The Routledge Dictionary of Literary Terms

Dada Received its enigmatic name in
February 1916; was a reaction against the
brutality of war, the expediency of art and
literature and the dangerous inadequacy
of rational thought; in fact it spat out its
contempt for the spiritual and moral decadence
of a whole intellectual, cultural and
social system. Born in neutral Zurich in
the middle of the anarchic destruction of
the Great War, it expressed its disgust
with a morally culpable bourgeoisie and
a spiritually nerveless art which had no
objective beyond a simplistic social photography,
a faith in its own function as
anodyne and a reprehensible dedication to
self-fulfilment. With unabashed relish
Dada declared its negative intent: it
wished, apparently, to destroy art along
with bourgeois society, but in truth it
opposed itself to the abuse of art rather
than art itself, to society rather than
humanity. Its exponents were poets and
artists (Marcel Duchamp, Hugo Ball,
Tristan Tzara, Richard Huelsenbeck, Man
Ray, Max Ernst) who professed to despise
art and literature but who, paradoxically,
expressed their contempt in terms which
identified them as part of the modernist
movement. Its chief weapons – manifesto,
phonetic poetry, simultaneous poem,
noise music and provocative public spectacle
– were all borrowed directly from
the Futurists and stood as an image of the
dissolution which seemed the central fact
of modern existence. Their commitment
to experimental modes, and the vitality of
their performances, however, seemed to
indicate a more fundamental faith in the
possibility of opposing historical entropy
with energy and concern if not with the
self-contained structure of art itself.
D
When Dada found itself outflanked by the
more coherent and purposeful experiments
of the Surrealists it was laid to rest
in 1922. But, as an attitude of mind rather
than a formal movement, its subversive
energy could not be contained by the
incantations of a mock funeral service.
In the 1960s American artists, writers,
actors and musicians laid claim to the
excitement and commitment of Futurists,
Dadaists and Surrealists alike and
approximated their experiments in the
technique of Pop Art, happenings and the
multimedia performance. See also
SURREALISM.
See C. W. E. Bigsby, Dada and
Surrealism (1972); Hans Richter, Dada:
Art and Anti-art (1965); William S. Rubin,
Dada, Surrealism and their Heritage
(1968); S. Foster and R. Kuenzl (eds),
Dada Spectrum (1979) (contains extensive
bibliography); R. Sheppard (ed.), Dada:
Studies of a Movement (1979), New
Studies in Dada (1981); R. Short, Dada
and Surrealism (1980), Modernism, Dada,
Postmodernism (2000); D. Tashjian,
Skyscraper Primitives (1975).
CWEB
Decentring See AUTHOR, CREATION,
DECONSTRUCTION, DISCOURSE.
Deconstruction Refers to a philosophical
activity initiated by Jacques
Derrida in France; the first major publications
appeared in the late 1960s. It is a
critique of concepts and hierarchies
which, according to Derrida, are essential
to traditional criteria of certainty, identity
and truth; but which, nevertheless,
achieve their status only by repressing
and forgetting other elements which thus