Antonin Artaud

Bettina L. Knapp is a professor of Romance Languages and Comparative Literature at the Graduate Center and Hunter College of CUNY. Dr. Knapp has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and grant from the American Philosophical Society in addition to the Faculty Research Award. She is also the recipient of the Palmes Académiques. Other works by Bettina Knapp include Dream and Image: The Prometheus Syndrome; Anaïs Nin; Céline: Man of Hate; Jean Racine: Mythos and Renewal in Modern Theatre; Gérard De Nerval: The Mystic's Dilemma; and Maurice Maeterlinck: A Critical Study.

"Fascinating… absorbing… a penetrating study!" (Saturday Review) "This is a book which is essential to a deeper knowledge of Antonin Artaud's work… Too much emphasis has been placed on the sensational aspects of his own life dramatization, on his madness. At last Dr. Bettina Knapp has given us a balanced analysis, interpretation and biography of Artaud, blending her familiarity with French literature, French theater with an acute psychological insight and a woman's natural gift for interrelating the work and the human being, thus bringing us closer to his inferno with more empathy…"