Alfred Jarry was a French symbolist writer who is best known for his play Ubu Roi . He also coined the term and philosophical concept of 'pataphysics.
Jarry was born in Laval, Mayenne, France, and his mother was from Brittany. He was associated with the Symbolist movement. His play Ubu Roi is often cited as a forerunner of Dada, and to the Surrealist and Futurist movements of the 1920s and 1930. Jarry wrote in a variety of hybrid genres and styles, prefiguring the postmodern. He wrote plays, novels, poetry, essays and speculative journalism. His texts are considered examples of absurdist literature and postmodern philosophy.
“The work of art is a stuffed crocodile.”
L'objet d'art, par définition, est le crocodile empaillé.
Source: Alfred Jarry, Selected Works, edited by Roger Shattuck and Simon Watson Taylor. Cape, London, 1965
“Clichés are the armature of the Absolute.”
Source: Alfred Jarry, Selected Works, edited by Roger Shattuck and Simon Watson Taylor. Cape, London, 1965
