Saturday, April 10, 2021

Where did Artaud say, "Burn the texts!"?

Adrienne Rich's 1968 poem "The Burning of Paper instead of Children" quotes Antonin Artaud: "burn the texts". While Rich credits him in the poem ("says Artaud"), she does not provide a note with a source for the phrase, and the scholarly articles I have found on the poem do not identify where Artaud said it either. The internet usually makes such problems easy to solve, but references to Artaud's "burn the texts" are mostly to Rich's poem. A search of "La Théâtre et son double" on Wikisource for "brûl-" came up empty. Poets needn't provide notes, but scholars who discuss Rich's line about Artaud should find the source for the remarks. (Andrew Shields, #111words, 10 April 2021)

 

Antonin Artaud 1926.jpg
Antonin Artaud, 1926 (from Wikipedia)

 

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