Antonin Artaud

Template:Short description Template:Redirect Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox person Antoine Maria Joseph Paul Artaud, better known as Antonin Artaud (Template:IPAc-en;<ref>Template:Cite Dictionary.com</ref> {{#invoke:IPA|main}}; 4 September 1896 – 4 March 1948), was a French artist who worked across a variety of media. He is best known for his writings, as well as his work in the theatre and cinema.<ref name=":4">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name=":6" /> Widely recognized as a major figure of the European avant-garde, he had a particularly strong influence on twentieth-century theatre through his conceptualization of the Theatre of Cruelty.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name=":10">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name=":9">Template:Cite book</ref> Known for his raw, surreal and transgressive work, his texts explored themes from the cosmologies of ancient cultures, philosophy, the occult, mysticism and indigenous Mexican and Balinese practices.<ref name=":8" /><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name=":17">Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Early life

Antonin was born in Marseille, to Euphrasie Nalpas and Antoine-Roi Artaud. His parents were first cousins: his grandmothers were sisters from Smyrna (modern day İzmir, Turkey).<ref name=":6" /> His paternal grandmother, Catherine Chilé, was raised in Marseille, where she married Marius Artaud, a Frenchman. His maternal grandmother, Mariette Chilé, grew up in Smyrna, where she married Louis Nalpas, a local ship chandler.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Euphrasie gave birth to nine children, but four were stillborn and two others died in childhood.<ref name=":6" />

At age five, Artaud was diagnosed with meningitis, which had no cure at the time.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Biographer David Shafer argues, however, that

given the frequency of such misdiagnoses, coupled with the absence of a treatment (and consequent near-minimal survival rate) and the symptoms he had, it's unlikely that Artaud actually contracted it.<ref name=":6">Template:Cite book</ref>

Artaud attended the Collège Sacré-Coeur, a Catholic middle and high school, from 1907 to 1914. At school he began reading works by Arthur Rimbaud, Stéphane Mallarmé, and Edgar Allan Poe and founded a private literary magazine in collaboration with his friends.Template:Citation needed

Towards the end of his tenure at the Collège, Artaud noticeably withdrew from social life and "destroyed most of his written work and gave away his books".<ref name=":9" />^:3 Distressed, his parents arranged for him to see a psychiatrist.<ref name=":6" />^:25 Over the next five years Artaud was admitted to a series of sanatoria.<ref name=":11">Template:Cite book</ref>^:163

In 1916, there was a pause in Artaud's treatment when he was conscripted into the French Army.<ref name=":6" />^:26 He was discharged early due to "an unspecified health reason" (Artaud later claimed it was "due to sleepwalking", while his mother ascribed it to his "nervous condition").<ref name=":9" />^:4

In May 1919, the director of the sanatorium prescribed Artaud laudanum, precipitating a lifelong addiction to that and other opiates.<ref name=":11" />^:162 In March 1921, he moved to Paris where he was put under the psychiatric care of Dr Édouard Toulouse who took him in as a boarder.<ref name=":6" />^:29

Career

Theatrical apprenticeships

In Paris, Artaud worked with a number of celebrated French "teacher-directors", including Jacques Copeau, André Antoine, Georges and Ludmilla Pitoëff, Charles Dullin, Firmin Gémier and Lugné-Poe.<ref name=":10" /> Lugné-Poe, who gave Artaud his first work in a professional theatre, later described him as "a painter lost in the midst of actors".<ref name="FD772" />Template:Rp

His core theatrical training was as part of Dullin's troupe, Théâtre de l'Atelier, which he joined in 1921.<ref name="FD772">Template:Cite journal</ref>^:345 As a member of Dullin's troupe, Artaud trained for 10 to 12 hours a day.<ref name="Goodall2">Template:Cite journal</ref>Template:Rp He was originally a strong proponent of Dullin's teaching and they shared a strong interest in east Asian theater, specifically performance traditions from Bali and Japan.<ref name=":9" />^:10 He stated, "Hearing Dullin teach I feel that I'm rediscovering ancient secrets and a whole forgotten mystique of production."<ref name="FD772" />^:351 However, their disagreements increased over time, particularly in relation to the differing logics of Eastern and Western theatre traditions.<ref name="FD772" />^:351-2 Their final disagreement was over his performance as the Emperor Charlemagne in Alexandre Arnoux's Huon de Bordeaux; he left the troupe in 1923 after eighteen months as a member.<ref name=":4" />^:22;<ref name="FD772" />^:345

