Definition

Proper noun: * Guillaume Apollinaire: The pen name of Wilhelm Albert Włodzimierz Apolinary Kostrowicki, a French poet, playwright, short story writer, novelist, and art critic. He is a seminal figure in early 20th-century avant-garde literature and is considered a precursor to Surrealism.

Usage Examples

• Proper noun:
  • The poetry of Guillaume Apollinaire often experiments with visual typography, as seen in his calligrammes.
  • Many scholars study Guillaume Apollinaire's influence on the Dada and Surrealist movements.
  • The play Les Mamelles de Tirésias by Guillaume Apollinaire is subtitled "A Drama of the Surrealist."

Advanced Usage

• As a cultural reference: The name is used to denote innovation, the blending of artistic mediums, and the spirit of the Parisian avant-garde before World War I.
  • His approach to film criticism was described as Apollinaire-esque in its enthusiasm for the new medium.

Variants and Related Words

• Apollinaire (n): The shortened, most common form of the name.
  • We are reading Apollinaire in my modern poetry class.
• Calligramme (n): A term popularized by Apollinaire for a poem in which the words or letters are arranged to create a visual image related to the content.
• Surrealism (n): An artistic and literary movement he helped inspire, characterized by the expression of the unconscious mind.

Synonyms

• Avant-garde poet
• Modernist writer

Related Idioms or Phrases

• Precursor of Surrealism: This is the standard descriptive phrase most closely associated with his legacy in literary history.
  • Often called a precursor of Surrealism, Apollinaire coined the term "sur-réalisme."

Noun

1. French poet; precursor of surrealism (1880-1918)