Talk:Tristan Tzara

Romanian

Maybe I'm just crazy here, but doesn't the nom de guerre Tristan Tzara mean something in Romanian? I've heard "Bored of his country" as a proposal, but I'm far from sure. Anybody who speaks Romanian who can back me up on this??—Preceding unsigned comment added by Gabbe (talk • contribs)

Tristan Tzara doesn't mean anything in Romanian the way it is spelt and pronounced, but it is similar to a few other words. Ţară (read "Tzară") means country, that's right. Ţara is the articulated form (the article goes at the end of the word in Romanian), so the ă is dropped for the a. So, Tzara means "the country", the "tz" frequently replacing the "ţ" character in the same way that "oe" replaces the German o-umlaut (ö). Tristan is a Romanian name (and a Romance-language name in general). Trist means sad in Romanian, similar to how triste in French means the same thing. So -- "trist pentru ţară" means "sad for his country", or, and this is where it links it -- "trist în ţară", which can also be written "trist ân ţară" (î and â are the same character in terms of pronunciation) means "Sad in the country", in context meaning "Sad in Romania" because Romanians frequently talk about their (our ;-) country as "ţara" - the country. So, you were very close ;-) Cheers.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.217.67.10 (talk • contribs)

An anagram of the name Tristan Tzara is Artist Tarzan. — JIP | Talk 10:24, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Quite an anagram of "Triste Tarzan" (sad Tarzan) too. Burroughs Tarzan of the apes woz born 1912, Tzara chose his name in 1915.

Much of this article is plagiarized from the Encyclopedia Britannica article on Tzara.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.166.254.242 (talk • contribs)

This article has serious POV issues. Or maybe Britannica has serious POV issues.--Quadalpha 06:10, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Origins of "Dada"

It is speculated that the word "Dada" comes from the Romanian "Yes, yes" and is thusly originated from Tzara and Janco's contributions.

An art history I read text speculated that the origins of the name dada were not from this, but becuase of the Dadaist statment that "Art is not only here (in a museum), but [pointing] there, there." In Russian or German "there there" becomes "da da."

No source...sorry. 208.102.114.164 17:45, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

**comment***

shoudn't we mention about the dada poem he created; i mean it was arguably the most important thing he did.--Vircabutar 07:36, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Do you refer to his original works, or his propensity to cut up other works and pull them word-by-word from a hat?—Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.81.61.130 (talk • contribs)

*request*

Couldn't we get some more information about his life? We read that he was born in Romania, lived in France, but for some of his life was in Switzerland. Did he have a family? Was he educated? Where did he live? Did he always make a living exclusively from his art? Or did he do something else too? What were his major works? Were they all in French? Or some in Romanian too? Any other langugages? Who were his major influences, if any? Does he have followers? What's here doesn't say much.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.151.13.8 (talk • contribs)

The article says something about Tzara creating the "movements manifestos". Wasn't that Hugo Ball?—Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.182.40.92 (talk • contribs)

word "dada"

Well I learned at school, that word "dada" comes from dictionary, that they blindly marked this word in a dictionary with a pencil. And from that time on they called their new style "dadaism". And the word dada should mean something like "hobby". —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 89.176.40.127 (talk) 11:38, 25 January 2007 (UTC).

Works

Can someone link something to some of his works? That'd be very helpful, thanks! 71.111.112.58 08:29, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Pronunciation

Could someone tell me how to correctly pronounce "Tristan Tzara"? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.12.72.194 (talk) 09:00, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Opinion

Is important to emphasize the language used by the writer. Most of his works were written in French and are a part of the French literature heritage. Also he lived most of his life in France. Thus one can define Tzara as a French writer born in Romania , or of Romanian origin ,less exactly - a Romanian author of French , and in his youth of Romanian expression. At the same time one can mention his Jewish ethnic origin . A similar case may be for example Joseph Conrad who was an English writer of Polish -Ukrainian origin or of Polish origin born in Ukraina . The pronounciation for Tristan Tzara has to be ,I suppose , following the French rules, with emphasis on the last syllable of each word . Ewan

Date of death

Google seems roughly evenly balanced between 24 December and 25 December, but I've found nothing that settles it one way or another. Can anyone help? -- JackofOz (talk) 08:02, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Tristan Tzara/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

I am glad to report that this article nomination for good article status has been promoted. This is how the article, as of June 9, 2008, compares against the six good article criteria:

1. Well written?: Pass - although with some issues

2. Factually accurate?: Pass - definately enough refs

3. Broad in coverage?: Pass - perhaps overly detailed

4. Neutral point of view?: Pass - couldn't fin anything wrong.

5. Article stability? Pass

6. Images?: Pass - barely but it is not an article that would require many images anyways.

 If you feel that this review is in error, feel free to take it to Good article reassessment. Thank you to all of the editors who worked hard to bring it to this status, and congratulations.

