Ubu Plays, The

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Introduction

Ubu Rex - (Ubu Roi)

Act One
Act Two
Act Three
Act Four
Act Five

Ubu Cuckolded - (Ubu Cocu)

Act One
Act Two
Act Three
Act Four
Act Five

Ubu Enchained - (Ubu Enchaîné)

Act One
Act Two
Act Three
Act Four
Act Five

Ubu Rex:
this translation copyright © 1968 by Cyril Connolly and Simon Watson Taylor

Ubu Cuckolded (Ubu Cocu):
this translation copyright © 1965 by Cyril Connolly

Ubu Enchained:
this translation copyright © 1968 by Simon Watson Taylor

Introduction copyright © 1968 by Simon Watson Taylor

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Ubu Rex, Ubu Cuckoled,
and
Ubu Enchained
are subject to a royalty. They are fully protected under the copyright laws of the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, and all British Commonwealth countries, and all countries covered by the International Copyright Union, the Pan-American Copyright Convention, and the Universal Copyright Convention. All rights, including professional, amateur, motion picture, recitation, public reading, radio broadcasting, television, video or sound taping, all other forms of mechanical or electronic reproduction, such as information storage and retrieval systems and photocopying, and rights of translation into foreign languages, are strictly reserved.

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Published simultaneously in Canada

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 69-19439

ISBN-10: 978-0-802-19905-8 ISBN-13: 978-0-8021-5010-3

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08 09 10 11 12 13 25 24 23 22 21

Alfred Henri Jarry

Works by Alfred Jarry published after his death include:

Translations into English:

Critical and biographical writings on Jarry in English include:

Maurice Labelle, Alfred Jarry,
Nihilism
and the Theatre of the Absurd (1980)

Claude Schumacher, Alfred Jarry and
Guillaume Apollinaire
(1984)

Keith Beaumont,
Alfred Jarry, A
Critical and Biographic Study (1984)

Keith Beaumont,
Alfred Jarry, Ubu Roi
(1987)

Critical and biographical writings on Jarry in French include:

Noel Arnaud,
Alfred Jarry, d’Ubu Roi au
Docteur
Faustroll
(1974)

François Caradec, A
la recherche d’Alfred Jarry
(1974)

Henri Béhar, Jarry dramaturge (1980)

Henri Bordillon, editor,
Alfred Jarry, Colloque de Cerisy
(1981)

Henri Béhar,
Les Cultures de Jarry
(1988)

Patrick Besnier,
Alfred Jarry
(1990)

Introduction

Le Père Ubu
was born in 1888, the year that Alfred Jarry entered the Rennes
lycée
at the age of fifteen, and became friendly with a fellow-pupil, Henri Morin, who had been indulging in the popular classroom sport of baiting the unfortunate physics teacher, Monsieur Hébert (known to his pupils variously as ‘P.H.’, ‘Père Heb’, ‘Ebé’, etc.). Henri had written, together with his elder brother Charles, a short satire,
Les Polonais,
in which ‘le Père Ebé’ suffered unspeakable indignities as king of an imaginary Poland. Jarry converted this sketch into a playlet for marionettes, which was performed first at the home of the Morins and later at the home of the Jarrys. While at the Rennes
lycée,
Jarry developed the same promising theme in a ‘pièce alquemique’,
Onésime ou les Tribulations
de Priou, featuring ‘le P. H.’ and ‘la Mère E. B.’.

After leaving Rennes for Paris in 1891 to attend the Lycée Henri IV, he rewrote both Les Polonais which he had inherited from the Morin brothers, and his own
Onésime
(in which the younger Morin may have collaborated), and the resulting plays, the first drafts of Ubu Roi and Ubu Cocu respectively, were performed by Jarry and a circle of school-friends (including Léon-Paul Fargue) at his lodgings in an alleyway off the Boulevard du Port-Royal. It was only now that ‘le P. H.’ assumed his definitive identity as ‘le Père Ubu’.

In April 1893, Jarry saw his writing in print for the first time with the publication of three prose texts (two of them fragments from this proto-Ubu
Cocu)
in a literary review: from this moment, any thought of continuing his studies at the Ecole Normale Supérieure vanished, and he plunged into the world of letters. The publication in October 1894 of his first book, the ultra-symbolist Minutes de Sable Mémorial, by the Editions du Mercure de France, whose publisher, Alfred Vallette, and his wife the novelist Rachilde, were to remain his lifelong friends and loyal rescuers in time of need, was followed by an abbreviated period of military service, and the publication in October 1895 of his second book, César-Antlehrist.