Tzara, Tristan

(1896-1963)

   writer

   of Romanian origin, Tristan Tzara (the pen name of Samy Rosenstock) was born in Moinesti, Romania. Resolutely opposed to all literary and artistic pretension, he identified with poetic revolt and social revolution, and the dadaist movement, which he founded in zurich in 1916, and which he put forth as a reaction to the violence of war, which he saw as useless and devastating. The movement was widely supported by Europe's young intellectuals. Determined to dismantle all aesthetic, moral, philosophical, and religious values of Western civilization, Tzara and his friends (louis breton, paul Éluard, Adolf Fraenkel, Philippe soupault, and others) initially expressed their revolt through a nihilistic critique, founding a revue (Dada) and organizing in most of Europe's capitals, and particularly in Paris (Sept manifestes dada, 1924), "artistic" and literary soirees that shocked many in their praise of the illogical and the absurd. Their quest for authenticity and absolute freedom and the resurgence of romanticism was centered around Tzara and Breton. Tzara's writings include La première Aventure céleste de M. Antipyrine (1916), L'Anti-tête (1933), La deuxième Aventure céleste de M. Antipyrine (1938), Midis gagnés (1939), Le Cœur à gaz (a play, conceived 1923, published 1946). After World War II, having renounced the most provocative of his ideas and actions, and becoming concerned about humanity's future, Tzara published Entre-temps (1946), De mémoire d'homme (1951), Le Fruit permis (1956), and La Rose et le Chien (1957).