THE APPROXIMATE MAN: A MASTERPIECE
THE APPROXIMATE MAN: A MASTERPIECE

Summary/Abstract: For George Calinescu, Tristan Tzara (his real Jewish name being Samuel Rosenstock, born in Moinesti, on April 16th, 1896 – deceased on 25 December 1963 in Paris, also known as S. Samyro) is the inventor of Dadaism. “The premonition of Dadaism is the fact that, by bypassing the reports that lead to a realistic vision, the poet associates images that are unbelievably contradictory, surprising consciousness”. [1]. Even Nicolae Manolescu is restrained in his critical attitude. However I must point out that he lingered, although superficial, on the 19 part poem “L’homme approximatif” (from 1930, translated by Ion Pop, in 1996, after a failed attempt in the “Tribuna” magazine (23/1537), XXX year, June 5th, 1986, page 10) in which, for example, Marcel Raymond saw some of the “gestures of lyrical prose of Rimbaud in an extraordinary linguistic debauchery”. [2] Restrained? Maybe even unable when he considers that – and I will quote him so I won’t be blamed for gratuitous meanness – “The approximate man is a sample of anarchic super-realism”, and – “the few passages that can be taken out are not at all lyrically compelling”. It seems that poor Tristan Tzara “pushed the anti-poem a little to far”(?!) . Unlike Nicolae Manolescu, to his honor, Marcel Raymond thinks that “L’homme approximatif” is an epic poem of great amplitude that can honestly be linked to super-realism; His logical incoherence does not hide an internal logic, but a intense impetus, a vis poetica, a force that tries to generate big verbal ensembles, full of images; whole fragments are detached and float like islands, betraying the poet’s island calling and the calling of a reverie and the poetics of fire. “Things, and life, and approximate man, are driven here (in the poem) in all their nudity, seen in all their absolute nonsense, surprised in the movement that leads from the primordial mess to order, always misunderstood by the intelligence of a primitive and impenetrable reality.

• Details
• Contents