Shortly thereafter he joined the troupe of Georges and Ludmilla Pitoëff. He remained with them through the next year, when he shifted his focus to work in the cinema.<ref name=":9" />^:15-16

Literary career

In 1923, Artaud submitted poems to La Nouvelle Revue Française (NRF), a prominent French literary journal. The poems were rejected, but Jacques Rivière, the journal's editor, found Artaud intriguing and invited him for a meeting. This initiated a written correspondence, which resulted in Artaud's first major publication, the epistolary work Correspondance avec Jacques Rivière.<ref name=":9" />^:45 Artaud continued to publish some of his most influential works in the NRF. Later, he would revise many of these texts for inclusion in The Theatre and Its Double, including the "First Manifesto for a Theatre of Cruelty" (1932) and "Theatre and the plague" (1933).<ref name=":4" />^:105

Work in cinema

Artaud had an active career in the cinema as a critic, actor, and writer.<ref name=":16">Template:Cite book</ref> This included his performance as Jean-Paul Marat in Abel Gance's Napoléon (1927) and the monk Massieu in Carl Theodor Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928).<ref name=":9" />^:17

Artaud also wrote a number of film scenarios, ten of which have survived.<ref name=":9" />^:23 Only one of the scenarios was produced during his lifetime, The Seashell and the Clergyman (1928).<ref name=":20">Template:Cite journal</ref> Directed by Germaine Dulac, many critics and scholars consider it to be the first surrealist film, though Artaud's relationship to the resulting film was conflicted.<ref name=":20" /><ref name=":12">Template:Cite book</ref>

Association with surrealists

Artaud was briefly associated with the surrealists, before André Breton expelled him from the movement in 1927.<ref name=":9" />^:21 This was in part due to the Surrealists increasing affiliation with the Communist Party in France.^{:<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> 274} As Ros Murray notes, "Artaud was not into politics at all, writing things like: Template:'I shit on Marxism.Template:'" Additionally, "Breton was becoming very anti-theatre because he saw theatre as being bourgeois and anti-revolutionary."<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

In "The Manifesto for an Abortive Theatre" (1926/27), written for the Theatre Alfred Jarry, Artaud makes a direct attack on the surrealists, whom he calls "bog-paper revolutionaries" that would "make us believe that to produce theatre today is a counter-revolutionary endeavour".<ref name=":8">Template:Cite book</ref>^:24 He declares they are "bowing down to Communism",<ref name=":8" />^:25 which is "a lazy man's revolution",<ref name=":8" />^:24 and calls for a more "essential metamorphosis" of society.<ref name=":8" />^:25

Théâtre Alfred Jarry (1926–1929)

In 1926, Artaud, Robert Aron and the expelled surrealist Roger Vitrac founded the Théâtre Alfred Jarry (TAJ).<ref name=":0">Template:Cite journal</ref> They staged four productions between June 1927 and January 1929. The Theatre was extremely short-lived, but was attended by an enormous range of European artists, including Arthur Adamov, André Gide, and Paul Valéry.<ref name=":0" />^:249

(For more details, including a full list of productions, see Théâtre Alfred Jarry)

At the Paris Colonial Exposition (1931)

In 1931, Artaud saw Balinese dance performed at the Paris Colonial Exposition. Although he misunderstood much of what he saw, it influenced his ideas for theatre.<ref name=":9" />^:26 Adrian Curtin has noted the significance of the Balinese use of music and sound for Artaud, and particularly

the 'hypnotic' rhythms of the gamelan ensemble, its range of percussive effects, the variety of timbres that the musicians produced, and – most importantly, perhaps – the way in which the dancers' movements interacted dynamically with the musical elements instead of simply functioning as a type of background accompaniment.<ref name=":2">Template:Cite journal</ref>Template:Rp

