In the early sixties, having announced through the press, as was done then, that I was preparing work on Dada and surrealist theater, I received a very kind letter from Claire Goll, accompanied by the first volume of the poet's complete works in the process of publication with Emile Paul, and never completed since. On the same occasion, Claire Goll joined the Association for the Study of Dada and regularly participated in the meetings I organized there. This is to say that I became very early interested in this writer of double culture, the poet of two worlds, and his relations with Tristan Tzara as with André Breton, questioning myself about the reasons that brought them together and, regularly, ended in a rupture. Hence my presence at the colloquium organized by the University of Metz by J.-M. Valentin and M. Grunewald on March 20 and 21, 1992 on "Yvan Goll in his time," where I brought many unpublished documents. It should be noted that the two editors of the proceedings Frenchified the poet's first name, while I kept the spelling attested by his signature.

Summary The present volume brings together the communications made during the "Yvan Goll" colloquium which took place in March 1992 at the University of Metz and within the framework of the work of URA 1282 (C.N.R.S./Paris IV-Sorbonne) and whose objective was to define the place in the literary history of the 20th century of an author of multifaceted talent. Are evoked in priority: the links between Yvan Goll and Alsace, the affinities that his work reveals with Judaism, the position of the writer facing the French and the Germans, the situation of the poet vis-à-vis the avant-garde literary movements (expressionism, surrealism...), the modernity of the dramatic author and the interest he showed for the minor arts.

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Article reprinted in: H. Béhar, Les Enfants perdus, essai sur l'avant-garde, L'Age d'Homme, 2002, pp. 113-130.

See on this same site: New views on Ivan Goll in exile

Europe journal, n° Ivan Goll