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To whom does a letter belong? Psychopathology and epistolography in the asylum letters of Antonin Artaud and Camille Claudel
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Wilson, Susannah (2021) To whom does a letter belong? Psychopathology and epistolography in the asylum letters of Antonin Artaud and Camille Claudel. Modern Languages Open, 1 (1). pp. 1-18. doi:10.3828/mlo.v0i0.360 ISSN 2052-5397.
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Official URL: http://doi.org/10.3828/mlo.v0i0.360
Abstract
This article analyses the published letters of two important artists, Camille Claudel (1864–1943) and Antonin Artaud (1869–1948), who were incarcerated in French psychiatric asylums in the early twentieth century. It argues that although asylum letters deviate from standard modes of epistolography, and pose interpretive difficulties, they remain sophisticated and hyper-meaningful communications. Contending that the language of ‘schizophrenia’ and ‘paranoia’ is not one of disconnection or primitive drives, but one of hyper-reflexivity, the article analyses how these writers responded to the constraints of the communicative situation in which they were placed. It suggests that singular aspects of the texts, related to their materiality and psychotic patterns of thinking, reveal the limitations of traditional theories of epistolarity.
| Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||
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| Subjects: | B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BD Speculative Philosophy P Language and Literature > P Philology. Linguistics P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) |
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| Divisions: | Faculty of Arts > School of Modern Languages and Cultures | ||||||
| Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Claudel, Camille, 1864-1943 -- Correspondence , Artaud, Antonin, 1896-1948 -- Correspondence , Psychiatric hospital patients in literature , Letter writing -- History and criticism, Knowledge, Theory of, Mental illness in literature | ||||||
| Journal or Publication Title: | Modern Languages Open | ||||||
| Publisher: | Liverpool University Press | ||||||
| ISSN: | 2052-5397 | ||||||
| Official Date: | 18 May 2021 | ||||||
| Dates: |
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| Volume: | 1 | ||||||
| Number: | 1 | ||||||
| Page Range: | pp. 1-18 | ||||||
| DOI: | 10.3828/mlo.v0i0.360 | ||||||
| Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||
| Publication Status: | Published | ||||||
| Access rights to Published version: | Open Access (Creative Commons) | ||||||
| Date of first compliant deposit: | 9 March 2021 | ||||||
| Date of first compliant Open Access: | 9 March 2021 | ||||||
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