Discovering Autaud

Discovering Autaud

Antoine Marie Joseph Artaud, otherwise known to us as Antonin Artaud or plainly just "Autaud"  was born 4th September 1896 and then died 4th March 1948 , he was an established French playwrighter, actor, theatre director and a poet. "Antonin is a diminutive form of Antoine (little Anthony)," this was one of his list of names which Artaud used throughout his writing career.

Autaud actually suffered from meningitis which plagued him throughout his early career. This unfortunately gave him nervousness, a terrible temper which I believe he used for his work, in particular "The theatre of cruelty" which he probably challenged himself with. He also struggled with sleepwalking. 




This extract below gives in big detail very much of his work he did . "Artaud’s influence on theory and practice in the arts is substantial. As a playwright, director actor, film scenarist, poet, artist and critic he challenged existing modes of working and thinking in ways that are still generating considerable interest and debate. His iconoclastic work, which brings the affective body and its creative potential to the fore, has shaped artistic experiment and new modes of critical thinking and writing and substantial critical studies of Artaud have been written by Derrida, Deleuze and others. Diagnosed as clinically schizophrenic, Artaud’s writings and drawings are also of considerable interest to psychologists and art therapists. The event should bring together research students, theorists and practitioners from fields both within and outside the academy." 

This clearly showed Autaud suffered from a serious mental illness "Schizophrenia" Which probably caused alot of mental pain towards him and struggle.

A page I found on Schizophrenia http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/schizophrenia/Pages/Introduction.aspx

As a schizophrenic, he would have likely suffered from hallucinations and therefore muddled thoughts or those people may have found odd, especially as in this era, Victorians were unaware of Schizophrenia.