SOURCE: "Kurt Schwitters: The Merz Artist from Revon," in German Dadaist Literature: Kurt Schwitters, Hugo Ball, Hans Arp, Twayne Publishers, 1973, pp. 31-61.

In the following essay, Last surveys Schwitters's life, prose, and poetry, calling his work "a retreat from reality " into a "private world of shapes and patterns. "

Each of the Dadaists approached the practical business of creating a work of art—or nonart—in his own unique fashion; although all pursued the same, or at least closely related, objectives, each chose his own unmistakable and distinctive angle of attack. The very lack of uniformity was, in itself, a sign both of their positive strength and richness of ideas and of the fact that they had joined common cause as much in reaction to external circumstances as from the impulse of powerful inner drives.

Kurt Schwitters was perhaps the most carefree and adventurous of all the Dadaists. . . . If...