The Banquet Years
Back of the Book
The definitive chronicle of the origins of French avant-garde literature and art, Roger Shattuck's classic portrays the cultural bohemia of turn-of-the-century Paris who carried the arts into a period of renewal and accomplishment and laid the groundwork for Dadaism and Surrealism. Shattuck focuses on the careers of Alfred Jarry, Henri Rousseau, Erik Satie, and Guillaume Apollinaire, using the quartet as a window into the era as he explores a culture whose influence is at the very foundation of modern art.
We Love It Because
Roger Shattuck’s famous critical treatment of Proust in Proust’s Way is founded in his debut. Whilst he is regarded as a bit of an old-fashioned intellectual by his contemporaries, including Harold Bloom, his prose glitters with the ever green light of genuine fondness and curiosity. Shattuck is able to relay his interests to the layman with a depth and clarity that remains, to this day, inimitable and in charting the origins of the Avant-Garde in France he establishes his vast ambitions for his decorated career that any reader is privileged to bear witness to.
Memorable Passage
Deep down at its center of gravity, however, the century turned slowly despite all this ferment. It changed its pace for no man. Artists who strained forward into the future found that their fresh trail was rarely being followed in prosperous and complacent France. In response they did what was only natural: they banded together for support. They constituted what we have come to call the avant-garde, a “tradition” of heterodoxy and opposition which defied civilized values in the name of individual consciousness. They developed a systematic technique of scandal in order to keep their ideas before the public. It amounted to an artistic underground, which began to break through to the surface in the latter part of the Banquet Years.
About the Author
Roger Shattuck (1923–2005) was an American scholar, author, and literary critic whose profound contributions to the study of literature and culture have left an enduring legacy. Born in New York City, Shattuck's distinguished career was marked by his interdisciplinary approach, blending literature, philosophy, and history. His influential work, The Banquet Years: The Origins of the Avant-Garde in France, explored the cultural and intellectual milieu of turn-of-the-century Paris and became a seminal text in understanding the roots of artistic modernism. Shattuck's scholarship extended to the works of Marcel Proust, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and other notable figures, reflecting his wide-ranging intellectual curiosity. His commitment to bridging the gap between academic scholarship and general readership made complex subjects accessible and engaging. Roger Shattuck is worth knowing for his scholarly rigor, his dedication to the exploration of avant-garde movements, and his role as a key figure in shaping the understanding of modernist literature and cultural history.
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