Body-language: the automatic writing of Antonin Artaud (1925-1947)

Abstract

This text examines Antonin Artaud's automatic writing between 1925 and 1947, analyzing his ambiguous relationship with the Surrealist movement and how this practice transformed throughout his work. Although expelled from the group in 1926, Artaud maintained and deepened automatism to express the unconscious and the body, articulating language, sensations, and vital experience. The analysis of poems such as "The Bound Mummy" and "Invocation to the Mummy" reveals a critique of the supposed rigidity of Surrealism and the construction of a "body-language" that fuses word and flesh. To this end, our main theoretical contribution revolves around Artaud (2025), Breton (1924), Derrida (2009), Blanchot (2005; 2010), Nadeau (1964), and Michel Foucault (2007). Finally, it is important to note that, throughout his career, Artaud radicalized automatism, pushing language boundaries and proposing a poetics in which body and unconscious become inseparable.