Anarchy and Androgyny in Artaud's "Hliogabale ou L'Anarchiste Couronn" Author(s): Leslie Anne Boldt-Irons Source: The Modern Language

Review, Vol. 91, No. 4 (Oct., 1996), pp. 866-877 Published by: Modern Humanities Research Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3733514 . Accessed: 10/10/2013 14:14
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ANARCHY AND ANDROGYNY

IN ARTAUD'S

HELIOGABALE OU L'ANARCHISTE COURONNE

In his many texts and letters, Antonin Artaud never ceased to express his fascination etsondouble, for the double. Le theatre his best-known work, expresses the unorthodox view, for example, that it is life that doubles true theatre. His fascination with the au Paysdes Tarahumaras, double is also manifest in his Voyage where the separateness of male and female principles is put in question. In passages of the text in which the two principles are doubled by male and female dancers, the double is sacrificed to the One: the two principles wage war until their mutual infiltration leaves them virtually indistinguishablefrom one another. oul'anarchiste another text demonstratingArtaud's preoccupacouronne, Heliogabale tion with doubling, was published in I934, and is considered to be both a poetic work and a work of erudition.' It depicts the life of Elagabalus, Roman emperor AD 219-22, who was born in Emesa in Syria in AD 204 and became emperor when his family managed to pass him off as the illegitimate son of the rightful heir to the throne, Caracalla, who had been murdered. He imposed the worship of Baal upon the Roman world, 'executed a number of resentful generals, and pushed into high places a number of favourites distinguished by their personal beauty and their humble and alien origin'.2Elagabalus, whose openly effeminate behaviour scandalized public opinion, was finally executed by mutinous imperial guards. Artaud's numerous notes and outlines for this text indicate that he wanted to highlight his character's origins, family, lineage, and youth; the 'dimensions' of his neck and the 'volume' of his organs and members; his 'crises erotiques, cris, tintamarre et fureur' (OC, vII, 383). But what is perhaps most striking is that Artaud's preoccupation with doubling follows a pattern in this text that is similar to its counterpart in Voyage au Paysdes Tarahumaras. Once again, the male and female principles are present. Once again they are shown to be at war and to succumb to a mutual invasion that results, at times, in an indiscriminateintermingling. In addition, both Hiliogabale and the Tarahumaran texts can be said to express a fundamental ambiguity. The doubling made possible by the separate male and female principles works, at times, to sustain the distinctness of these two elements. At other times, however, the distinctness of the two elements is sacrificed in order that a unity or a 'One' either transcend the separate elements or arise from their mingling.3 It is the ambiguity characterizing Artaud's depiction of the relationship of the 'One' to the 'double' that has sparked my investigation of his treatment of the dual themes of anarchy and androgyny in Heliogabale. Anarchy is seen to be the disorder
1 Referencesare to Antonin et son 26 vols (Paris:Gallimard, I956-94). Le Theatre Artaud, (Euvres completes, can be foundin Vol. iv, LesTarahumaras in Vol. ix, Hiliogabale in Vol. vII. References double enl'anarchiste couronne I in the text are to this edition. 2 The writers of this entry note that the name Elagabalus was corrupted to Britannica. Encyclopaedia Heliogabalus'by the etymologicalfanciesof some Greekwriter'. 3John Stout provides a similar view of the ambiguity surroundingthe treatment of male and female when he writes:'Artaud's narrative[ ... ] consistently reflectsa fascinationwith duality principlesin Hiliogabale and (sexual)differencecoupled with an intense fear of dualityand difference'('ModernistFamilyRomance: Artaud's Heliogabaleand Paternity', French Review,64 ( 99 ), 261).

