Editing Tristan Tzara (section)

==Literary contributions==

===Identity issues===
Much critical commentary about Tzara surrounds the measure to which the poet identified with the national cultures which he represented. Paul Cernat notes that the association between Samyro and the Jancos, who were Jews, and their [[Romanians|ethnic Romanian]] colleagues, was one sign of a cultural dialogue, in which "the openness of Romanian environments toward artistic modernity" was stimulated by "young emancipated Jewish writers."<ref>Cernat, p.34</ref> [[Salomon Schulman]], a Swedish researcher of [[Yiddish literature]], argues that the combined influence of Yiddish folklore and [[Hasidic philosophy]] shaped European modernism in general and Tzara's style in particular,<ref>Cernat, p.35-36</ref> while American poet [[Andrei Codrescu]] speaks of Tzara as one in a [[Balkans|Balkan]] line of "absurdist writing", which also includes the Romanians [[Urmuz]], [[Eugène Ionesco]] and [[Emil Cioran]].<ref>Olson, p.40</ref> According to literary historian [[George Călinescu]], Samyro's early poems deal with "the voluptuousness over the strong scents of rural life, which is typical among Jews compressed into [[ghetto]]s."<ref name="gcal887">Călinescu, p.887</ref>

Tzara himself used elements alluding to his homeland in his early Dadaist performances. His collaboration with [[Maja Kruscek]] at [[Zünfte of Zürich|Zuntfhaus zür Waag]] featured samples of [[African literature]], to which Tzara added Romanian-language fragments.<ref name="pcern115"/> He is also known to have mixed elements of [[Romanian folklore]], and to have sung the native suburban [[Romance (music)|romanza]] ''La moară la Hârța'' ("At the Mill in Hârța") during at least one staging for Cabaret Voltaire.<ref>Cernat, p.182, 405</ref> Addressing the Romanian public in 1947, he claimed to have been captivated by "the sweet language of [[Western Moldavia|Moldavian]] peasants".<ref name="iliv246"/>

Tzara nonetheless rebelled against his birthplace and upbringing. His earliest poems depict provincial Moldavia as a desolate and unsettling place. In Cernat's view, this imagery was in common use among Moldavian-born writers who also belonged to the avant-garde trend, notably [[Benjamin Fondane]] and [[George Bacovia]].<ref>Cernat, p.37-38</ref> Like in the cases of Eugène Ionesco and Fondane, Cernat proposes, Samyro sought self-exile to [[Western Europe]] as a "modern, [[Voluntarism (metaphysics)|voluntarist]]" means of breaking with "the peripheral condition",<ref>Cernat, p.38</ref> which may also serve to explain the pun he selected for a pseudonym.<ref name="pcern110"/> According to the same author, two important elements in this process were "a maternal attachment and a break with paternal authority", an "[[Oedipus complex]]" which he also argued was evident in the biographies of other Symbolist and avant-garde Romanian authors, from Urmuz to [[Mateiu Caragiale]].<ref>Cernat, p.18</ref> Unlike Vinea and the ''[[Contimporanul]]'' group, Cernat proposes, Tzara stood for radicalism and insurgency, which would also help explain their impossibility to communicate.<ref>Cernat, p.398, 403–405</ref> In particular, Cernat argues, the writer sought to emancipate himself from competing nationalisms, and addressed himself directly to the center of European culture, with [[Zürich]] serving as a stage on his way to Paris.<ref name="pcern115"/> The 1916 ''Monsieur's Antipyrine's Manifesto'' featured a [[Cosmopolitanism|cosmopolitan]] appeal: "DADA remains within the framework of European weaknesses, it's still shit, but from now on we want to shit in different colors so as to adorn the zoo of art with all the flags of all the consulates."<ref name="pcern115"/>

