Modern Language Review

Abstract:

In Julio Cortázar's work jazz is presented as a form of music which can potentially bring about an expressional and ontological authenticity denied by language. Cortázar's ideas regarding jazz show strong connections with Antonin Artaud's ideas on the theatre of cruelty. Such connections offer a new way of understanding the theoretical and literary context in which Cortázar's engagement with jazz is to be placed. Furthermore, by considering Cortázar's writing on jazz through the lens of Jacques Derrida's critical work on Artaud's theatre, the former is revealed as being inscribed in essentially linguistic terms and problematics.