Jean Genet Summary

Dubbed "the Black Prince of letters," by his discoverer, Jean Cocteau, the French novelist and playwright Jean Genet (1910-1986) was obsessed with the illusory, perverse, and grotesque elements of hum... Read more

Critical Essay by Jerry L. Curtis Genet's originality stems from the fact that he has cogently chosen to refuse society's values and has set about to reverse, if only for himself, the m... Read more

Critical Essay by Albert Bermel Genet's plays, like Pirandello's, have become a treasure house for the rococo critical imagination. As the visitor basks in the heady atmosphere—t... Read more

Critical Essay by Leonard Cabell Pronko There has always existed a certain kinship between the spirit of Eastern theater and that of Jean Genet. In the plays written after 1955, however, this affinit... Read more

Critical Essay by Neal Oxenhandler Jean Genet's play The Blacks is preceded by the words: "One evening an actor asked me to write a play for an all-black cast. But what exactly is a bla... Read more

In the following essay, Connon discusses the role of the audience in The Blacks, focusing on Genet's direct implication of its racial composition and his intentional creation of discomfort. ... Read more

In the following excerpt, Thompson provides a broad discussion of race within The Blacks, arguing that the purpose of the play is not the determination of “blackness,” but the dramatizat... Read more

In the following essay, Warner compares the characters in Les Nègres with black writers who sought to celebrate their ethnicity. It is clear as one reads Les Nègres, published in Engl... Read more

In the following essay, Cornford explores the connection between the narrator's expressions of his own grief and the construction of his narrated world in Pompes funèbres. The themes ... Read more

In the following essay, Gourgouris examines Genet's poetics through his widely known and embraced identity as a criminal and his later association with revolutionary groups. It has already b... Read more

In the following essay, Pizzato provides a Lacanian psychoanalytic reading of Genet's works, focusing on Genet's creation of a self in both his life and works. In his brief book on Pr... Read more

In the following essay, Plunka describes Genet's use of ethnological rites of passage in Les Nègres. In Jean Genet's oeuvre, the single element that unites all of his works and... Read more