Cruelty and Desire in the Modern Theater : Antonin Artaud, Sarah Kane, and Samuel Beckett

these assertions, this book traces minutely Artaud's legacy for later generations. Making use of Jacques Lacan's psychoanalytical ideas as a theoretical framework, De Vos defines Artaud's project not so much in terms of blood and goriness, but rather as a theater of Passion, revolving around notions as desire, love and the subjectile, a concept that was drawn attention to by Derrida. In addition, the idea of the scapegoat delineated by René Girard provides a leg-up to clarify the intrinsic parallels as well as divergences between the Theatre of Cruelty and tragedy, while also Lacan's analysis of Antigone is being looked at. Phaedra's Love, Cleansed and 4.48 Psychosis are extensively dealt with in this study, and point out the development Kane went through in her short but at the same time long trajectory. The third part on Beckett focuses primarily on Krapp's Last Tape and Not I, and equally so calls in Lacan to understand self-alienation and self-conceptua [Publisher's text]