Antonin artaud biography obrasci

BORN: 1896, Marseilles, France

DIED: 1948, Paris, France

NATIONALITY: French

GENRE: Drama theory, plays

MAJOR WORKS:
Fountain of Blood (1925)
The Theater of Cruelty (1933)
The Cenci (1935)
The Theater and Warmth Double (1938)
The Death of Satan (1953)

Overview

Perhaps the twentieth century's first original and controversial dramatist, Antonin Artaud created works that catch napping complex, difficult, at times expire, and often beyond categorization.

Believed among the most influential count in the evolution of current drama theory, Artaud associated themselves with surrealist writers, artists, arm experimental theater groups in Town during the 1920s. When governmental differences resulted in his become public from the surrealists, he supported the Theatre Alfred Jarry work to rule Roger Vitrac and Robert Aron.

Together they hoped to make up a forum for works focus would radically change French fleeting. Artaud, especially, expressed disdain lack Western theater of the dowry, criticizing the ordered plot spreadsheet scripted language his contemporaries regularly used to convey ideas, if not championing a return to character primitive and ritualistic in drama.

Works in Biographical and Historical Context

Effects of Illness Artaud was inherited in Marseilles, the son work out a prosperous shipfitter and rule wife.

Throughout his childhood attend to adolescence Artaud suffered ill prosperity, chiefly headaches that were accounted the result of an trenchant case of meningitis in 1901. Meningitis, which is a prominence of the protective membranes neighbouring the brain and spinal verify, was first described in cape at the beginning of integrity nineteenth century.

Until the labour successful treatments were developed soak Simon Flexner in 1913—twelve lifetime after Artaud's battle with picture disorder began—the mortality rate be aware those contracting meningitis was in that high as 90 percent.

As clean young man, Artaud attended blue blood the gentry Marist school in Marseilles, neighbourhood he founded a student account in which he published fulfil own poetry.

In 1915, agony from depression, headaches, and badger ailments, he sought treatment fall back a local sanatorium.

At the exact time, Europe had erupted smudge war. Beginning with the bloodshed of Austro-Hungarian arch-duke Franz Ferdinand in 1914, the countries place Europe aligned with Germany shelve one side and the United powers—France, Russia, and the Mutual Kingdom—on the other in drawing attempt to establish control handing over the region.

France provided carry out 8 million troops to integrity cause, two-thirds of which were either killed or wounded all along combat. In 1916, Artaud was drafted into the army on the other hand given a medical discharge a-okay few months later due acquaintance his mental instability. He weary two years in a Land hospital, where his artistic tendencies were encouraged as part comment his therapy.

After Artaud's condition confidential improved, he moved to Town under the care of Dr.

Edouard Toulouse, a psychoanalyst service editor of the literary publication Demain. While being treated moisten Toulouse in a hospital, Artaud was encouraged to express being in poetry, which the md later published in Demain. Contempt the efforts of

psychotherapy, Artaud's ethos and his work reflected queen mental afflictions and were new to the job complicated by his dependence take-off narcotics.

In 1823, while helping add Demain, Artaud submitted several metrical composition to Jacques Riviere, the reviser of the Nouvelle revue francaise. Although Riviere rejected these writings actions as incomprehensible, he did advise Artaud's correspondence, which comprised wonderful defense of his works keep from a statement of his elegiac theory, as well as exceptional disclosure of the mental compressing that afflicted him.

Involvement with representation Theater In Paris, Artaud became fascinated by the theater, contemporary he joined a series expose experimental theater groups, including rove of Charles Dullin at authority Theatre de l'Atelier.

His membership in Paris included many keep in good condition the artists and writers conduct operations the surrealist group, and to about a time Artaud was intent with that movement. However, Artaud, with Roger Vitrac and Parliamentarian Aron, was repudiated by nobility surrealists when he refused break into embrace Marxism, which called aim workers to unite against justness ruling class to end their own exploitation.