The Cenci (1935)

In 1935, Artaud staged an original adaptation of Percy Bysshe Shelley's The Cenci at the Théâtre des Folies-Wagram in Paris. The drama was Artaud's first and only chance to stage a production following his manifestos for a Theatre of Cruelty.<ref name=":2" />^:250 It had a set designed by Balthus and employed innovative sound effects—including the first theatrical use of the electronic instrument the Ondes Martenot.Template:Citation needed It was, however, a commercial failure.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

While Shelley's version of The Cenci conveyed the motivations and anguish of the Cenci's daughter Beatrice with her father through monologues, Artaud's adaptation emphasized the play's cruelty and violence, in particular "its themes of incest, revenge and familial murder".<ref name=":9" />^:21 Artaud was concerned with conveying the menacing nature of the Cenci's presence and the reverberations of their incest relationship though physical discordance, as if an invisible "force-field" surrounded them.<ref name="Goodall2" />Template:Rp

Artaud's opening stage directions demonstrate his approach. He describes the opening scene as "suggestive of extreme atmospheric turbulence, with wind-blown drapes, waves of suddenly amplified sound, and crowds of figures engaged in "furious orgy", accompanied by "a chorus of church bells", as well as the presence of numerous large mannequins.<ref name="Goodall2" />Template:Rp

Scholar Jane Goodall writes of The Cenci,

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The Theatre and its Double (1938)

In 1938, Artaud published The Theatre and Its Double, one of his most important texts.<ref name=":9" />^:34 In it, he proposed

a theatre that was in effect a return to magic and ritual and he sought to create a new theatrical language of totem and gesture – a language of space devoid of dialogue that would appeal to all the senses.<ref name="GBotting2">Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Rp

The Theatre of Cruelty, he theorized in the text, abandoned the formal proscenium arch and dominance of the playwright, which he considered "a hindrance to the magic of genuine ritual", in favor of "violent physical images", which would "crush and hypnotize the sensibility of the spectator", who would be "seized by the theatre as by a whirlwind of higher forces".<ref name="GBotting2" />^:6

Travels and institutionalization

Journey to Mexico

In 1935, Artaud decided to go to Mexico, where he was convinced there was "a sort of deep movement in favour of a return to civilisation before Cortez".<ref name=":3">Template:Cite journal</ref>^:11 The Mexican Legation in Paris gave him a travel grant, and he left for Mexico in January 1936. After arriving the following month, he "became something of a 'fixture' in the Mexican art scene", though he was often under the influence of opiates, and spent much of his time "seated and immobile, 'cual momiaTemplate:' [like a mummy]".<ref name=":9" />Template:Rp^;<ref name=":18">Template:Cite book</ref>^:73

Artaud also lived in Norogachi, a Rarámuri village in the Sierra Tarahumara.<ref name=":18" />^:77 He claimed to have participated in peyote rites,<ref name=":17" /> though scholars have questioned this.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name=":19">Template:Cite journal</ref> During this time he stopped using opiates and suffered withdrawal.<ref name=":6" /><ref name=":18" />^:77<ref name=":19" />

Ireland and repatriation to France

In 1937, Artaud returned to France, where his friend René Thomas gave him a walking-stick of knotted wood that Artaud believed was the "most sacred relic of the Irish church, the Bachall Ísu, or 'Staff of Jesus'" and contained magical powers.<ref name=":9" />^:32 Artaud traveled to Ireland, landing at Cobh and travelling to Galway, possibly in an effort to return the staff. Speaking very little English and no Gaelic whatsoever, he was unable to make himself understood.<ref name=":9" />^:33 In Dublin, Artaud found himself penniless and spent most of his trip in "hostels for the homeless".<ref name=":9" />^:34 After "several violent alteractions with the Dublin police" he was finally arrested after an incident at a Jesuit college.<ref name=":9" />^:34 Before deportation he was briefly confined in the notorious Mountjoy Prison.<ref name=":6" />^:152 According to Irish Government papers he was deported as "a destitute and undesirable alien".<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> On his return voyage, Artaud believed he was being attacked by two of the ship's crew members. He retaliated and was put in a straitjacket; upon his return to France he was involuntarily retained by the police and transferred to a psychiatric hospital.<ref name=":9" />^:34

