Automatism, Chance, Mass Culture: Avant-Garde Practice in Witold Gombrowicz's Early Prose

Abstract

This paper approaches automatic writing, the concept of chance, and appropriation of elements from popular mass culture as vital ingredients of Witold Gombrowicz's early prose from 1930s, and analyzes them within the context of the artistic practices of the historical avant-garde movements. The categories of these practices are defined and characterised in accordance with Peter Bürger's Theorie der Avantgarde (1974) as well as more recent appliances of his model by scholars seeking to reassess the art practices of the avant-garde. The main argument of the paper centres on the correlation between the project of the historical avant-garde as defined by Bürger, and Gombrowicz's, as well as the relevance of the avant-garde frame for interpretation of Gombrowicz's early work.