With time, Tristan Tzara came to be regarded by his Dada associates as an exotic character, whose attitudes were intrinsically linked with [[Eastern Europe]]. Early on, Ball referred to him and the Janco brothers as "Orientals".<ref name="pcern112"/> [[Hans Richter (artist)|Hans Richter]] believed him to be a fiery and impulsive figure, having little in common with his German collaborators.<ref>Cernat, p.112; Richter, p.18-20, 24, 36, 37, 59</ref> According to Cernat, Richter's perspective seems to indicate a vision of Tzara having a "[[Italic peoples|Latin]]" temperament.<ref name="pcern112"/> This type of perception also had negative implications for Tzara, particularly after the 1922 split within Dada. In the 1940s, [[Richard Huelsenbeck]] alleged that his former colleague had always been separated from other Dadaists by his failure to appreciate the legacy of "[[Humanism in Germany|German humanism]]", and that, compared to his German colleagues, he was "a barbarian".<ref name="pcern114"/> In his polemic with Tzara, Breton also repeatedly placed stress on his rival's foreign origin.<ref>Cernat, p.114, 115; Răileanu & Carassou, p.35</ref>

At home, Tzara was occasionally targeted for his Jewishness, culminating in the ban enforced by the [[Ion Antonescu]] regime. In 1931, [[Const. I. Emilian]], the first Romanian to write an academic study on the avant-garde, attacked him from a [[Conservatism|conservative]] and [[Antisemitism|antisemitic]] position. He depicted Dadaists as "[[Jewish Bolshevism|Judaeo-Bolsheviks]]" who corrupted [[Culture of Romania|Romanian culture]], and included Tzara among the main proponents of "literary anarchism".<ref>Cernat, p.296, 299, 307, 309–310, 329</ref> Alleging that Tzara's only merit was to establish a literary fashion, while recognizing his "formal virtuosity and artistic intelligence", he claimed to prefer Tzara in his ''[[Simbolul]]'' stage.<ref>Cernat, p.310</ref> This perspective was deplored early on by the modernist critic [[Perpessicius]].<ref>Cernat, p.329</ref> Nine years after Emilian's polemic text, [[Fascism|fascist]] poet and journalist [[Radu Gyr]] published an article in ''[[Convorbiri Literare]]'', in which he attacked Tzara as a representative of the "[[Judaism|Judaic]] spirit", of the "foreign plague" and of "[[Dialectical materialism|materialist]]-[[Historical materialism|historical dialectics]]".<ref>[[Z. Ornea]], ''Anii treizeci. Extrema dreaptă românească'', [[Editura Fundației Culturale Române]], Bucharest, 1995, p.457. {{ISBN|973-9155-43-X}}</ref>

===Symbolist poetry===
Tzara's earliest [[Symbolism (movement)|Symbolist poems]], published in ''Simbolul'' during 1912, were later rejected by their author, who asked [[Sașa Pană]] not to include them in editions of his works.<ref name="pcern49"/> The influence of French Symbolists on the young Samyro was particularly important, and surfaced in both his [[Lyric poetry|lyric]] and [[Prose poetry|prose poems]].<ref name="mrdada"/><ref name="enotestt"/><ref>Cernat, p.49, 52</ref> Attached to Symbolist [[musicality]] at that stage, he was indebted to his ''Simbolul'' colleague [[Ion Minulescu]]<ref>Cernat, p.49; Emil Manu, "Actualitatea lui Ion Minulescu", in [[Ion Minulescu]], ''Versuri și proză'', Editura Eminescu, Bucharest, 1986, p.8. {{OCLC|18090790}}</ref> and the Belgian [[Maurice Maeterlinck]].<ref name="pcern49"/> Philip Beitchman argues that "Tristan Tzara is one of the writers of the twentieth century who was most profoundly influenced by symbolism—and utilized many of its methods and ideas in the pursuit of his own artistic and social ends."<ref>Beitchman, p.27</ref> However, Cernat believes, the young poet was by then already breaking with the [[syntax]] of conventional poetry, and that, in subsequent experimental pieces, he progressively stripped his style of its Symbolist elements.<ref>Cernat, p.49, 52–53</ref>