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LESLIE ANNE BOLDT-IRONS

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that arises when separate principles are at war with one another. This war of anarchy is often waged in order to bring warring principles to a state of unity, whereby the double is sacrificed to the One. It is also, however, valued on its own terms, as a means by which warring principles are kept separate and saved from extinction. Androgyny, on the other hand, is depicted as the state in which the blended male and female principles coexist in one being. An androgynous being does not excise the male or female in order to let one or the other principle dominate. The androgynous being is of interest to Artaud because the double and the One coexist within its limits, the androgynous being enjoying the double status of both double and One. in an oscillation Artaud's fascination with the double is played out in Heliogabale between his depiction of androgyny (the double united in unity) and of anarchy (in which chaos or the war of principles denies, if temporarily, the possibility of unity). In a further complication of this oscillation between androgyny and anarchy, there is a doubling or an oscillation of attitudes regarding the double and the One. The double is both desired and disdained through its separation of distinct forces, a separation which Artaud wishes at times to maintain, at others to overcome. In a similar fashion, the One is both desirable and unacceptable: desirable because it overcomes the separateness of forces, but unacceptable because it extinguishes the double. To begin to understand how the themes of anarchy and androgyny relate to the question of the double and the One, one must turn to the first appendix, for it is there that Artaud formulates a series of crucial postulates that underscore the text's ambiguity regarding the relationship of these two figures to one another. The postulates introduce at least two important questions: does a transcendental One, an indeterminate Absolute, exist as a unified or an indivisible force from which all things emanate? Or is this force at the origin already double and split at its source? The arguments presented in the first appendix typify the ambiguity characterizing the entire text of Heliogabale, for they offer no clear solution to the questions formulated there. On the one hand, Artaud seems to suggest that the belief in a transcendental and indeterminate Unity or One at the source of all things is erroneous, that everything that exists is already double at its source: Leshommesont crupendant a l'existence d'unseulprincipe, de naturespirituelle, longtemps donttoutdepend. atterrante. Maisunjources memeshommesfontune decouverte Ilstrouvent quel'origine et quele mondeloin de descendre deschosesest double,alorsqu'ilsla croyaient d'un simple; est le produitd'uneduite seulprincipe combinee.(OC, vii, 140) This discovery of the double existing at the source of all things is deemed irrefutable; the proof of this lies ostensibly in the realm of music, and the dual properties that all sound comprises: 'Aussiloin que l'on remonte dans la generation des sons on trouve deux principes qui jouent parallelement et se composent pour faire naitre la vibration' (OC, vii, I40). With respect to Artaud's description of sounds (and, in particular, the production of musical notes or tones), it is true that they comprises the two properties of amplitude (loudness) and frequency (pitch), which together are extended in duration. Each note has its own peculiar degree of loudness and pitch, the two properties being indissociably linked in a combination without which it cannot be produced. In addition, each single musical note or tone

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868

andAndrogyny in Artaud's Anarchy 'Heliogabale'

is sounded as an amalgam of vibrations. The fundamental tone is accompanied in its vibration by attendant overtones and undertones (or upper and underlying partial tones) and in the production of a note 'several modes of vibrations are triggeredsimultaneously'.In fact, the 'differentqualitiesof sounds depend altogether on the number and intensity of the overtones which accompany the primary tones of these sounds'.4 While such an analysis would seem to corroborate (while somewhat loosely) Artaud's choice of a musical model for his claim that all things have at their source an origin that is at least double, the next few lines of the appendix indicate his wish to put this claim in doubt. The ambiguity of this passage arises from his suggestion that there is also an essence which escapes from and transcends the duality which he had earlier imputed to the heart of all things: 'Et en dehors de cela [la duite combinee] il n'y a que l'essence pure, l'abstrait inanalysable, l'absolu indetermine, "l'Inintelligible"enfin' (OC,vii, 140). By postulating the existence of a pure, abstract, absolute and indeterminate essence5 (which, to return to the analogy of the musical note, can in fact be located in the production of certain notes by the flute and in the pitch of a tuning fork, the only notes to be produced without overtones or undertones), Artaud is able to circumvent the troubling consequences of his earlier claim that the source of all things is inherently and always already double. The entire text of Heliogabale contains figures and images that reflect and corroborate the ambiguity expressed in the first appendix. Once again, the postulates raised in the appendix lead to important questions. Artaud suggests, initially, that the essential principles, marked as they are by duality, are opposed to one another, but coexist in a vibration constitutive of the harmony inherent in creation (the principles have waged war 'pour stabiliserla creation' (OC,vII, I42) ), much as overtones and undertones inhere in the vibrationsproducing musical notes. The question, then, becomes: is this war, this vibration, already at work at the source (is the war of doubles already present in the One) or does the opposition between principles arise once they have emanated and grown distinct from an unintelligible, indeterminate (and thus decidedly not double) Absolute or One at their source? The two positions are at work in Artaud's treatment of the doubles in his text, for once again he does not settle the question definitively, preferring to maintain the ambiguity in an oscillation between the two positions. It is precisely because the text does not resolve this ambiguity (given that Artaud's own position on these two possibilities is never unequivocably stated) that my attempt to make sense of his contradictorystatements must to a certain extent be based on intelligent speculation. Armed with the results of this speculation, I draw my own conclusions about the doubling of anarchy and androgyny, of double and One in this text, and what I believe to be the relative weight accorded to each.

4 These two quotationsand other informationabout the compositionof musicalnotes are taken from The toMusic,2 vols, ed. by Denis Arnold (Oxford:OxfordUniversityPress, 1983),I, Io0-I , New Oxford Companion and the OxfordEnglishDictionary,respectively. 5 It would be impossible,within the scope of this essay, to link Artaud'spostulate of an indeterminate Absoluteto his views on neo-Platonist,Taoist, or Kabbalistictenets that postulatethe existence of a similar entity.I have left this explorationfor anotheressayin progress.

