Words-in-Freedom

**Words-in-freedom** is a term created by F.T. Marinetti speaking to the liberation of words from their conventional syntactical use for the purpose of freedom of expression. The use of punctuation along with the abolition of adjectives and adverbs are frowned upon, while the use of infinitives and flourished analogies are encouraged. The movement is directly tied to the Futurist movement, in which war, aggression, destruction, and technology were major components.

=Background =

Words-in-freedom was the primary literary technique of the Futurist movement, both of which were founded by F.T. Marinetti. Marinetti reprimanded conventional syntax that obstructed his standards of poetic lyricism true to "the Futurists’ poetic tactic of liberating words from syntax and grammatical structure," and as such he wrote //The Technical Manifesto of Futurist Literature, // where he gave this tactic the name "words-in-freedom." It was meant as an intuitive self-expression freed from punctuation, unnecessary adverbs, and "immediate analogies" that would become the language of the Futurists in all forms of expression.

 In 1913, Marinetti published the //manifito: L’Immaginazione senza fili e le parole in libertá: Manifesto futurista,// or //Imagination without Strings and Words in Freedom: Futurist Manifesto//. In this piece Marinetti elaborated on his proposal of "imagination without strings" introduced in the Technical Manifesto of Futurist Literature by claiming that the liberation of language would bring a new sense of life to the everyday man, learning to embrace the speeding progression of technology and to break out of mundane stagnation.

Fundamental Rules
//The Technical Manifesto of Futurist Literature// contains the first mention of words-in-freedom and details the fundamental rules of words-in-freedom, in which he describes his revelation that speech and literature needed to be liberated from their "Latin period" confinements. He believed in the destruction of syntax, in which words were to be used without a definite pattern, including the abolition of punctuation. Instead, mathematical and musical symbols were to be used to express movement that was never to be completely decelerated. The use of infinitives was also encouraged, because they "don't subordinate [nouns] to the writer's //I// that observes or imagines." The "//I"// was to be seen as "all psychology," or the essence of the old ways of archival institutions. The adjective and the adverb were to be abolished as unnecessary and restrictive, though it could be said that the standard adjective was replaced by the lighthouse adjective. Nouns were to be followed by a related noun ("man-torpedo-boat, woman-gulf, crowd-surf..." ) to express a superior synthesis of the world's objects. Likewise, words-in-freedom were encouraged to stretch beyond the boundaries of "immediate analogies," where animals were compared to men and visa versa. Marinetti suggested instead to comparing a fox terrier to a Morse Code machine or gurgling water. Words-in-freedom were meant to be an intuitive thinking process where nothing was "absolute or systematic," an "//imagination without strings//."

 Not only was words-in-freedom meant to be expressed in writing, but it was also meant to be expressed in the physical form of a Futurist. In his work //Dynamic and Synoptic Declamation//, Marinetti wrote rules for the way a Futurist was meant to appear "so that the declaimer himself must also somehow disappear in the dynamic and synoptic manifestation of words-in-freedom." Concerning the obliteration of the "literary //I//," the Futurist was supposed to appear as a manifestation of words-in-freedom that dressed annonymously, dehumanized his voice and face, electrify his voice, move geometrically and topographically, make use of instruments and other declaimers, move erratically across rooms, and decide instinctively.

 =Artistic Influence =

Though rarely ever called words-in-freedom outside of Futurist works, many other artistic movements reflect similar concepts to words-in-freedom, mainly the liberation of language outside of educational confines. Some of these movements (and the people associated) were Imagism, Vorticism, and Dada. Though words-in-freedom also has viewpoints that are in strict opposition to the Imagist movement in words-in-freedom's encouragement of analogies (comparing a fox terrier to gurgling water, as Marinetti does in his "Technical Manifesto of Futurist Literature," is not in the interest of the Imagist movement who stress the use of concrete and real descriptions with the limited use of metaphor), Imagism does favor the liberation of language as tied down by conventional rhythm and rhyme. Whyndam Lewis was a main critic of the Futurist movement, but the creation of Vorticism owes a lot to the ideals of words-in-freedom. Dadaist Hugo Ball's //Karawane// uses typographical words-in-freedom.

 Some futurist painters were influenced by words-in-freedom to incorporate the use of words in their works, such as Carlo Carrá's //Interventionist Demonstration// and Gino Severini's //Cannon in Action//.

=Interpretations =

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Syntactic Freedom
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Syntactic freedom more closely mimics poetic and prose but does so without the use of syntactical rules. Like typographical freedom, it is often pictorial, but is less a "picture of text" and is more a mess of jumbled words and phrases that read like a blending of poetry and prose.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**F.T. Marinetti's //Zang Tumb Tuuum//**
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Zang Tumb Tuum is Marinetti's poetic reenactment of the Balkan War's Battle of Adrianople of 1912, for which he was a war correspondent. Throughout //Zang Tumb Tuuum//, Marinetti consistently employs the Words-in-Freedom technique, specifically syntactic freedom, to alleviate his language from the constraints of conventional practices. In his beginning lines, the word "train" repeats--conveying motion, and as the text continues, the object itself exhibits speed as it sonically morphs into "tren" and "tron." At this point, onomatopoeias like “tatluuuuntlin” and “ssiissii” make their way into the composition and establish a sonic environment that describes the train’s mechanized movement and whistling.

<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> Another example of syntactic freedom that Marinetti applied to his work is the Lighthouse Adjective. In his piece //Zang Tumb Tuuum,// Marinetti used a collection of adjectives “isolated in parenthesis”—such as: “(**//GREEDY SALTY PURPLE FANTASTIC INEVITABLE SLOPING IMPONDERABLE FRAGILE DANCING MAGNETIC)//**” to describe all the nouns involved in the composition, including the composer. While this caused the language to be manipulated and violated, it captured an experience that couldn’t be conveyed through traditional conventions.