Now in more detail I can say that I still have some issues with the article, altough it is good enough to be listed as a good article. Here are the suggestions if anyone would want to take the article to FA:

1. firstly, the article is perhaps overly detailed. The article almost contains unnecessary details.
2. waaay too many red links. I understand that those people are not important and that is why no article is written about then... but then, should their name be here in the first place? This is closely related to the previous point. I believe that the article would make a lot of sense without so much overly-detailed information. Right now, it reads really hard, and I had problems concentrating on the point of the argument. This page should not be a book, and the information should not be copied word-by-word from the referencing books.
3. this is perhaps not essential, but an FA would definately require it: MORE images. Even the portrait is at least a little ambigous. I bet there is one free picture somewhere with his bust, and that there are some pictures somewhere with his work.

I hope it helped and good luck with the article. Nergaal (talk) 02:22, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Many thanks, Nergaal, and I'm glad that, for most part, you found the article to your liking. Please excuse my delay in answering your queries, but I'm facing a RL crisis that prevented me from logging in regularly.

Now, let me address your concerns one by one, in the order you gave them:

1. perhaps it is detailed, but I would argue it isn't over-detailed. Virtually all events discussed in detail are mentioned in more than two sources, and I took care to expand on the bare narrative only as a means to summarize the subjects of contention between sources, what sources take as examples illustrating his major attitudes, what events are viewed as seminal in his career and why that is etc. Part of your second argument also fits under point 1: the "not a book" and "copied word by word" part. For the "not a book" argument, see the first part of my answer above. For the "not copied": yes, they actually should be rendered verbatim in cases where they express an opinion that is or can be challenged.
2. actually, though there are quite a few red links, they are not excessive compared to other articles (though perhaps not to other FAs). And no, it does not follow that red links are necessarily about unimportant people: the weird dynamics of wikipedia have notoriously prioritized the trivial, and all those red links can and should be filled (I plan to fill most of them with time). In any case, the elimination or filling of red links is neither a GA nor (unless they appear in the lead) an FA criterion.
3. six images is quite okay for an FA (meaning there are many with less, and even some with none). Concerning his portrait: I have looked far and wide for another PD image of Tzara, and was very glad to found this one (it appears to be the only one yet). But his other portraits by even more famous artists should be PD material in the next ten (Delaunay) or twenty years (Giacometti). I should add: sculptures of Tzara may be photographed and the photos published here (unless they are taken in countries such as Italy), but photos of such sculptures found on the net or scanned from some book cannot be published: the photos themselves would have to be released into the public domain. Dahn (talk) 14:21, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Just to make clear my initial point: I liked the article, but it is so verbose, that in places I found it really hard to read. I imagine that somebody not knowing anything about the subject from the beginning would be tired/bored at some point and aither just skip forward or stop. Otherwise, the quality is there! Nergaal (talk) 15:19, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Minor changes

I have restored the spelling of dialogue to the article - as a holder of two degrees in drama from the US, I can confirm that this is the standard. I've retained Samuel Beckett in the influenced section but added a fact tag request - please detail the sources that describe this influence. As described in Wikipedia:Lead section, the lead should not be unreferenced, even when the rest of the article has them. DionysosProteus (talk) 10:02, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

I've restored the unreferenced tag once more to the lead. If you have any queries about why, please see Wikipedia:Lead section. That other articles fail to follow the guidelines does not exempt this one from doing so. DionysosProteus (talk) 23:30, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Date of birth

We're saying it was either 4 April or 16 April. Isn't it likely that both dates are right? After all, Romania was still using the Julian calendar, which was 12 days behind the Gregorian in the 19th century. So, 4 April (Julian) is exactly the same day as 16 April (Gregorian). Can it be verified that this explains the apparent discrepancy in the dates found in sources? -- JackofOz (talk) 03:54, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that must be it. After all, only one of the sources used advances April 4, and when I added the info I just didn't notice the connection. Good catch! Dahn (talk) 15:14, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Urination in different colors (Pissing Issue)

Art often is controversial and Dada is definitely not exempt. Dadaists actually sought controversy therefore when Tzara demanded the right to piss in different colors at the first Dada Soiree on 14th July 1916, this well-documented fact succinctly captures the ethos of Tzara's art therefore Tzara demanding the right to piss in differnt colors is eminently worthy of inclusion. Sadly it seems a certain person or persons wants to censor this important and well-documented fact. I fear accuracy of this article is suffering due to misplaced conservatism and prudery.

The issue has nothing to do with being prude, just as it has nothing to do with it being provocative. The simple issue here is how wikipedia works: the selection of random tidbits used to tagline an article that is supposed to give decent and encyclopedic information. Tzara did and said literally a million things, and they were all commented upon somewhere in scholarship. His rebelliousness and nihilism are illustrated by thousands of statements, some of which (including some that have been deemed just as scandalous, but are definitely more notorious) are already quoted at length in the article, based primarily on their presence in works that offer a synopsis of Tzara's career.

