Rhetorical Strategies and Gender in Marinetti's Futurist Manifesto ...

More documents

Recommendations

Info

war-a catalyst of virilizing male bonds-and through an educational system structured to protect boys from feminine influence. One might observe that there is a slippery boundary between these ho- mosocial bonds and homoerotic desire.'' Indeed, one can identify a strain of homoeroticism displaced onto the machine, the great fetish of Futurist mythology-an "other" which offers a reassuring mirror image of the subject's desire for power. Furthermore, the homoerotic underside of violent misogyny-not so obvious in the manifestos- comes to the surface in Mafarka il futurista, a text which dramatizes the perviousness and uncertainty of the subject's borders and affec- tive valences. Ultimately, homophobia, gynophobia, and correlated homoeroticism are to be traced back to an instability of the parameters, codes, and material conditions upon which an individual sense of identity and power is grounded. While the manifesto's hybrid nature instan- tiates the disruption of codes in modern chaotic, fragmentary reality, the rhetoric and thematics of gender strive to establish more rigid gender codes which provide a foundation for the integrity of the subject and for an unwavering code of authority and subordination. In short, barriers between genres can be broken; gender barriers cannot. One might say that the polarization of gender functions as the bed- rock upon which other barricades are erected. Marinetti's writing (especially in manifestos and polemical texts) seems to be controlled by the necessity of producing a rigidly binary construction of reality. This tendency was apparent from the very beginning of the Futurist movement, especially with "Fondazione e Manifesto del Futurismo," the first declaration of a war to be engaged on all fronts in order to break with the stifling past and bring Italy to the forefront of modern progress. With a striking combination of allegory, Dionysiac intoxi- cation, and brash oratory, Marinetti railed against the worship of tra- dition while celebrating an anti-sentimental, virile art, and the worship of strength, heroism, and courage. The following are examples of the peremptory divisions drawn by the manifesto: 9. Noi vogliamo glorificare la guerra-sola igiene del mondo--il militarism~, il patriottismo, il gesto distruttore dei libertari, le belle idee per cui si muore e il disprezzo della donna. 10.Noi vogliamo distruggere i musei, le biblioteche, le accademie d'o- gni specie, e combattere contro il moralismo, il femmlnismo e contro ogni vilta opportunistica o utilitaria. [TIF, 11I This binary structuring of reality is bound up with the structuring of a new religion. Particularly in "La nuova religione-morale della velocita," the act of setting up boundaries between the pure and the im-
pure clearly displays a religious value. The new cult of speed, in fact, is proposed as an alternative to a no-longer effective Christian moral- ity, which has lost "divinity," that is, power to control man's in- stincts and to further his progress: La morale cristiana difese la struttura fisiologica dell'uomo dagli eccessi della sensualita. Modero i suoi istinti e li equilibro. La morale futurist~ difendera l'uomo dalla decomposizione determinata dalla lentezza, dal ricordo, dall'analisi, dal riposo e dall'abitudine. L'energia umana centuplicata dalla velocita dominera il Tempo e lo Spazio. (TIF, 130; author's emphases! La velocita avendo per essenza la sintesi intuitiva di tutte le forze in movimento, e naturalmente pura. La lentezza, avendo per essenza l'a- nalisi razionale di tutte le stanchezze in riposo, e naturalmente im- monda. Dopo la distruzione dell'antico bene e dell'antico male, noi creiamo un nuovo bene: la velocita, e un nuovo male: la lentezza. (TIF, 132; author's emphasesl Julia Kristeva's psychoanalytical and anthropological studies on abjection offer a theoretical framework to explain this rhetorical strategy and, more generally, the pervasive imagery of defilement, corruption, and decay in Marinetti's texts. In particular, we will refer to Powers of Horror, where anti-semitism, rituals of defilement, pho- bias, and the subject's repudiation of femininity are traced back to the fundamental psychic process of the subject's accession to meaning and identity. l2According to Kristeva, the primal process of separation from, and rejection of the maternal entity results in repugnance, or abjection-a corporeal symptom or sign, which serves to defend the subject's power of identification. The abjection of corporeal waste and, in general, of that which traverses the boundary of the self, goes along with that power as its "other."'"eferring to primitive societ- ies where defilement is synonymous with supreme danger or great evil, Kristeva points out that the ritualization of defilement is accom- panied by a strong concern for separating the sexes: "[Women], appar- ently put in the position of passive objects, are none the less felt to be wily powers, 'baleful schemers' from whom rightful beneficiaries must protect themselves" (70). Defilement rituals and behavior pro- hibitions are supposed to ward off the danger, and, by setting up sep- arations, they lay the foundations for a social order. Such rituals and the concomitant abjection of the feminine are traced back to the lack of "a central authoritarian power" (70). These observations offer some insights into the note of sacrality which is often sounded in Marinetti's texts and cast light on the work- ings of his misogynist strategies as a response to the crisis of the cul- tural order. Such a response involves marking off boundaries along
Page 1 and 2: Rhetorical Strategies and Gender in
Page 3 and 4: An aesthetic of rupture which subve
Page 5: contemptuously attacked as a form o
Page 9 and 10: e read as a gloss to the accumulati
Page 11 and 12: cases, the fundamental ideological
Page 13 and 14: knowledge (or science) as masculine
Page 15 and 16: tive and empowering structures-Rail
Page 17: 'Noi futuristi, barbari raffinatiss

Rhetorical Strategies and Gender in Marinetti's Futurist Manifesto ...

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?