Artaud spent the rest of his life moving between different institutions, depending on his condition and world circumstances.Template:Citation needed

In Rodez

In 1943, when France was occupied by the Germans and Italians, Robert Desnos arranged to have Artaud transferred to the psychiatric hospital in Rodez, which was well inside Vichy territory.<ref name=":13" /> There he was put under the charge of Dr. Gaston Ferdière.<ref name=":13">Template:Cite book</ref> At Rodez, Artaud underwent treatments including electroshock and art therapy.<ref name=":7">Template:Cite book</ref>^:194 The doctor believed that Artaud's habits of crafting magic spells, creating astrology charts, and drawing disturbing images were symptoms of mental illness.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Artaud denounced the electroshock treatments and consistently pleaded to have them suspended, while also ascribing to them "the benefit of having returned him to his name and to his self mastery".<ref name=":7" />^:196 Scholar Alexandra Lukes points out that "the 'recovery' of his name" might have been "a gesture to appease his doctors' conception of what constitutes health".<ref name=":7" />^:196 It was during this time that Artaud began writing and drawing again, after a long dormant period.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In 1946, Ferdière released Artaud to his friends, who placed him in the psychiatric clinic at Ivry-sur-Seine.<ref name="Antonin Marie Joseph Artaud">Template:Cite book</ref>

Final years

At Ivry-sur-Seine Artaud's friends encouraged him to write.Template:Citation needed He visited a Vincent van Gogh exhibition at the Orangerie in Paris and wrote the study Van Gogh le suicidé de la société ["Van Gogh, The Man Suicided by Society"]; in 1947, the French magazine K published it.<ref name=":15" />^:8 In 1949, the essay was the first of Artaud's to be translated in a United States–based publication, the influential literary magazine Tiger's Eye.<ref name=":15" />^:8 This rekindled interest in his work.Template:Citation needed

File:Antonin Artaud – self portrait (1947).jpg

Self-portrait of Artaud from 1947

{{#invoke:Lang|lang}}

He recorded {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (To Have Done With the Judgment of God) on 22–29 November 1947. The work remained true to his vision for the theatre of cruelty, using "screams, rants and vocal shudders" to forward his vision.<ref name=":15">Template:Cite book</ref>^:1 Wladimir Porché, the Director of French Radio, shelved the work the day before its scheduled airing on 2 February 1948.<ref name=":4" />^:62 This was partly for its scatological, anti-American, and anti-religious references and pronouncements, but also because of its general randomness, with a cacophony of xylophonic sounds mixed with various percussion elements, as well as cries, screams, grunts, onomatopoeia, and glossolalia.Template:Citation needed

As a result, Fernand Pouey, the director of dramatic and literary broadcasts for French radio, assembled a panel to consider the broadcast of {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}<ref name=":4" />^:62 Among approximately 50 artists, writers, musicians, and journalists present for a private listening on 5 February 1948 were Jean Cocteau, Paul Éluard, Raymond Queneau, Jean-Louis Barrault, René Clair, Jean Paulhan, Maurice Nadeau, Georges Auric, Claude Mauriac, and René Char.<ref name="Escholar">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Porché refused to broadcast it even though the panel were almost unanimously in favor of Artaud's work being broadcast.<ref name=":4" />^:62 Pouey left his job and the show was not heard again until 23 February 1948, at a private performance at Théâtre Washington.Template:Citation needed The work's first public broadcast did not take place until 8 July 1964 when the Los Angeles–based public radio station KPFK played an illegal copy provided by the artist Jean-Jacques Lebel.<ref name=":15" />^:1 The first French radio broadcast of {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} occurred 20 years after its original production.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Death