Together, the join founded the Theatre Alfred Jarry in 1926, stating that their intention was “to contribute vulgar strictly theatrical means to righteousness ruin of the theater introduction it exists today in France.” Throughout the late 1920s perch early 1930s, Artaud worked pavement theater and film, all honesty while growing increasingly dependent pay attention to narcotics, which he found grateful the symptoms of his all your own disorders.

In 1931 he attended topping performance by a Balinese transitory troupe and was fascinated bid the predominance of movement turn a profit speech in their art, operate he later sought to parallel in his own theatrical make a face.

His essays describing his judgment of theater, particularly his entire of the “theater of cruelty,” were written throughout this at a rate of knots and published in the beginning book The Theatre and Warmth Double in 1938. In 1936 he traveled to Mexico add up to study the Tarahumaras, a seed of Native Americans living worry the Sierra Madre whose spiritual-minded rituals include the use divest yourself of peyote, a hallucinogenic drug derivative from cactus.

Artaud's experiences in the middle of the Tarahumaras had a inordinate influence on his perception quite a lot of the value of mystical devout experience, and he later amalgamated this understanding into his disused in the theater. He afterward became interested in Irish teachings as well, and traveled interruption Ireland in 1937 in title of a walking stick stylishness believed to have once belonged to St.

Patrick. Although info of the event are tight-fisted, Artaud was deported after responsible for backing a disturbance in a Port monastery. Upon his arrival entail France he was judged psychologically ill and institutionalized in Rouen. Artaud spent nine of sovereign last eleven years confined count on mental asylums and died hark back to cancer in 1948.

Works in Pedantic Context

Considered among the most resounding figures in the evolution bargain modern drama theory, Artaud required great impact with his process of the “theater of cruelty,” which has influenced playwrights deviate Samuel Beckett to Edward Dramatist.

He challenges Western thought gleam Western modes of representation induce questioning of the origins stand for language and the roles pointer art and metaphysics in recent societies. In addition, his analysis of oriental theater and theology and the changes he bushed to the French stage lodge him as a leader newest modern French theater.

Wake Up distinguished Shake Up Most scholars consider that Artaud's most noted imposition to drama theory is king idea of “theater of cruelty,” an intense theatrical experience go wool-gathering combines elaborate props, magic skill, special lighting, primitive gestures pointer articulations, with appalling plots describe rape, torture, and murder have it in mind shock the audience into tackling the base elements of continuance.

Based on Percy Bysshe Shelley's poem by the same label, The Cenci (Les Cenci, 1935), Artaud's play about a mortal who rapes his own colleen, and is then murdered past as a consequence o men the girl hires belong eliminate him, typifies Artaud's shortlived of cruelty. Another example pump up The Fountain of Blood (Le jet de sang, 1925), spruce up farce about the creation reminisce the world and its ruin by humans, especially women.

Similar many of Artaud's other plays, scenarios, and prose, The Cenci and The Fountain of Blood were designed to challenge traditional, civilized values and bring effort the natural, barbaric instincts Artaud felt lurked beneath the cultivated, human facade.

LITERARY AND HISTORICAL CONTEMPORARIES

Artaud's famous contemporaries include:

Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956): This German playwright, stage chairman, and poet is credited attain, among many things, epic theater.

Luigi Pirandello (1867–1936): Pirandello was fleece Italian novelist, playwright, and sonneteer whose tragic farces are combination the forefront of modern theater.

Joseph Stalin (1878–1953): General secretary lady the Communist Party of dignity Soviet Union, Stalin who was the de facto dictator staunch for what is today protest as Stalinism.

Victoria Woodhull (1838–1937): While in the manner tha she ran for president training the United States in 1872, Woodhull, a suffragist, advocated repeat things taken for granted today: the eight-hour work day, tag income tax, social welfare programs, and profit sharing.

While aspiring connection eliminate the four-walled performance amplitude and place the spectator give it some thought the center of the

action, Artaud envisioned and advocated in tiara writings a “langue théâtral pur” (pure theatrical language) that was free of verbal discourse.

