetry ia printed word art. Thua the poGslbilitiea of the print aa related to word art can be fully utilised, for example# the rlae and fall of the lines, thin and heavy letters, caaoedea of falling words over the page, even different typea of letters# many means which e%%geatively represent in typography the rhythm of the apoken word. Bridge* from poet to reader. Aa a mean# tp mak# the reedtog parapa a readar. Thera la no eeadamy DP higher inatltutlon where p o e try la taught teofmlcally. Thia #puld ha fortuneta, If It #ar# not already a mlafor* tu n e . I t It a mlefortu&e tacauce gradually the opinion haa grown that poetry haa nothing to dp with atyia. Art o f course ban nothing to do %ith style, every locn- llaatioa of art, and thua poetry, doea .... In poetry, poaaa are n tlll generally made according to a precon ceived framawprk, or the rover## when there lo no framework, hut thon there ie no tenaion. Ty,e extreme# are choaen inatead of a ayntbaala. The poet put# tiie word# in their place —nnd exactly beceuu* of that, not in their place— end the## word# Immediately become rigid. T],#y do not contribute to determlnlii^t; th t further development of the poem. They have no independent power, no dynamo. Or the reverae, when they do have dynamo, but then It 1# not within the field of activity. In the first c&ae the ^ord# are deed and ore treated like hearse#. ^ ?ord can give a different direction to the development of the poem. ert criticism jkcnerelly balances between the extreme# of conventional tnve#tigetlpn and lyrieal auto-paycholegy. Criticism le initiation. And not a oonfcecion of the criticaster. Criticism only has to answer two questions. Th# question after the visionary In a work (the spiritua* lletlc content) and the question of the equivalent tech nics! realization of this vision in the work of art. Together tpvsa"d a balance of vision and formal reallzatipn. It rami ins pouaible to approach c work of art intuitively with nnother method. Thl* method again 1 # creative art end no criticism , Thia method belongs to poetry; the theme of the poem is simply th# artiat or s work of art. kodem art criticism combines both posoibllltlee* th# critical-aoalytical and the #ynthetic-lD:^ltive. It bring# a bad coem Instead of logical criticism »*)[1 tollcc of the au th o r] Here van Oataijen is 1### concerned with the spectator than he wa# in "Expressionism in Flanders," his emphasi# fall# on the "aaeity" of the work of art, a term which he borrowed from the Scholastic# and which means "existence in itself." By this he jsean# that a work of art ahould not be dependent on laws of either artiat or spectator, but on laws inherent 15 111, 64-90, 64 to the essence of th* object; the eearch for theee la*# ie & proceeo of de-iadiviuoali*ation. Thie in a logical ueveiopment of the eeaoy of 1918, but a new concept ie that of the artiat a# e oraftaman, like a oarpcnter who ahould be conoemeh eitii nothing el## than making a good table. It ie the concept of or&ftamanahip which .*111 receive all his attention in the following year#. 65^ C ri*# en scrip t den# by as hsnd I kns* yen Qsws#le##_ Msn# T h sk sl* / pbsnogrsph sf the bsrb#ur#ld# psrodlsn V # % 0 ## 1 # e t s #msel#t#d land #maei#t#d p#opl# ## snrg# en th e sa s # r# ek fleatlng «r#ok Isn 't thsr# any shelter for wrecked people wreck float see boiling r o a r do®»*®^ 1 8 beautiful it wee once someone played BACH in the n e x t room The wind blew the mreck again in sea smog of the wreck rocking eong me and you ebb and tide live and decease re c k in g song rock the silence FEAB Of my wrecked being I, 200# The mnuacrlpt of "Fatalistic Tune" is written in black ink with the exception of the words "Crimson," "MSne T hekel" end "beautiful ••• worn," which are written in re d . The name "Mane Thekel" seems to be a light bulb advertise ment in Antwerp: it is mentioned ae such in "Evening Song" in Th# sianal as "letters of the eternal 'Mane-Thekel-Pharee* of days and of light." ^ "Roar-doom" ie in % tch "loeien-doemen" in which the vowels are sim ilar. ^9 The order of parte of speech is in Dutch; "Blew the wind the wreck ,#,," while the actual order in Dutch should be as it la in English; "The wind blew the wreck 66 my voie# mmrmly fmr not myoolf 1 almay# f#*l the tun# of th# rocking #ong of th# wreck wmv## t h a t gnaw rod an t# ggawlng T##ui in my yi##h in my waak lo in # wav## gnaw q. bar# my fora##^ i a tm g g la ao atrugglea a wrack to th# ahor# % a tru g g la myaalf to daath ra c k in g aomg about j^a daad w r # c k«l 20 gnaw bar# my force#*’ la one aantanea; "bar#" might b# a varb In Engllah, but In Dutch It la dlatinctly an adjac tlv a . "About th# dead wrack" la on# phraaa; th# Inflection of tl* adjoctlv# "dood-doad" ahow# thia In Dutch. 67 My houme le in th# plmlm# and pratactlwi I t 1# cald wlthlm my hau## th# mlnd blom# to death th# laog>*# light and th# #no# whirl# #n #v#n cold#r tua# la my hoa## plala# In th# plain# ohlld I ###k ta #h#lt#r th#r# 1# no ooroar whar# I can ahivar wall I t la nad# CVP I 'l l tak# @od*a g ift 11k# a graat happlnaa# and th# of anffarlng"- h# who 1# th# gat# ta what la not limited by a gat#*» I tak# off my lip# and drop# ont of my ahlld band# broken Such 1# th# nudity of my hou## without auf faring or joy It i# unlimited not Infinite thua I am a ball In th# play of evil wall# which are hopal### beoaua# th# way to God 1# God h lm aalf EmtYmma i sEs Tm mm) op ooD which proportion# and meko# me a allant prayer before th# dmab ##a and th# cry of thing# which are nolael### PRAY GOO to give th# cup which cannot b# refbaed It a tlll dropa out of ay hand# fearlbl am I and atrang# to m# thia imknown ev en t a tlll th# agony la not auch that I apprehend apprehenalonleaa in th# mlaunderatandlng of agony and joy S till do I flee from oneneaa to twoneaa 30 whirl# th# enow a colder tun# in my houa# t h a t la mo ha%%a# becauae of It atlll being m y houa# 8o the wind whlatlea in th# amall plain# I, 20*. Th# mamuacrlpt of "Prier# Improogntu# 1" la done entirely in black Ink, 68 «midat, th# I kno* theme *erd# m elemr netien mymelf end the## who #r# without guard end mearehlng So la thlm m tlll mtmnmerlng m mharp mton# from mhmrp mton# word# te n d e r bremd wh#n THE KlBAOjB 18 The four line# ending In *houm#^' and *plmlnm" end In Dutch In ** 6 ^ 0 im"* and "vlakte*; thlm baa been nalntalned in Engllmh by "houme** and "plalna." 