Artaud in performance: dissident surrealism and the postwar American literary avant-garde

This article seeks to give account of the influence of Antonin Artaud on the postwar American literary avant-garde, paying particular attention to the way in which his work both on and in the theatre informed the Beat and San Francisco writers’ poetics of performance. Artaud was received enthusiastically by poets such as Allen Ginsberg and Michael McClure, and recruited as a posthumous ally in their distinctive revolt against Cold War oppression, militarism, and conformity. They sourced, translated and distributed texts by Artaud during the 1950s and 1960s, ensuring he reached as wide an Anglophone audience as possible.