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Artaud Anthology
"I am the man," wrote Artaud, "who has best charted his inmost self." Antonin Artaud was a great poet who, like Poe, Holderlin, and Nerval, wanted to live in the infinite and asked that the human spirit burn in absolute freedom.
To society, he was a madman. Artaud, however, was not insane but in luciferian pursuit of what society keeps hidden. The man who wrote Van Gogh the Man Suicided by Society raged against the insanity of social institutions with insight that proves more prescient with every passing year. Today, as Artaud’s vatic thunder still crashes above the "larval confusion" he despised, what is most striking in his writings is an extravagant lucidity.
This collection gives us quintessential Artaud on the occult, magic, the theater, mind and body, the cosmos, rebellion, and revolution in its deepest sense.
Antoine Marie Joseph Artaud, better known as Antonine Artaud, was a French dramatist, poet, essayist, actor, and theatre director, widely recognized as one of the major figures of twentieth-century theatre and the European avant-garde.
Jack Hirschman (b. December 13, 1933, in New York, NY) is a poet and social activist who has written more than 50 volumes of poetry. Dismissed from teaching at UCLA for anti-war activities in 1966, he moved to San Francisco in 1973, and was the city's present poet laureate. Hirschman translates nine languages and edited The Artaud Anthology.
To society, he was a madman. Artaud, however, was not insane but in luciferian pursuit of what society keeps hidden. The man who wrote Van Gogh the Man Suicided by Society raged against the insanity of social institutions with insight that proves more prescient with every passing year. Today, as Artaud’s vatic thunder still crashes above the "larval confusion" he despised, what is most striking in his writings is an extravagant lucidity.
This collection gives us quintessential Artaud on the occult, magic, the theater, mind and body, the cosmos, rebellion, and revolution in its deepest sense.
Antoine Marie Joseph Artaud, better known as Antonine Artaud, was a French dramatist, poet, essayist, actor, and theatre director, widely recognized as one of the major figures of twentieth-century theatre and the European avant-garde.
Jack Hirschman (b. December 13, 1933, in New York, NY) is a poet and social activist who has written more than 50 volumes of poetry. Dismissed from teaching at UCLA for anti-war activities in 1966, he moved to San Francisco in 1973, and was the city's present poet laureate. Hirschman translates nine languages and edited The Artaud Anthology.
253 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1965
64 people are currently reading
2906 people want to read
About the author
Antonin Artaud
280 books795 followersFrench surrealist poet and playwright Antonin Artaud advocated a deliberately shocking and confrontational style of drama that he called "theater of cruelty."
People better knew Antoine Marie Joseph Artaud, an essayist, actor, and director.
Considered among the most influential figures in the evolution of modern theory, Antonin Artaud associated with artists and experimental groups in Paris during the 1920s.
Political differences then resulted in him breaking and founding the theatre Alfred Jarry with Roger Vitrac and Robert Aron. Together, they expected to create a forum for works to change radically. Artaud especially expressed disdain for west of the day, panned the ordered plot and scripted language that his contemporaries typically employed to convey ideas, and recorded his ideas in such works as Le Theatre de la cruaute and The Theatre and Its Double .
Artaud thought to represent reality and to affect the much possible audience and therefore used a mixture of strange and disturbing forms of lighting, sound, and other performance elements.
Artaud wanted that the "spectacle" that "engulfed and physically affected" this audience, put in the middle. He referred to this layout like a "vortex," a "trapped and powerless" constantly shifting shape.
People better knew Antoine Marie Joseph Artaud, an essayist, actor, and director.
Considered among the most influential figures in the evolution of modern theory, Antonin Artaud associated with artists and experimental groups in Paris during the 1920s.
Political differences then resulted in him breaking and founding the theatre Alfred Jarry with Roger Vitrac and Robert Aron. Together, they expected to create a forum for works to change radically. Artaud especially expressed disdain for west of the day, panned the ordered plot and scripted language that his contemporaries typically employed to convey ideas, and recorded his ideas in such works as Le Theatre de la cruaute and The Theatre and Its Double .
