Citizendia
Your Ad Here

Image:Jarry Large.jpg
Alfred Jarry
French literature
By category
French literary history

Medieval
16th century · 17th century
18th century · 19th century
20th century · Contemporary
French writers

Chronological list
Writers by category
Novelists · Playwrights
Poets · Essayists
Short story writers
France portal
Literature portal
This box: view • talk • edit

Alfred Jarry (8 September 1873 – 1 November 1907) was a French writer born in Laval, Mayenne, France, not far from the border of Brittany; he was of Breton descent on his mother's side. This article is a general introduction to French literature For detailed information on French literature in specific historic periods see the separate historical articles in the Medieval French literature is for the purpose of this article Literature written in Oïl languages (particularly Old French and early Middle For more information on historical developments in this period see Renaissance, History of France, and Early Modern France. French literature of the 17th century &mdashthe so-called Grand Siècle &mdashspans the reigns of Henry IV of France, the Regency of Marie de Medici French literature of the 18th century usually refers to the literature written between 1715, the year of the death of King Louis XIV of France, and 1798 the year French literature of the nineteenth century is for the purpose of this article literature written in French from (roughly 1799 to 1900 French literature of the twentieth century is for the purpose of this article literature written in French from (roughly 1895 to 1990 Contemporary French literature is French literature roughly from the 1990s to Today. Chronological list of French language authors (regardless of nationality by date of birth Events 70 - Roman forces under Titus sack Jerusalem. 1264 - The Statute of Kalisz Year 1873 ( MDCCCLXXIII) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common Events 996 - Emperor Otto III issues a deed to Gottschalk Bishop of Freising which is the oldest known document using the name Ostarrîchi Year 1907 ( MCMVII) was a Common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common year This article is about the country For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic France topics. A writer is anyone who creates a written work although the word usually designates those who write creatively or professionally as well as those who have written in many different forms Laval is a commune in the Mayenne département of France. It lies on the threshold of Brittany and on the border between Mayenne (majɛn is a department in northwest France named after the Mayenne River. This article is about the country For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic France topics. Brittany (Breizh bʁejs Bretagne; Gallo: Bertaèyn) is a former independent Celtic kingdom and Duchy, now incorporated into Brittany (Breizh bʁejs Bretagne; Gallo: Bertaèyn) is a former independent Celtic kingdom and Duchy, now incorporated into

Best known for his play Ubu Roi (1896), which is often cited as a forerunner to the surrealist theatre of the 1920s and 1930s, Jarry wrote in a variety of genres and styles. A play, or stageplay, is a form of Literature written by a Playwright, almost always consisting of Dialogue between Fictional characters Ubu Roi (King Ubu is a play by Alfred Jarry. It first appeared in 1896 and is widely thought to be the theatrical herald of the Absurdist Year 1896 ( MDCCCXCVI) was a Leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian Calendar (or a Leap year Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early-1920s and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members He wrote plays, novels, poetry, essays and speculative journalism. His texts present some pioneering work in the field of absurdist literature. Sometimes grotesque or misunderstood (i. e. the opening line in his play Ubu Roi, "Merdre!", has been translated into English as "Shitteth!" "Shittr!", "Shikt!", "Shrit!" and "Pschitt!"), he invented a science called 'pataphysics. 'Pataphysics ( French: 'Pataphysique) a term coined by French writer Alfred Jarry (1873 – 1907 is a

Contents

Biography and works

A precociously brilliant student, Jarry enthralled his classmates with a gift for pranks and troublemaking.

At the lycée in Rennes when he was 15, he led of a group of boys who devoted much time and energy to poking fun at their well-meaning, obese and incompetent physics teacher, a man named Hébert. Rennes ( Gallo: Resnn, Roazhon Condate Condate Riedonum is a city in the east of Brittany in northwestern Jarry and classmate Charles Morin wrote a play they called Les Polonais and performed it with marionettes in the home of one of their friends. A marionette is a Puppet controlled from above using strings a marionette's puppeteer is called a manipulator. The main character, Père Heb, was a blunderer with a huge belly; three teeth (one of stone, one of iron, and one of wood); a single, retractable ear; and a misshapen body. In Jarry's later work Ubu Roi, Père Heb would develop into Ubu, one of the most monstrous and astonishing characters in French literature. Ubu Roi (King Ubu is a play by Alfred Jarry. It first appeared in 1896 and is widely thought to be the theatrical herald of the Absurdist

At 17 Jarry passed his baccalauréat and moved to Paris to prepare for admission to the École Normale Supérieure. The baccalauréat (bakaloʁeˈa often known in France colloquially as le bac or le bachôt, is an academic qualification which Paris (ˈpærɨs in English; in French) is the Capital of France and the country's largest city Though he was not admitted, he soon gained attention for his original poems and prose-poems. A collection of his work, Les minutes de sable mémorial, was published in 1893.