During the 1910s, Samyro experimented with Symbolist imagery, in particular with the "hanged man" motif, which served as the basis for his poem ''Se spânzură un om'' ("A Man Hangs Himself"), and which built on the legacy of similar pieces authored by [[Christian Morgenstern]] and [[Jules Laforgue]].<ref name="pcern52">Cernat, p.52</ref> ''Se spânzură un om'' was also in many ways similar to ones authored by his collaborators [[Adrian Maniu]] (''Balada spânzuratului'', "The Hanged Man's Ballad") and Vinea (''Visul spânzuratului'', "The Hanged Man's Dream"): all three poets, who were all in the process of discarding Symbolism, interpreted the theme from a [[Tragicomedy|tragicomic]] and [[iconoclastic]] perspective.<ref name="pcern52"/> These pieces also include ''Vacanță în provincie'' ("Provincial Holiday") and the [[anti-war]] fragment ''Furtuna și cântecul dezertorului'' ("The Storm and the Deserter's Song"), which Vinea published in his ''Chemarea''.<ref>Cernat, p.97-98, 106</ref> The series is seen by Cernat as "the general rehearsal for the Dada adventure."<ref>Cernat, p.98</ref> The complete text of ''Furtuna și cântecul dezertorului'' was published at a later stage, after the missing text was discovered by Pană.<ref>Cernat, p.106</ref> At the time, he became interested in the [[free verse]] work of the American [[Walt Whitman]], and his translation of Whitman's [[Epic poetry|epic poem]] ''[[Song of Myself]]'', probably completed before [[World War I]], was published by [[Alfred Hefter-Hidalgo]] in his magazine ''[[Versuri și Proză]]'' (1915).<ref>Cernat, p.55</ref>

Beitchman notes that, throughout his life, Tzara used Symbolist elements against the doctrines of Symbolism. Thus, he argues, the poet did not cultivate a memory of historical events, "since it deludes man into thinking that there was something when there was nothing."<ref name="pbeit29">Beitchman, p.29</ref> Cernat notes: "That which essentially unifies, during [the 1910s], the poetic output of Adrian Maniu, Ion Vinea and Tristan Tzara is an acute awareness of literary conventions, a satiety [...] in respect to [[Aestheticism|calophile]] literature, which they perceived as exhausted."<ref>Cernat, p.54</ref> In Beitchman's view, the revolt against cultivated beauty was a constant in Tzara's years of maturity, and his visions of social change continued to be inspired by [[Arthur Rimbaud]] and the [[Comte de Lautréamont]].<ref>Beitchman, p.38-39, 46</ref> According to Beitchman, Tzara uses the Symbolist message, "the birthright [of humans] has been sold for a mess of porridge", taking it "into the streets, cabarets and trains where he denounces the deal and asks for his birthright back."<ref>Beitchman, p.52</ref>

===Collaboration with Vinea===
The transition to a more radical form of poetry seems to have taken place in 1913–1915, during the periods when Tzara and Vinea were vacationing together. The pieces share a number of characteristics and subjects, and the two poets even use them to allude to one another (or, in one case, to Tzara's sister).<ref>Cernat, p.117, 119</ref>

In addition to the lyrics were they both speak of provincial holidays and love affairs with local girls, both friends intended to reinterpret [[William Shakespeare]]'s ''[[Hamlet]]'' from a modernist perspective, and wrote incomplete texts with this as their subject.<ref>Cernat, p.109, 119, 160</ref> However, Paul Cernat notes, the texts also evidence a difference in approach, with Vinea's work being "meditative and melancholic", while Tzara's is "[[Hedonism|hedonistic]]".<ref name="pcern117">Cernat, p.117</ref> Tzara often appealed to revolutionary and ironic images, portraying provincial and [[middle class]] environments as places of artificiality and decay, demystifying [[pastoral]] themes and evidencing a will to break free.<ref>Cernat, p.117-119</ref> His literature took a more radical perspective on life, and featured lyrics with subversive intent:
{{Verse translation|
{{lang|ro|să ne coborâm în râpa, 
care-i Dumnezeu când cască}}<ref>Cernat, p.119</ref>
|
let's descend into the precipice
that is God yawning}}

