Page:Knight (1975) Past, Future and the Problem of Communication in the Work of V V Khlebnikov.djvu/90

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In the following year, Khlebnikov would write:

...transrational language is the future language of the universe in embryo. It alone can unite people. Rational languages are already dividing them.^[1]

Khlebnikov saw unifying human language as the alternative to violence. Returning to his "primitivist" theme he wrote:

There was a time when languages united people. Let us transport ourselves back to the Stone Age. It is night. There are fires. Men are working with black stone hammers.

Suddenly footsteps are heard. Everyone rushes to arm himself. They stand threateningly. But what is this? From the dark comes a familiar name, and at once all becomes clear. They are our people coming. "Oursl"—floats the sound from the darkness, spoken in words of the shared language. Language united people then, just as did a familiar voice. The weapons—is a sign of cowardice. If one goes into the matter, then it turns out that the weapon is an additional dictionary for those speaking in a different language—a pocket dictionary.^[2]

In 1921, Khlebnikov would pose the question:

What is better, a universal language or universal slaughter?^[3]

↑ SP v p 236.
↑ Ibid p 230.
↑ Ibid p 266. The dream of a universal language expressed an important part of the spirit of Cubism and the spirit of the age. The peculiar "universalism" of Cubism in general has been discussed already above. Apart from this, however, there is the important parallel with Joyce, whose Finnegans Wake was a strange product of the same international ferment, even if it remained unfinished and unpublished until a rather later and different period. A. Kazin wrote in a review, referring to Joyce's language: "All cultures have relation to it, all minds, all languages nourish its night—speech"-—Denning, op cit p 687. C Giedon-Welcker wrote that we have no "feeling that an individual man is speaking, but as if a sound came from some giant mental vessel..."—ibid. p 499. The same author wrote that Joyce “strides through countries, through centuries, through intellectual dimensions..."—pp 496-97. Frank O'Connor wrote that the language "anticipates the universalization of language"—p 516. For Miller-Budnitskaya, the book was written in "a peculiar pan—European Esperanto"—p 655 Stephen Spender wrote that Joyce had "invented a new language in Finnegans Wake which is the beginning of a universal language"- p. 749. All page-references refer to Denning, op cit.

[1] SP v p 236.

[2] Ibid p 230.

[3] Ibid p 266. The dream of a universal language expressed an important part of the spirit of Cubism and the spirit of the age. The peculiar "universalism" of Cubism in general has been discussed already above. Apart from this, however, there is the important parallel with Joyce, whose Finnegans Wake was a strange product of the same international ferment, even if it remained unfinished and unpublished until a rather later and different period. A. Kazin wrote in a review, referring to Joyce's language: "All cultures have relation to it, all minds, all languages nourish its night—speech"-—Denning, op cit p 687. C Giedon-Welcker wrote that we have no "feeling that an individual man is speaking, but as if a sound came from some giant mental vessel..."—ibid. p 499. The same author wrote that Joyce “strides through countries, through centuries, through intellectual dimensions..."—pp 496-97. Frank O'Connor wrote that the language "anticipates the universalization of language"—p 516. For Miller-Budnitskaya, the book was written in "a peculiar pan—European Esperanto"—p 655 Stephen Spender wrote that Joyce had "invented a new language in Finnegans Wake which is the beginning of a universal language"- p. 749. All page-references refer to Denning, op cit.

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