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At the source of Artaud's ambiguous position there lies a dilemma. If, as he writes, one must bring warring principles back to their initial harmony in unity ('[il faut] reduire la multiplicite humaine et la ramener par le sang, la cruaute, la guerre [a] l'unite'; 'l'unite, qui est a la base de tous les mythes et tous les noms' (OC,vII, 51, 50) ), then he argues elsewhere, as well, that one must also, to avoid the inarticulation of these principles in an indeterminate One, posit their coexistence and their warlike vibration at the heart of this very Absolute ('c'est susciter une anarchie sans nom, l'anarchie des choses et des aspects qui se r6veillent' (OC,vII, Io6)). In other words, the unity of the One must transcend the separateness of the double, but not at the expense of the distinctness of elements constitutive of the double which lies within it. On the other hand, by arguing for the coexistence of principles in an irreducible duality within the One, Artaud is, in a sense, diminishing the One, for if it must harbour within its limits the double, it can no longer escape division and exert, from without, an unassailable transcendence. As long as the One holds within it an already existing duality, it theoretically risks disunity, if one or the other principle establishes its supremacy and an unassailable transcendence in its turn. Given that he tries at times to maintain the unassailable transcendence, from without, of the One over the double, while at others to allow for the operation of an irreducible is inevitably marked by the duality within this One, the narrative of Heliogabale conflict of these two positions. It is fissured by Artaud's attempt at the impossible task of preserving within the One the warring male and female principles from extinction, while safeguarding the notion of an indissoluble and separate One that transcends, from without, the double represented by those very warring principles. That Heliogabale should be marked by the conflict of these two positions is in fact not surprising,given that such a fissuringof text and such a doubling of positions is already present in Artaud's early texts and correspondence. In these early writings, for example, he expresses the belief that his thought lies outside the consciousness et sondouble, he wanted that fixes (but eventually also arrests)thought. In Le Theatre to do away with rehearsal and performance as the 'doubling' of and within the theatre, and simultaneously to multiply or exaggerate the presence of masks and gestural hieroglyphs, which would double thought without resorting to words, examples of the textual doubling that Artaud wished to overcome. Finally, as mentioned earlier, the Tarahumaran texts evidence a fissuring that in many ways In these texts, it is a question most closely resembles that encountered in Heliogabale. of the conflict between dissolution and reunification, both of which Artaud claimed to have experienced through Peyote rituals. The oscillation between dissolution and reconstitution in the Tarahumaran texts becomes a different oscillation in Heliogabale:that between the maintenance of the double within the One, versus the transcendence of a One over a double (seen as having emanated from the One). It is this oscillation which I now examine with respect to the narrative of Heliogabale, for it colours Artaud's depiction of the doubles figuringprominently and repeatedly in his text. The relationship between the One and the double is first introduced in Artaud's description of the indiscriminate worship in Syria (c. AD 179) of the sun and the moon (the male and female principles, respectively).Many of the temples in Emesa house statues honouring both gods: 'I y a [... .] le temple du soleil-lune a Apamee tout pave de pierres de lune et celui de la lune a Hieropolis pres d'Emese qui,

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870

andAndrogyny in Artaud's Anarchy 'Heliogabale'

exterieurement consacre a la femme, comporte un tr6ne rabougri et diminue pour le male' (OC, VII, 30). Artaud reacts to this confusion of the masculine and the feminine within the religious practices of Emesa with a characteristicambiguity and duality of position. On the one hand, he argues for the rigorous separation of male and female principles, claiming that 'le stupefiant colloque magique qui oppose le ciel a la terre et la lune au ciel [... ] s'il ne s'exerce plus dans l'humeur rituelle des fetes, est a l'origine de notre actuelle inertie' (OC,vII, 56). This quotation suggests that the two principles, while opposed to one another, speak together, as if in a colloquium. This speaking together leads to inertia, rather than to a productive if discordant vibration. When the properties associated with the male principle are confused, as in the religious worship at Emesa, with forces arising from the female principle, the possibility for a healthy and productive vibration arising from an antagonism of the principles is lost, replaced by inertia: 'La Syrie qui brouille les temples [ . . ] a oublie la guerre que la femelle et le male se sont faits autrefois dans le chaos' (OC,vII, 38). However when the principles represented by the sun and the moon, or the masculine and the feminine, are indeed opposed in antagonism, an essential energy and vibration arise in a war whose permanence stimulates and stabilizes without, however, arresting creation: 'Ramener la poesie et l'ordre dans un monde dont l'existence meme est un defi a l'ordre, c'est ramener la guerre et la permanence de la guerre' (OC,vII, Io6). It is here that the ambiguity of Artaud's position can be identified. The forces must be kept rigorously separate, he argues, so that they do not lose their power in inertia. At the same time, he seems to be urging a return to a Unity and a harmony that would stabilize the warring antagonism of these forces. The ambiguity arises precisely from the advocacy of a war of the principles, maintained in view of an eventual stabilization of their energy in order. That Artaud should argue for an antagonistic separation of the two principles corresponds to his claim that the origin of all things is double, and that there exists in the One a separation of forces that are always already divided. Yet his description of the birth of the gods suggests that they arose from an original unity offorces: 'Les dieux sont nes de la separation des forces et ils mourront de leur reunion' (OC,vII, 64). That they might arise from this unity or return to it in death conforms to his positing of a pure unintelligible essence, an 'indeterminate One' that escapes the duality of principles. That he should refer to a 'separation' of forces suggests, in itself, the possibility of a unity that might either arise from their mingling or transcend them, already and initially, from without. That the principles might commingle in a potential 're-union' ('ils mourront de leur reunion') also suggests that their separation may have arisen from a Unity, a Oneness to which they shall return. The undecidability of the text revolves around the impossible coexistence of a Unity to which the multiplicity of things must be returned, once they have been reduced through the war of principles, and the permanence of this war which, itself, should be maintained and not reduced to Unity. Artaud does not specify unequivocally the nature of this One or this Unity, and whether or not it is always already double at its source. It is perhaps possible to link his preoccupation with a return to Unity (and his refusal to specify the nature of this Unity) to a search for lost origins surrounding Heliogabale's birth. This is the view of Carol Jacobs, who refers to the river of sperm surrounding his birth and to a river (and birth) whose source cannot be