In his ''Înserează'' (roughly, "Night Falling"), probably authored in [[Mangalia]], Tzara writes:
{{Verse translation|
{{lang|ro|[...] deschide-te fereastră, prin urmare
și ieși noapte din odaie ca din piersică sâmburul, 
ca preotul din biserică
[...] hai în parcul communal
până o cânta cocoșul
să se scandalizeze orașul [...].}}<ref name="pcern117"/>
|
[...] open yourself therefore, window
and you night, spring out of the room like a kernel from the peach,
like a priest from the church
[...] let's go to the community park
before the rooster starts crowing
so that the city will be scandalized [...]}}

Vinea's similar poem, written in [[Tuzla, Constanța|Tuzla]] and named after that village, reads:
{{Verse translation|
{{lang|ro|seara bate semne pe far
peste goarnele vagi de apă
când se întorc pescarii cu stele pe mâini
și trec vapoarele și planetele}}<ref name="pcern117"/>
|
the evening stamps signs on the lighthouse
over the vague bugles of water
when fishermen return with stars on their arms
and ships and planets pass by}}

Cernat notes that ''Nocturnă'' ("Nocturne") and ''Înserează'' were the pieces originally performed at [[Cabaret Voltaire (Zürich)|Cabaret Voltaire]], identified by [[Hugo Ball]] as "Rumanian poetry",<!-- sic --> and that they were recited in Tzara's own spontaneous French translation.<ref>Cernat, p.111, 120</ref> Although they are noted for their radical break with the traditional form of Romanian verse,<ref name="ddintoarc">{{in lang|ro}} [[Dennis Deletant]], [http://www.revista22.ro/html/index.php?nr=2007-01-12&art=3373 "Întoarcerea României în Europa: între politică și cultură"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071021120445/http://www.revista22.ro/html/index.php?art=3373&nr=2007-01-12 |date=21 October 2007 }}, in ''[[Revista 22]]'', Nr. 879, January 2007</ref> Ball's diary entry of 5 February 1916, indicates that Tzara's works were still "conservative in style".<ref name="hrich16">Richter, p.16</ref> In Călinescu's view, they announce Dadaism, given that "bypassing the relations which lead to a realistic vision, the poet associates unimaginably dissipated images that will surprise consciousness."<ref name="gcal887"/> In 1922, Tzara himself wrote: "As early as 1914, I tried to strip the words of their proper meaning and use them in such a way as to give the verse a completely new, general, meaning [...]."<ref name="ddintoarc"/>

Alongside pieces depicting a Jewish cemetery in which graves "crawl like worms" on the edge of a town, chestnut trees "heavy-laden like people returning from hospitals", or wind wailing "with all the hopelessness of an orphanage",<ref name="gcal887"/> Samyro's poetry includes ''Verișoară, fată de pension'', which, Cernat argues, displays "playful detachment [for] the musicality of [[internal rhyme]]s".<ref name="pcern49"/> It opens with the lyrics:
{{Verse translation|
{{lang|ro|Verișoară, fată de pension, îmbrăcată în negru, guler alb,
Te iubesc pentru că ești simplă și visezi
Și ești bună, plângi, și rupi scrisori ce nu au înțeles
Și-ți pare rău că ești departe de ai tăi și că înveți 
La Călugărițe unde noaptea nu e cald.}}<ref name="gcal887"/>
|
Little cousin, boarding school girl, dressed in black, white collar,
I love you because you are simple and you dream
And you are kind, you cry, you tear up letters that have no meaning
And you feel bad because you are far from yours and you study
At the Nuns where at night it's not warm.}}

The [[Gârceni]] pieces were treasured by the moderate wing of the Romanian avant-garde movement. In contrast to his previous rejection of Dada, ''[[Contimporanul]]'' collaborator [[Benjamin Fondane]] used them as an example of "pure poetry", and compared them to the elaborate writings of French poet [[Paul Valéry]], thus recuperating them in line with the magazine's ideology.<ref>Cernat, p.153, 288; Răileanu & Carassou, p.62-67</ref>