Artaud thought to represent reality and to affect the much possible audience and therefore used a mixture of strange and disturbing forms of lighting, sound, and other performance elements.
Artaud wanted that the "spectacle" that "engulfed and physically affected" this audience, put in the middle. He referred to this layout like a "vortex," a "trapped and powerless" constantly shifting shape.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 60 reviews
June 14, 2023
I have chosen the domain of sorrow and shadow as others
have chosen that of the glow and the accumulation of things.
I do not labor within the scope of any domain.
My only labor is in eternity itself.
I found this collection of writings more accessible that some of the very French philosophers that were influenced by Artaud. At times anguished and deeply profound - when taking into account his mental state and asylum stays, but also enlightening when it comes to the avent-garde and his own breed of philosophical thought and theory. The book opens with correspondences between Artaud and 'man of letters' Jacques Rivière, which was most interesting, before moving on to a variety of pieces where you really get a sense of the fragility but also the brilliance of his mind. Fragments of a Journal in Hell - mostly made up of really short vignettes, was one of a number of pieces that really made me sit back and just go 'wow'. A stunning work. More to come...
March 4, 2022
Embodiment is often violent and incomprehensible, and the writings of Artaud map onto this reality nicely. Trying to make meaning in a meaningless world, in the extreme moments of the text Artaud resorts to glossolalia - words that seem incomprehensible even to him (I am not speaking them, it is not *I* that is speaking them, he professes in one poem). But Artaud is not religious in any typical sense of the word, so his incantations are for a more base and immanent being rather than a transcendent one, although it is a being he hates and denies all the same. It is hard for me to say that his work is life-affirming. In his early works, maybe, as he takes a quasi-Cioranian approach to suicide (if I'm reading it correctly it's roughly something like "We always commit suicide too late", it can't be an answer if we don't know the question, etc.) but later on, post-asylum stays, in the throes of madness, he seems ready to die. I'm intimating a potential reading of Artaud as a radicalization of someone like Bataille, a demystification of the immanent embodied experience that renders it truly atheistic and nihilist - Bataille talks of sacrifice, inner experience, eroticism, laughter, chance, expenditure; Artaud of turds and farts, drugs (specifically opium and peyote), suicide, catastrophes both bodily and natural, anti-religious/spiritual attitude (a mistheism... despite his anti-Semitic rants against Kafka and Kabbala, he does indulge in astrology and horoscope). Although both talk of madness, only Artaud has actually lived it. Bataille's work is characterized by frustration, missteps, blocked passages, impossibility, in other words a prose of constipation - Artaud seems to be an overflowing exuberance, a performative deployment and living exemplar of what Bataille only writes about, an avant-garde logorrhea. Bataille is frustrated and constantly trying to evoke and live on the margins from the safety of his bourgeois brothel, Artaud, to me, seems to be living in the margins and is in total disarray and confusion as to where he is exactly, a prime characteristic of that unanchored linguistic-being of psychotic embodiment.
April 15, 2008
"There is in every madman a misunderstood genius whose idea, shining in his head, frightened people, and for whom delirium was the only solution to the strangulation that life had prepared for him."
Antonin Artaud
Between the 15 and 19 I read the bulk of the western philosophers. Near the end of this period I was given this book by a friend. Artuad was Nuts and I identified with him!
So, I swore off all western philosophy and heavy reading for the time being. I was too young! Now, at almost 30 I am ready to revisit my Mad friend.
Antonin Artaud
Between the 15 and 19 I read the bulk of the western philosophers. Near the end of this period I was given this book by a friend. Artuad was Nuts and I identified with him!
So, I swore off all western philosophy and heavy reading for the time being. I was too young! Now, at almost 30 I am ready to revisit my Mad friend.