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LESLIE ANNE BOLDT-IRONS

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identified. She mentions 'the play of the current of the text itself that is constantly in motion and unable to fix upon any of its signs as giving access to an origin'.6 The inability to locate or specify either the origin of Heliogabale's birth or the nature of the Unity to which dual male and female forces are to return, in addition to the ambiguous attitude towards the commingling or separation of the male and female principles, can be seen to colour the treatment of characters in Heliogabale. That Artaud has doubled many of these charactersbecomes clear in his description of Heliogabale's family:Julia Domna, 'un sexe qui aurait eu de la tete', resembles 'une pierre de lune'; she is doubled by her sisterJulia Moesa, 'une tete a qui le sexe ne manqua pas', and who resembles 'le soufre ecrase au soleil' (OC,VII, 17, 18). The sisterseach embody a separate principle (Domna the moon, Moesa the sun) and are likened to either a 'sexe' (Domna) or a 'tete' (Moesa), each element completed by its opposite.7 Interestingly, Artaud has chosen female family members to embody the characteristics of male and female principles. According to Stout, 'Artaud's juxtaposition of virile mothers and absent or effeminate fathers, in conjunction with emperor Heliogabale's vigorous promotion of androgyny and ritual castration, suggests a wish to subvert sexual difference and the social structures which it supports' (p. 4I9). In evidence of such a double subversion (social and sexual), Heliogabale, 'le roi qui se veut femme [et qui] est un pretre du Masculin' (OC,vii, 74) is doubled not only by the male and female principles from within, but is also prey to the division separating man and god: Toute sa vie, Heliogabaleest en proie a cette aimantationdes contraires,a ce double 6cartelement. D'un c6te, de l'autrecote,
LE DIEU, L'HOMME.

Et dansl'homme,le roi humainet le roi solaire. Et dansle roi humain,l'hommecouronniet d6couronne. vIi, 102-03) (OC, Heliogabale, who contains within him the doubles of masculine and feminine, of man and god, alternately identifies with his god and distinguishes himself from the latter: 'Tant6t [ . .] Heliogabale se prend pour son dieu, tant6t [. . .] il se cache derriere son dieu et s'en distingue' (OC,vII, I02). When this identification does take of himself: place, the man Heliogabale is emptied, a mere double or Doppelgdnger 'Pourquoi empecherait-on l'empereur Heliogabale de mettre le dieu en avant de
6 'This operation may be attributed to the "intelligence" of the river of sperm, which, as we have seen is a river of signs - those names sown throughout the text as the possible if improbable fathers of Heliogabale. The "intelligence" (from inter= "between", and legere,legein= "to read", "to say") of the flow of signs is the displacement from one to another, a saying or reading between the names, the play of the current of the text itself that is constantly in motion and unable to fix upon any of its signs as giving access to an origin. The circulation of sperm, then, that surrounds Heliogabale's cradle is no orderly circular movement periodically returning back to its origin, but rather a perpetual spending' (CarolJacobs, TheAssimilatingHarmony:The Image in Nietzsche,Rilke, Artaudand Benjamin(Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978), of Interpretation

p. 6I).

7Jacobs mentions the confusion of principles mingled within the name of Julia Soaemias, which signifies both womb and semen (p. 59). That Heliogabale should have arisen from and have been surrounded by the confusion of incestuous relationships also heightens the ambiguity surrounding his character. In an analogous discussion of the themes of incest and androgyny in the poetry of Georg Trakl, Richard Detsch refers to the purpose of this incest: 'The production of a unisexual being who is both the offspring of the incestuous pair and the result of their own fusion into one person, their own achievement of wholeness' (GeorgTrakl'sPoet?y:Toward a Unionof Opposites (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1983), p. 50).