That same year, both his parents died, leaving him a small inheritance which he quickly spent.

Jarry had meantime discovered the pleasures of alcohol, which he called "my sacred herb" or, when referring to absinthe, the "green goddess". Absinthe is traditionally a distilled, highly alcoholic (45%-75% ABV) beverage A story is told that he once painted his face green and rode through town on his bicycle in its honour (and possibly under its influence).

Drafted into the army in 1894, his gift for turning notions upside down defeated attempts to instill military discipline. The sight of the small man in a uniform much too large for his less than 5-foot frame—the army did not issue uniforms small enough—was so disruptively funny that he was excused from parades and marching drills. Eventually the army discharged him for medical reasons. His military experience eventually inspired the novel, Days and Nights.

Jarry returned to Paris and applied himself to drinking, writing, and the company of friends who appreciated his witty, sweet-tempered, and unpredictable conversation. This period is marked by his intense involvement with Remy de Gourmont in the publication of L'Ymagier, a luxuriously produced "art" magazine devoted to the symbolic analysis of medieval and popular prints. Remy de Gourmont ( April 4, 1858 - September 27, 1915) was a French Symbolist poet Novelist and influential Symbolism as an art movement was in full swing at this time and L'Ymagier provided a nexus for many of its key contributors. Symbolism was a late nineteenth-century Art movement of French and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts Jarry's play Caesar Antichrist (1895) drew on this movement for material. This is a work that bridges the gap between serious symbolic meaning and the type of critical absurdity with which Jarry would soon become associated. Using the biblical Book of Revelation as a point of departure, Caesar Antichrist presents a parallel world of extreme formal symbolism in which Christ is resurrected not as an agent of spirituality but as an agent of the Roman Empire that seeks to dominate spirituality. The Book of Revelation, also called Revelation to John, Apocalypse of John ( pronounced, from the Ἀποκάλυψις Ἰωάννου Jesus of Nazareth (7–2 BC / BCE —26–36 AD / CE) Spirituality, in a narrow sense concerns itself with matters of the Spirit, a concept closely tied to religious belief and Faith, a transcendent reality The Roman Empire was the post-Republican phase of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial It is a unique narrative that effectively links the domination of the soul to contemporaneous advances in the field of Egyptology such as the 1894 excavation the Narmer Palette, an ancient artifact used for situating the rebus within hermeneutics. A narrative or story is a construct created in a suitable format (written spoken poetry prose images song Theater, or Dance) that describes a sequence of The soul, according to many religious and philosophical beliefs is the self-awareness, or Consciousness, unique to a particular living Egyptology (from Egypt and Greek grc -λογία -logia. علم المصريات مصر شناسی is a major field of Archaeology The Narmer Palette, also known as the Great Hierakonpolis Palette or the Palette of Narmer, is a significant Egyptian archeological find dating from A rebus ( Latin: "by things" is a kind of word puzzle which uses pictures to represent words or parts of words for example H + = Hermeneutics may be described as the development and study of Theories of the interpretation and understanding of texts

The spring of 1896 saw the publication, in Paul Fort's review Le Livre d'art, of Jarry's 5-act play Ubu Roi—the rewritten and expanded Les Polonais of his school days. Ubu Roi (King Ubu is a play by Alfred Jarry. It first appeared in 1896 and is widely thought to be the theatrical herald of the Absurdist Ubu Roi's savage humor and monstrous absurdity, unlike anything thus far performed in French theater, seemed unlikely to ever actually be performed on stage. However, impetuous theater director Aurélien-Marie Lugné-Poe took the risk, producing the play at his Théâtre de l'Oeuvre.

On opening night (10 December 1896), with traditionalists and the avant-garde in the audience, King Ubu (played by Firmin Gémier) stepped forward and intoned the opening word, "Merdre!" ("Shittr!"). Events 1041 - Empress Zoe of Byzantium elevates her adoptive son to the throne of the Eastern Roman Empire as Michael V Year 1896 ( MDCCCXCVI) was a Leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian Calendar (or a Leap year Avant-garde (avɑ̃gaʁd in French) means "advance guard" or "vanguard A quarter of an hour of pandemonium ensued: outraged cries, booing, and whistling by the offended parties, countered by cheers and applause by the more forward-thinking contingent. Such interruptions continued through the evening. At the time, only the dress rehearsal and opening night performance were held, and the play was not revived until 1907.

