Alfred Jarry

Who was Alfred Jarry?

Alfred Jarry was a French symbolist writer best known for coining the term and philosophical concept of 'pataphysics.

Born in Laval, Mayenne, France, not far from the border of Brittany, he was of Breton descent on his mother's side. In his lifetime, though associated with the Symbolist movement, Jarry was best known for his play Ubu Roi, which is often cited as a forerunner to the Surrealist and Futurist movements of the 1920s and 1930s. Jarry wrote in a variety of hybrid genres and styles, prefiguring the Postmodern. He wrote plays, novels, poetry, essays and speculative journalism. His texts present us with pioneering work in the fields of absurdist literature and postmodern philosophy.

Famous Quotes:

• We believe that the applause of silence is the only kind that counts.
• It is conventional to call monster any blending of dissonant elements. I call monster every original inexhaustible beauty.
• To keep up even a worthwhile tradition means vitiating the idea behind it which must necessarily be in a constant state of evolution: it is mad to try to express new feelings in a mummified form.
• The virtue of dress rehearsals is that they are a free show for a select group of artists and friends of the author, and where for one unique evening the audience is almost expurgated of idiots.
• The theater, bringing impersonal masks to life, is only for those who are virile enough to create new life: either as a conflict of passions subtler than those we already know, or as a complete new character.
• It is because the public are a mass -- inert, obtuse, and passive -- that they need to be shaken up from time to time so that we can tell from their bear-like grunts where they are -- and also where they stand. They are pretty harmless, in spite of their numbers, because they are fighting against intelligence.
• Blind and unwavering undisciplined at all times constitutes the real strength of all free men.
• We shall not have succeeded in demolishing everything unless we demolish the ruins as well. But the only way I can see of doing that is to use them to put up a lot of fine, well-designed buildings.
• God is the tangential point between zero and infinity.
• You're looking exceptionally ugly tonight, Madam, is it because we have company?