February 11, 2008
As usual, I have an earlier edition of this w/ a different cover - before ISBNs. Artaud, you difficult human being you. Thank goodness, you existed. I wish you'd been happy, I wish I were happy, but I DON'T WISH YOU'D BEEN LIKE MOST OF THE MORONS IN THE WORLD. No degree of happiness is worth that fate. You gave a hard look at life & you let it fuck you up. You burned, you lived, you died, & you left a legacy well worth studying.
January 19, 2014
I do not want it to end. I cannot stop. I want more. Perhaps I can twist the book & ring him out for every last drop. Every droplet poignant even amongst the heaping steeping dung of his mind, the aroma is pungent yet it awakens within something ardent. It calls to life that which is undeniable. The book is riddled with phrases worth quoting, memorizing tattooing abroad one’s flesh & soul. He speaks from a world that rejected his spirit writhing in a grave. His mind, so entrancing. I will be rereading this over & over, delving again & again into this chaos. There is so much to say but the best advice I could give would be to experience it for yourself. Caution, this is an esoteric read. I find some get it, some don’t. LOVED IT!
August 31, 2014
This is another one of those books that marked me in my early twenties because it was my mentor's favorite and also that of my best contemporary, a kind of two for the price of one, a must read, and to like Artaud seemed to imply you were in some kind of club, but I'm not sure what membership entailed. Max's favorite essay of Artaud's (the character from "If So Carried By The Wind, Become The Wind") was "Van Gogh: The Artist Suicided By Society," and it was one of the longer works in the anthology, and certainly one of the most lucidly vitriolic attacks towards psychology and bourgeois culture that I've ever read but there's a lot in this book, and that's the understatement of the day. Every page of this compilation is full of poetry, and though I've read other Artaud collections, I'd say this is the definitive one for the uninitiated, and even for the initiated this could last a lifetime.
I'm not sure what Artaud became famous for to Gen X but for some it had to do with theater, and for others poetry, and for others sheer madness. He was kind of an enigma and a hard figure to define, because he wasn't really a writer in the traditional sense, but came to writing from acting, so that writing was almost like some bare essential form of communication for him, rather than a developed style, and indeed many of his pieces seem like fragments and why an anthology is so good for him. But Artaud did write the long essay about Van Gogh, and another called "The Theater and its Double," that went a long way to explaining to me why words were dead, and why I'd done the stupidest thing of all to be a writer, but it was too late, and if anything Artaud's realization that words had lost their meaning freed me up in a kind of perverse way. I guess he was the indescribable unknown madman genius for a generation of artist lunatics, and gathering around Artaud was like salting the wound with sweet pleasure, and I can imagine a time when getting his books was very hard, but it's not so hard now and that's probably good.
I'd say the collection has poems, essay's, and journal entries, but no real stories, and it's not a work of fiction in the least. I think it was intended to be the raw expression of a man's mind in all of its lucidity and grace, but exposing neither, and both, in horrible streams of light. The book has no pretense at all, no point of view, or fictitious narrator, cloaking a narrative in artistic guise, it has none of this, and I don't get the idea that Artaud ever wrote a story with even a shred of dialogue, but that's his greatness, he had forsaken books and literary convention for raw emotion, leaving it for the stage and film where he was more famous as an actor, but this isn't a mere notebook, either, given the the literary significance and greatness of many of the pieces, some of which are taught in theater departments around the Country. It's a very hard book to describe and the kind that many suicidal artists dream of leaving behind for posterity's sake, but never do, or if they do, no one cares. But this isn't fair to the lucidity of Artaud's poetic vision, for lack of a better word, that an amateur journalist only dreams of since I'm not sure he ever dreamed of writing a great play or story, because writing was something else for Artaud so that his point of view as a creator was completely different than the ordinary fiction writer sitting down to write a tale with a clever narrator and voice. Writing was a kind of a spiritual absolution for Artaud mixed with a hearty dose of literary criticism, and asked for nothing in return, but acknowledgment of his spirituality.
