Manifesto: A Century of Isms

by Mary Ann Caws (Editor)

The first anthology of its kind, Manifesto features over two hundred artistic and cultural manifestos from a wide range of countries. The manifesto, a public statement that sets forth the tenets of a forthcoming, existing, or potential movement or "ism"—or that plays on the idea of one—became in various modernisms a crucial and forceful vehicle for artists, writers, and other intellectuals to express their ideas about the direction of aesthetics and society. Included in this collection are texts ranging from Kurt Schwitters's Cow Manifesto to those written in the name of well-known movements—imagism, cubism, surrealism, symbolism, vorticism, projectivism—and less well-known ones—lettrism, acmeism, concretism, rayonism. Also covered are expressionist, Dada, and futurist movements from French, Italian, Russian, Spanish, and Latin American perspectives, as well as local movements, such as Brazilian hallucinism. Influential, startling, unsettling, amusing, and continually engaging, these modernist manifestos give voice to a fascinating array of ideas and opinions that will prove invaluable to scholars and students of nineteenth and twentieth-century art, literature, and culture.

Genres: Art, History, Nonfiction, Politics, Poetry, Literature, Reference

713 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2000

About the author

Mary Ann Caws is an American author, translator, art historian and literary critic.
She is Distinguished Professor Emerita in Comparative Literature, English, and French at the Graduate School of the City University of New York, and on the film faculty. She is an expert on Surrealism and modern English and French literature, having written biographies of Marcel Proust, Virginia Woolf, and Henry James. She works on the interrelations of visual art and literary texts, has written biographies of Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dalí, and edited the diaries, letters, and source material of Joseph Cornell. She has also written on André Breton, Robert Desnos, René Char, Yves Bonnefoy, Robert Motherwell, and Edmond Jabès. She served as the senior editor for the HarperCollins World Reader, and edited anthologies including Manifesto: A Century of Isms, Surrealism, and the Yale Anthology of 20th-Century French Poetry. Among others, she has translated Stéphane Mallarmé, Tristan Tzara, Pierre Reverdy, André Breton, Paul Éluard, Robert Desnos, and René Char.
Among the positions she has held are President, Association for Study of Dada and Surrealism, 1971–75 and President, Modern Language Association of America, 1983, Academy of Literary Studies, 1984–85, and the American Comparative Literature Association, 1989-91.
She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Life Member of Clare Hall, Cambridge University, and a Fellow of the New York Institute for the Humanities.
In October 2004, she published her autobiography, To the Boathouse: a Memoir (University Alabama Press), and in November 2008, a cookbook memoir: Provençal Cooking: Savoring the Simple Life in France (Pegasus Books).
She was married to Peter Caws and is the mother of Hilary Caws-Elwitt and of Matthew Caws, lead singer of the band Nada Surf. She is married to Dr. Boyce Bennett; they live in New York City.

Reviews

[Fluffy Singler · Rating 5 out of 5]

What can I say? I love this book. Mary Ann Caws is one of the foremost authors and academics on Surrealism and this book has every great Surrealist, Futurist, and Dadaist manifesto there is, along with many other great manifestos of the avant-garde at the peak of their manifesto writing, the very late 19th century into about the middle or a little bit later into the 20th century, ending with the Language Poets. Great for teaching about art and poetry movements and what they have said about themselves and their goals, and great for inspiring yourself to create art and poetry and to define yourself as an artist, by what you are or what you are not!

[Tosh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every great aesthetic manifesto is in this one volume. A perfect book to pick up and then put down with a frown on your face. Everyone from Wilde to Breton and beyond.

[Amar Pai · Rating 1 out of 5]

I always wanted to write a manifesto. Such a dramatic gesture. Unfortunately most of the manifestos in this book are incoherent poetic gestures from bygone eras. A few highlights keep it from being total snooze-- Filippo Marinetti's classic Futurist manifesto is in here, for example.

4. We say that the world's magnificence has been enriched by a new beauty; the beauty of speed. A racing car whose hood is adorned with great pipes, like serpents of explosive breath-- a roaring car that seems to ride on grapeshot-- is more beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace.

9. We will glorify war-- the world's only hygiene-- militarism, patriotism, the destructive gesture of freedom-bringers, beautiful ideas worth dying for, and scorn for woman.

For every bracingly insane manifesto like that though, there's 50 uninteresting dada diatribes.

I would've liked to see fewer literary manifestos and more architectural.

[Jacob · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm impressed by the faith in the importance of art, almost alien now, evinced by the many documents gathered here by Mary Ann Caws. This is a whole lot of bluster, though, and it's hard to read more than a bit at a time.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

A crazy compendium of manifestos. Of course it isn't possible to include every screed ever written, but shes does miss any and all related to underground cinema. Nevertheless, a great idea and a formidable collection to keep dipping into.

[Tessa · Rating 3 out of 5]

A selection of manifestos from 20th century art movements. A good resource.

[Danielle · Rating 4 out of 5]

this is an important adittion to my tool chest.
It taught me to make grand sweeping decisions about the way i think things SHOULD be.
which i think is something people SHOULD do.

[Christina knox · Rating 5 out of 5]

a good indexical reference to the naivety and insight times a past. the valarie saint pointe shit in here is fucking hilarious.