Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    A Study Guide for Antonin Artaud's "The Cenci"
    A Study Guide for Antonin Artaud's "The Cenci"
    A Study Guide for Antonin Artaud's "The Cenci"
    Ebook34 pages23 minutes

    A Study Guide for Antonin Artaud's "The Cenci"

    By Gale and Cengage

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    A Study Guide for Antonin Artaud's "The Cenci," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Drama For Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Drama For Students for all of your research needs.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCengage Learning - Gale
    Release dateAug 3, 2016
    ISBN9781535835688
    A Study Guide for Antonin Artaud's "The Cenci"

    Read more from Gale

    Related to A Study Guide for Antonin Artaud's "The Cenci"

    Related ebooks

    Literary Criticism For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Mother!'s Theater of Cruelty

      Sep 24, 2017

      Mother!'s Theater of Cruelty
      5 min read

    • Article

      Bhanu Kapil

      Mar 15, 2019

      Everything is red. The trees look like they’re bending over. The lorry is approaching the village. Nurpur. Don’t tell anyone it was Nurpur. Just say it was any old village. A motorbike was coming from the opposite direction. The driver of the motorbi

      5 min read

    • Article

      New Possible Realities

      Mar 25, 2020

      New Possible Realities
      15 min read

    • Article

      Prophetic VISIONS

      Mar 29, 2021

      Prophetic VISIONS
      9 min read

    • Article

      'It Has Been A Sort Of Nightmare': How Major Theatres Abroad Fared In The Pandemic

      Mar 14, 2021

      In the disUnited Kingdom there are glimmers of light for the theatre. Some openings are scheduled for 17 May; with further relaxation of restrictions, more are likely to follow in June. The support in Rishi Sunak’s budget, which announced an addition

      15 min read

    • Article

      Fog Poem Number 71

      Apr 5, 2022

      Fog Poem Number 71
      1 min read

    • Article

      Hero and Heroine

      Jun 11, 2019

      Hero and Heroine
      4 min read

    • Article

      Brett Kavanaugh and the Witch in the Woods: The Millions Interviews Leni Zumas

      Jun 5, 2019

      We’re talking about how to change the patriarchy, and how to look at our own complicity in perpetuating it. The post Brett Kavanaugh and the Witch in the Woods: The Millions Interviews Leni Zumas appeared first on The Millions.

      12 min read

    • Article

      A River Runs Through It

      Apr 14, 2020

      A River Runs Through It
      1 min read

    • Article

      Curled Thyme

      Dec 6, 2019

      Curled Thyme
      4 min read

    • Article

      The Time Travelers

      Jun 11, 2019

      The Time Travelers
      5 min read

    • Article

      Ryūsuke Hamaguchi

      Nov 10, 2021

      Ryūsuke Hamaguchi
      5 min read

    • Article

      Seeds of Change

      Sep 14, 2021

      Seeds of Change
      6 min read

    • Article

      Un Beau Matin

      Mar 27, 2023

      Un Beau Matin
      5 min read

    • Article

      Bad Behavior

      Mar 1, 2018

      Bad Behavior
      6 min read

    • Article

      Gunda

      May 6, 2021

      Gunda
      2 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for A Study Guide for Antonin Artaud's "The Cenci"

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      A Study Guide for Antonin Artaud's "The Cenci" - Gale

      1

      The Cenci

      Antonin Artaud

      1935

      Introduction

      Les Cenci (The Cenci) is Artaud's only known play based on the guidelines of the Theatre of Cruelty. The play relates Artaud's version of the story of the late-sixteenth-century Roman nobleman, Francesco Cenci, and his daughter Beatrice. Written in a style meant to overwhelm the audience's moral preconceptions, The Cenci dramatizes the torture that the cruel Count Cenci invoked upon his family; the family's plot to have him murdered; and the family's torture and execution by Catholic authorities. On stage, The Cenci involves a spectacle of light and sound. Artaud directed and starred as Cenci in the original production of the play in 1935. The play shocks the audience not only because of its cruelty, violence, incest, and rape, but because its characters seem to speak strangely and artificially. This is because the theory behind the play, which is influenced by the surrealist movement and by Balinese dance theatre, calls for the characters to represent universal forces instead of realistic individuals.

      Author Biography

      Antonin Artaud is a French writer, actor, and intellectual figure as well known for his supposed madness and troubled genius as for his prolific output of writings, plays, films, and drawings. Although he suffered from mental illness and spent a great deal of his life in sanitariums, he is far more respected for his artistic and intellectual innovations than for his biographical mystique.

      Born September 4, 1896, in Marseilles, France, to a Catholic family, Antonin Artaud was raised mainly by his mother, his grandmothers, and his governess, because his father, a shipfitter, was frequently away on business. Artaud contracted a severe case of meningitis at age four, and as a result he suffered throughout the rest of his life from neuralgia, a condition characterized by sharp and intense pains in nerve centers. At age seventeen, he

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1