I'm not sure what Artaud became famous for to Gen X but for some it had to do with theater, and for others poetry, and for others sheer madness. He was kind of an enigma and a hard figure to define, because he wasn't really a writer in the traditional sense, but came to writing from acting, so that writing was almost like some bare essential form of communication for him, rather than a developed style, and indeed many of his pieces seem like fragments and why an anthology is so good for him. But Artaud did write the long essay about Van Gogh, and another called "The Theater and its Double," that went a long way to explaining to me why words were dead, and why I'd done the stupidest thing of all to be a writer, but it was too late, and if anything Artaud's realization that words had lost their meaning freed me up in a kind of perverse way. I guess he was the indescribable unknown madman genius for a generation of artist lunatics, and gathering around Artaud was like salting the wound with sweet pleasure, and I can imagine a time when getting his books was very hard, but it's not so hard now and that's probably good.
I'd say the collection has poems, essay's, and journal entries, but no real stories, and it's not a work of fiction in the least. I think it was intended to be the raw expression of a man's mind in all of its lucidity and grace, but exposing neither, and both, in horrible streams of light. The book has no pretense at all, no point of view, or fictitious narrator, cloaking a narrative in artistic guise, it has none of this, and I don't get the idea that Artaud ever wrote a story with even a shred of dialogue, but that's his greatness, he had forsaken books and literary convention for raw emotion, leaving it for the stage and film where he was more famous as an actor, but this isn't a mere notebook, either, given the the literary significance and greatness of many of the pieces, some of which are taught in theater departments around the Country. It's a very hard book to describe and the kind that many suicidal artists dream of leaving behind for posterity's sake, but never do, or if they do, no one cares. But this isn't fair to the lucidity of Artaud's poetic vision, for lack of a better word, that an amateur journalist only dreams of since I'm not sure he ever dreamed of writing a great play or story, because writing was something else for Artaud so that his point of view as a creator was completely different than the ordinary fiction writer sitting down to write a tale with a clever narrator and voice. Writing was a kind of a spiritual absolution for Artaud mixed with a hearty dose of literary criticism, and asked for nothing in return, but acknowledgment of his spirituality.
August 8, 2019
Great book in terms of straight forwardness of the writing and poetry, also very good curated and edited. although It worked the best for me when reading it scattered and kind of back to front.
The Down side of it was when I read the metaphysical and Buddhism part of his writing, not only it was redounded and empty of new ideas or concepts, but in some ways it was conservative. The "Van Gogh, The Man Suicided by the Society" was probably the best part of the book, that got me very interested to start reading the whole thing and buy it. (I was also stuck on a 12-hour flight with this book, so there was no escape to reading anything else) But after reading the other parts of the book I understood why he wrote that part, and made me less interested in it.
The Down side of it was when I read the metaphysical and Buddhism part of his writing, not only it was redounded and empty of new ideas or concepts, but in some ways it was conservative. The "Van Gogh, The Man Suicided by the Society" was probably the best part of the book, that got me very interested to start reading the whole thing and buy it. (I was also stuck on a 12-hour flight with this book, so there was no escape to reading anything else) But after reading the other parts of the book I understood why he wrote that part, and made me less interested in it.
July 21, 2011
Artaud's repertoire is a massive shock against the electro-shock, a powerful yearning to be utterly understood, but on the author's own terms. It is a deep howl against everything he loathed. It is also, in a 20th-21st century literary world full of folks expressing sympathy and affinity with the insane, a painful yet wonderful insider's perspective into a mind tortured by too much lucidity.
October 20, 2009
I think this is a sturdy selection, esp. as so many of the other Artaud collections I like seem to be out of print. Maddening, fascinating, often raving. Why is it that Artaud's work clings and haunts you?
August 29, 2018
You find that you know almost nothing about him in the way that you know about almost anyone else...But that you know so much about him in a way that you know no one else.
