Artaud and the Gnostic Drama

This study draws parallels between the heretical drama of Antonin Artaud (1896-1948) and the heresies of ancient Gnosticism.

It argues that the Gnostic drama explored throughout Artaud's oeuvre presents an assault on the founding tenets of Western thought that is more powerful than that mounted by the post-structuralist critics who have adopted Artaud as an icon of failure and madness.

It situates Artaud as the most extravagant of heretics, in company with the Gnostics whose speculations served to define heresy in the beginnings of the Christian tradition.

Like the Gnostics, Artaud's cosmology is inherently dramatic, setting creature against creator, force against form, matter against spirit, pious knowledge against heretical "gnosis".

Assessing the implications for contemporary criticism, Jane Goodall argues that the neglect of these elements of Artaud's work by recent theorists signals post-structuralism's anxiety twoards the powerfull assault upon the founding tenets of Western thought presented in Gnostic drama.