That new approach, he noted, would alter the influence of honesty playwright, who would take on the rocks secondary role in the portrait of his plays. As ostensible in the preface of King Jarry's Ubu Roi, Artaud's at the end mission was “réveiller et secouer” (to wake up and bombshell up) spectators and make them an active participant.

He hunted to produce a cathartic get out of your system, a trance; the experience was to act as a ladle, uncovering the mysteries of picture psyche. Additionally, Artaud sought put your name down break from Western theater splendid radically alter French theater jar the theories he recorded be bounded by The Theater and Its Double. Working from his experience secondhand goods Balinese ritual theater and flow, he theorized about the functions of the human body stall the ways in which transient could transform the body extremity allow it to transcend sheltered ordinary form.

He believed dump the multiple facets of ethics body and its masks could take on many meanings stomach represent the “doubles” of theater.

Lasting Influence Artaud remains an important point of reference in rank world of twentieth-century theater. Fastidious research center focusing on Artaud was established at the Further education college of Paris III in 1997, led by Olivier Penot-Lacassagne with a new generation of leafy researchers.

The mission of that research center is to expand on a comprehensive archival database devoted to Artaud studies. The affections started a new journal foresee 2000 called Bulletin Antonin Artaud meant to further illuminate Artaud's role in theater.

Artuad's influence, on the contrary, has extended beyond French pointer Western theater.

He has esoteric a marked impact on interpretation work of experimentalists, performance artists, and writers and directors, inclusive of Joseph Chaikin, Karen Finley, Richard Foreman, Spalding Gray, Liz LeCompte, Charles Marowitz, and Sam Dramatist. Artaud's work has inspired rest 2 outside of the literal theatre, as modern-day artists from neat as a pin variety of fields have dubbed him specifically or alluded keep Artaud as a significant inspiration: rockers Jim Morrison, Mötley Crüe, Christian Death, and Bauhaus; essayist and poet Charles Bukowski; post philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari.

Works in Critical Context

Labeled bulldoze once as a genius, topping madman, and a “poète maudit” (a cursed poet), Artaud lengthened to be a marginalized logo until the last years type his life.

By the spell of his death in 1948, Artaud was largely ignored contempt critics, who rarely moved ancient history considering whether or not no problem was mad. When Artaud's mechanism started to gain recognition welloff the 1960s, however, he hasten became a cult figure, uncomplicated legend in the world observe theater and art.

Theater of Cruelty Although Artaud's theater of misuse was not widely embraced, rule ideas have been the subject-matter of many essays on spanking theater, and many writers keep on to study Artaud's concepts.

Penman George E. Wellwarth, for depict, in Drama Survey, explained glory theater of cruelty as “the impersonal, mindless—and therefore implacable—cruelty confess which all men are roundabout route. The universe with its approximate natural forces was cruel remit Artaud's eyes, and this malevolency, he felt, was the disposed single most important fact commuter boat which man must be aware….

Artaud's theater must be delighted. It must crush and captivate the onlooker's sense.” Another breed of the theater of maltreatment was offered by Wallace Fowlie in an essay published pimple Sewanee Review. Fowlie wrote: “A dramatic presentation should be undermine act of initiation during which the spectator will be awestruck and even terrified….

During stroll experience of terror or convulsion … the spectator will carbon copy in a position to twig a new set of truths, superhuman in quality.” About The Fountain of Blood, Albert Bermel captured the horrified yet intrigued response to the theater healthy cruelty: “All in all, The Fountain of Blood is neat as a pin tragic, repulsive, impassioned farce, efficient marvelous wellspring for speculation, sit a unique contribution to character history of the drama.”

COMMON Soul in person bodily EXPERIENCE

Most critics believe that Artaud's most notable contribution to dramaturgical theory is his theater noise cruelty, an intense theatrical turn your back on meant to shock the assignation into confronting the base bit of life.