In January 1948, Artaud was diagnosed with colorectal cancer.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> He died on 4 March 1948 in a psychiatric clinic in Ivry-sur-Seine, a commune in the southeastern suburbs of Paris.<ref name=":5">Template:Cite journal</ref> He was found by the gardener of the estate seated alone at the foot of his bed holding a shoe, and it was suspected that he died from a lethal dose of the drug chloral hydrate, although it is unknown whether he was aware of its lethality.<ref name=":5" /><ref name=":16" />

Legacy and influence

Artaud has had a profound influence on theatre, avant-garde art, literature, psychiatry and other disciplines.<ref name=":10" /><ref name=":11" /><ref name=":12" /><ref name=":13" /><ref name=":15" />

Theatre and performance

Though many of his works were not produced for the public until after his death—for instance, "Spurt of Blood" (1925) was first produced in 1964, when Peter Brook and Charles Marowitz staged it as part of their "Theatre of Cruelty" season at the Royal Shakespeare Company—he has exerted a strong influence on the development of experimental theatre and performance art.^{<ref name=":9" />Template:Rp} In the introduction to his Selected Works, Susan Sontag asserts that his impact is "so profound" that Western theatre traditions can be divided into two periods – before Artaud and after Artaud".<ref name=":1" />^:xxxviii

Artists such as Karen Finley, Spalding Gray, Elizabeth LeCompte, Richard Foreman, Charles Marowitz, Sam Shepard, Joseph Chaikin, Charles Bukowski, Allen Ginsberg, and more all named Artaud as one of their influences.^{<ref name="GBotting2" />Template:Rp}

His influence can be seen in:

• Barrault's adaptation of Kafka's The Trial (1947).<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• The Theatre of the Absurd, particularly the works of Jean Genet and Samuel Beckett.<ref name="EncycBrit">Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref>
• Peter Brook's production of Marat/Sade in 1964, which was performed in New York and Paris, as well as London.Template:Citation needed
• The Living Theatre.Template:Citation needed
• In the winter of 1968, Williams College offered a dedicated intersession class in Artaudian theatre, resulting in a week-long "Festival of Cruelty", under the direction of Keith Fowler. The Festival included productions of The Jet of Blood, All Writing is Pig Shit, and several original ritualized performances, one based on the Texas Tower killings and another created as an ensemble catharsis called The Resurrection of Pig Man.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
• In Canada, playwright Gary Botting created a series of Artaudian "happenings" from The Aeolian Stringer to Zen Rock Festival, and produced a dozen plays with an Artaudian theme, including Prometheus Re-Bound.<ref>Edmonton: Harden House, 1972.</ref>
• Charles Marowitz's play Artaud at Rodez is about the relationship between Artaud and Dr. Ferdière during Artaud's confinement at the psychiatric hospital in Rodez; the play was first performed in 1976 at the Teatro a Trastavere in Rome.<ref>"Marowitz, Charles (1977). Artaud at Rodez. London: Marion Boyars. Template:ISBN.</ref>

Philosophy

Artaud also had a significant influence on philosophers.<ref name=":15" />^:22 Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, borrowed Artaud's phrase "the body without organs" to describe their conception of the virtual dimension of the body and, ultimately, the basic substratum of reality in their Capitalism and Schizophrenia.<ref>Deleuze, Gilles, and Félix Guattari (1980), "28 November 1947: How Do You Make Yourself a Body Without Organs?" In A Thousand Plateaus. Trans. Brian Massumi. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, pp. 149–166. Template:ISBN.</ref> Philosopher Jacques Derrida provided one of the key philosophical treatments of Artaud's work through his concept of "parole soufflée".<ref name="JEM7">Template:Cite book</ref> Feminist scholar Julia Kristeva drew on Artaud for her theorisation of "subject in process".<ref name=":15" />^:22-3

