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Ubu Roi

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Ubu Roi

When it first opened in Paris in late 1896, Ubu Roi immediately outraged audiences with its scatological references and surrealist style. Spectators rioted during the premiere (and final) performance and unrelenting controversy over the play's meaning followed. The quality and stunning impact of the work, however, was never questioned.
Early drafts of the play were written by Jarry in his teens to ridicule one of his teachers. The farce was done in the form of stylized burlesque, satirizing the tendency of the successful bourgeois to abuse his authority and become irresponsibly complacent. Ubu — the cruel, gluttonous, and grotesque main character (the author's metaphor for modern man) — anticipated characteristics of the Dada movement. In the 1920s, Dadaists and Surrealists championed the play, recognizing Ubu Roi as the first absurdist drama.


Reprint of the Beverley Keith and G. Legman translation, 1953.
Ubu the King; King Ubu; Théâtre de l'Œuvre; comic play; William Butler Yeats; Dada; Surrealism; Theatre of the Absurd; stylised burlesques; complacent bourgeoisie; King Turd; guignol; Ubu Cocu; Ubu Cuckolded; Ubu Enchaîné; Ubu in Chains; pataphysics; science of imaginary solutions; William Shakespeare; Macbeth; Hamlet; King Lear; Symbolists; symbolism; King and Queen of Poland; Bougrelas; France; French drama; 19th-century French drama; French symbolist writer; Laval, Mayenne, France; Symbolist movement; Surrealist; Futurist; hybrid genres and styles; postmodern postmodernism; speculative journalism; absurdist literature; postmodern philosophy
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When it first opened in Paris in late 1896, Ubu Roi immediately outraged audiences with its scatological references and surrealist style. Spectators rioted during the premiere (and final) performance and unrelenting controversy over the play's meaning followed. The quality and stunning impact of the work, however, was never questioned.
Early drafts of the play were written by Jarry in his teens to ridicule one of his teachers. The farce was done in the form of stylized burlesque, satirizing the tendency of the successful bourgeois to abuse his authority and become irresponsibly complacent. Ubu — the cruel, gluttonous, and grotesque main character (the author's metaphor for modern man) — anticipated characteristics of the Dada movement. In the 1920s, Dadaists and Surrealists championed the play, recognizing Ubu Roi as the first absurdist drama.


Reprint of the Beverley Keith and G. Legman translation, 1953.
Ubu the King; King Ubu; Théâtre de l'Œuvre; comic play; William Butler Yeats; Dada; Surrealism; Theatre of the Absurd; stylised burlesques; complacent bourgeoisie; King Turd; guignol; Ubu Cocu; Ubu Cuckolded; Ubu Enchaîné; Ubu in Chains; pataphysics; science of imaginary solutions; William Shakespeare; Macbeth; Hamlet; King Lear; Symbolists; symbolism; King and Queen of Poland; Bougrelas; France; French drama; 19th-century French drama; French symbolist writer; Laval, Mayenne, France; Symbolist movement; Surrealist; Futurist; hybrid genres and styles; postmodern postmodernism; speculative journalism; absurdist literature; postmodern philosophy
Ubu Roi | Dover Publications