===Dada synthesis and "simultaneism"===
Tzara the Dadaist was inspired by the contributions of his experimental modernist predecessors. Among them were the literary promoters of [[Cubism]]: in addition to [[Henri Barzun]] and [[Fernand Divoire]], Tzara cherished the works of [[Guillaume Apollinaire]].<ref name="mrnnradi"/><ref>Haftmann, in Richter, p.216</ref> Despite Dada's condemnation of [[Futurism]], various authors note the influence [[Filippo Tommaso Marinetti]] and his circle exercised on Tzara's group.<ref>Londré, p.396; Richter, p.19, 191 (Haftmann, in Richter, p.216-217)</ref> In 1917, he was in correspondence with both Apollinaire<ref>Cardinal, p.529; Richter, p.167</ref> and Marinetti.<ref>Cardinal, p.529</ref> Traditionally, Tzara is also seen as indebted to the early avant-garde and [[black comedy]] writings of Romania's [[Urmuz]].<ref name="ddintoarc"/><ref>Cernat, p.128-129, 341, 343, 346; Amy D. Colin, "Paul Celan's Poetics of Destruction", in Amy D. Colin (ed.), ''Argumentum E Silentio'', [[Walter de Gruyter]], Berlin, 1987, p.158. {{ISBN|3-11-010555-1}}</ref>

For a large part, Dada focused on performances and [[satire]], with shows that often had Tzara, Marcel Janco and Huelsenbeck for their main protagonists. Often dressed up as [[German Tyrol|Tyrolian]] peasants or wearing dark robes, they improvised poetry sessions at the Cabaret Voltaire, reciting the works of others or their spontaneous creations, which were or pretended to be in [[Esperanto]] or [[Māori language]].<ref>Cernat, p.113, 115</ref> Bernard Gendron describes these soirées as marked by "heterogeneity and [[eclecticism]]",<ref>Gendron, p.73</ref> and Richter notes that the songs, often punctuated by loud shrieks or other unsettling sounds, built on the legacy of [[noise music]] and [[Futurism (music)|Futurist compositions]].<ref>Richter, p.19</ref>

With time, Tristan Tzara merged his performances and his literature, taking part in developing Dada's "simultaneist poetry", which was meant to be read out loud and involved a collaborative effort, being, according to [[Hans Arp]], the first instance of [[Surrealist automatism]].<ref name="hrich16"/> Ball stated that the subject of such pieces was "the value of the human voice."<ref>Richter, p.31</ref> Together with Arp, Tzara and [[Walter Serner]] produced the [[German language|German-language]] ''Die Hyperbel vom Krokodilcoiffeur und dem Spazierstock'' ("The Hyperbole of the Crocodile's Hairdresser and the Walking-Stick"), in which, Arp stated, "the poet crows, curses, sighs, stutters, [[Yodeling|yodels]], as he pleases. His poems are like Nature [where] a tiny particle is as beautiful and important as a star."<ref>Richter, p.30-31</ref> Another noted simultaneist poem was ''L'Amiral cherche une maison à louer'' ("The Admiral Is Looking for a House to Rent"), co-authored by Tzara, Marcel Janco and Huelsenbach.<ref name="gcal887"/>

Art historian Roger Cardinal describes Tristan Tzara's Dada poetry as marked by "extreme semantic and syntactic incoherence".<ref name="rcard530"/> Tzara, who recommended destroying just as it is created,<ref>Londré, p.396-397</ref> had devised a personal system for writing poetry, which implied a seemingly chaotic reassembling of words that had been randomly cut out of newspapers.<ref name="nzgysin"/><ref>Călinescu, p.887; Londré, p.397; Richter, p.54, 60, 123</ref><ref name="rlword">Robin Lydenberg, ''Word Cultures: Radical Theory and Practice in William S. Burroughs'', [[University of Illinois Press]], Urbana & Chicago, p.45. {{ISBN|0-252-01413-8}}</ref>

