Esprit Nouveau

...The magazine gathered a wide range of up-and-coming artistic poets of the time, including Anzai Fuyuei, Ueda Toshio, Kitagawa Fuyuhiko, Kondo Azuma, Takiguchi Takeshi, Takenaka Iku, Haruyama Yukio, Miyoshi Tatsuji, Nishiwaki Junzaburo, Yoshida Kazuho, ​​and Takiguchi Shuzo, and these poets developed fresh and lively poetry activities that were at the forefront of their time. The works published in the magazine included a wide variety of styles and trends, such as short poems, new prose poems, formalist poems, surrealist poems, and cine-poems, but as a whole, they shared a common desire to explore poetic techniques, an experimental and anti-realist attitude, an emphasis on images and forms, and a creative orientation based on quick thinking and dry intellect, in line with the intentions of editor Haruyama, who advocated esprit nouveau (French for new spirit) and the purification of poetry, and played a role in establishing a modernist style of poetry in the poetry world. Furthermore, this magazine continually translated and introduced new foreign poetry, literature and its theories, and on one front it also assumed the character of an introductory and research journal for foreign literature.

*Some of the terminology explanations that mention "Esprit Nouveau" are listed below.

Source | Heibonsha World Encyclopedia 2nd Edition | Information

…当時の芸術派の新進詩人を広く集め，安西冬衛，上田敏雄，北川冬彦，近藤東，滝口武士，竹中郁，春山行夫，三好達治，西脇順三郎，吉田一穂，滝口修造らの詩人が，時代の先端を行く新鮮で活発な詩作活動を展開した。同誌上に発表された作品には，短詩･新散文詩，フォルマリスムの詩，シュルレアリスムの詩，シネ･ポエムなど，多様な詩風･傾向が含まれているが，全体として見ると，エスプリ･ヌーボー(フランス語で新精神の意)とポエジーの純化を唱えた編集者春山の意図どおりに，詩法探求への意欲，実験的姿勢と反写実主義的態度，イメージとフォルムの重視，機知的感覚とドライな知性による造型志向などで共通し，モダニズムの詩風を詩壇に定着させる役割を果たした。なお，この雑誌には海外の新詩，新文学とその理論が次々と翻訳，紹介され，一面で海外文学の紹介･研究誌的な性格をも呈した。…

※「エスプリ・ヌーボー」について言及している用語解説の一部を掲載しています。

出典｜株式会社平凡社世界大百科事典 第２版について | 情報