oa Avant-garde als strategie: het tijdschrift De Tafelronde - Het literaire tijdschrift als vertoog

This article argues in favour of a functionalist, discourse-oriented approach to literary periodicals. More specifically, the literary periodical is seen as a discourse which stabilizes literary and metaliterary communication, via its productive tension between on the one hand repetition and variation and on the other hand innovation and surprise. This approach is analyzed on two levels. On the one hand, its theoretical and methodological implications are explored by analyzing the periodical as a discursive object, as a discursive event, as a discursive space and, finally, as a discursive structure; On the other hand, this approach is illustrated by considering the case of De Tafelronde (1953-1981: The Round Table), a Flemish experimental periodical which gradually developed into an internationalist forum for concrete poetry and poesia visiva.