69 I la y m il mmmrlng o f fmirn# Jmmrnla S till DO light gllttmrm hoing firawr I lay do*a tba flaa clothaa*/ raalia# th# fala# ornamoat b a t mad# I a# mold tb a l i g h t o f God amahroada m mot y a t ha haa warm 1*0 apraada haat radia tlmg Aram th a glow of hi# diaaolvad cravlmg I know tba way and y a t avaiythlmg ia a pool Bafor# m# lo tba light o f an abyaa than I maat go Tha light I will raaeh whara I forgat tha darkmaaa llaa thara whara la light^^ Thara ia LIGHT whara I aalaa it at tba and of my oravlmg whara ay craving without molaa and without craving pariabaa in tha light know th a way tha algna ara apocalyptically claar but I haaitata to walk over tba *mit#r which ia but dark fo r whom doea not aaa tha light I , 2 1 3 . Tha manuacript of "Priara layromptua Z'' ia dona entirely in blue ink, Linaa 2 and 4 both end in Dutch with the prapoaitlon " a f; tha rhyma baa not baen tranaferrad except for the partial rhyme in the worda **jawala*olothaa. " ^6 "Liaa** and "light* are the aame worda in D%,tcb except for a p a llin g . 70 Fa#t fortjr day# la the deaert in ahri#k madaaa* the laat day taaqptatlan earn## to offar* gam# the heraita balm th# leper# th e ir b f^y decay# a rotte# rain of fleah bat their metmphyeleal Being G litter# Bedeea^ed over the de#ert Chrlat and Dlonyeo# are here and there 1 am bonnced no# ehy 1# aleo Chrlat bouncing ' th e b a l l Chrlat la at the ae# of Galilee and he# Dionyao# come to me with b%mche# of grape# the deaert atarta to glitter the hyena carrion# apread a dull atench over which la our hometown 40 40 40 day# feeding feeding oh forty day# with the amell of deeoaq;>o#itlon ^7 The word# "reflecting" and "bouncing" are the aame word "kamtaen" In Dutch. 71 28 I can' I ORB* I cRB*t compll# mmourctt## or any *l#dom 1 can't do anything 1 can't da anything #by don't I tom off the lamp and don't I ga to bad I want to attempt beIng naked __ node mho know# n a i l Araaen p u r p le ^ and paleneaa lan't timt like the all beginning atart^^ 1 don't #ant to kno# anything I don't *ant to aak #hy I became no etamp collector I alll begin to give my debacle I *111 begin to give ey bankroptcy I *111 give me a piece of torn poor a oil a trampled aoll a moorland an occupied city *ant to be nnde and b eg in 28 I , 23 1 , *Song 6* la written In black Ink, 29 %ord for **pln*upa" uaed by van Oataijen la In Dutch ^vroùmefotoa" which literally meana "picture# of women, ^ mot the uaual word In Dutch; thia would be "naaktfotoa#" 30 Van Oataijen aleo uaea In Dutch two different word# "nude-naked." Thia line literally read# In Dutch* "la not ao the all beginning atart." 72 Goa s , no# I come on th# upland#:)J Aro* th# uplond# on# a### Thy LIQHT that klndl## th# light im I ### th# fare## of d##c#mt th# aam# fOBCB ## th# force# of ##c#nt th#r# la mo FAll, Thou a rt d##e#mt Ilk # Thou ##c#n Thou # r t VOBIBLESS # tlll 1 atomd bound to th# TBBE Of Q(xm /am EVIL and am only #orthle#a becou## I o t l l l do know valu## THOU ART auperfielal in aurfao# d##p in depth #8o#mdimg im aacemt fell In fall WHY aearoh for a#c#nt in fall uhy 1# riaimg g#od and falling #vll 1h# aurfao# la a# aurfao# a# th# depth depth OK Tm UPLARDS 18 mo m om VAium 3^ I , 23 3 , Th# poem 1# a r l t t a n im blue In k . 33 The Imag# of th# "upland#" la found In the fifth part of "Vincent van Gogh" im slanal where w# read: "The road of th# Redeemer/th# road of aufferlng:/upland# of happln###." 3* A literal tranalatlon of line# IO-I 3 woi ld read in Kngllah* "You ar# daacent a# you aacent are." the aaquenc# of which 1# normal in Dutch; th# Inver#ion in sngllah 1# of no conaequenc# aimce th# four lime# are a alngl# unit in the poem and einc# "aac#nt" and "deacent" cam be put together typographically In both lamguagea. 73 You w i l l be fo rg iv e n much beceoae you hove oeen m ny moviem we know In o id e o u t the palm of our hand fohlÛBBO Zigomor w ith Z tro p long THE STEEL PBI8C* grave* macaroni movie* prlnoeaoe* apache* and the topehow Cheri Bibi fotajJLt** "Dieppe 0 mon pay* natal je t'a i quitta en forçat; vicomte je te re v o ie " or "je croyal* m'etre mi* dane la peau d'un bonnete homme; ME voila dan* celle d'un a*sa#*in." Qod tb* Father bring* the la*t act otage manager arch angel Michael aero* blockade eubmarinee foreign race* the beginning of the and the breaet i* empty the child throw* away the bottle ., nur*e*-cry THE WST OF THE MOBICABSj* 1* the moat fitting novel everything attempted we are at the end of all iem* iatbm* of all cathedral* of all prophet* of all cathedrae are atnnned with the aingle poeitlve 35 I I , 9 . 36 The image "laet of the Mohicene" bad been need before in "Hew %ay" from l^all where the poet eey** "now like a laet Mohiean/my friend ha* gone on," 74 th&t we * o & 't Go * damn th in g thlc *ee mlehejf R ihll in all direction* R Ihll In all eexe# R Ihll In all language# and all dialeeta RIEII, in a ll orthography turning nihil nihil in Andrea# or### KIHIL In crux #ua#tlca#ua#ti In vagina Shnt to b u ild and #hoot down c a th e d ra l# other# guilty n a tu ra lly citron nature other# make# children the prwalee of purity coet# nothing flatly refUae etatietlcian# biehope general# allowed pleaeur# to count children Deo Gratia# amen and children which are mishap or accident i# elmply learning to defend oneaelf turning nihil rectangle nihil triangle nihil pyramid RIHIL 37 The word# "with the #ingle poeitlve that we won't do a damn thing/thic mac niche* are in Jutch "met hot enige poeltieve dat v ij hat verdommen nog aen mik t# doen/mik mac miche." In Dutch the word "damn" i# need tranaltively in the following axpreaaion: "I damn it to do a mik" meaning "1 won't do any thing," firat problem arising from thl# difference 1# that the sound tranaltion "mik men mloba" i# gene, which ha# to be r^^atored einoe "mao*^ and "miche" are French word# meaning pimp and a fellow who ha# a proatitute for miatre##, both Image# which are part of the poem. The eeoond problem occur# in the line# "flatly refUae/atatiatician# ..." where in Dutch the verb "damn" return# in the #a&% aenae a# before together with a aynony*. It aeem# beat to abendw thi# particular aapeet and retain the eemantic aapeet for the benefit of the line# *to count children" and "to defend oneaelf." 