===Dada and anti-art===
The Romanian writer also spent the Dada period issuing a long series of manifestos, which were often authored as [[prose poetry]],<ref name="enotestt"/> and, according to Cardinal, were characterized by "rumbustious tomfoolery and astringent wit", which reflected "the language of a sophisticated savage".<ref name="rcard530"/> Huelsenbeck credited Tzara with having discovered in them the format for "compress[ing] what we think and feel",<ref>Richter, p.103</ref> and, according to Hans Richter, the genre "suited Tzara perfectly."<ref name="hrich33"/> Despite its production of seemingly theoretical works, Richter indicates, Dada lacked any form of program, and Tzara tried to perpetuate this state of affairs.<ref>Richter, p.33-35</ref> His Dada manifesto of 1918 stated: "Dada means nothing", adding "Thought is produced in the mouth."<ref>Londré, p.396, 397; Richter, p.35</ref> Tzara indicated: "I am against systems; the most acceptable system is on principle to have none."<ref name="jycmelusine"/> In addition, Tzara, who once stated that "[[logic]] is always false",<ref name="ipuranus">{{in lang|ro}} Ion Pop, [http://www.revistatribuna.ro/arhiva/tribuna96.pdf "Un urmuzian: Ionathan X. Uranus"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090327074348/http://www.revistatribuna.ro/arhiva/tribuna96.pdf |date=27 March 2009 }}, in ''Tribuna'', Vol. V, Nr. 96, September 2006</ref> probably approved of Serner's vision of a "final dissolution".<ref>Richter, p.48, 49</ref> According to Philip Beitchman, a core concept in Tzara's thought was that "as long as we do things the way we think we once did them we will be unable to achieve any kind of livable society."<ref name="pbeit29"/>

Despite adopting such [[anti-art]]istic principles, Richter argues, Tzara, like many of his fellow Dadaists, did not initially discard the mission of "furthening the cause of art."<ref name="Richter, p.54">Richter, p.54</ref> He saw this evident in ''La Revue Dada 2'', a poem "as exquisite as freshly-picked flowers", which included the lyrics:
{{Verse translation|
{{lang|fr|Cinq négresses dans une auto
ont explosé suivant les 5 directions de mes doigts
quand je pose la main sur la poitrine pour prier Dieu (parfois)
autour de ma tête il y a la lumière humide des vieux oiseaux lunaires}}<ref name="Richter, p.54"/>
|
Five Negro women in a car
exploded following the 5 directions of my fingers
when I pose my hand on my chest to pray God (sometimes)
around my head there is the humid light of old lunar birds}}

[[File:Guillaume Apollinaire Calligramme.JPG|thumb|190px|One of [[Guillaume Apollinaire]]'s [[calligram]]s, shaped like the [[Eiffel Tower]]]]
''La Revue Dada 2'', which also includes the [[Onomatopoeia|onomatopoeic]] line ''tralalalalalalalalalalala'', is one example where Tzara applies his principles of chance to sounds themselves.<ref name="Richter, p.54"/> This sort of arrangement, treasured by many Dadaists, was probably connected with Apollinaire's [[calligram]]s, and with his announcement that "Man is in search of a new language."<ref name="mlsconcr">Mary Lewis Shaw, "Concrete and Abstract Poetry: The World as Text and the Text as World", in Leonard M. Trawick (ed.), ''World, Self, Poem: Essays on Contemporary Poetry from the "Jubliation of Poets"'', [[Kent State University Press]], Kent, 1990, p.169. {{ISBN|0-87338-419-9}}</ref> Călinescu proposed that Tzara willingly limited the impact of chance: taking as his example a short [[parody]] piece which depicts the love affair between cyclist and a Dadaist, which ends with their decapitation by a jealous husband, the critic notes that Tzara transparently intended to "shock the [[Bourgeoisie|bourgeois]]".<ref name="gcal887"/> Late in his career, Huelsenbeck alleged that Tzara never actually applied the experimental methods he had devised.<ref name="hrich123"/>