I choose to think that is his intention. Revelations of the inward being opened up
I choose to think that is his intention. Revelations of the inward being opened up
April 28, 2021
Sometimes inscrutable, sometimes revelatory ... Artaud is still that force toeing the line between brilliance (as in shining bright light) and the hellishly cold and silent void of outright madness. We're all luckier for having these ravings recorded.
July 2, 2022
Poetic, hallucinatory discussions of art, madness, identity.
Acquired Oct 15, 1987 (the copy I read in 1981 was borrowed from the Harriet Irving Library at UNB)
The Word, Montreal, Quebec
Acquired Oct 15, 1987 (the copy I read in 1981 was borrowed from the Harriet Irving Library at UNB)
The Word, Montreal, Quebec
September 9, 2021
I don't know if swallowing tons of opium will make you a genius but the ARTAUD ANTHOLOGY makes for a strong case in the affirmative. Artaud invented the Theater of Cruelty, acted brilliantly in THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC and wrote poems, in rhyme and prose, for and to everyone from Van Gogh to Adolf Hitler. He was a Renaissance man on speed and a Celine without a cause. If this is madness, let's have more of it.
April 4, 2024
After many years of occasionally poking at this.. we finally sat down and read it front to back! What a whacky delight of a read. So snide! Often ecstatic! Ever engaging and absolutely no-fucks-given. Its obviously very much an anthology, and some of the entries are barely readable schizobabble- but that's the fun of it! Luckily we also read the Jane Goodall book about Artaud and the Gnostic Drama at the same time and that helped a lot for context, making a lot of this apparent jibberish a lot more digestible. The bits about bodies are thoroughly visceral. The diatribe on Kafka was based. Artaud is all in on the dawning aeon and we're here for it. Now that we've done the synchronic once-over, this will surely be a text to revisit in segments many times in the future.
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October 29, 2025deleuzeheads know
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October 3, 2024I found this book in my bookshelves without a trace of memory of where it came from— which is quite fitting of what this book is and for.
Artaud described Van Gogh as a creature of superior lucidity and I think Artaud is a slime of clinging consciousness to diaphragm so that the non-writing Artaud still (breathes) lives (there is no non-writing Artaud and writing Artaud actually).
One of the best sentences got to be: [I] never had any suidical tendencies but I know that very conversation I had with a psychiatrist during the morning visit made me long to hang myself because I was aware that could not slit his throat.
I pick up this book once in a while....; have read it mostly in the middle of the night in bed, on evening buses; during a meal. But to finish reading it on a nice sunny morning feels so off, but also accurate of how 'Who is the man who decided to live with the notion he was not being fitted for the coffin?'
I am sure I am in no need to be impressed by Artaud's writing (or anyone's), but I am very impressed by the translators and their translations. There is some sort of consistencies that make the anthology make no sense but also make 'Artaud' so timeline-less.
Going to end with David Rattray's translated text: & they can't trip me up on words because I won't be saying anything. And what am I trying to say now: WHAT THE FUCK AM I HERE FOR?
Artaud described Van Gogh as a creature of superior lucidity and I think Artaud is a slime of clinging consciousness to diaphragm so that the non-writing Artaud still (breathes) lives (there is no non-writing Artaud and writing Artaud actually).
One of the best sentences got to be: [I] never had any suidical tendencies but I know that very conversation I had with a psychiatrist during the morning visit made me long to hang myself because I was aware that could not slit his throat.
I pick up this book once in a while....; have read it mostly in the middle of the night in bed, on evening buses; during a meal. But to finish reading it on a nice sunny morning feels so off, but also accurate of how 'Who is the man who decided to live with the notion he was not being fitted for the coffin?'
I am sure I am in no need to be impressed by Artaud's writing (or anyone's), but I am very impressed by the translators and their translations. There is some sort of consistencies that make the anthology make no sense but also make 'Artaud' so timeline-less.
