Marinetti’s Reasons for Scorning Women
Marinetti’s Reasons for Scorning Women
Marinetti, leader of the Futurist movement, possesses a love for danger and progress, as well as has contempt for the past (libraries) and women. He boldly proclaims, “I wish to vanquish the tyranny of love [and the] obsession with having only one woman,” (Marinetti, “Critical Writings,” p.33) as a dramatic rejection of traditional views about love and romance because he feels as though they hold back the ideals he promotes. This essay will explore some of the reasons why a true Futurist should feel detached from women, who, in his view, are, “symbols of an earth that we must… leave behind” (Marinetti, p.58), and will question his logic at times.
Marinetti believes love is dangerous because it, “impedes the march of men, preventing them from going beyond their own humanity” (Marinetti, p.55). In reference to, “the great problem of love, the great tyranny of sentimentalism and lust, from which we wish to liberate ourselves” (Marinetti, p.54), he is convinced that we must free ourselves from the chains of love since it is unnatural in that it halts the futurism of man, only capable of holding the human spirit back from true accomplishments. To illustrate the imprisonment he associates with love, he gives the following metaphor: “We despise that horrible, heavy Love, that immense leash with which the sun keeps the valiant earth chained in its orbit, when certainly it would prefer to leap wherever chance took it, to take its chance with the stars” (Marinetti, p.55). By comparing love to gravitational pull, he actually justifies love as a rule of nature, whether he is aware of this or not, being hypocritical to his writings that assert that love is unnatural. Although beautiful, his metaphor does not serve his best interests for undermining love’s importance because he speculates on the earth’s desire to break away from the glorious sun, which is the earth’s primary source of warmth, energy, and nourishment-
Marinetti, leader of the Futurist movement, possesses a love for danger and progress, as well as has contempt for the past (libraries) and women. He boldly proclaims, “I wish to vanquish the tyranny of love [and the] obsession with having only one woman,” (Marinetti, “Critical Writings,” p.33) as a dramatic rejection of traditional views about love and romance because he feels as though they hold back the ideals he promotes. This essay will explore some of the reasons why a true Futurist should feel detached from women, who, in his view, are, “symbols of an earth that we must… leave behind” (Marinetti, p.58), and will question his logic at times.
Marinetti believes love is dangerous because it, “impedes the march of men, preventing them from going beyond their own humanity” (Marinetti, p.55). In reference to, “the great problem of love, the great tyranny of sentimentalism and lust, from which we wish to liberate ourselves” (Marinetti, p.54), he is convinced that we must free ourselves from the chains of love since it is unnatural in that it halts the futurism of man, only capable of holding the human spirit back from true accomplishments. To illustrate the imprisonment he associates with love, he gives the following metaphor: “We despise that horrible, heavy Love, that immense leash with which the sun keeps the valiant earth chained in its orbit, when certainly it would prefer to leap wherever chance took it, to take its chance with the stars” (Marinetti, p.55). By comparing love to gravitational pull, he actually justifies love as a rule of nature, whether he is aware of this or not, being hypocritical to his writings that assert that love is unnatural. Although beautiful, his metaphor does not serve his best interests for undermining love’s importance because he speculates on the earth’s desire to break away from the glorious sun, which is the earth’s primary source of warmth, energy, and nourishment-
Cited: Marinetti, F.T. Critical Writings. Ed. Gunter Berghaus. Trans. Doug Thompson. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006.