The Dada series makes ample use of contrast, [[Ellipse (figure of speech)|ellipses]], ridiculous imagery and nonsensical verdicts.<ref name="enotestt"/> Tzara was aware that the public could find it difficult to follow his intentions, and, in a piece titled ''Le géant blanc lépreux du paysage'' ("The White Leprous Giant in the Landscape") even alluded to the "skinny, idiotic, dirty" reader who "does not understand my poetry."<ref name="enotestt"/> He called some of his own poems ''lampisteries'', from a French word designating storage areas for light fixtures.<ref>Cardinal, p.530; Hofman, p.7</ref> The [[Lettrism|Lettrist]] poet [[Isidore Isou]] included such pieces in a succession of experiments inaugurated by [[Charles Baudelaire]] with the "destruction of the anecdote for the form of the poem", a process which, with Tzara, became "destruction of the word for nothing".<ref name="dwslettr">David W. Seaman, "French Lettrisme—Discontinuity and the Nature of the Avant-Garde", in Freeman G. Henry (ed.), ''Discontinuity and Fragmentation'', [[Rodopi Publishers|Rodopi]], Amsterdam, 1994, p.163. {{ISBN|90-5183-634-1}}</ref> According to American literary historian [[Mary Ann Caws]], Tzara's poems may be seen as having an "internal order", and read as "a simple spectacle, as creation complete in itself and completely obvious."<ref name="enotestt"/>

===Plays of the 1920s===
Tristan Tzara's first play, ''[[The Gas Heart]]'', dates from the final period of Paris Dada. Created with what Enoch Brater calls a "peculiar verbal strategy", it is a dialogue between characters called Ear, Mouth, Eye, Nose, Neck, and Eyebrow.<ref name="ebra25">Brater, p.25</ref> They seem unwilling to actually communicate to each other and their reliance on proverbs and idiotisms willingly creates confusion between metaphorical and literal speech.<ref name="ebra25"/> The play ends with a dance performance that recalls similar devices used by the proto-Dadaist [[Alfred Jarry]]. The text culminates in a series of doodles and illegible words.<ref name="ebra26">Brater, p.26</ref> Brater describes ''The Gas Heart'' as a "parod[y] of theatrical conventions".<ref name="ebra26"/>

In his 1924 play ''[[Handkerchief of Clouds]]'', Tzara explores the relation between perception, the [[subconscious]] and memory. Largely through exchanges between commentators who act as third parties, the text presents the tribulations of a [[love triangle]] (a poet, a bored woman, and her banker husband, whose character traits borrow the clichés of conventional drama), and in part reproduces settings and lines from ''[[Hamlet]]''.<ref>Beitchman, p.31-32</ref> Tzara mocks classical theater, which demands from characters to be inspiring, believable, and to function as a whole: ''Handkerchief of Clouds'' requires actors in the role of commentators to address each other by their real names,<ref>Beitchman, p.32-34; Cernat, p.279</ref> and their lines include dismissive comments on the play itself, while the [[protagonist]], who in the end dies, is not assigned any name.<ref>Beitchman, p.32-34</ref> Writing for ''Integral'', Tzara defined his play as a note on "the relativity of things, sentiments and events."<ref>Cernat, p.279</ref> Among the conventions ridiculed by the dramatist, Philip Beitchman notes, is that of a "privileged position for art": in what Beitchman sees as a comment on [[Marxism]], poet and banker are interchangeable [[Capitalism|capitalists]] who invest in different fields.<ref>Beitchman, p.34-35</ref> Writing in 1925, Fondane rendered a pronouncement by [[Jean Cocteau]], who, while commenting that Tzara was one of his "most beloved" writers and a "great poet", argued: "''Handkerchief of Clouds'' was poetry, and great poetry for that matter—but not theater."<ref>Răileanu & Carassou, p.34</ref> The work was nonetheless praised by [[Ion Călugăru]] at ''Integral'', who saw in it one example that modernist performance could rely not just on props, but also on a solid text.<ref name="pcern277"/>

