Page:Knight (1975) Past, Future and the Problem of Communication in the Work of V V Khlebnikov.djvu/39

31 Chapter Five:

KHLEBNIKOV AND THE PRIMITIVIST INSPIRATION.

"Incantation by Laughter" was only one manifestation of a primitivist current which swept the Russian cultural world at about the same time. This chapter introduces the theme of primitive art—and Khlebnikov's—as 'magic' in intention, as creation rather than depiction and as inseparable from life in general. It also anticipates, very briefly, a theme of later chapters: Khlebnikov's art as a revolt against literacy in the name of a reborn oral or pre-literate culture.