Artaud and His Doubles

Kimberly Jannarone author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:The University of Michigan Press

Published:26th Jun '12

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Artaud and His Doubles cover

Artaud and His Doubles is a radical re-thinking of one of the most influential theater figures of the twentieth century. Placing Artaud's writing within the specific context of European political, theatrical, and intellectual history, the book reveals Artaud's affinities with a disturbing array of anti-intellectual and reactionary writers and artists whose ranks swelled catastrophically between the wars in Western Europe.

Kimberly Jannarone shows that Artaud's work reveals two sets of doubles: one, a body of peculiarly persistent received interpretations from the American experimental theater and French post-structuralist readings of the 1960s; and, two, a darker set of doubles---those of Artaud's contemporaries who, in the tumultuous, alienated, and pessimistic atmosphere enveloping much of Europe after World War I, denounced the degradation of civilization, yearned for cosmic purification, and called for an ecstatic loss of the self. Artaud and His Doubles will generate provocative new discussions about Artaud and fundamentally challenge the way we look at his work and ideas.

"...a daring and rigorous historical reinterpretation that defies critical consensus on Artaud."
—Lara Cox, University of Exeter, French Studies

* French Studies *

"[Jannarone] argues in her enlightening and engaging book that "Artaud" was invented in the 1960s in widespread misreadings of The Theatre and Its Double."
—Iris Smith Fischer, University of Kansas, Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism

* Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism *

"I hope Jannarone's book will be read seriously and its implications traced with care and thoughtfulness."
—Mike Sell, TDR: The Drama Review

* TDR: The Drama Revi

ISBN: 9780472035151

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: unknown

272 pages