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in Artaud's'Hdliogabale' Anarchyand Androgyny

l'homme et d'ecraser l'homme sous le dieu?' While he is at times manipulated 'comme [...] un fantoche, [...] un fantoche vide de roi' (OC, vII, I02, 94), Heliogabale at other times makes use of his title (thus recognizing once again the internal division distinguishing man from king):8'Mais [ .. ] profiter [de son titre] comme un roi. Avec grandeur et magnificence, avec une conscience vraiment royale des pouvoirs qui reviennent au roi et qu'il puise derriere les rites' (OC,VII, 95). It is significant that while he exploits the doubling of male and female, of man and king, there is one doubling that Heliogabale will not tolerate, for it is a concrete doubling that, originating entirely from without, is not of his making, but rather a forgery of sorts: 'une mauvaise effigie de lui-meme, une sorte de second empereur, le petit Alexandre Severe': 'Mais si Elagabalus est homme et femme, il n'est pas deux hommes a la fois. I1y a la une dualite materielle qui est pour Heliogabale une insulte au principe, et qu'Heliogabale ne peut accepter' (OC,vII, 134, 314). While these examples of doubling (of male and female, of man and king, or god) occur within the figure of Heliogabale, they supportArtaud'sview that the principles should remain distinct, in order that they avoid extinction in an indeterminate One. Of Heliogabale, Artaud writes: 'La vie d'Heliogabale me parait etre l'exemple type de cette sorte de dissociation de principes; et c'est l'image [...] de toutes les contradictions humaines, et de la contradiction dans le principe, que j'ai voulu decrire en lui' (OC,vII, 74-75). However, the countering view, that the principles, double and distinct from one another, be reduced and brought back to a pre-existent transcendent and indeterminate Unity, is also suggested by Artaud's treatment of his characters. Heliogabale's very name carrieswithin it the trace of other names, each representing countering forces and principles. These principles, as the following quotations will show, have commingled and become indissociable in a reduction to the name Heliogabale: Maisdans
GABAL

ilya[...] la renaissance du Phinix rouge,issudu Gibil,le feu qui detruitet deforme,maisprepare feu et qui est1'embleme de la femme.(OC, vII, 97) Not only does GABAL contain the name Gibil, representing fire (the masculine principle), but it represents a fire that destroys and deforms (suggesting the possibility of that indissociable commingling and unity of principles to which Artaud is attracted). The image of commingling and of unity of principles is reinforced by the fact that the fire in the name Gibil allows for the renaissance of the female principle, represented by the red Phoenix. A further indication that Heliogabale is a name representing the blending and reduction of principles contained in other names is made manifest by its incorporation of the name of the god Bel 'dieu reducteur, par lequel tout se ramene
8 Jacobs refersto a similartensionbetweenidentification and distinctionwhen she describesthe relationship 'The embodied double acts out his fears of an between the actor and the hieroglyphin Le thedtre et sondouble: apparitionfrom the beyond,yet at a given moment hides himself"behindhis own reality",the originalfigure whom he doubles. And so he himself becomes the "apparition"that threatensto appear - not from the outside, but as the rendingof the originalfigurefrom within' (p. 57). The questionof the hieroglyphand its et sondouble may be said to relationshipto cruelty indicates that there are various ways in which Le theitre functionas a sortof obliquedoublefor the text Hiliogabale.

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LESLIE ANNE BOLDT-IRONS

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au principe, dieu unitaire, eliminateur' (OC, VII, 98). Artaud, who has taken pains to identify and thus separate the names of gods whose presence may be traced in the name Heliogabale,9 suggests that these names (and the principles they represent) must be reduced; they must return to the unity from which they emanate or else remain mere effigies, mere representations separated from the force upon which they depend: des dieux.Etj'appelleces dieuxdes noms; Ceci ditj'en reviensaux nomscontradictoires je des forces,[... ] des modalites ne les appellepas des dieux.Je dis que ces nomsnommaient en principes,en essences,en substances, en de la grandepuissanced'etrequi se diversifie elments. Une chosenomm6eest une chosemorte,et elle est morteparcequ'elleest s6par6e.
(OC, vII, 62, 63)

