Dr. Barzun was born in France, where his youthful scholarly associations put him in close contact with the earliest trends in modernist poetry, art, and music in the 20th Century. He contributed to the early Dada movement through his poetry and was a friend of and collaborator with early French cubists. According to Barzun, the Orphic movement in literature relates to "Simultaneity" in art (c.1910). A good example of this movement is James Joyce's Ulysses. The text iof this book is very dense with philosophical issues but an exact definition of the Orphic movement with examples is not presented. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

This book is "an introduction to happenings, kinectic environments, and other mixed-media performances." Nine members of the 1960's avant garde discuss their works with Kostelanetz in the new theatre forms, including John Cage, Robert Rauschenberg, Allan Kaprow, Claes Oldenberg and La Monte Young. Richard Kostelanetz contributes two essays interpreting the new theatre in terms of its historical, social and aesthetic meaning. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

Edited by Jean-Paul Larouche. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.