One for Bertrand!

DIFFICULTIES IN TRANSLATING ARTAUD

After reading the comments below on Artaud's language, as well as Rowell's question in 1996 that "if you're not French how can you understand Artaud?", I was led to wonder to what extent the meaning or message of Artaud's writings has been lost through translation. Any translated material is undoubtedly not an exact replica of the original, but with Artaud's unusual style of writing and less mainstream vocabulary, have the translations been taken even further away than normal from the genuine material? For example, using Billy's and Charlie's example, even simple alliteration (the repeated 'k' sound) can present a dilemma to the translator. One must prioritise either style or content. Do they struggle to find words in the new language of lesser accuracy to maintain the alliteration? Of course, content usually overrides, but then the tone of the language is lost, a crucial element in Artaud's violent and 'spitting' writing. Translating things too ‘literally’ is a common problem, leading to rather ugly sounding phrases unintended by Artaud, such as “hungering after life” from his Theatre of Cruelty.

According to the philosopher Wittgenstein and his notion of 'language games' (later used by the postmodern theorist Lyotard), one can only truly understand a language if you are part of what he calls the appropriate "form of life". For example, theologically speaking, one could only understand religious language, such as the concept of the trinity, if they themselves were religious. Can this idea be applied to the translating of Artaud's unusual writings? Is it necessary that, as readers, we must be part of a "wider form of life" in order to truly grasp the meaning? Or at least, be of the same understanding as Artaud?

In order to translate Artaud's work precisely, it would be essential to understand his personality and motives for writing, a near impossible task given his enigmatic nature. Furthermore, it is important for a translator to identify with the person and to have a motivation themselves to produce work as true as possible.

Interestingly, Artaud had an unusual relationship with the concept of translation. He had done a number of translations himself, most of them reluctantly (either in an asylum or when in desperate need of money, as in the case of Lewis' novel 'The Monk'). However, Artaud also strove to have some of his own writing translated and selected for the English magazine, Horizon (Barber). It is therefore interesting to consider what Artaud’s own opinions of his work being translated would be.

Artaud's glossolalia as violent?

After reading Weiss' K in the Critical Reader, I became very interested in Artaud's glossolalia or 'speaking in tongues'. It is explained by Weiss that when someone speaks glossolalia, the phonetic structures they create roughly parallel their own mother tongue; in Artaud's case a high frequency of the /k/ sound which is very rare in French.

After speaking to a friend studying the history of languages, she explained that /k/ is a plosive sound (made using the mouth, lips and/or tongue) and that French language is dominated by fricative sounds (created by air passing through a constricted of partially obstructed vocal tract).

After looking at examples of his glossolalia, one can see that many other plosives are used, such as 'pec te', 'pek ti le' and 'pte' from To have done with the judgement of god. This tendency to harsher sounds is further suggested by Artaud's accent and pronunciation of these sounds as more akin to Italian than French;

where /h/ is never mute; /u/ is pronounced /ou/; /z/ is pronounced /dz/; /g/ is always hard, and slightly general when followed by /h/; the final /ch/ is pronounced somewhat like the German /ch/ - Paule Thévenin in a note to Artaud le Mômo

It's therefore possible that Artaud was reaching for a more plosive language; or a possibly more violent one in terms of expression. I was wondering if people thought it plausible that by the use of violent plosives and the frequent harsh stopping and release of the glottal sphincter caused by the /k/ sound, that Artaud was offering an act of spitting (or excreting, as suggested by 'caca') the inner feelings desired to be released, which along with the allusive screams of expression could violently assert emotion?

Questions from Week 4

What do you understand by the expression ‘ the crude and epileptic rhythm of the time’?
What does Sontag mean by a ‘total art form’?
Debate: Do you agree that ‘an image is true insofar as it is violent.’ (88)?

THEATRE AND THEORY AFTER ARTAUD 2008

School of Theatre, Performance and Cultural Policy Studies

Aspects of Theatre & Performance
Autumn Term Module 2007

Convenor: Dr. Edward Scheer (e.scheer@warwick.ac.uk)

Timetable: Thur 2-4 G56ß

Introduction
This module provides students with an account of the effects of Antonin Artaud’s writings on contemporary performance practice and its theorisation. Artaud’s writing on the theatre constitutes only a fraction of his total output but its influence has been immense. This module analyses Artaud’s life and work and examines his legacy across the disciplines which comprise contemporary performance: theatre, cinema, radio/sound arts and other cultural media. We will study examples of his own film and stage performances, his various approaches to the text and the image, and some of the key theoretical and performance texts which have responded to his provocations including the work of figures such as Grotowski, and Hijikata and post-structuralist writers such as Derrida, Foucault and Deleuze. Artaud’s challenge to theatre constitutes one of the essential paradoxes of modernism: how to break out of representation and embrace the Real (the world, life etc) while remaining within the realm of the aesthetic? This question requires us to interrogate theatre at its limits.