The separate names comprising the name Heliogabale are mere effigies of the forces they are meant to represent. They are empty because distinct, and dead because named as distinct from one another. Hliogabale, it would appear, benefits from the forces associated with the different principles because he is the bearer of these forces, their names reunited and commingled within him, rather than distinct. The analyses of Roger Dadoun heighten the ambiguity inherent in Artaud's attitude towards the figure of Heliogabale. Just as Artaud sees in Heliogabale both 'l'exemple type de cette sorte de dissociation des principes' and the presence of the god Bel, 'dieu reducteur, par lequel tout se ramene au principe, dieu unitaire, eliminateur' so Dadoun sees in the name Heliogabale both a 'de-contraction' of commingled names and the operation of an 'espace unitaire, homogene' which produces a reduction of principles. Thus Dadoun writes that 'tout son texte intitule Heliogabale, [... ] s'offre comme de-composition, de-contraction, de-nomination du nom Heliogabale' (p. 66). And in a reinforcement of the movement towards
decontraction or dissociation, he notes that the stem EL of
EL-GABAL

evokes,

biblically, the movement of a force exploding into several forces, suggesting a countering movement to that of the god Bel, and preserving the ambiguity which forms the subject of this article: de dieu,c'estdieu EL Dansle textebiblique, designeune nuance,une qualitetresparticuliere auxformesmultiples de l'etre; la creation, immanent commeforce,commeenergieanimant divineperpetuellede l'un dansle multiple,le multipleunifiepar l'6nergie cette circulation
ment mobile, provoque la mise au pluriel du nom EL, ce qui donne ELOHIM, le nom de dieu

en forcesplurielles. commeforceexplosant (Dadoun, p. 67)

On the other hand, the presence of the One within the multiple is highlighted by his analysis of the root GAB in Heliogabale, a syllable or root that is not only central to the name Heliogabale, but which transforms that name into a 'homogeneous, unitary space': C'estdire- vritablement,litt6ralement dire Cetteracineveutdireaussi[... ] 'principe'. en travaillent toutes les unitaire) (etats,contraires, indiquees principe significations que [...] dansle memeterme,dansle GAB, racinepivotale,du nom d'Eliogabale. osmosepermanente il transforme le nom en espace le nom d'Eliogabale; GAB travailledonc de l'int6rieur les echos, les contraires[...] se disposent,se unitaire,of les sym6triques, homog&ne, pp. 73-74) heurtent, s'agonisent. (Dadoun, s'epousent,
9

3 (197 ), 64-78 (p. 66). Roger Dadoun, 'Le nom d'Heliogabaledans le texte d'Artaud',Litterature,

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andAndrogyny in Artaud's Anarchy 'Hdliogabale'

Another example of 'l'espace unitaire, homogene' in which 'les contraires [.. .] se heurtent, s'epousent, s'agonisent' can be found in Artaud's treatment of the eunuchs Eutychien and Gannys. These eunuchs, like the castrated Gauls whom he describes at various points in the text, are certainly not female, nor are they in a sense really male. They are figures whose maleness has been diminished. A mutilation of the male genitals results in a rise of the feminine at the expense of the male, a balancing of an original imbalance that distinguishes the eunuch from the androgynous figure. The latter (discussed more fully below) is born with both male and female attributes, the double united always already within the One, such that the androgyne is both double and One. Thus the eunuch and the androgyne are similar, but distinct, another fissure in the text suggesting a further doubling of characters. Where the eunuch enjoys the blending of principles through a loss, the androgynousfigure blends principles that remain united, though still visibly distinct. In both cases, there is a blending, however, of a double within a One. While this blending is true of both Gannys and Eutychien, Artaud cannot refrain from subjecting them even further to the doubling that marks the structure of his text. Gannys and Eutychien, of different natures, balance and compensate for each other, as if they were two halves of a whole. Gannys is described as possessing 'un esprit subtil, une intelligence pratique et sagace', while Eutychien, 'une sorte de farceur attitre' '[fait] contrepoids au serieux de Gannys': 'Gannys le serieux, le subtil, est double d'un second eunuque [. . .]. Ce second eunuque, Eutychien, est [... ] une nature amorphe, malleiable,et de la plus abjecte feminite. I1est necessaire a Gannys' (OC,vII, 83-84). These examples reinforce the division in Artaud's attitude towards the double and the One. On the one hand, he creates characterswho represent the blending of dual principles into a Unity or One (the eunuchs, the confusion of principles and gods reduced and subsumed by the name Heliogabale); on the other, he maintains his preference for the separation of principles (the doubling and the distinction between Somna and Moesa, between Eutychien and Gannys, and the separation of forces within Heliogabale). This division is repeated and developed in his further treatment of the One and the double in this work. That he should desire and value the separation of principles, principles that have always already been distinct at the origin or within the One, is suggested by his statement 'les principes [...] ne s'inventent pas; ils se gardent, ils se communiquent' (OC,vni, 18). Yet Artaud resorts on another occasion to giving a high value to a Unity or a One which he represents as 'le Chaos'.10In a characteristic doubling of his position, he withthe aforementioned principles. or coexisting depicts this chaos as either preceding In one of these passages he writes of 'des principes qui rayonnaient au fond du Souffle du Chaos' (OC,vII, 22). It is not clear whether the Souffle has emerged as a an emission the are indissociably from or whether the two Chaos, separate entity, linked. Should the Souffle be housed within the Chaos, then the principles could be said to exist within this Unity as well, be it a unity subject to the anarchy of
10That Artaud should associate Chaos with Unity at the origin of all things may be linked to Jacobs's comments about the impossibility of locating an archaeological trace or first level in Hdliogabale: 'The temples of Hdliogabale, like Artaud's novel, are founded on the ruins of former constructions. It is in these ruins, piled on upon the other according to a strict temporal order, that the arche-o-logist, the scientist of the arche,expects to find highly structured traces of the past; but building on a foundation of ruins means building "without foundations" and the seeker after truth finds the hierarchical levels leveled' (Jacobs, p. 75).

