Reflections on the Aesthetics of Futurism, Dadaism and Surrealism A Prosody Beyond Words

This study analyzes the aesthetic thrust of what are considered the three most important avant-garde movements in the 20th century, defining both similarities and differences in their poetics. In essays like "A Will to Art", "Modern Drama and Nonverbal Poetics," "Le Chapelet du hasard: Ideas of Order in Dada-Surrealist Imagery", "Three Modes of Semantic Accrual", and "The Aesthetics of Ambiguity", Eric Sellin explores the inner workings of the creative impulses and the resulting poetic structures which inhere in the creative works of these early avant-garde movements.