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" Architecture and cruelty in the writings of Antonin Artaud, Jean Genet and Samuel Beckett "
Melia, Matthew
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Latin Dissertation
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| Record Number
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1098899
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TLets555055
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| Main Entry
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Melia, Matthew
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| Title & Author
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Architecture and cruelty in the writings of Antonin Artaud, Jean Genet and Samuel Beckett\ Melia, Matthew
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| College
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Kingston University
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| Date
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2007
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| student score
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2007
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| Degree
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Ph.D.
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| Abstract
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This thesis examines the complex role and presence of a range of images and ideas ofarchitecture, as well as cruelty, in the work of Antonin Artaud, Jean Genet, and SamuelBeckett. It argues that the obsessive and varied presence of these ideas offers a substantialconnection between the thought and drama of the three writers, and that it is linked tomajor issues in the political and cultural history of the time. Chapter 1 serves as anintroduction to the thesis and places architecture and cruelty in the literary and creativeculture of post-war France. Chapter 2 examines the urgency of these terms within thespecific, historical framework of post-liberation France. Chapter 3 focuses on Artaud andissues of fragmentation, occupation, and resistance in his oeuvre between 1940 and 1948.Chapter 4 focuses on issues of imprisonment, aesthetics, and revolution in the work of JeanGenet. Chapter 5 examines issues of architecture, resistance, and fragmentation in the lateplays of Samuel Beckett. In this chapter we will also examine the vital role Beckett'swartime resistance activity played in informing the architecture of the late drama. All ofour subjects explore architecture and cruelty in their different and personal ways: Genet interms of prisons; Beckett in terms of extreme personal states that can be linked to theresistance; and Artaud through a system of revised revolt and personal resistance. In theintroduction and at a number of points in the thesis I explore both the connections anddifferences between the uses of architecture and cruelty by the three writers, and the rangeof ways in which these uses relate to the politics and philosophies of the era. The thesisargues in its conclusion that architecture and cruelty, used in both literal and metaphoricalsenses, can be seen to unite the work of Artaud, Genet, and Beckett more closely than hashitherto been acknowledged. The thesis has also proposed ways in which we can see theplays of Genet and Beckett as a form of cruel theatre, in a sense that serves to define andextend Artaud's notoriously complex and ambiguous ideas of theatrical 'cruaute'.
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| Subject
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Communication
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cultural and media studies
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dance and performing arts
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Drama
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| Added Entry
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Kingston University
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