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LESLIE ANNE BOLDT-IRONS

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is distinct from the If, on the other hand, the Souffle antagonistic principles (le Chaos). Chaosfrom which it emanates as an emission, then the principles could be said to or Unity which precedes and transcends arise from their separation from the Chaos them. Either possibility could be inferred from the passage, for the relationship and the Chaos is left unclear. It may, in fact, be possible to detect between the Souffle in Artaud's depiction of the Souffle another instance of the doubling so characteristic in Artaud's texts, of many of his texts. In his well-known analysis of the Souffle Derrida points to a fissure, according to which the Souffle which threatens Artaud, that which is 'inspire depuis une autre voix', the 'souffle d'un souffleurqui [. . ] me derobe cela meme qu'il laisse venir a moi et que j'ai cru pouvoir dire en mon nom' is doubled by a Souffle that Artaud hopes to appropriate: 'Souffle qui prendrait un de soi en lieu ou la propriete ne serait pas encore le vol'. 1 possession At some points in the text, Artaud seems to propose a model for the relationship between the One and the double: an indeterminate One or Unity would exist at the origin, then split into the double, only to unite again as a double within the One. Such a model is supported by the following description of the religion of which Heliogabale (describedhere as an androgynous being) is the high priest:
La religion de I'UNqui se coupe en DEUX pour agir.
Pour ETRE.
UN

La religionde la separation initialede I'UN. et DEUX reunisdansle premier androgyne.

Qui est LUI, l'homme. Et LUI, la femme.

En memetemps.
Reunis en UN.

(OC,vII, 103)

This passage presents, then, the figure of a One at the origin that is in need of division or doubling to proceed, indeed to BE, only to recuperate this doubling of this passage within its boundaries as the One.12 The figure of the premier androgyne could be applied either to Heliogabale or to the One itself. In either case, the ambiguity is preserved. The One (or Heliogabale) must divide itself into two to act, suggesting that its initial state is undivided. At the same time, this undivided One, as premier is, by definition, alwaysalready divided, androgyne, having arisen from the very 3 within a as the double and One double One. beginning Interestingly, Detsch, in a separate context, also makes reference to the existence His research leads him to refer to cosmogonic myths in which of a premier androgyne. the progenitor of all creatures is both male and female, giving birth to the first human, who is a hermaphrodite, like him/herself (Detsch, p. 39). While it would be impossible to determine to what extent Artaud had in mind such cosmogonic myths in his descriptionsof the premier and the Religion del'Un, this description can androgyne
'' Jacques Derrida,'Laparole soufflee',in L'Ecriture etla difference (Paris:Seuil, 1967),pp. 262, 266. temptingto detect the presenceof a Hegelian dialecticin this descriptionof the Religion de l'Un, the movement of Hegelian Aufhebung or sublation does not account for the blind spot inherent in Artaud'sdescriptionof this religion,which depictsat one and the same time the existenceof a premier androgyne and an (indivisible) One that must divideinto two in orderto be. 13 Stout makes an entirely different reading of this passage, which he sees as representingthe ultimate authorityof male oneness: 'Thus the revolt against the Fatherstaged by Heliogabale'sreign is nevertheless recuperatedby a new phallicorderthat absorbsand abolishesduality,figuredprincipallyas sexualdifference, withina specifically male oneness.Ironically,Artaud'sHeliogabaledethronesthe Fatherthe betterto reinstate
12 While it would be

His power in a new form' (p. 21).