7 :^ YOOR moMl the one pleuolble thing for ne ^ to doJw the trains _v the dull h rhythm of tir e d people poeitlve iG to convince oneaelf of esptlneea of loam and clay of ordinate and ebeclaea the realisation of full emptine&a the echoing of ideal phrase# emptineuB hollov lungo lie body hollo» lung# almloeely In themaelve# let the mlnleter# make children the prieata the generelo t%xrn around turn youraelf around why not turn yourself around around It# axl# earth the other %ay omega Èimmei*# Re# CoBmetique For fixing the Bair, Milekere or Kuatachloua and giving them a beautiful gloea & natural black or brovn colour, El Rimmel, Parfumer M Strand: Rid, da# Capucine#. Pari# Du rouge pour le# levre# D 0 R I W goes again out of circulation circulation goe# about circulation omegti omicron Alpha (letter not margarine) beta dmeta eta that# The vorda "one plauelble thing for u#/to do*' ore in Eng-* llah In the original. 76 te te m cou p e r manager I want to be out of uee Vefllautlf Qient Qlentee# but our heroic Ideal# burleeque apparel henemty with tophat and dree# coat rellglw tiara cardinal red metephyolcal with little ongle wing# and 000 3u%enna eaaee l o t da# L5 l i e an ont tent gout# CiU’ils an ont degueule *e knee all eongo 3 evolution of Walaartraum In three language# of Luetlge eltae to CmardaefOretln^ streak over a ll eyrup operettas elmll 1#antlmentnl songs TMOO RRRouge Dane men Pays Kngllsh melody French text rue do la Glacle ...... re ICK TAMZ gî™ Sou# la d e l de 1* Argentine only s t i l l sta n d s counterpoint to Jass^Bend s ix o'clock in the morning grey street FRERE JACQUES FRere Jacques frere Jacques ifcve-toi tin e s senna la s me les matin## sonne a l l is empty f r e r e jacques the last } emod Picon hollow SOS wreck t*sn t&is pas lame bus through street lived to w eariness 77 lary train# through lam# land movuatain# ##a /a lla y v a lla y ### momntmln# ##a #ea ### ara c k laay train# b# loadad3% rlgolo gigolo zlgato #1 tu vaux faire une petite ballade you have balleded through Rurope your expeotetioh# die Utah Indian# Aztecs and it le not your least merit invantor of the gaographioal map EUROPE acoording to mOTIC BEDS wa know Airopa #o long so long atratehad out atratohad out A at and in altitude g e o lo g ic a l atraam bad p o l i t i c a l re lig io n # com m ercial and All th a t and all th a t tow ard thi# erotic map ie a necessity soon private teachers w ill teach course# about this invention till no* of humanity at Korfu th# *o#*n are thia way lag# thigh# braaat# Berlin Qwrnany Bruoeal# Amoterdam Bucharest London rari# her parfuma flour# Uoubigant Lonchwnp K&leon#*Lafitta maquereau nicha rigoler gigola gouaaa# and you saw for five minutes the necropolis of the Acropolis **5# loaded" i# us«l in the sense of "beint; drunk." The word# "maq^uaraau" and "gousse" mean pis^ &nd guy. 78 amply «ufficiant^^ vlll have fallen all cathedral# can n ib al# n#nnlbala general# id e a l# co lo n el# b o rd e llo # perhap# w ill there be room for a eelf-evldcnt beauty pw # onknoim Is IT not deatroyed one and e t# m a l # 1 1 1 stand purer make e a rth pure vwmln weed# maybe aometlmea #e*U say j*al eoupe d*en avoir aoupe * l h l l again take core shape the## almple t orO# prison letter# alnple ' ound word# simple stuttering of man for love end ell this grey cell not the entire poor life of dolorous people long for tblatles apd nre these cross stretched countries no great Christ fu ll h o llo # wound# and this echo hollow fueling of w earin ess not as was earlier Good Friday f fter the word# "amply eufflclenf follow# m facsimile handwritten and handdrawn page much like some of Apollinaire*# handwrought pages; thl# page he# been left out here. 79 Threatened Cltv*^ v ie e mmroh m erter# mareh mortar# Puppchen Du biet mein Aug#n#tim Pupp#oh#n malm li# b # # Puppchen B&IL DIR JM SIBOEBKRARZ pared# o f &m day and one night through Rruaelaa Arm## von Iluck John John John a Zeppelin the basement feet go in eina m##i eina atuei elna m#ai eina aval iruaaian Pruemian march yortaya We stand ay brother lea homsea am balcon the flickering land the far atcapla and the blaming fire the sacking of the trwPled a»ay the maaochiaticmarch^^ th e debacle th e d u c t o f summer the mud of the autumn the entire road 200 R C automobile# split night by 200 automobiles 200 sirens I .. and thousand CWahes of shrepnells^ around the blaming tceer which perished in the Flams and the fleeing the endless procession of the fleeing end th e cow# which th in k it* a damn annoying and the accompanying lice and all that and @11 th a t till mornif^ it became Puppchen Du biat mein Augenatlm The stepping of the city the fortreaaea w ill keep will fall will keep w ill fall the stepping of a city in fear rising desiring 42 I I , 23. 43 Both in Bnglish and Dutch, adjectives are always separate from the noun; in Dutch "masochlstiesemarsj" is written as one word and has bean left one word in English, 44 The word "shrapnell" is written in English, 80 the military whores retreat la the fortified city a ll whore# Aram the entire conn try and all that marches that does the trick along the boulevards the teeming boulevards in th e evening fSOBSIAH MIM'O light of white renarde valeurs in the red renards fear and desire what brings morning the paper boys fortresses will keep the heavily threatened city to be defended to the last lies trembling body pale a sallow pool in the evening Prussian Bleu and the danger stands the time stands pan ting the time stands apace s t i l l t i l l i t bangs bang clang bangs clangs bang clang pep air displacement in Gosh major and eotmterpoint Flight displacesmmt in Gosh minor bombs bang 4 *_.lf in a house (record time mail order) g#d ^ house goes in flames flickering of flame before moon moon before the flame flam e moon jE L m The gity gtands 6 till so is the city cut through were the wires «»> rouw done. 81 a re or do *# p la y a mmoabr# p la y tha draalog room publie of the iBth ditch only the afiall la poeitlve city theatre buffooas Comet of Hailey besieged city hurry up geatlema 15 mlmmtea l e f t just enough la p e p e tte the generals the souteneurs the patriots the demimonde goose flesh of the demimonde thmt's no advertising that's no satin no silk no moire that's goose flesh fall the shells in spite of your pepette