Going to end with David Rattray's translated text: & they can't trip me up on words because I won't be saying anything. And what am I trying to say now: WHAT THE FUCK AM I HERE FOR?
November 3, 2007
Artaud's aggressive and vivid language is actually less interesting to me than his ideas, which center around developing a new and healthier spirituality. He has a totally different conception of the body, sexuality, and how religion should and does function than anyone who came before him. Also a great and more artistic predecessor to Deleuze and Guatarri.
April 23, 2008
Fabulous book, especially the critical writing. Not the best place to go for poetry, but not bad. Much of this book was translated by David Rattray, who nails Artaud's intensity of voice. Also a lot of Jack Hirschman's translations, which are a bit too beat for my tastes. In any case, it is a wild read! Artaud really goes all out.
May 29, 2008
This is the first classic anthology put together by Poet Jack Hirschman on Artaud's writings and criticisms. Truly one of the greats of the theater - and well, the arts. Artaud was a haunted man and his writings have that desperate aspect to his mental health and his unique way of looking at the world. Truly great.
December 31, 2024
the french are fucking freaks
August 18, 2022
This is the first I've ever read of Artaud, and while I definitely appreciate him, I also feel as though we're on different wavelengths. I don't mind admitting I had no idea what he was trying to say half the time, and his rambling style and run-on sentences didn't help. But I still enjoyed a good portion of this anthology, particularly his diatribes concerning other artists and writers.
June 26, 2018
For any reader of Post modern philosophy or Dada/surrealist art, this is a must read.
Kind of like a lou Reed/Dee Dee Ramone prophet of disorder.
Kind of like a lou Reed/Dee Dee Ramone prophet of disorder.
July 31, 2024
Incredible book! I only feel I understood about 5% of it, but the imagery and concepts are fascinating and worth a read even if you feel completely lost. I hope to read this again soon.
September 3, 2025
A work of master
March 10, 2009
Worth it for the Tarahumara Indian section alone, this edition of shorter works also includes classics like his justification for the legalization of Opium and the end to stigmatization of addicts, plus lots of brilliant and typically unusual pieces. Also, and this is really important, has selections from "Theater and its Double", which introduces the idea of the "Theater of Cruelty", which is an interesting subject in and of itself.
Truth be told I haven't read it from cover to cover but it's not something I'm currently working on, and so isn't really on my "currently reading" list.
Truth be told I haven't read it from cover to cover but it's not something I'm currently working on, and so isn't really on my "currently reading" list.
September 6, 2011
Brilliant!! A book to read over and over again. Deeply moving. A fascinating view of the mind in a world of persecution and fear. Note the lovely and immobilizing 'Van Gough,Suicided By Society'.
December 20, 2020
No, it’s not just you, your suffering is unique, and you ARE savvier than all your friends.
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January 1, 2021An accomplishment of failures. Snippets of poems, social theory, literary criticism, and art critique that eschew classic forms and structure. This novelty and rebellious is my favorite aspect of the book because it allows one to consider what writing is differently. As Sontag wrote on the writing of Artaud-- "all amount to a broken, self-mutilated corpus, a vast collection of fragments. What he bequeathed was not achieved works of art but a singular presence, a poetics, an aesthetics of thought, a theology of culture, and a phenomenology of suffering" (from Under the Sign of Saturn). I appreciate that the collection opens with a correspondence between Artaud and the well-respected filmmaker and critic Jacques Rivette becasue it allows insight into how Artaud viewed himself as an important rebel who refused to conform his ideas to a more consumable and clear form. "All I ask is to feel my brain" he writes. Throughout the anthology that ensues, the narrative voice reflects an individual alienated from society but also alienated from his own consciousness. His mental and physical deficits becomes, directly or indirectly, the dominant, inexhaustible subject of his writings. As interesting as this is to consider, for me they were exhausting to read. All his writing is in the first person, and is a mode of address in the mixed voices of incantation and discursive explanation. I would read the work in very small fragments and took long breaks before returning. I loved thinking about what Artaud was doing and appreciated many of the ideas put forth (each fragment seems to have a thesis) and yet found the reading experience very strenuous. Many of the sentences were borderline indecipherable. The struggle he is trying to negotiate within himself (mind is body and body is mind in way that clashes rather than harmonizes) caused a visceral struggle in me as as reader to carry on after each sentence. This statement applies to the majority of my reading experiences. There were fragments like his rightly most famous work in the collection "Van Gogh: The Man Suicided by Society" which managed to present his idea in his unique form while remaining a pleasurable reading experience. So how to rate a book that I greatly appreciated thinking about what the author was doing but for the most part did not actually enjoy reading? I give it three stars-- the middle ground between 5 stars for what the author is doing, and 1 star for the reading experience.
