Anton Fraud Research Paper
Antonin Artaud
Antonin Artaud was born on September the 4th, 1896, in Marseille, France. He was son to Eupharasie Nalpas and Antoine-Roi Artaud. Both his parents were natives of Smyrna, an ancient Greek city modernly known as Izmir. When he was four years old, Artaud had a severe case of meningitis, which gave him a nervous irritable temperament during his adolescence. He also suffered from neuralgia, stammering and sever bouts of clinical depression, this was treated with the use of opium resulting in a life-long addiction. It was arranged by his parents for Artaud to stay in a sanatorium for long periods of time. This lasted 5 years, with a break of two months, June and July 1916, when Artaud was conscripted into the French Army. He was allegedly discharged due to his self-induced habit of sleep-walking. During Artaud’s “rest cures” at the sanatorium, he read Arthur Rimbaud, Charles Baudelaire, and Edgar Allan Poe. In May 1919, the …show more content…
By turning theatre into a place where the spectator is exposed rather than protected, Artaud was committing an act of cruelty upon them.
– Lee Jamieson, Antonin Artaud: From Theory to Practice, Greenwich Exchange, 2007, p.23
Artaud wanted to (but never did) put the audience in the middle of the 'spectacle' (his term for the play), so they would be 'engulfed and physically affected by it'. He referred to this layout as being like a 'vortex' - a constantly shifting shape - 'to be trapped and powerless'.
Finally, Artaud used the term to describe his philosophical views. Imagination, to Artaud, was reality; he considered dreams, thoughts and delusions as no less real than the "outside" world. To him, reality appeared to be a consensus, the same consensus the audience accepts when they enter a theatre to see a play and, for a time, pretend that what they are seeing is real.
Artaud saw suffering as essential to
Antonin Artaud was born on September the 4th, 1896, in Marseille, France. He was son to Eupharasie Nalpas and Antoine-Roi Artaud. Both his parents were natives of Smyrna, an ancient Greek city modernly known as Izmir. When he was four years old, Artaud had a severe case of meningitis, which gave him a nervous irritable temperament during his adolescence. He also suffered from neuralgia, stammering and sever bouts of clinical depression, this was treated with the use of opium resulting in a life-long addiction. It was arranged by his parents for Artaud to stay in a sanatorium for long periods of time. This lasted 5 years, with a break of two months, June and July 1916, when Artaud was conscripted into the French Army. He was allegedly discharged due to his self-induced habit of sleep-walking. During Artaud’s “rest cures” at the sanatorium, he read Arthur Rimbaud, Charles Baudelaire, and Edgar Allan Poe. In May 1919, the …show more content…
By turning theatre into a place where the spectator is exposed rather than protected, Artaud was committing an act of cruelty upon them.
– Lee Jamieson, Antonin Artaud: From Theory to Practice, Greenwich Exchange, 2007, p.23
Artaud wanted to (but never did) put the audience in the middle of the 'spectacle' (his term for the play), so they would be 'engulfed and physically affected by it'. He referred to this layout as being like a 'vortex' - a constantly shifting shape - 'to be trapped and powerless'.
Finally, Artaud used the term to describe his philosophical views. Imagination, to Artaud, was reality; he considered dreams, thoughts and delusions as no less real than the "outside" world. To him, reality appeared to be a consensus, the same consensus the audience accepts when they enter a theatre to see a play and, for a time, pretend that what they are seeing is real.
Artaud saw suffering as essential to