SOURCE: Sternstein, Malynne M. “Sensuous Iconicity: The Manifestoes and Tactics of Czech Poetism.” Mosaic: A Journal for the Interdisciplinary Study of Literature 31, no. 2 (June 1998): 77-100.

In this selection from a scholarly essay, the author draws upon the linguistic theory of Charles Sanders Peirce to examine how Seifert's early poetry contributes to the Poetism movement and to Czech surrealism.

The concerns expressed in the early decades of the 20th century by movements in the vanguard of European literature revolved commonly around renewing the “sense” or “power” of the poetic word. Although these attempts were informed by coincidental breakthroughs in the areas of linguistics and aesthetics, the impetus for poetic innovation cannot be summed up merely as a general interest in linguistic “experimentation” or penchant for word-play. On the contrary, the motivation derived from an overriding political and philosophical concern with a direct engagement of social reality. Treating the word...