SOURCE: "Physics and Pataphysics: The Sources of Faustroll," in Kentucky Romance Quarterly, Vol. XXVI, No. 1, 1979, pp. 81-92.

An educator and critic specializing in French literature, Stillman has published two works on Jarry, La Théâtralité dans l'oeuvre d'Alfred Jarry (1980) and Alfred Jarry (1983). She is a membre honorifique of the Collège de Pataphysique, a somewhat fantastical organization embodying Jarry 's philosophy of pataphysics, and a member of the Société des Amis d'Alfred Jarry. In the following essay, Stillman finds that Jarry used scientific theories as the basis for much of Exploits and Opinions of Doctor Faustroll, Pataphysician.

Alfred Jarry's invented science, Pataphysics, informs all of his writings, from the most sober to the most jocular. Among the bizarre characters who people Jarry's texts, Ubu (King, Cuckold, or Slave) is perhaps the most renowned pataphysician. The true specialist in the field, however, is Docteur Faustroll, the peripathetic hero...