Saint Genet : actor and martyr

636 Pages·2012·38.62 MB·English

by  Genet

SAINT GENET
S A I NT
G E N ET
actor and martyr
JEAN-PAUL
SARTRE
TRANSLATED BY
BERNARD FRECHTMAN
M
IN
University of Minnesota Press NE
SO
Minneapolis TA
Originally published in French as Saint Genet,
comedien et martyr by Librairie Gallimard, Paris.
Copyright 1952 by Editions Gallimard, Paris.
English translation originally published in hardcover by
George Braziller, Inc., 1963
First University of Minnesota Press edition, 2012
English translation copyright 1963 by George Braziller, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted,
in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior
written permission of the publisher.
Published by the University of Minnesota Press
111 Third Avenue South, Suite 290
Minneapolis, MN 55401-2520
http://www.upress.umn.edu
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Sartre, Jean-Paul, 1905—1980.
[Saint Genet, comedien et martyr. English]
Saint Genet, actor and martyr / Jean-Paul Sartre;
Translated by Bernard Frechtman.
1st University of Minnesota Press ed.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8166-7760-3 (pbk. : acid-free paper)
1. Genet, Jean, 1910—1986. 2. Authors, French—2Oth
century—Biography. 3. Criminals—France—Biography.
I. Frechtman, Bernard. II. Title.
PQ26i3.£537883 2012 842'.912 — dc23
[B] 2011052920
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
The University of Minnesota is an equal-opportunity
educator and employer.
18 17 16 15 14 13 12 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
C O N T E N TS
Translator's Note vii
BOOK I THE METAMORPHOSIS
The Melodious Child Dead in Me Long
Before the Ax Chops Off My Head 1
A Dizzying Word 17
BOOK II FIRST CONVERSION: EVIL
I Will Be the Thief 49
I Decided to Be What Crime Made of Me 59
The Eternal Couple of the Criminal and the
Saint . . . 73
I Is Another 138
A Daily Labor, Long and Disappointing . . . 150
"To Succeed in Being All, Strive to Be Noth-
ing in Anything" 194
Cain 250
BOOK III SECOND METAMORPHOSIS: THE
AESTHETE
Strange Hell of Beauty . . . 355
I Went to Theft as to a Liberation, as to the
Light 402
BOOK IV THIRD METAMORPHOSIS: THE
WRITER
A Mechanism Having the Exact Rigor of
Verse 425
And I, Gentler than a Wicked Angel, Lead
Her by the Hand 447
On the Fine Arts Considered as Murder 483
My Victory Is Verbal and I Owe It to the
Sumptuousness of the Terms 544
Please Use Genet Properly 584
APPENDICES
1. Self-Portrait of the Good Citizen 601
2. The Tzedek Test 607
3. The Maids 611
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TRANSLATOR'S NOTE
The original title of the present work, Saint
Genet: Comedien et Martyr, loses its allusiveness
in English translation. Saint Genet evokes the
memory of St. Genestus (known in French as
Genest, or Genet), the third-century Roman actor
and martyr and the patron saint of actors. His
career is the subject of Le Veritable Saint Genest,
a tragedy by the seventeenth-century dramatist
Jean de Rotrou. In addition, the word comedien
(which means actor—not necessarily comic) is used
familiarly to designate a person who shams or
"puts on an act."
The absence of reference to Genet's later plays
is explained by the fact that Sartre's study was
published in 1952, at which time Deathwatch and
The Maids were the only works Genet had written
for the theater.
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I
THE METAMORPHOSIS
Bandit, thief, hoodlum,
scamp!
It's the pack of decent folk
A-hunting the child.
PREVERT
THE MELODIOUS CHILD DEAD IN ME
LONG BEFORE THE AX CHOPS OFF MY HEAD
Genet is related to that family of people who are nowadays referred
to by the barbaric name of passeistes.* An accident riveted him to a
childhood memory, and this memory became sacred. In his early
childhood, a liturgical drama was performed, a drama of which he
was the officiant: he knew paradise and lost it, he was a child and
was driven from his childhood. No doubt this "break" is not easy
to localize. It shifts back and forth, at the dictate of his moods and
myths, between the ages of ten and fifteen. But that is unimportant.
What matters is that it exists and that he believes in it. His life is
divided into two heterogeneous parts: before and after the sacred
drama. Indeed, it is not unusual for the memory to condense into a
single mythical moment the contingencies and perpetual rebegin-
nings of an individual history. What matters is that Genet lives
* Passeiste: one who is not adapted to the present age, who is not a man of his time,
who "lives in the past."—Translator's note.
1