French Literature Reviews - 2026
The Myths of the Avant-Gardes
Literary Theory, Linguistics and Stylistics
THE MYTHS OF THE AVANT-GARDES
Studies edited by Véronique LÉONARD-ROQUES and Jean-Christophe VALTAT
To raise the question of the relationship between myth and the avant-gardes is to expose oneself to the tensions and paradoxes that characterize both fields. In their quest for a radically new art, the avant-gardes often claimed to reject myth. Yet, while myth might seem by nature to belong to the past, it also serves as a privileged material for contemplating time from a distance and, through its alogical character, acts as a mediator for anti-rationalism and primitivism. Caught between the invocation of "ancient myths" and the aspiration for "new myths," what the avant-gardes seem to have captured most successfully from myth, by reiterating it, is its historicity, its constant blending of traditions, and its persistent drive to articulate an origin or a destination that remains forever unreachable and eternally lost.
Literatures Series
NOVEMBER 2003
524 pages
Bookstore Distribution: C.I.D.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Véronique LÉONARD-ROQUES and Jean-Christophe VALTAT Foreword
Ambivalences
Wolfgang ASHOLT The Avant-Garde, the Last Myth of Literary History?
Jean BESSIÈRE Myth, Anachronism, Modernism. Notes Toward an Interpretation of Temporal Representation in The Waste Land
Jean-Christophe VALTAT Myth and Montage: Benjamin and McLuhan, Theorists of the Avant-Garde
Serge ZENKINE Constructing a Lack: The Myth of Acéphale
Wild Thoughts
Antonio DOMÍNGUEZ LEIVA The Dionysian: The Drive Mechanism of the Avant-Gardes?
Frédérique TOUDOIRE-SURLAPIERRE Vikings and Nordic Valkyries: The Expressionist Ride
Duarte MIMOSO-RUIZ Brazilian Myths of the "Malandro" and the Slacker Indian. Novelistic and Theatrical Avant-Gardism According to Mário de Andrade (Macunaíma, novel, 1926-1928) and Oswald de Andrade (O Rei da vela, theatre, 1933-1937)
Céline FLÉCHEUX American Myth-Makers
Languages of the Golden Age
Véronique LÉONARD-ROQUES On a Few Adams from the 1910s-1920s
Anne TOMICHE Babel and the Futurist and Dadaist Avant-Gardes
Régis POULET An Avant-Garde in Reverse: René Daumal's Le Grand Jeu
Jessica WILKER Mallarmé and Benjamin: From the Time of Myths to the Myth of the Abolition of Time
Olivier SÉCARDIN Mallarmé, or the Cabinet of Hybridizations
Cécile SCHENCK The Reactivation of the Myth of the New Man in Expressionist Theatre and Early 20th-Century German Modern Dance
Myths and Mechanization
Isabelle KRZYWKOWSKI Is the Machine an Avant-Garde Myth?
Pascale AURAIX-JONCHIÈRE Tomorrow's Eve (1886): A Futurist Lilith?
Bernadette HIDALGO BACHS A Reading of the Decontextualization of Myths in Pedro Salinas's Cinematógrafo de seguro azar
Sandrine BAZILE Woman as Object, Work in Freedom: The Myth of the Mechanical Woman
Silvia CONTARINI At the Origins of Futurism: The Dream of Creating a Mechanical Child Without the Contribution of Woman
Disseminations, Fragmentations, Hybridizations
Barbara MEAZZI Mafarka the Futurist, or the Mythological Imposture of Futurism
Fabienne Claire CALAND The Medusan Gaze in Art Nouveau
Éléna GALTSOVA Myths and Mythic Thought in Surrealist Dramaturgy: Discontinuity and Continuity of Theatrical Representation Structures
Isabelle CANI From André Breton to the Enchantments of Brittany. Arthurian Myths on the Margins of Surrealism
Bernadette REY-MIMOSO-RUIZ The Myth of the Wagnerian Androgyne Revised and Corrected by Dalí and Buñuel in Un Chien Andalou (1929)
Nicolas SURLAPIERRE The Thirties of Minotaure: A Broad-Spectrum Myth
Mechthild ALBERT Hermes and the Pantheon of the Spanish Avant-Garde
Olivier SALAZAR-FERRER Metamorphoses of Myth in the Work of Benjamin Fondane
Incarnations
Gabriel SAAD Greek Mythology and Hispanic-American Modernism
Élise RADIX Villiers de l'Isle-Adam and Péladan: Occultism as the Source of a Mythified Modernity
Claude FOUCART Dadaism, or Chance in the Service of the Renewal of Myths
Valéry HUGOTTE, University of Bordeaux III - Michel de Montaigne: The Words of Myths and the Myrtles of the Dead
Beyond the Avant-Gardes
Sébastien HUBIER Rilke, Already "Beyond" the Avant-Garde
Pascal VACHER Rewriting Babel in Fritz Lang's Metropolis
The avant-garde movements of the early twentieth century are often defined by their radical break with tradition and their pursuit of new forms of artistic expression. This collection explores the relationship between myth and the avant-gardes, addressing the tension between the rejection of the past and the invocation of ancient narratives. The contributors examine how avant-garde artists utilized myth to navigate concepts of time, anti-rationalism, and primitivism, reiterating mythic themes to articulate origins or destinations that remain unreachable.
The essays investigate diverse manifestations of this phenomenon, ranging from the mechanical and technological myths of Futurism to the use of classical motifs in Surrealist and Expressionist works. By examining figures such as Mallarmé and Benjamin, the contributors address how myth functions as a mediator for artistic concerns. Readers interested in the intersection of twentieth-century aesthetic theory and the persistence of cultural archetypes may find this collection relevant for its scope, which includes literature, theatre, and visual culture across European and Latin American contexts.