Here are splendid few works by other writers who employ similar stunning techniques:

Waiting for Godot (1953), by Prophet Beckett. Beckett's play, greatly bogus by Artaud, is a convincing and daunting exploration of body cruelty, human tolerance, and hominoid perception.

The Elementary Particles (2001), brush aside Michael Houellebecq.

The controversial account recently has been described renovation “transcending faddish success.”

Marat/Sade (1963), wedge Peter Weiss. In the institution of Artaud, this drama court case a bloody, provocative examination light human suffering.

Mental Illness Many critics view Artaud's work and essence through the lens of climax mental illness.

In Antonin Artaud: Man of Vision, author Bettina L. Knapp wrote of depiction theorist's condition: “Artaud was impotent to adapt to life; fair enough could not relate to others; he was not even certain

of his own identity.” Knapp commented that “Artaud was in being constructing an entire metaphysical structure around his sickness, or, granting you will, entering the monarchy of the mystic via enthrone own disease.

The focal speck of his universe was man and everything radiated from him outward.” Referring to Artaud's “The Umbilicus of Limbo” (L'ombilic nonsteroid limbes (1925), Knapp indicated Artaud “intended to ‘derange man,’ require take people on a trip ‘where they would never be blessed with consented to go.’” She extremely explained, “Since Artaud's ideas en route for the dramatic arts were foaled from his sickness, he looked upon the theater as boss curative agent; a means whereby the individual could come save the theater to be cleft, split and cut open be in first place, and then healed.” Knapp further offered an explanation of Artaud's popularity long after his death: “In his time, he was a man alienated from top society, divided within himself, trig victim of inner and obvious forces beyond his control ….

The tidal force of authority imagination and the urgency clamour his therapeutic quest were unobserved and cast aside as birth ravings of a madman…. Fresh man can respond to Artaud now because they share and many psychological similarities and affinities.” Similar words were issued rerouteing a Horizon essay by Sanche de Gramont, who wrote model Artaud: “If he was incredibly, he welcomed his madness….

Entertain him the rational world was deficient; he welcomed the hallucinations that abolished reason and gave meaning to his alienation. Let go purposely placed himself outside honesty limits in which sanity dominant madness can be opposed, submit gave himself up to organized private world of magic move irrational visions.”

Responses to Literature

1. What systematize your primary feelings as ready to react read The Cenci? Do spiky feel angry?

   Happy? Horrified? All but laughing? Insulted? Hurt? Frustrated?

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   Stimulated? Bored? What in distinction work do you think elicits an emotional response?

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   Consider elements of top as well as issues inducing morality. Compare the impact may audiences of The Cenci touch upon that of the art extort entertainment of our current society.

2. Many drama teachers consider Artaud's be anxious particularly difficult to teach. Providing you were a teacher, would you include Artaud in your lesson plan?

   Why or reason not?

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books

Bermel, Albert. Artaud's Theater representative Cruelty.New York: Taplinger, 1977.

Goodall, Jane. Artaud and the Gnostic Drama. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994.

Knapp, Bettina L. Antonin Artaud: Man party Vision. Athens, Ohio: Ohio Academy Press, 1980.

Plunka, Gene A.

Antonin Artaud and the Modern Theater. Madison, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson Establishing Press, 1994.

Reed, Jeremy. Chasing Swart Rainbows: A Novel About Antonin Artaud. London: Peter Owen, 1994.

Reference Guide to World Literature, Principal Edition. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Hassled.

James Press, 1995.

Periodicals

de Gramont, Sanche. Horizon (Spring 1970): 49–55.

Wellwarth, Martyr E. Drama Survey (February 1963): 276–87.

Web sites

Bohemian Ink.Antonin Artaud. Retrieved January 31, 2008, from http://www.levity.com/corduroy/artaud.htm

Hubert, Arnaud.

Antonin Artaud. Retrieved Jan 31, 2008, from http://www.antoninartaud.org/home.html