"Destruction of language" in the first Dada opus: from lexical impertinences towards theatrality

The paper deals with the issue of signification in Dada creation which is well known for its goal of « abolition of logic », and its literary consequence: structures not respecting the speech acts to the point that they seem to destroy the very possibility of presence of acceptable significations. The author of the paper, suggesting to name these rebel structures « motivation attacks », starts her research from the famous interpretation of Dada activity by Jacques Rivière : « It is impossible for a man to say something that has no meaning » (La Nouvelle Revue Française, 1920), and puts out these main questions: What can be the concrete impact of motivation attacks? To which acceptable significations can they lead? Can these have a different form than the one of general connotations of chaos or aggression? The corpus of the research is La Première aventure céleste de Monsieur Antipyrine by Tristan Tzara - the legendary first literary Dada opus, being nevertheless little known itself. The choice of the text is due also to its specific genre: written in a theatrical form, this « collage » is likely to have no other characteristics of scenicity and thus to be theatrically nonoperational. However, the signification, precisely, is a potential means capable of ensuring the attention of the public during the performance. Thus, an analysis of signification should also contribute to clarifying the question of the theatrical potential of La Première aventure.

Keywords: Dada; signification; isotopy; theatre; Tzara; prosody