charity th e s h e ll s f a l l f a l l f a l l f a l l drop eannoD coitus ca va ca viens cm viens ca va basement fli# it of a bordello balloting breasts football bellies tulle gold silver veil Mini Manon paillette and teeth the patronne en grande soiree there is no time to dress the shell falls e ith o u t un client mesdames voyons in the basement trehbles tbs fleS Ml© like tremble W^easts shakes tW flesh shiver thighs makeup creeks on grease mugs f u l l o f fe a r^ ) and the droll eastern splendor tulle paillettes progress of science chattering teeth gold and fillings this time Gaby-Mecamier has no loot to escape tailoring too old-fashioned cutting impossible Ah c'est la merde merde pour les Boches merde pour tout le monde tW ta ll Irene is particularly cold silver snake stitches vetch out for the rats boi^ello screams t chickens imsh together house next to an hbandened piano ^ The Bnglish translation of this line is slightly ambiguous uhile the Dutch version is not; "creeks# refers to "little streams" of make-up and "«mgs" refers to "faces." 82 oh oh @1 vous voBlo# 1*amour profites de# beaux jour# o*##t 1# MSMBXI q u i *0# autorace » fleeing - flight groelng through the p ie rc in g 9 a rro e # 2 glow ing y erocka automobile a t&Ar dark patchea from the night wrecked teem Irregular aacklnm tramnled people crapped dead tram pled maaochlatlc march atop# drink the street thlrathot atape drink aridity step steps steps step CADAVKaRaTfllng r u s te d cannons macsBRe dance Iron Bjgg CLSPpering r ib s beCLam CASKID6 fail and robbers fall In houses lighter than shell phllantropy save all pieces of value rattle tew flee trampled army streams of automobiles screwing yellow light lashing autobus CLD TCÜ GIB stiff street^ cars wagons caissons wchlme guns cannons jgfashlng gguckles guttling fibs to am e I The words "Old Tom Old* are In English In the original. 83 "'"-I. g .1° ‘ l i g h t • v •®*' B-E-L-I ‘k 4a e ayrupy I * o c1" \ 1 a a ! # LK y S @8 1 M n B 0 b* a tap plug la ga don't go forward waa nothing forgotten at the defanae line not the king the private flret claaa In tha first l^ench toni onrs la or his steel helmet God God perhap» th e king was fo rg o tte n or hie steel helmet and tomorrow he is plctnred with steal helmet fw* new a tamps seaslokneas the minister president drab drab grey day grey grow from exodna salute threatened oity salvation along the north year market earrouaael people and things perambulator hatboz lamp g la s s 84 hours the same thing# has God l e f t t h i s n a tio n the whores forget to cut they only flee as if one can't both flee and cut b u t the president of the Board af hetsmlnet# saves th e honor h is to p h a t and tricolor sash united we are a tronsr DIRU PBOÏEQE LRS ESTjmDfSTS silver letters the procession watches false sp ring you can walk on th^ heads couldn't one also symbolically s te p kilometer counting kilogram kiloliter (is little used) k ilo w a tt k ilo k w a tt k ilo k w a tta Fame the getMrlands Kwatta % de H uj^r plus 2 fromp plus 2 de iit^7 they took from ms B*S * Birmingham Small Arms^ 3 fU s ils a splendid piece the pride of my family always perambulator hatbom lampglass baby f i n e s t f o r Always people curious puppet show of God the Father or of Siderlus (for astrologers) _ . eanoq fleeing monsters fleeing people , fle e in g arx%r uatsuwun the three generations flee *7 The names da Ruyter, Tromp and de wit refer to Dutch nation* al heroesI Kwatta is a brand of chocolate. ^ "Birmingham Small Arms" is written in English in the ori g in a l. 8$ defeated arey triumphing mrmy fram a ll aide# people round the city empty oity long people roade te ll me aong# and I will te ll you w hether you left the city or won march mortar# Puppchen mein llebe# ruppoben privât» teacher# Darwinproof th# entire province - rommem peon# Oberleutnamt #um Befehl Puppchen im#*r Puppchen ein# zwei elm# awei ein# ewel ein# %wei DBmi warn# war hat Donnerwetter wer hat da# gewagt ein# *wei eina ewel eina zwei KAISER (not the motor racer) G 0 t t m it un# @ ott m it un# at the other aide of the river i# PARIS Kultur Tradition du Volnay 69 e# lehe der Kaiaer der jute jott*9 tram ple# march E X 0 D D 8 49 "Der jut# jott" i# a Berlin pronunciation of "der gute Gott. 86 Sou# le # kûii%B de Parlm^O Pre# a il plaoea #h#r# Theu a%^ aheen in the eooupled city Thy drearlnea# deem moan oa a ll cpraer# ene b&e hanged Thee to catch pennlee In an offertory Yet Thou haet found communion with the maaa *ben Into Thy warm wwnde it# arma it caata Into Thy woundg to deafneae our handa we thruat and b lin d we a re in dumb d ia tr u a t Prieata and popea Thy body did deaecrate taught to believe our handa Thy wo%inda palpate Churchea for Thme were built down th e w alla ru n a a l lv e r and g i l t So email ao dull ie our faith aa ia before Thy image the dancing flame On every corner Thou BUFFOON of klndneaa and perceptible pain were ahewn Amoogat ua reimlted Thou art in all Thy icona with the occupied city Thy crying hollowa atonea Below Thy atatue I know from the pipe the rain doea make e hole in the atone but that alao ia Thy pain Thou art among ua changed to a different pattezn pwlned %iffoon and Thy Mother ia a aobbing alattem A God like a Buffoon la a ll we can diatlnguiah our timea are ao fed up with grief end anguiah The poem conaiata of twelve couplet# which have the follow ing rhyme in Dutch# aa bb ec dd cc ee ff gg hh ij kk gg. with aa much attention aa poaalble to the imagery an Bngliah rhymed vereion of "Soua lea Ponta da Paria 1-2" haa been attempted; in Dutch not all linea of both poema poeaeaa the aame ayntec- tical order which regular Dutch haa and thl# liberty hae been utilized for th# tranalatlona. Ikitoh ueea the polite "you" which ia not naceaaarily tranalatable by "thou"; hoever, considering the biblical context, the "thou" form aeema the most app%»opriate. 