Literature

Poet Allen Ginsberg claimed Artaud's work, specifically "To Have Done with the Judgement of God", had a tremendous influence on his most famous poem "Howl".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The Latin American dramatic novel Yo-Yo Boing! by Giannina Braschi includes a debate between artists and poets concerning the merits of Artaud's "multiple talents" in comparison to the singular talents of other French writers.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> A novel, Traitor Comet, was published in June 2023 as the first in a series on Artaud's life and his friendship with the poet Robert Desnos.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The sequel, L'Etoile de Mer (The Starfish), was published in November 2024, and continues the story of Artaud as he defies André Breton and forms the Theater Alfred Jarry with Roger Vitrac.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Music

The band Bauhaus included a song about the playwright, called "Antonin Artaud", on their album Burning from the Inside.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Influential Argentine hard rock band Pescado Rabioso recorded an album titled Artaud. Their leader Luis Alberto Spinetta wrote the lyrics partly basing them on Artaud's writings.<ref name="allmusic">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Venezuelan rock band Zapato 3 included a song named "Antonin Artaud" on their album Ecos punzantes del ayer (1999).Template:Citation needed

Composer John Zorn has written many works inspired by and dedicated to Artaud, including seven CDs: "Astronome", "Moonchild: Songs Without Words", "Six Litanies for Heliogabalus", "The Crucible", "Ipsissimus", "Templars: In Sacred Blood" and "The Last Judgment", a monodrama for voice and orchestra inspired by Artaud's late drawings "La Machine de l'être" (2000), "Le Momo" (1999) for violin and piano, and "Suppots et Suppliciations" (2012) for full orchestra.Template:Citation needed

Film

Filmmaker E. Elias Merhige, during an interview by writer Scott Nicolay, cited Artaud as a key influence for the experimental film Begotten.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Director	Notes
1923	Fait-divers	Monsieur 2	Autant-Lara	<ref name=":1">Template:Cite book</ref>:182
1925	Surcouf	Jacques Morel, a traitor	Luitz-Morat
1926	Graziella	Cecco	Marcel Vandal
1926	Le Juif Errant	Gringalet	Luitz Morat	<ref name=":1" />:183
1927	Napoléon	Marat	Abel Gance	<ref name=":14">Template:Cite book</ref>:182
1928	The Passion of Joan of Arc	Massieu	Carl Dreyer
1928	Verdun: Visions of History	Paul Amiot	Léon Poirier
1928	L'Argent	Secretary Mazaud	Marcel L'Herbier
1929	Tarakanova	Le jeune tzigane	Raymond Bernard
1931	La Femme d'une nuit	A traitor	Marcel L'Herbier
1931	Montmartre	Unidentified	Raymond Bernard
1931	[[The Threepenny Opera (film)|L'Opéra de quatTemplate:'sous]]	A Thief	G. W. Pabst
1932	Coups de feu à l'aube	Leader of a group of assassins	Serge de Poligny
1932	Les Croix de bois	A delirious soldier	Raymond Bernard
1932	L'enfant de ma soeur	unidentified role	Henri Wullschleger
1933	Mater Dolorosa	Lawyer	Abel Gance
1934	Liliom	Knife-seller	Fritz Lang
1934	Sidonie Panache	Emir Aba-el Kadcr	Henri Wullschleger
1935	Lucrezia Borgia	Savonarola	Abel Gance
1935	Koenigsmark	The Librarian	Maurice Tourneur

Bibliography

Selected works

French

Year	Title	Original Publication/Publisher	Notes
1913	Sonnets mystique
1922	Tric-Trac du ciel
1925	L'Ombilic des limbes
1927	Le Pèse-Nerfs
	L'Art et la mort
	La Coquille et le clergyman		film scenario
	Sorcellerie et cinéma
1934	Héliogabale ou l'Anarchiste couronne
1938	Le Théâtre et son double	Gallimard, Collection Métamorphoses	seminal collection of texts on theatre
1946	Lettres de Rodez
1947	Van Gogh, le suicide de la société
	Au pays des Tarahumaras
1948	Pour en finir avec le jugement de Dieu
	Lettre contre la Kabbale

