JARRY, Alfred

An eccentric's eccentric, who lived modestly and needed collegial support to make his works known, Jarry wrote plays and fiction so different from the late Victorian conventions that they are commonly regarded as having anticipated Surrealism, Dada, the Theatre Of The Absurd, James Joyce , and much else, which is to say that Jarry was a slugger in spite of himself. His play Ubu Roi (King Ubu, 1896) opens with the word Merdre, which is customarily translated as Shittr, proclaiming from...