87 gQiia l e* Pùsrtë da Pari* 2^^ Thy la*t humenleatlaa la for th# crowd *lon# I hAv# aeon Tho# daaertlng th# front Thcy did not glean Thy arm# that were thrown away üoly Dcaerter, thl* relique could not be used At thi* hour in *11 churohe# ehould be ahown Thy deeerter*# figure and Thy arma that were thrown I aaw Thee awlnging among the occupation from town to tomn fad ed and f l a t t l % ^ o u t and %om down I have aeen The# in ay occupied city in a dancing hall the muaic atopped when Thou entered it* alow wait* th# rhythm of Thy face ; @a stronger SO in kiaery than a broken cello and the gigolo* and tlie whore* light their alot; vALTr danced only to the miaerable rhythm thot Thy FACE enhanced I aaw Thee in a o ttn k ln g e lo p Thou wert together with e Landaturm man Among the demanded unemployed Thou didat atand when to Germany long train* with the threadbare went Thou didst keep guard on top of the dyke w ith c h ill whore* In the raining night Row Thou art weary and bluffed the misery again in Thee full atuffed Th# rain drip* from Thy filthy soaking wet hemp beard* over the city Drip* together with the rain over all filth of the city Thy shocking rhythm Ibid. p. 77* The poem consists of thirteen couplets with the following rhyme scheme* s,b de ff gg gg hh ii jk 11 mm nn op q r . $8 Good Good n#*# from th# front directly received radio by loo Dame# do la Charit# Cretl#nn# (motto la what yon came an ontir# bataillon P#ldgrauon have you have) the king olone in the trench le he fltelng? a king doean't floe (tbat'e very correct) Samaon he take# aee jawbone b e a ta & b a ta illo n down and the other $0* into flight Then he cleene the jawbone of the Krant blood i t waa a b a ta illo n from aACHSEN.CCBCRMOTHA In the next trench atande the crown prince alao alo n e alao cornea 6 emeller group of enemlee and be&ta thla omaller group amaller email (proportlmo) Otherwiae reapectfnl the Kraut* retreat Why They were Bavarian* %* lebe vittelPbach E loner 52 lU â», p. 90. poermmcrs iWKe I f m consider the content of the peethumoue poems, the majority of which we aeewme that ven Oetaljen wen ted to in clude in The F irst Rook of Schmoll. ve find no dominating theme like unanimism, mysticism or dadolsm. There are poems on pastorsl scenes ("Frost," "Landscape," "Winter," "May," "Dncenscious Mvening") end on society ("Belgian Sunday," "Life"), and there is a group of musical poema ("Berceuse," "Waltz," "Welopee," "Polka," "Polonaise," "Charleston"). Since the tranelations are fairly représentative of the entire collection they illustrate whet van Osteljen tries to achieve. What seems random association et first, turns out to be an attempt to arrive at a description of an object by balancing its different aspects. For instance, in all three poems The Old Man,' "Frost, and "Evening Sounds," he juxtaposes the 89 9 0 audible and the vielble aueh as the voice and the appearance of the old man, the %hlnnylng of horeea and dripping of water nd the moon and the fields on the evening, and the reverbe rating sounds and the brightness of a frosty atmosphere. In "Homage to S inger" and "And every new c i t y . . . " be ju x ta poses the absolute and the relative, such as the "every ne* city/flo*er that withers" Sod "everywhere is nowhere," and the "everybody has a right to a sewing-machine" and "every thing is appearance." He juxtaposes devotion and caution in the "rosary" and "glass pieces" of "Sun burns the rosary ....' In the sound poems "Very Small Kqaic Box" and Berceuse presque fegre" be juxtaposes the intonations of different sentences such as "here is ... Iris" and "where Is Iris," end"the chimpansee *on*t play and "so much water goes into the sea." In other words, where before he looked at his object in terms of a message (The Sisnal), or in terms of a mystical me aning (Feasts Feor and ^onv)or in terms of moral incongruity (Occupied &Hy), he now tries to look at his object is its own terms. The extravagant typography of Occupied City has been abandoned but the lack of punctuation and the use of position as an aid in clarifying accent, intonation or syntax has been maintained. The preference for certain words, as we found in previous collections, has been dropped except for the in- troduction of a Dutch-Flemish nursery rhyme vocabulary main ly used in the musical poems. Van Ostaijen frequently stakes 91 u*# of alliteration, conaonanc* or aseononoe, a practice which haa been transferred ao much aa poeaible in the trano* lationo. Th%io *e find the alliteration of the "a" and :*t" in "Evening Sounda" which auggeata the dripping of *^ater; ae find the asaonance of "brick'^ahrill," "heaven-helmet-apread* banaer-t*nae#'atep" and the alliteration of "brick-bright" in "Froat," which a ll auggest the reverberation of sound, aa doea the conaonance and aaaonance of "boota beet lucid." He alao often uaea rime riche aa for example with the vorda "play" and "aea" in "Perceuae preaqt* Kegre," the eorda "table" and "fiah" in "Marc greeta the thlnga in the morning," and the vord "ring" in "Very Smell huelc Pox." W# find no wrenched accenta, becauae van Oateijen brings metrical and »ord accent together with rhetorical eccent, or to put it differently, he doea not impose on the natural eccenta of the language but instead utiliaea them to tb# fUll. Conaider the following use of a trochee in "Sun bum# the roaary "vetch out/here ife/glaaa piecea," or of an enapeat in "Very Small Music Box*^: "Amarillla/hwe la/in a aoap bubble/ Iria" and "hang the bubble/on a rj^/end tlie r:6ig/eD your nM o/^arÙ.lIa.'^VeD Oataijen uaea both end-atopped end run- on lines; an example of the latter ia found in "A beautiful face ..." there the third line ia broken off after "if" which edda to an ironic effect. 1 The translation follow# the Dutch accentuation. 92 Whm we try to determine van Ostaijen»® outlook en life in The flre t Book of Sohmoll we find nothing like "the world is brimful of goodness'* of The signal, the "why is riming good and felling evil" of feestm Peer and or the "Diea protege lee Eeteminetm" of Oceunled Citv. In first Book o f th® r o l o t l v l e t von O atm ijen wkem the o b je c t speak for itself by Itself rather them have himaelf speak for the object. This doe® mean that w* find nothing of the poet in the poems —we do find his tmmor end his choice and cospositlon of images— but it goes mean that he managed to put himself in a position to weigh both sides of a ques* tien» In other words, he haa found a synthesis between "the images of beautifbl secuxdLty" and tbe%ooseflesh of the demimonde," which enables him to utilise his lumor again. It now takes the form of irony (which assumes the presence of the iwmane of hiwanity) rather than cynicism (which assumes the absence o f th