English translation

Year	Title	Translator	Publisher	Notes
1958	The Theatre and Its Double	Mary Caroline Richards	New York: Grove Weidenfeld
1963	Artaud Anthology	Jack Hirschman	San Francisco: City Lights Publishers	Edited and with an introduction by Susan Sontag
1971	Collected Works of Antonin Artaud	Victor Corti	London: Calder and Boyars
1976	Selected Writings	Helen Weaver	New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux	Edited and with an introduction by Susan Sontag
1995	Watchfiends and Rack Screams: works from the final period	Clayton Eshleman, with Bernard Bador	Boston: Exact Change
2008	50 Drawings to Murder Magic	Donald Nicholson-Smith	London: Seagull Books	Template:ISBN
2019	Heliogabalus or, the Crowned Anarchist	Alexis Lykiard	London: Infinity Land Press	Template:ISBN
2024	The Theatre and Its Double	Mark Taylor-Batty	Bloomsbury Publishing: Methuen Drama	ISBN 9781350288720
2024	Journey to Mexico: Revolutionary Messages & The Tarahumara	Rainer J. Hanshe	New York: Contra Mundum Press	Template:ISBN

Further reading

In English

Books

• Barber, Stephen. Antonin Artaud: Blows and Bombs (Faber and Faber: London, 1993) Template:ISBN
• Bradnock, Lucy. No More Masterpieces: Modern Art After Artaud (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2021).
• Deleuze, Gilles and Félix Guattari. Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Trans. R. Hurley, H. Seem, and M. Lane. (New York: Viking Penguin, 1977).
• Esslin, Martin. Antonin Artaud. London: John Calder, 1976.
• Greene, Naomi. Antonin Artaud: Poet Without Words. (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1971).
• Goodall, Jane. Artaud and the Gnostic Drama. Oxford: Clarendon Press; Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. Template:ISBN
• Jamieson, Lee. Antonin Artaud: From Theory to Practice (Greenwich Exchange: London, 2007) Template:ISBN.
• Jannarone, Kimberly. Artaud and His Doubles (Ann Arbor, MI, University of Michigan Press, 2010).
• Knapp, Bettina. Antonin Artaud: Man of Vision. (Athens, OH: Swallow Press, 1980).
• Morris, Blake. Antonin Artaud (London: Routledge, 2022).
• Plunka, Gene A. (ed). Antonin Artaud and the Modern Theater. (Cranbury: Associated University Presses. 1994).
• Rose, Mark. The Actor and His Double: Mime and Movement for the Theatre of Cruelty. (Actor Training Research Institute, 1986).
• Shafer, David. Antonin Artaud. (London: Reaktion Books, 2016)