===''The Approximate Man'' and later works===
After 1929, with the adoption of Surrealism, Tzara's literary works discard much of their satirical purpose, and begin to explore universal themes relating to the [[human condition]].<ref name="enotestt"/> According to Cardinal, the period also signified the definitive move from "a studied inconsequentiality" and "unreadable gibberish" to "a seductive and fertile surrealist idiom."<ref name="rcard530"/> The critic also remarks: "Tzara arrived at a mature style of transparent simplicity, in which disparate entities could be held together in a unifying vision."<ref name="rcard530"/> In a 1930 essay, Fondane had given a similar verdict: arguing that Tzara had infused his work with "suffering", had discovered humanity, and had become a "[[Clairvoyance|clairvoyant]]" among poets.<ref>Răileanu & Carassou, p.65</ref>

This period in Tzara's creative activity centers on ''[[The Approximate Man]]'', an [[Epic poetry|epic poem]] which is reportedly recognized as his most accomplished contribution to [[French literature]].<ref name="rcard530"/><ref name="enotestt"/> While maintaining some of Tzara's preoccupation with language experimentation, it is mainly a study in [[social alienation]] and the search for an escape.<ref name="enotestt"/><ref>Beitchman, p.37-42</ref> Cardinal calls the piece "an extended meditation on mental and elemental impulses [...] with images of stunning beauty",<ref name="rcard530"/> while Breitchman, who notes Tzara's rebellion against the "excess baggage of [man's] past and the notions [...] with which he has hitherto tried to control his life", remarks his portrayal of poets as voices who can prevent human beings from destroying themselves with their own intellects.<ref>Beitchman, p.37-38</ref> The goal is a new man who lets intuition and spontaneity guide him through life, and who rejects measure.<ref>Beitchman, p.40-45</ref> One of the appeals in the text reads:
{{Verse translation|
{{lang|fr|je parle de qui parle qui parle je suis seul
je ne suis qu'un petit bruit j'ai plusieurs bruits en moi
un bruit glacé froissé au carrefour jeté sur le trottoir humide
aux pieds des hommes pressés courant avec leurs morts
autour de la mort qui étend ses bras
sur le cadran de l'heure seule vivante au soleil.}}<ref name="jycmelusine"/>
|
I speak of the one who speaks who speaks I am alone
I am but a small noise I have several noises in me
a ruffled noise frozen with the crossroads thrown on the wet pavement
with the feet of the men in a hurry running with their dead
around death which extends its arms
on the dial of the hour only alive in the sun}}

The next stage in Tzara's career saw a merger of his literary and political views. His poems of the period blend a [[Humanism|humanist]] vision with [[Communism|communist]] theses.<ref name="enotestt"/><ref name="pbeit49"/> The 1935 ''Grains et issues'', described by Beitchman as "fascinating",<ref>Beitchman, p.45</ref> was a prose poem of [[social criticism]] connected with ''The Approximate Man'', expanding on the vision of a possible society, in which haste has been abandoned in favor of [[oblivion (eternal)|oblivion]]. The world imagined by Tzara abandons symbols of the past, from literature to public transportation and currency, while, like psychologists [[Sigmund Freud]] and [[Wilhelm Reich]], the poet depicts violence as a natural means of human expression.<ref>Beitchman, p.46-50</ref> People of the future live in a state which combines waking life and the realm of dreams, and life itself turns into revery.<ref>Beitchman, p.48</ref> ''Grains et issues'' was accompanied by ''Personage d'insomnie'' ("Personage of Insomnia"), which went unpublished.<ref>Beitchman, p.51</ref>

Cardinal notes: "In retrospect, harmony and contact had been Tzara's goals all along."<ref name="rcard530"/> The post-[[World War II]] volumes in the series focus on political subjects related to the conflict.<ref name="enotestt"/> In his last writings, Tzara toned down experimentation, exercising more control over the lyrical aspects.<ref name="enotestt"/> He was by then undertaking a [[Hermeneutics|hermeutic]] research into the work of [[Goliard]]s and [[François Villon]], whom he deeply admired.<ref name="spbuot"/><ref name="mrnnradi"/>