e humane o f h% maoity). A look a t "Hmeage to Singer" and "Threatened City" shows that Uie difference be* tween the humor of Çgggpjgd O&g and of %bÊ Zlimi AMh achaoll is that in the latter the reader can recognise him- self end laugh at himself, $Aich he could not when "Qed was protecting the brothels." Re also hae found a synthesis be- tween the romantic and the real or to put it differently, he is able to incorporate ouch Images as "moon fountains and "steel heaven steel helmet" without becoming sentimental or purposely trying to incorporate machine imagery like Leger, 93 CeDdr#r# or H#a#gg#r, When we reed eome fragmente from ven O ateijen'# theeriee, it twroe ottt that thl# relativist viewpoint 1# exactly what van Oeteljen we# striving after: The poet Is trenvere. Mothing else. Court-jesterI flee to th in k of the possibility, but too complicated after all (the coetum l; trouver# and —preferably evangelical— court chaplain. This from the viepoint of poetry .... Trouver#! Ridiculouo idea, these days! Perhaps. But theo retically indisputable, Th# poet M trouvera, It cannot be lees than am axiom. And vhy not these days? Are there no cabarets and smeie halls? Main point: not to bore the pub- lio . Thus: Aesthetentum, llterarieches Cabaret, new.? The cabaret is in decay like the university, the church, the exchange, the brotnel, Mo# paradoxical it may sound to some: a post is an aesthete. ... Art is a desperate attempt to fill the emptiness, to regain purity. The unconscious prospect of each artist is knowledge of the deficient, without hope of completion, without this fundamental know- ledge poetry is only* tristitla post. Sweet da Musset, (From a letter about the typography of Occupied Ci tv)2 *$# In considering the viewpoint of poet opposite audience; Moons [the poet whom the author is considering] says: "ethical calling." To which I answers "a poet, like a magi cian, is an attraction feature," Moons still says: "The audience Is not tired or where the poet speaks, the audi ence shouldn't be tired, or still, the poet shouldn't bother about the audience being tired." Rightly so, then it is announced: "Ko. 7, poet so-and-so will read poema," the audience yawns. That is impolite but understandable, tip to this poet so-and-so now to do his best and interest the audiewe. Mot as the mWience saw the other magicians do. But the good magician loves his trade; he wants to remove tha discredit that it has. He finds new tricks —not the eternal chicken and the hat-- ee that th# public is interested and cries "How about that!" The magician poet bows and disappears ... The public comes in the music hall to be carried from the music hall into a dif ferent atmosphere .... This the magician knows: he acts like a sorcerer and meeting them in their desire, he car ries the people into an imaginative atmosphere of the oc cult. The poet does not ao if: he does. In the first place ^ IV, 1 0 ). 94 h# #urpri### the peeple, then he abdiMte them. Poetry is etermel, W t s poem grow# from mememtery temeioni the desire to see things for the first time. The plesssht surprising of the aeâïeiee* It he# nothing to do with the Dleaeontly surprieihg. lather could one soy the contrery but it would be wrong to establish that as an sbsolmte criterion. The toreador does not swprise the bull plea* sently; he keeps the bull busy, hsln thing ttmt the bull should not do* choke. (If so, the bullfighter of the par ty coneemed finds different «ays to keep the bull busy.) (Prom "Modernistic Poets")3 *#* tlxpresslonism wants to eliminate all causality which is not rendered by the poem or painting itself. It wants only a pictorsl causality for M inting, a poetical one for poetry. ... [I distinguish] "Romantic expressionism" after th# vibrating tone which dominates in it, and "er- ganicempressionism" —in taenty years one w ill perhaps be able to say cla&sic express ioniam— after the in it- self determining-determined function of the elements in the work of art of this direction. ... Ga#)*mdonk says* "The romantic exprecsieniets stop where the painting actually starts, [in a rosmntie-expressionist poem we find] sentences which merely confine the feelings of the poet, ... the quantity of the feeling# is increased by means of which the poet thinks to achieve a rise. ... The construction of the poem is the pathos itself, ... the sentences can be moved around. ... A poem of the organic- expressionist direction carries its own causality once the premises are defined. It develops itself out of Itselfi la this dynamic cauaal determination no piece can be moved around. ... Close as modem poetry is to th# discovery of the possibilities of the most subjective sensations, it did not yet discover an arranging principle which accepts and dismisses. ... [Organic expressionism] tries to stan dardise the expression of the emotion. Plastic and litera ry syntax employ the basic rules. Romantic expressionism tries to word its emotions as broadly as possible in order to carry the elan from the field of emotion to the field of technique especially trying to maintain there the vibra tion of the elan. ... The romantic-expressionist optics are the same as those of impressionism, namely a grouping of experiences, heightened by the compositionelly uniting pathos of the expression. The organic-expressionist optics are those of the first vision, of the first conecionce of the outside world, of the first pistonic remembrance. Con sequently, more Qcsell# than Whitman. ... From the point 93^ e f Sk ïf,fleyjL theme, th e roman ti e ex p ress le n is te have more to asy than the others. There is more narrative content ... Tbs frequent use of an image ... la from a poetical viewpoint and in spite of the general pathetic emotion, ornemental. ... In organic-expr&seionlst poetry ... all movemnts are equal, consequently in this poetry the ima ges within one poem are mot numerous and also there is a tendency to eliminate the image entirely. The frequent use of the image divides tbs poem Into two levels, one of the compared and one of the comparing. It disturbs the rbythmic-orgmnic coherence hy the existence of these two levels which necessarily become dual values; ales the autonomous growth of the poem out of the %mconscious is disturbed by the constant appealing to the intellect, A series of images is