[00:03.82]2000 Passage3

[00:07.85]When a new movement in art attains a certain fashion,

[00:11.70]it is advisable to find out what its advocates are aiming at,

[00:16.18]for, however farfetched

[00:18.29]and unreasonable their principles may seem today,

[00:21.42]it is possible that in years to come

[00:23.74]they may be regarded as normal.

[00:26.66]With regard to Futurist poetry, however,

[00:29.58]the case is rather difficult,

[00:31.90]for whatever Futurist poetry may be--even admitting

[00:35.43]that the theory on which it is based may be right

[00:38.56]--it can hardly be classed as Literature.

[00:42.13]This, in brief, is what the Futurist says:

[00:46.36]for a century, past conditions of life

[00:49.60]have been conditionally speeding up,

[00:51.81]till now we live in a world of noise and violence and speed.

[00:56.75]Consequently, our feelings, thoughts and emotions

[01:00.58]have undergone a corresponding change.

[01:04.31]This speeding up of life, says the Futurist,

[01:07.24]requires a new form of expression.

[01:10.38]We must speed up our literature too,

[01:12.99]if we want to interpret modern stress.

[01:15.93]We must pour out a large stream of essential words,

[01:19.55]unhampered by stops,

[01:21.01]or qualifying adjectives, of finite verbs.

[01:24.62]Instead of describing sounds

[01:26.73]we must make up words that imitate them;

[01:29.65]we must use many sizes of type

[01:32.18]and different colored inks on the same page,

[01:35.00]and shorten or lengthen words at will.

[01:38.43]Certainly their descriptions of battles are confused.

[01:41.95]But it is a little upsetting to read in the explanatory notes

[01:45.80]that a certain line describes a fight between a Turkish

[01:49.22]and a Bulgarian officer on a bridge off

[01:51.75]which they both fall into the river

[01:54.27]--and then to find that the line

[01:56.19]consists of the noise of their falling

[01:58.51]and the weights of the officers:

[02:00.63]“ Pluff! Pluff! A hundred and eighty-five kilograms.”

[02:05.67]This, though it fulfills the laws

[02:07.76]and requirements of Futurist poetry,

[02:10.38]can hardly be classed as Literature.

[02:13.00]All the same, no thinking man

[02:15.53]can refuse to accept their first proposition:

[02:18.95]that a great change in our emotional life

[02:21.47]calls for a change of expression.

[02:23.90]The whole question is really this:

[02:26.52]have we essentially changed?