Course Outline

Week 1 Introduction to Artaud’s life and cultural context with regard to Surrealist approaches to representation.
Suggested Reading:
- Georges Bataille, from ‘Writings on Surrealism’ (Chapter 3 Antonin Artaud. A Critical Reader)
- André Breton & André Parinaud, from Conversations: the Autobiography of Surrealism (Chapters 1 and 2 Antonin Artaud. A Critical Reader)

Week 2 Artaud’s cinema roles as the basis of a paradigm for acting. Screening of scenes from ‘Napoleon’ (dir. Abel Gance 1926) ‘La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc’ (dir. Carl Dreyer 1927) ‘My Life and Times With Antonin Artaud’ (dir Gerard Mordillat 1996).
Required Reading:
-Francis Vanoye ‘Cinemas of Cruelty?’ (Chapter 20 Antonin Artaud. A Critical Reader)
- Daryl Chin, ‘The Antonin Artaud Film Project’, PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art - PAJ 56 (Volume 19, Number 2), May 1997, pp. 23-28

Week 3 The theatre essays, the 1930s and his development of an aesthetics of rigour and necessity. Artaud on stage. Performing cruelty.
Required Reading:
-Antonin Artaud, ‘The Theatre of Cruelty (First manifesto)’ and ‘No more masterpieces’ from The Theatre and Its Double
- Susan Sontag, from ‘Approaching Artaud’ (Chapter 11 Antonin Artaud. A Critical Reader)
- Gautam Dasgupta, ‘Remembering Artaud’ PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art - PAJ 56 (Volume 19, Number 2), May 1997, pp. 1-5

Week 4 Madness and cruelty. Artaud’s experiences of madness. Artaud on Van Gogh, Artaud as van Gogh. Foucaults’s theories of madness as the absence of the work of art. The theatre as work of madness.
Required Reading:
- E. Scheer, ‘Foucault/Artaud: the madness of the oeuvre’
- Sylvère Lotringer, Interview with Latremolière (Chapter 4 Antonin Artaud. A Critical Reader)
- Antonin Artaud, ‘Van Gogh the Suicide of Society’

Week 5 Performing the impossible body. The radio works. Reading ‘To have done with the Judgement of god.’ What is the body without organs? Artaud on the voice. Deleuze on Artaud.
Required Reading:
- Antonin Artaud, To have done with the judgement of god
- Allen S. Weiss, ‘K’ (Chapter 17 Antonin Artaud. A Critical Reader)
- Rex Butler, ‘Non-genital thought’, 100 Years of Cruelty, pp. 23 - 57

Week 6 Reading week

Week 7 Performance, violence and convulsive aesthetics.
Screening: Genesi, from the Museum of Sleep (2000, 60’) by Cristiano Carloni and Stefano Franceschetti from the performance by Socìetas Raffaello Sanzio

(Alternative: ‘My Life and Times With Antonin Artaud’ (dir Gerard Mordillat 1996).
or Performance film by Nic Roeg and Donald Cammell, Warner Brothers 1970. Cast: James Fox, Mick Jagger, Anita Pallenberg
Reading:
Colin MacCabe, from Performance BFI Film Classics Series London : British Film Institute, 1998.


Week 8 Artaud and the Visual arts. Interpreting Artaud’s drawings in terms of his theories of the image. Outsider art and the performance of the image. Derrida’s Artaud.
Required Reading:
- Jacques Derrida, from ‘To unsense the subjectile’ (Chapter 15 Antonin Artaud. A Critical Reader)
- E. Scheer ‘Sketches of the jet’ 100 Years of Cruelty: Essays on Artaud ed. Edward Scheer. Sydney: Power Publications and Artspace (2000)

Week 9 Artaud’s legacy Part 1. The limits of theatre, Doing Artaud: the failure of the 1964 RSC season of cruelty. Grotowski on Artaud.
Required Reading:
- J. Derrida, from ‘The theatre of cruelty and the closure of representation.’ (Chapter 6 Antonin Artaud. A Critical Reader)
- J. Grotowski, ‘He wasn’t entirely himself’ (Chapter 8 Antonin Artaud. A Critical Reader)
- Clive Barker, ‘Tell Me When It Hurts: The ‘Theatre Of Cruelty’ Season 30 Years On’ NTQ 46. (May 1996)

Week 10 Artaud’s legacy Part 2. Contemporary physical theatre, butoh as dance of cruelty. Is authenticity possible in theatre? Introduction to performance art. Performance art history from Joseph Beuys and Shamanism to Viennese Actionism.
- Helga Finter, from ‘Antonin Artaud and the Impossible Theatre. The Legacy of the Theatre of Cruelty’ (Chapter 7 Antonin Artaud. A Critical Reader)
- Kurihara, Nanako ‘Hijikata Tatsumi: The Words of Butoh’ TDR: The Drama Review - Volume 44, Number 1 (T 165), Spring 2000, pp. 10-28
- Lynn MacRitchie, ‘Marina Abramovic: Exchanging Energies’ Performance Research #1.2 Routledge,1996: 27-34.
- Tanya Augsburg, ‘Orlan’s Performative Transformations of Subjectivity’ in P. Phelan and J. lane eds. The Ends of Performance, New York and London: NYU Press, 1998: 285-326
- Orlan, ‘Intervention’ in P. Phelan and J. lane eds. The Ends of Performance, New York and London: NYU Press, 1998: 315-327.
- ‘Breaking Through Language’ an interview with Mike Parr, Edward Scheer and Nick Tsoutas 100 Years of Cruelty: Essays on Artaud ed. Edward Scheer. Sydney: Power Publications and Artspace (2000)

ASSESSMENT: There are three components of assessment:

(1) Exam (50%).

(2) Essay (40%) An essay of approximately 3000 words. Topics to be announced. Due Monday 14th January 2008 (Week 2, Spring Term)

(3) Class/blog participation (10%). This grade assesses contribution to the subject in terms of levels of preparedness and approach to activities and discussions. It includes the quality and cogency of blog postings.