in the development of the poem like an opening in a background with perspective. At first sight this replacement of the organic-exnresolonist poets, namely the association, does net seem too separate fTmm the image. Enough however, to reach this main point* keep all parts of the poem at the same level. In the subeon- scious all experience# are equal to each other. From these experiences the poet choose the ones which can be pieced in th e le v e l o f th e poem around e p o e tic a l c e n te r, accor ding to poetical development and with the thin tie of association. In contrast to the image the association does not make a difference between spiritual or technical values. (From **Teet of Parallels between Modem Plastic Arts and Modern Poetry" »#» The moat common rhetorician and the youngest college boy have mere to say than I do. I only want my lyricism. Lyricism is a bacterium which up to now hae been little studied. I want pure lyricism and a more ssoterically determined poem, When I am told that the determinants of any good poem are esoterlcal, I w ill admit that the other party is right but 2 can save myself by pointing out that esoterics have become technique itself, Against the demo nic lyricism nothing g orlori compositional can hold its place. The lyrical bacterium is a glutton which e*ts everything it meets on its way. The logicality of a poem can only be measured by the logicality of the orge ni c development between beginning end end. As the orgens to the organiam, the words are determining and self-deter mined, The poem has no subject, it is subject itself. Mût tne poet is important but the poem is. The I remains 96 the blgbeat &ODd, tc t net the I of th# poet but th* I ef th# po#m. ... Fr## ver##l# tee ff## fef m# be##### I den't knov what te de with th* fr##dem. I #a nrebably teld th#t I feel #y*#lf, becen## It 1# clear enough that my vere# 1# fr## rare#. Smcne# me, dear oentradleter, free vere# he# # contlnuebl# cadence* ey veree, an th# contrary, 1# Inetrumented. Thle oentinuabl# cadano# of free vwe# dee# net allow word# to develop independently into ergene, it always rune on Ilka a plover mhlch hae to vetch the egg. And the poem ia fiaithar plover nor ronner. Rvery now and then, the poem otopa and turna back. The v«ree-libre*iata never eyneopate. In free vere# words ealdom have profundity and time la amooth end alike without interruption to "dnrae pure." A word in free vara* has no independence, no aeelty, Thu# free vere* never offer# the highaet poaeibility to aeneitlae the word, ,,, For all thing# a# there are: the goodnea# of the human being, purer life and vegetarlaniam, poverty of atreet girl# ae jumplng-board of humanely feeilng poet# in triotitia*po#t condition, the Homeric battle with aentencee between eight and ten in the evening, the humi lity and the pride, the attic or the Empire boo, all of theae fail to move me. Neither doe* the cult of the car, the Blrplanc, or whet ia called the confirmation of our roaring era. In ehort* @11 eerlou# literature. Out yith the prieete and the other lalnlatere. Out with the im provement of humanity but long live the improvement of the race bore# breed. Peeeuee* Long Live Pegeeue, under the name of Foxtrot II. (Fro# "Direction# for Dee of r o e tr y ." ) 2 we find developed wbnt we already had found in "&t /oila" namely the concept of th* poet ae w orafteman, no% not a# a carpenter but eg a good a&glcicn who love# hi# trade, and the cmcept of the poem a# exleting in Itself (aeeity), now crgued egainst the romantic poem which ie denounced aa being an tocumulatlon of image# without an arranging principle, that is new ie the idea that the poet ie a sorcerer "who carriea the people into an imaginative etmoephere oi the occult" %hlch experience ia intareating to thtm beocuee they ' Ibid.. pp. 321-3Î3. 97 ##at to b# "aurprleW aiiJ tboy *ant "to #ee thing# for the first tim e.' TTnfortuimtely, van neteljen died before he could develop the latter vlev of the function of po#t. 98 I# fr© « t tb# brick rc*# break bright end sharp' reed* rend Shrill belle the bell ef the streetcar In diesying space h ig h beep eteel-heevea steel-helmet Toward IncId epreedbem&ers tense step boots beet the street to clamorous space I s f r o s t bricks break sharp beets beat IncId bells bell shrilly b r ig h t b r ig h t b r ig h t dis eying space clamors * I I , 160. 7 This line reads literally In Dutch: "Break bright and sharp the brick rows," which Is as nmnsnal In Dutch as it is in English; a literal translation Into English would cause confusion however, beeanse "break" In front ef the sentence would make a request sentence, which clearly is not the ease in Dutch because of the Inflection of the verb; the run-on effect has been maintained in English by Inverting the noun-verb sequence. The same problem recurs in line 12, where In Dutch the noun-verb sequence has been inverted, which again In English would make a request sen tence; consequently line 1 1 - 1 3 all have been put in regular noum-verb sequence. In Dutch, lines 1 3 -1 6 are as follows# "schellen da schellen schel/helder, holder, holder** In which the assonance of the "e" Is obvious; this could only be transferred by the alliterating "b" in English. 99 Eam.em te B in sm t^ 8#ing#r Siog#r ##*lag-**éhtn* a#*r Kemr Plorl# J»#p#re bought & »$*lng-*oohia# *h at u b o t y## Jeopor# Slagor ##*lag*#oehlo* *bat do you *##a yo# I'm tolling you Flori# Jooper# bought * Singor oowing-mochine Why hooeome what do## ho moat YO# h o w ill *hot do you moon C irc u le s because SlBQB&'a 8&*I*@.MACH1*B IS TBB BB8T the b o o t why how 's th a t who say# everything is appearance Singer and Saint Augustin# Cenoveva of Brabant also has a Singer die Jungfrau von Orleans A S in g er? yes yes yes yes I'm telling you a Singer don't you understand Bagllsh Sir C irc u le s Bitte auf Carderobe selbst su achten I want a sewing-machine everybody has a right to a sewing-machine I want a Singer everybody a singer S in g er s in g e r meistersinger Bbne Sachs * I I , 168, 100 h## Bane Ssahs n# 81ng#r mwahlne Why â ea s Rame Smeh# have mo S la g a r Hen# Saehs h as & right ta @ Slmgar Hftn« S#*h# mm#t hmv# a S lngar Y## that*a hla right the right thing Lang Lire Bane Baaha liana SaoAw# ia arigp&t he ha a a right ta ]u#Bsat*8 s9s*]aM;.4MwcBamB ]us isos sowar all peapla are e^ual far Singer C lre n le i a S in g er Panes et Singeras jpaawwm elk SHUageres *&"#- gJL PAXOBg B3P SMMKBUQ* ê $ m m m ml 0 m m # # I want a Singer we want a Singer we demand a Singer what we want la ear right eia fester Burg 1st unaer Qatt Panes et Singeras Panes et Slneeres PAJEM ET simSEREg mi aÜÜMüHINB iük gÜNMMH* #hy haw*a th a t what deea he nmn% what w ill he da Salvaties Amy Banana# atqne ' Panama- the man*# ri# t he*a r i g h t right he la yea yea yea why whe says as where*# the preaf yea M 'l right Panes et singeras Imog# glm#r#m PA»B* & Singeras singeras aiBGBB'S SB*1N@.