5 phrases by Antonin Artaud to dream

Antonin Artaud’s phrases are full of poetry and vitality. They are the fruit of a creator who explored practically all literary genres, although he gained notoriety mainly as a poet and playwright. In fact, he is known as the creator of the “theater of cruelty.”

It can be said that all modern theater drinks from philosophy that this extraordinary French writer gave him. Many of Antonin Artaud’s phrases speak precisely about theater, but also about other human realities that he discovered within the framework of an existence of suffering.

At the age of 4, Artaud suffered meningitis that left him with lifelong consequences. At the age of 9, his sister died unexpectedly and he immersed himself in a grieving process that he did not completely overcome. Perhaps it was those difficult experiences that turned him into a writer of deep sensitivity and lucidity. These are some of the most remembered phrases by Antonin Artaud.

1. What is it to live?

It is one of the most beautiful Antonin Artaud phrases. Associate in it life and essential ignorance that defines it. We are born knowing hardly anything and we die having resolved only a small part of those questions that haunt us.

Artaud does not speak of this ignorance from an intellectual point of view. That is why he uses the word “burn.” All that not knowing It is a flame that burns. We don’t know exactly where we come from, or where we are going, or why we are here.

2. Cinema, a drug

This phrase is an exaltation and a criticism to the movies. Artaud was mainly a man of the theater and viewed with some skepticism the boom of cinema. It seemed to her that this mediation of the screen detracted from what she was exhibiting.

That is why it gives an ambiguous value to this art. He calls it morphine, which is both a harmful substance and a carrier of a certain well-being. Hence define it as a harmless poison: it is intrinsically negative, but does not cause serious damage.

3. One of Antonin Artaud’s phrases about being

There are many phrases by Antonin Artaud in which his intense and almost violent spirit is revealed. His childhood illness turned him into a nervous person, who over time developed paranoid delusions..

That is why Artaud spent long periods hospitalized in psychiatric hospitals. The phrase in the header, although said in an aggressive way, reveals a very human message. Being is not only something sublime, but also prosaic and vulgar.

4. The language of words

Antonin Artaud was also someone very interested in mystical phenomena. During his childhood and youth he was very devoted to religion. He then undertook new spiritual searches, which even led him to live with the Tarahumara community in Mexico.

His way of seeing life made him very sensitive to the most subtle phenomena. He bonded deeply with the Tarahumara, despite the language barrier.. Perhaps that is why the phrase alludes to the fact that words are just one of many means that exist to communicate and generate understanding.

5. The only occupation

Artaud was above all an explorer of the human spirit. After his stay in Mexico he delved into some esoteric practices, such as Tarot, astrology and numerology. His obsession with these topics once again led him to a state of extreme nervousness.

In 1938 he was deported from Ireland to France for “exceed the limits of marginality”. He then spent nine years in mental hospitals. It was a time of great suffering for him and it confirmed his hatred for psychiatry.which he blamed for the damage done to many human beings.

Antonin Artaud died in 1943, after having undergone several electroconvulsive treatments that decimated him. physically and mentally to an extreme degree. Thanks to a group of friends she was able to spend her last three years outside of mental institutions.

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