The play brought fame to the 23-year-old Jarry, and he immersed himself in the fiction he had created. Gémier had modeled his portrayal of Ubu on Jarry's own staccato, nasal vocal delivery, which emphasized each syllable (even the silent ones). From then on, Jarry would always speak in this style. He adopted Ubu's ridiculous and pedantic figures of speech; for example, he referred to himself using the royal we, and called the wind "that which blows" and the bicycle he rode everywhere "that which rolls". The majestic plural ( pluralis majestatis in Latin) is the use of a Plural Pronoun to refer to a single person holding a high office such as

Jarry moved into a flat which the landlord had created through the unusual expedient of subdividing a larger flat by means of a horizontal rather than a vertical partition. The diminutive Jarry could just manage to stand up in the place, but guests had to bend or crouch. Jarry also took to carrying a loaded pistol. In response to a neighbor's complaint that his target shooting endangered her children, he replied, "If that should ever happen, ma-da-me, we should ourselves be happy to get new ones with you" (though he was not at all inclined to engage with females in the manner implied).

Living in worsening poverty, neglecting his health, and drinking excessively, Jarry went on to write what is often cited as the first cyborg sex novel, Le Surmâle (The Supermale), which is partly a satire on the Symbolist ideal of self-transcendence. A cyborg is a Cybernetic Organism ( ie, an organism that has both artificial and natural systems

Unpublished until after his death, his fiction Exploits and Opinions of Dr. Faustroll, pataphysician (Gestes et opinions du docteur Faustroll, pataphysicien) describes the exploits and teachings of a sort of antiphilosopher who, born at age 63, travels through a hallucinatory Paris in a sieve and subscribes to the tenets of 'pataphysics. 'Pataphysics ( French: 'Pataphysique) a term coined by French writer Alfred Jarry (1873 – 1907 is a 'Pataphysics deals with "the laws which govern exceptions and will explain the universe supplementary to this one". In 'pataphysics, every event in the universe is accepted as an extraordinary event.

Jarry once wrote, expressing some of the bizarre logic of 'pataphysics, "If you let a coin fall and it falls, the next time it is just by an infinite coincidence that it will fall again the same way; hundreds of other coins on other hands will follow this pattern in an infinitely unimaginable fashion".

In his final years, he was a legendary and heroic figure to some of the young writers and artists in Paris. Guillaume Apollinaire, André Salmon, and Max Jacob sought him out in his truncated apartment. Guillaume Apollinaire (in French ɡijom apɔliˈnɛʁ ( August 26, 1880 &ndash November 9, 1918) was a French Poet André Salmon ( October 4, 1881, Paris - March 12 1969, Sanary-sur-Mer in Provence) was a French poet art critic and writer Max Jacob ( July 12, 1876 &ndash March 5, 1944) was a French Poet, painter, Writer, and critic After his death, Pablo Picasso, fascinated with Jarry, acquired his pistol and wore it on his nocturnal expeditions in Paris, and later bought many of his manuscripts as well as executing a fine drawing of him. Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Martyr Patricio Clito Ruíz y Picasso (October 25 1881 &ndash April 8 1973

Jarry lived in his 'pataphysical world until his death in Paris on 1 November 1907 of tuberculosis, aggravated by drug and alcohol use. Events 996 - Emperor Otto III issues a deed to Gottschalk Bishop of Freising which is the oldest known document using the name Ostarrîchi Year 1907 ( MCMVII) was a Common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common year Tuberculosis (abbreviated as TB for tubercle bacillus or T u' b' erculosis Bacillus --> is a common It is recorded that his last request was for a toothpick. He was interred in the Cimetière de Bagneux, near Paris. Located to the southwest of the city of Paris, France, the Cimetière de Bagneux is located at 44 avenue Marx-Dormoy in Montrouge, Hauts-de-Seine

See also

Selected Jarry works

Plays

Novels

Other notable works

Bibliography

External links


Persondata
NAME Jarry, Alfred
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION French writer
DATE OF BIRTH September 8, 1873
PLACE OF BIRTH Laval, Mayenne, France
DATE OF DEATH November 1, 1907
PLACE OF DEATH Paris, France
Project Gutenberg, abbreviated as PG, is a volunteer effort to Digitize, archive and distribute Cultural works This article is about the country For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic France topics. A writer is anyone who creates a written work although the word usually designates those who write creatively or professionally as well as those who have written in many different forms Events 70 - Roman forces under Titus sack Jerusalem. 1264 - The Statute of Kalisz Year 1873 ( MDCCCLXXIII) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common Laval is a commune in the Mayenne département of France. It lies on the threshold of Brittany and on the border between Mayenne (majɛn is a department in northwest France named after the Mayenne River. This article is about the country For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic France topics. Events 996 - Emperor Otto III issues a deed to Gottschalk Bishop of Freising which is the oldest known document using the name Ostarrîchi Year 1907 ( MCMVII) was a Common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common year
© 2009 citizendia.org; parts available under the terms of GNU Free Documentation License, from http://en.wikipedia.org
 Dapyx Software network: MP3 Explorer | Ebook Manager | Zenithic