Pieśń drutów, zgiełku i zgody. Oswajanie techniki w zbiorze Nové zpěvy Stanisława Kostki Neumanna

• Authors: Michał Stefański

Title variants

EN

SONGS OF THE WIRES, THE BUSTLE, AND THE CONSENT. TAMING THE TECHNOLOGY IN STANISLAV KOSTKA NEUMANN’S COLLECTION OF POETRY NOVÉ ZPĚVY

• Languages of publication: PL

Abstracts

EN

Literary scholars generally attribute a fascination with technology to the avant-garde poets, sometimes even writing about the typical avant-garde cult of the machine and civilisation. The example of Neumann’s poetry, however, shows that the purpose of these avant-garde activities need not have been a glorification of technology. Rather, they were interested in the subjugation of technology, because in the early 20th century it still aroused widespread terror. In Neumann’s famous book Nové zpěvy, this process of taming technology takes on an extremely sophisticated form: it proceeds from a state of suspicion about machines on to full acceptance of the major civilisational changes at the turn of 20th century. The detailed analyses carried out in this article show that the Czech author’s poems are never an expression of delight about technology alone, but an expression of delight at a world in which the sphere of technology and the natural world are one, harmonious whole. This means that the affirmation of technology is not possible without the prior affirmation of life itself.

Keywords

EN

technology; avant-garde czech poetry

• Publisher: Committee on Slavic Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Pamiętnik Słowiański
• Year: 2011
• Volume: 61
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 55-80

Contributors

author

Michał Stefański

• Instytut Slawistyki PAN, ul.Bartoszewicza 1b/17, 00-337 Warszawa