Bruits en lettres brutes. Variations onomatopéiques dans trois mouvements d’avant-garde au XXe siècle: Futurisme, Dadaïsme, Lettrisme

Abstract

Standing between an original expression and a universal language, a poetic game and a linguistic system, onomatopoeia occupied a cen­tral spot in three avan­t-gardes of the twen­tieth-cen­tury: futurism, dadaism, lettrism, regarding their own artistic research and the competition between them. Audible, graphic and linguistic material composing works halfway between poetry, music and graphic arts, onomatopoeia seems to converge in the three avan­t-gardes’ artistic and historic goals because of their intermedial, interdisciplinary and transnational dimension. They assert themselves by shaping this ambiguous material in a new approach, and each of them pretends to be the inven­tor of the onomatopoeic creation. Questioning origin, onomatopoeia looks however toward novelty, and wish to appear as a modern medium, with which the so-called fossilized arts could be revolutionized.