The discourse of the primitive in Western European and Polish Modernism.
Item
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Title
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The discourse of the primitive in Western European and Polish Modernism.
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Identifier
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AAI3037400
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identifier
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3037400
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Creator
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Goldfarb, David Anthony.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Vincent Crapanzano
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Date
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1999
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Literature, Comparative | Literature, Slavic and East European | Literature, Modern | Theater | Fine Arts
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Abstract
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This study asks why the modern, whatever its cultural or ethnic identity, needs the primitive for self-definition and how that "primitive" is produced. It compares the discourse of the primitive in Western Europe to corresponding developments in the non-colonial powers of Eastern Europe, particularly Poland, a long colonized power that lacked material interest in an ideology of primitivization, which post-colonial critics often point to as the motivation for that ideology.;From the Western European side, the prehistory of Primitivism is considered through the works of Freud and his Enlightenment antecedents. Key elements of Primitivism are outlined through a close reading of Picasso's Demoiselles d'Avignon and Baudelaire's poem, "La Chevelure." Bronislaw Malinowski is studied as a figure who stands between Poland and Western Europe. The reappropriation of themes of the primitive by Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz, Witold Gombrowicz, and Bruno Schulz are analyzed in relation to their West European counterparts. A provisional conclusion is offered with regard to the semiotics of appropriation and reappropriation that generate a discourse of the primitive from the initial moment of contact between ethnographer and "native," through the use of artifacts by West European artists, to the participation in Primitivism by Polish authors and artists.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