<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> True to words-in-freedom, Zang Tumb Tuum lacks punctuation. Word repetition, such as "train train train train..." is used to depict movement of a train along with the use of onomatopoeia "ssiisssssiiii" to express sound instead of describing the scene in paragraph form. Use of another poetic technique, the lighthouse adjective, shows how words-in-freedom uses adjectives to shine light on nouns surrounding them: "GREEDY SALTY PURPLE FANTASTIC..." which are later expressed as "the sky sea mountains are greedy salty purple etc." The work also lacks the use of verbs, which are frowned upon. Varying fonts and font sizes are also used for words that are never meant to be static, that are always moving forward, also made notable by the lack of punctuation, which is used to emulate pauses in speech. Similar to a Futurist's like of speed, the piece never ends and the thoughts all bleed together at a break-neck pace. Marinetti also likens the starting and stopping of motion to mathematical symbols: "capture + fish + enjoyment..."

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Gertrude Stein's//Tender Buttons// (1914)
====<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Throughout Stein's //Tender Buttons//, she exemplifies varying degrees of syntactic freedom in which the arrangement of certain thoughts, phrases, and descriptions of the object in the title lack consistency in the overall meaning of the particular piece. The way she forms her sentences has more to do with the abstract identification of certain objects in a way that evokes a response to that particular object. By doing so she is able to reach a certain level of indeterminacy which allows for phrases to attain a variation of meaning. ==== <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">An example of Stein employing syntactic freedom is observable in her poem, "THIS IS THIS DRESS, AIDER." from the "Objects" section of //Tender Buttons://

<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> Aider, why aider why whow, whow stop touch, aider <span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> whow, aider stop the muncher, muncher munchers. <span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> A jack in kill her, a jack in, makes a meadowed <span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> king, makes a to let.

<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> In the poem listed above, Stein frees here language from the constraints of conventional syntax in order to create a composition rich with sonic environments. Similar to Marinetti, Stein uses words that either don't exist or fit the context of the poem. In the first line, alliteration establishes a sonic pattern through the alternating dipthong of "aider" and the consonants of "why" and "whow." Even though "whow" is not a recongized word, it displays the importance Stein placed on sonic relationships compared to syntactical correctness.This pattern is interrupted by further syntactic freedom, as the poem continues on to read “stop touch.” These two words together bring about some level of indeterminacy, as “touch” can be considered either a noun or a verb. If both words are viewed verbs, the combination serves as another example of syntactic freedom.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">William Carlos Williams'//Spring and All// (1923)
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Amidst //Spring and All// 1923, Williams expresses syntactic freedom through use of varying font size to emphasize a point and reaffirm certain themes of spring and its relation to imagination throughout the piece. For example:

<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> "EVOLUTION HAS REPEATED ITSELF FROM THE BEGINNING" <span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> "SPRING" <span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> "THE WORLD IS NEW" <span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> "THE TRADITIONALISTS OF PLAGIARISM" <span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> "IMAGINATION"

<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> By using words-in-freedom he is able to make the font size reflect the importance of the word or phrase giving the statement weight and power as you progress throughout the piece and connect the themes between chapters.

<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Not only focused on font-size, but also on lacking syntactic conventions. Williams often comes to a full stop and moves on to a different thought. For example, in regards to chapter notation he places certain chapter titles upside down/backwards possibly providing a type of reading instructions hinting the reader to reexamine certain passages or chapters.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Typographical Freedom
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> <span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> Typographical freedom is the use of words-in-freedom to create a pictorial poem comprised of varying font styles. Emphasis is placed on the layout of the words and how each word is capable of making a picture. Typographical freedom can contain real words such as "Apres la Marne" or it can contain nonsensical words such as in "Karawane."

<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> **Marinetti's "Apres la Marne" from //Zang Tumb Tuuum//**

<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> In this piece, Marinetti utilizes the typographical freedom element of the Words-in-Freedom technique to portray an aerial viewpoint of the Battle of Adrianople. Various typefaces are implemented alongside mathematical symbols to create a sense of compositional meaning associable with the experience of war. Also, it was a way to adapt the use of language to the technological advancements of the time. Collections of +’s and –‘s denote a sense of speed and movement—a dominant theme in the work of Futurists. To Marinetti, the interchanging sequences of these two symbols represent the shifting transmission of automobile on the battlefield.

<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> The poem depicts a battlefield comprised of typography, specifically a depiction of the Battle of Adrianople using type-face and mathematical symbols. The use of mathematical symbols such as '+' and '-' depicts movement and speed. It could be noted that the subtraction symbol (-) is limited in comparison to pluses (+) and multiplication (x), indicating a very low amount of deceleration in comparison to acceleration. The block of symbols in the bottom right corner appear as soldiers lining up for battle, entering the field little by little. Repeating letters appear to be shouts across the battlefield, perhaps even to the mourning of the death of a fellow soldier ("Mon Amiiii"). There is also a distinct lack of punctuation that contributes to the chaotic jumble and an homage to the Futurist's distaste of stalling action.

<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> **<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Hugo Ball's "Karawane" **

<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> Dadaist Hugo Ball's poem "Karawane" shares similarities of typographical words-in-freedom.

<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> It is nonsensical, lacking punctuation, and comprised solely of made-up words. It mimics frustrations against violence and aggression with sounds similar to gunfire and bombs dropping "blago bung, blago bung." Repetition is used to solidify imagery, alliteration, consonance, assonance, rhythm, instead of relying on adjectives. Varying fonts attribute to its typographical nature and depict different sounds and meanings, in which no two lines have the same appearance font-wise.

=References=

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