As I mentioned in my edit summary, the repeated addition of that particular tidbit willy-nilly in the lead of the article, among the most important things Tzara did, is a manifest misinterpretation of what a wikipedia article is supposed to cover and in what way. It is cherrypicking, contrary to our guidelines and recommendations (WP:COAT). It asserts its own importance by performing a synthesis of sources merely attesting the fact's existence, when the same exercise could be performed with even more success for just about any other random fact involving a notorious/influential person such as Tzara (WP:SYNTH, WP:UNDUE). It relies on a personal guess about its importance, which is currently pushed into the article with transparent verbiage ("Tzara's nihilism is evident when..." - used to mask WP:FRINGE and incidentally breaking with WP:WEASEL).

Lastly, per the original claim added to the article by the same persistent user (according to whom this is literally one of the most important things one can say about Tzara), and the advertised crusade against prudery seem to indicate that this is also a simple issue of WP:SOAP: an editor has some attachment to this notion (and probably to seeing variants of the verb "to piss" in the lead of a researched article), so he or she will try over and over again to get it there. It is telling that, for virtually all IPs who pushed into the text, 100% of the edits relate to this issue. Dahn (talk) 15:46, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

A statement made on the opening night of the first Dada Soiree is a notorious and important statement worthy of inclusion. Demanding the right to piss in different colours is a well known Tzara demand quoted in many books and other scholarly works. You, Dahn, may say there are more notorious statements made by Tzara but I would say the pissing in different colours statement is his most notorious. To illustrate Tzara’s nihilism and rebelliousness, the pissing reference, made on the opening night of the first Dada Soiree, is a perfect titbit to inform people about the nature of Tzara and his art. The inclusion of such a fact in the lead of the Tzara article is definitely NOT a “manifest misrepresentation of what a wikipedia article is supposed to cover and in what way.” Regarding my input you make your criticisms without justification: you are saying you object but you fail to give actual grounds for objection; for example the criticisms you direct towards my input could easily be applied to any aspect of any Wikipedia article. You are simply stating your arbitrary opinions, which are not substantiated by logic. The veracity of my input is not in doubt, which is adequately corroborated by the numerous references, whereas there are many other aspects of the Tzara article which do not adequately cite references. You may say my input is cherrypicking and you will bandy about terms such as WP:COAT, WP:SYNTH, WP:UNDUE, WP:FRINGE, WP:WEASEL but merely bandying about such terms does not make your accusations true. In fact your use of such terms is very weasel-ish: WP:WEASEL.

You highlight my point where I say: "Tzara's nihilism is evident when..." and you say this is "transparent verbiage" but the sentence preceding mine states: "His work represented Dada's nihilistic side, in contrast with the more moderate approach favored by Hugo Ball." Please can you tell me 'who' says his work represents Dada's nihilistic side? Is this also "transparent verbiage"? Why do you object to my referenced input whereas the preceding sentence is without references? It seems the only difference between the two sentences is the word "piss" therefore I assume you have a fundamental objection to the word piss?

Your reference to WP:SOAP is nonsensical. There is nothing soapbox-ish about stating the fact of how Tzara demanded the right to piss in different colors. I am not trying to promote anything, there is no advertisement, I am not promoting myself, there is no propaganda, or advocacy etc. I mentioned the possibility of prudery causing your editorial bias because I realise urination can be a taboo thus the taboo of demanding the right piss in different colors could cause unjust censorship. I wasn’t certain you are a prude; I merely raised the issue of prudery as a possibility, a fear. If prudery is not the reason why accuracy of this article is suffering then perhaps it is you who are guilty of WP:SOAP? Perhaps you are seeking to publicise yourself, your journalistic forays? Perhaps you are a Control_freak unable to accept input from others?

References to urination in art are notorious. The following are some examples of urination in art:

Marcel Duchamp Fountain 1917 Andy Warhol oxidation painting 1977 Gilbert & George Stream 1987 (see also THE FUNDAMENTAL PICTURES 1996) Helen Chadwick Piss flowers 1991 Johnathan Swift describes Gulliver urinating on a Lilliputian palace. Rabelais describes Gargantua urinating on and drowning Paris in piss

Tzara’s demand, for the right to piss in different colors, on the opening night of the first Dada Soiree inevitably gives prominence to his statement, therefore considering the prominence Tzara gave to his statement it is perfectly acceptable to represent such prominence in the lead of the Wikipedia article. Tzara’s demand to piss in different colors is a conceptual artwork comparable to Duchamp’s fountain. Duchamp’s Fountain is mentioned in the lead of his Wikipedia article therefore it is not unjustified to reference Tzara’s demand to piss in different colors in the lead of Tzara’s article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.128.223.37 (talk) 16:19, 23 February 2010 (UTC)