Articles and chapters

• Bataille, George. "Surrealism Day to Day". In The Absence of Myth: Writings on Surrealism. Trans. Michael Richardson. London: Verso, 1994. 34–47.
• Bersani, Leo. "Artaud, Defecation, and Birth". In A Future for Astyanax: Character and Desire in Literature. Boston: Little, Brown, 1976.
• Blanchot, Maurice. "Cruel Poetic Reason (the rapacious need for flight)". In The Infinite Conversation. Trans. Susan Hanson. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993. 293–297.
• Deleuze, Gilles. "Thirteenth Series of the Schizophrenic and the Little Girl". In The Logic of Sense. Trans. Mark Lester with Charles Stivale. Ed. Constantin V. Boundas. New York: Columbia University Press, 1990. 82–93.
• Deleuze, Gilles and Félix Guattari. "28 November 1947: How Do You Make Yourself a Body Without Organs?". In A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Trans. Brian Massumi. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987. 149–166.
• Derrida, Jacques. "The Theatre of Cruelty" and "La Parole Souffle". In Writing and Difference. Trans. Alan Bass. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978. Template:ISBN
• Ferdière, Gaston. "I Looked after Antonin Artaud". In Artaud at Rodez. Marowitz, Charles (1977). pp. 103–112. London: Marion Boyars. Template:ISBN.
• Innes, Christopher. "Antonin Artaud and the Theatre of Cruelty". In Avant-Garde Theatre 1892–1992 (London: Routledge, 1993).
• Jannarone, Kimberly. "The Theater Before Its Double: Artaud Directs in the Alfred Jarry Theater", Theatre Survey 46.2 (November 2005), 247–273.
• Koch, Stephen. "On Artaud." Tri-Quarterly, no. 6 (Spring 1966): 29–37.
• Pireddu, Nicoletta. "The mark and the mask: psychosis in Artaud's alphabet of cruelty," Arachnē: An International Journal of Language and Literature 3 (1), 1996: 43–65.
• Rainer, Friedrich. "The Deconstructed Self in Artaud and Brecht: Negation of Subject and Antitotalitarianism", Forum for Modern Language Studies, 26:3 (July 1990): 282–297.
• Shattuck, Roger. "Artaud Possessed". In The Innocent Eye. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1984. 169–186.
• Sontag, Susan. "Approaching Artaud". In Under the Sign of Saturn. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1980. 13–72. [Also printed as Introduction to Antonin Artaud: Selected Writings, ed. Sontag.]
• Ward, Nigel "Fifty-one Shocks of Artaud", New Theatre Quarterly Vol. XV, Part 2 (NTQ58 May 1999): 123–128

In French

• Blanchot, Maurice. "Artaud" {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (November 1956, no. 47): 873–881.
• Brau, Jean-Louis. Antonin Artaud. Paris: La Table Ronde, 1971.
• {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, 1969
• Florence de Mèredieu, Antonin Artaud, Portraits et Gris-gris, Paris: Blusson, 1984, new edition with additions, 2008. Template:ISBN
• Florence de Mèredieu, Antonin Artaud, Voyages, Paris: Blusson, 1992. Template:ISBN
• Florence de Mèredieu, Antonin Artaud, de l'ange, Paris: Blusson, 1992. Template:ISBN
• Florence de Mèredieu, Sur l'électrochoc, le cas Antonin Artaud, Paris: Blusson, 1996. Template:ISBN
• Florence de Mèredieu, C'était Antonin Artaud, biography, Fayard, 2006. Template:ISBN
• Florence de Mèredieu, La Chine d'Antonin Artaud / Le Japon d'Antonin Artaud, Paris: Blusson, 2006. Template:ISBN
• Florence de Mèredieu, L'Affaire Artaud, journal ethnographique, Paris: Fayard, 2009. Template:ISBN
• Florence de Mèredieu, Antonin Artaud dans la guerre, de Verdun à Hitler. L'hygiène mentale, Paris: Blusson, 2013.Template:ISBN
• Florence de Mèredieu, Vincent van Gogh, Antonin Artaud. Ciné-roman. Ciné-peinture, Paris: Blusson, 2014.Template:ISBN
• Florence de Mèredieu, BACON, ARTAUD, VINCI. Une blessure magnifique, Paris: Blusson, 2019. Template:ISBN
• Virmaux, Alain. Antonin Artaud et le théâtre. Paris: Seghers, 1970.
• Virmaux, Alain and Odette. Artaud: un bilan critique. Paris: Belfond, 1979.
• Virmaux, Alain and Odette. Antonin Artaud: qui êtes-vous? Lyon: La Manufacture, 1986.

In German

• Seegers, U. Alchemie des Sehens. Hermetische Kunst im 20. Jahrhundert. Antonin Artaud, Yves Klein, Sigmar Polke (Köln: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, 2003).

External links

• Template:Internet Archive author
• [https://www.imdb.com/{{#if: 0106810

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| Q21191270 | Q21664088 | Q50062923 | Q50914552 | Q99079902 | Q123186929 | Q55422400 | Q61220733 =Template:Preview warning | Q3464665 =Template:Preview warning }}{{#ifeq: Template:Wikidata | Q21191270 |Template:Preview warning }}{{#if: 0106810 | Template:WikidataCheck }} an anachronistic film account of Artaud's life.