October 30, 2018
There are some great lines of poetry. The prose can be tiresome and confused, overburdened by arcane, bizarre theorizing, mostly of a mystical nature, but there is often a hidden gem of a line. It's more of interest to a psychologist, since it's schizophrenic writing and thinking par excellance. The dominant theme is negation, and self-negation: rage against humanity, existence, the body, the mind and of course, and rightly so, the disease. Though like most insane people, he rarely mentions that he has a disease, choosing to minutely describe his symptoms but avoiding any conclusions. To me, the essential tragedy of schitzophrenia is the deprivation of true feeling. Artaud, more than any other writer I've read, illustrates with his writing, how close certain types of mental illness, where there is very expressive artistic theorizing speech, is, to what passes for rational thought in the authoritarian who commits mass murder and war, and by extention, the masses that believe in those actions. What they share is complete conviction in the unassailable truth of their own thoughts and actions, usually coupled with a belief that they are divine messengers and lots of talk about purity. Reading Artaud, I have a sense of what his mind could have been without the illness. He is not an artist because of his illness, like many who fetishize his illness mistakenly believe, he is an artist who is ill. The same people fetishize artists who are addicts.
The beats were into him because of his many drug references and his Buddhistic thoughts on the mind, the void, being, etc. The difference with Buddhism is that Artuad has an ugly mind, full of hateful ugly thoughts, that hipsters think are funny and cool, because they're so "wild" and "harsh."
But he can be beautiful, dig this: "What is this death we are alone in forever, where love never teaches us the way?" or this: "Here where the Mother eats her sons,/ Power eats Power:/ Short of war, no stability." or this: "to leave the human body/ to the light of nature/ to plunge it alive into the gleam of nature/ where the sun will wed it at last"
The beats were into him because of his many drug references and his Buddhistic thoughts on the mind, the void, being, etc. The difference with Buddhism is that Artuad has an ugly mind, full of hateful ugly thoughts, that hipsters think are funny and cool, because they're so "wild" and "harsh."
But he can be beautiful, dig this: "What is this death we are alone in forever, where love never teaches us the way?" or this: "Here where the Mother eats her sons,/ Power eats Power:/ Short of war, no stability." or this: "to leave the human body/ to the light of nature/ to plunge it alive into the gleam of nature/ where the sun will wed it at last"
July 25, 2024
Genius and madness are the same thing to Artaud and he is convincing in his life and writing; Artaud wholeheartedly refused the limits of language to express the interior world, and he rejected the proposed limits of/on spirit and body by social institutions. Many writers have written about such ideas but Artaud *feels* these limits to his core and writes vividly, and sometimes incomprehensibly, about how poetry, religion, laws, medicine, capitalism, words, our own biological bodies, the construct of time, imprisons himself and us in a thick amber, never to fully realize our capacities. I'm not brave enough to lean into the discomfort when I notice at times the limitations that keep me alone in my own world, and you in your own; but how beautifully Artaud expresses these feelings that make up our little malaise - and to live committed to experimenting with the limits of creative reality-making through art, writing, and his own mind. It is sometimes hilarious, uncomfortable and mind opening.
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