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876

andAndrogyny in Artaud's Anarchy 'Heliogabale'

be seen to illuminate the way in which another relationship is structuredin the text: that existing between anarchy and androgyny. Anarchy, characterized by the war of principles, and androgyny, in which the dual principles coexist in relative harmony, share one characteristic:in both cases, the double is housed within a One. What the model of the Religion deL'Unsuggests is that the separation and opposition of One and Two, or of the double within the One, is necessary for the One to BE, or to act. From this description, I would infer that anarchy is more likely to be active and therefore ensure this BEING than androgyny, and that androgyny is more likely to fall prey to inertia or non-being than anarchy. While it is true that Artaud's descriptions oscillate between, on the one hand, the preference for a movement towards Unity, in a reduction of the double to the One and, on the other, a desire to maintain a distinction between the two principles and the permanence of their war in order to avoid inertia, I detect, despite this oscillation, a preference for the figure of Anarchy over that of Androgyny in the text Heliogabale. Thus, while Artaud writes that Heliogabale 'a eu de bonne heure le sens de l'unite qui est a la base de tous les mythes et de tous les noms', and while men engage in is war, writes Artaud, 'pour en finir avec cette separation des principes', Heliogabale a text that seems to lean towards a preference for Anarchy, 'cette guerre de l'esprit en hostilite avec lui-meme', 'la guerre des effigies, des representations ou des principes' (OC, vII, 50, 72, 71, 70). It is this war of principles within Heliogabale, that particularly attracts Artaud: 'Mais ce qui beaucoup plus que anarchiste-ne, 'Heliogabale est un anarchiste-ne [...] et tous ses actes de roi sont des actes d'anarchiste-ne, ennemi public de l'ordre, qui est un ennemi de l'ordre public; mais son anarchie, il la pratique d'abord en lui-meme et contre lui-meme' (OC,VII, I04). The anarchiste-ne not only commits all acts 'avec art et tout en double', each gesture being double-edged and following the rhythm specified by Artaud: Ordre,D6sordre, Unit6,Anarchie, Poesie,Dissonance, Rythme,Discordance, Grandeur, Puerilite, Cruaute. Generosite,
(OC,VII, 127-28) l'Androgyne apparait dans cette image tournante [ . .] c'est l'idee de
1ANARCHIE':

He also practises, within his unified (and androgynous being) an antagonism (or anarchy) of opposites. The danger of this anarchy (a danger to which Heliogabale is subject and of which he is ultimately victim) is that it may lead to an auto-mutilation that ends in utter destruction. Like the Gauls who castrate themselves in an act of anarchy, and who die in a haemorrhaging of their desire for the practice of that anarchy, Heliogabale is not content to remain an androgynous being. The two halves of a whole do not coexist in harmony within him (a harmony that would have been suggestive of inertia) but wage war, only to end, finally, in a fatal automutilation, for 'Heliogabale est un anarchiste applique qui commence par se devorer lui-meme' (OC,vII, Io6). The only solution to this dilemma would be to practice an anarchy that is somehow ordered enough to prevent its own death, an anarchy that enlivens the opposites within the androgynous being, preserving them from inertia without

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LESLIE ANNE BOLDT-IRONS

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extinguishing the being in which they are housed.14 It is this solution that was no doubt impossibly conceived by Artaud by the suggestion of a One that harbours within it the double, but that manages to preserve its transcendence and its distinctnessfrom this dangerous, because self-destructive,doubling. While it is true that the text seems to prefer the force of anarchy to the unity of the androgynous being, it is also true that it never relinquishes the power of the latter to complement the former. If Heliogabale is an anarchiste-ne, he is also, like all androgynous figures, an androgyne-ne, having always already born within him the male and female principles and the potential for their antagonism in anarchy, and while his actions are an application of anarchic principles, they are also 'l'application d'une ide'e metaphysique et superieure de l'ordre, c'est-a-dire de l'unite' (OC,
VII, 117).

couronne, having enclosed within the symbol of the Heliogabale is an anarchiste crown or circle the forces of the masculine and the feminine, of the divine and the human. But his tendancy towards anarchy leads him, as well, to the dangerous state in which the warring forces collide and explode the limits of the anarchiste decouronne, in which they had resided. The circle having been rent apart, the anarchiste decouronne lies haemorrhaging in a sewer, and the vibrations of antagonistic tones, once constitutive of a strange and dissonant harmony, are replaced by silence.
BROCK UNIVERSITY, ONTARIO LESLIE ANNE BOLDT-IRONS

14 Dadoun views this dilemma as the necessity of causing the bidimensionaland separated elements of aroundtheirpivot, the syllable/root and the principleGAB.It is Heliogabaleto spin rapidlyand vertiginously this rapid and dizzying spinning that creates unity: 'Une des tensions specifiques,et constitutives,du texte d'Artaudreside dans le conflit entre la necessit6d'un deploiementbidimensionneldes signifiants,l'ecriture lin6aireet ordonn6,l'ordre,si l'on peut dire, du ily comme instrumentanalytiqueet figuratif,d6veloppement a, et le desir d'empecherque les mots tombent, vivent, que les figuresse p6trifient,de faire en sorte que lespierres que tournentaussi intens6mentque possible,les mots cylindriques,ou coniques, que toutes les valeurs[... ] circulent 6nergiquement pour, dans un embrassement extreme, manifester le principe fondamental d'unite'(p. 76).

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