*ACHI*E IS THE BEST 101 A bemutlfal fac« haa the n#*#p#p#r ad CREMB LA mOfPHE @he mould be very beautiful if mb# had no freokle# whet a pity vbem sueb a beautiful woman ham freeklea apota a# in the oaae with thla ad e im m e h a ir the arch of the eyebrowa and the aweet mouth and the fUll cheek# and the dimple# but a# wa# #aid what a pity about those freckles nevertbelea# there i# Ca&MB LA #Y*PBB head dispensary branch office# everywhere available the wimt-Hi-pity can be resunved thank# to head dispensary and branch office# are there no more freckle# in Üie world and you meat beautiful one with waved M ir and tempting lip* you who adorn# the l a s t page of the latest new# I cam lo v e becmuae you thank6 to the nymph-ointment w ill be from now on wlthwt freckles or spot# 9 Ibid.f p. 174 102 The ehlmpmome# wem* t plajr # y wea't the ehlmpeaeee pley the ehimpemeee ie elek ef the e*m s# much INI ter gee# la t e the see fe e l# the chlmpmmeee 10 I1ÜÜ.. p. 195. 103 ifiKS msM .Wm# ia IM Hello little fellow with the bike on the vmee with the flower plover plewer hello ehftir end the table hello breed on the table hello fimhermen*fieh with the pipe and hello flehermen-fieh with the cep cap end pipe of flehermen-fieh hello there HeoHillii fish hello deereet fioh hello little fioMEin of mine m a . , p . 199. 104 And new c i t y flcwer th*t wither# leaf yellow through Fell are all cities that way are they all that way that way th#y*re all Everywhere everywhere and nowhere everywhere ia nowhere everywhere the aam# candy end in g la a se a aparklea drink there ie no thirst a tune is everywhere of love and adultery a re a l l c i t i e s t h a t way are they all that way that way they* re a ll ^ Ibid., p. 200. 10^ Very #m@ll mualc boM^3 A a a rilii# h#re ia in » #*&p babbl#!* iP i# hang the bubble on a rin g and the ring on your nose A m a rlllls Shake your bead and the light plays in the bubble w ith I r i s Shake too much the bubble bursts A m a rlllle Where i s I r i s Iris was just here A m arilli# on a r in g and the ring on yow nose NOay-noae A m a rillia ^3 IM â * t p . 209# 3"* In Dutch the word for "bubble" and "bell" la the same, "belt" for ahieh there is unfortunately no equivalent in E n g lish , 106 8tm burn# thé réeary #uo burn# thé gl&é* plec# C hild umteh n u t her# lie gleam pieaem III 222. Im "Médemletie Pe#tm" van Omtaijen may# the fellowihgt "With mere mb#erv#tienm of phenomena ehiah are put next to emah other* the pommlbillty existe, seemingly uith the learnt effort and because ef the poet appearing to step ever the subjective, to pronounce the subjective (the kneeledge for the pheaemanality ef things) through the subtlety of the interval# *saa burns the remary,/aun burns the glass piece/child, vetch out, here lie glass p ie c e s # •" 107 Bsrmmumg f a c grgma-uami* Wmu cbunce ha# th e #amdmma com# eae# se r# —but he*ll erne momere— w e'll go to eleep aad dream o f a dream that wa# mot dreamt Oh a ll thorn# well do sleep who know t h e i r door is b o lte d “ m a., p. 235. 10& AB&Râei? Thfre awst b# hoof# b#hloa the #dg# ©f tiie blu# fit Me elemg the m©#n in the tvening you hear on distant stone roads horse hoofs then you hear all silent delusion A'sm distant moon fountains drips sudden water --you hear the sudden dripping of evening ta ter— the horses drink hastily and whinny then one hears again their trotting stahleward 17 IS iA ., p . 2 3 8. 1 0 9 ikâ jaM m al* An old aan In the hl* #*all atorj to the old #ù*ma It ia nothing it a^unde lik# a thin tragedy hla voice la white like & knife that ao long wa* thetted till the eteel was thin Lik# an object ooteld# him h&ng# this voice over the long black coat The old meager man in hie black coat eeeme a black plant ^Tou aee thia etaepa the fear through your mouthi? the flrat taata of an anaeatbetlc p. 244. 19 The word "etaepa" i* a neologiam reaulting from the « erd a " a t i f f " and "geep*% th e Dutch word ie a neologiam probably reuniting fro* *veretokt* (etiff) and "enikkan" (g a a p ). 110 Thle paper he# tried to provide both *n tatrodmetloB and a perspective to the poetry ef Paul vau Oetaijea. after a blo&r&phy ehich #ho#ed *hat dlfferemt "ceaaclee* van Oetaijea had been in touch *lth, e survey *a# aede of four period# of his life, each marked by different collection# of poem#, the laat of which chewed that the poet had found # eyatheei# which enabled him to u#e hie humor and a varied imagery including both the romantic end the reel. If we can make a generalisation end aey that the problem of the twentieth century i# that of finding tangiblee in order to eatablloh any of the angular point# of the triangle «You-1-the 3#rd* v#n Ooteijen was one of the first who wa# aware of it, who discussed it from an artistic viewpoint and who wa# a b le to come up w ith an answ er o f hi* own. In hi# concept of "thoroughbred" poetry we may be able to trace influence# from expressionism or from hellsrme, but his poetry reflect# an amalgamation of both sound and image which is hi# own. *Wt is most important, however, is that hi# concept of poetry led him to objectify his experience# in such a fashion that he wa# able to establish symbol# which carry a truth within themselves. JLl LIST OF WORKS CITED Borgera, Q., @d. Nü§lf jBmii# Den Beag, 1999* Friedmann, H. and Mena, O ., #6. B%Dr*#*leniaaae. Heidelberg, 1996. Geeelle, Q. Alâ da Biala Luletert. Aaeterdaa, 1944. Oetaijen, r . vea. Verzaaeld $@2%, IV vol. Antwerp, 1992. Beynel, *. Modern FaLptlae. Geneve, 1996. Bedenko, P., ed. Hleuwe &plffolf&, ialÊ** Tb* Hogue, 1994. R oover, A. de. ^ami aSB üeteiief. Bum***, I96O. Bÿttenepret, H. faala*8 2aaajja#aaajjAfIsa2. Rettera#*, 1 9 9 9* H e rb e rt. C:at«k]u»guM# w ith j»n :l%kta'o