Annelise Nussbacher
Professor Drago
LIT 211J
10/31/17
The Importance of Filth in Art and Protest
“It was ‘the word’ which, greeted by the spectators with laughs or whistles, with applause and boos, played the starring role. It fluttered about from the stalls to the circle, and was exchanged from seat to seat.”
The word to which Henri de Régnier is referring, in this quote from his 1933 memoir of Alfred Jarry De mons Temps, is merdre, Jarry’s hapax legomenon, which features prominently in both Jarry’s play Ubu Roi an in virtually any discussion thereof. While merdre, by definition, has no direct translation in English, Patrick Whittaker uses pshite, and it is pshite that I will be using for the remainder of this essay in reference to the …show more content…
When phiste was first introduced to the French public, part of the effect was to make Jarry’s assault on the audience via Father Ubu more personal, a vestige of our youth: just as pshite at once is and is not shit, so pshite is a word used only by the characters of Ubu Roi and a word used by all. Such a word had never before been used on the public stage nor to address the bourgeois public sphere; with few exceptions, the audience was, dare I say, …show more content…
When a group of White Nationalists (read: fascists) announced that they would be holding a rally at Chrissy Field, a US-Army-landing-strip-turned-public-park, the city of San Francisco came together in the true spirit of the city by the bay: by blanketing Chrissy Field in dog poop. (I’m sure that cat poop, horse poop, and poop from other animals were just as welcome -- it was an equal-oppor-poo-nity party, so to speak.) “I just had this image of alt-right people stomping around in the poop,” said Tuffy Tuffington, whose idea this was, “It seemed like a little bit of civil disobedience.” Unfortunately, or perhaps not, the fascists never made it to Chrissy Field, and my mother’s weapons-grade stockpile of poop from the neighborhood dogs wound up as compost. Still, thinking back on it now, and in the context of our class, I cannot help but feel that the spirit of Alfred Jarry was with us, calling for a blanket of merdre for these new, wannabe Ubu-ites.
Works Cited: de Régnier, Henri. “Alfred Jarry.” De mon Temps, Mercure de France, 1933, 152.
Jarry, Alfred. “Questions de théâtre.” Ubu, ed. Noël Arnaud and Henri Bordillon,
Gallimard Folio, 1978, 346.
Wong, Julia Carrie. “Turd Reich: San Francisco Dog Owners Lay Minefield of Poo for
Rightwing Rally.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 24 Aug. 2017,
Professor Drago
LIT 211J
10/31/17
The Importance of Filth in Art and Protest
“It was ‘the word’ which, greeted by the spectators with laughs or whistles, with applause and boos, played the starring role. It fluttered about from the stalls to the circle, and was exchanged from seat to seat.”
The word to which Henri de Régnier is referring, in this quote from his 1933 memoir of Alfred Jarry De mons Temps, is merdre, Jarry’s hapax legomenon, which features prominently in both Jarry’s play Ubu Roi an in virtually any discussion thereof. While merdre, by definition, has no direct translation in English, Patrick Whittaker uses pshite, and it is pshite that I will be using for the remainder of this essay in reference to the …show more content…
When phiste was first introduced to the French public, part of the effect was to make Jarry’s assault on the audience via Father Ubu more personal, a vestige of our youth: just as pshite at once is and is not shit, so pshite is a word used only by the characters of Ubu Roi and a word used by all. Such a word had never before been used on the public stage nor to address the bourgeois public sphere; with few exceptions, the audience was, dare I say, …show more content…
When a group of White Nationalists (read: fascists) announced that they would be holding a rally at Chrissy Field, a US-Army-landing-strip-turned-public-park, the city of San Francisco came together in the true spirit of the city by the bay: by blanketing Chrissy Field in dog poop. (I’m sure that cat poop, horse poop, and poop from other animals were just as welcome -- it was an equal-oppor-poo-nity party, so to speak.) “I just had this image of alt-right people stomping around in the poop,” said Tuffy Tuffington, whose idea this was, “It seemed like a little bit of civil disobedience.” Unfortunately, or perhaps not, the fascists never made it to Chrissy Field, and my mother’s weapons-grade stockpile of poop from the neighborhood dogs wound up as compost. Still, thinking back on it now, and in the context of our class, I cannot help but feel that the spirit of Alfred Jarry was with us, calling for a blanket of merdre for these new, wannabe Ubu-ites.
Works Cited: de Régnier, Henri. “Alfred Jarry.” De mon Temps, Mercure de France, 1933, 152.
Jarry, Alfred. “Questions de théâtre.” Ubu, ed. Noël Arnaud and Henri Bordillon,
Gallimard Folio, 1978, 346.
Wong, Julia Carrie. “Turd Reich: San Francisco Dog Owners Lay Minefield of Poo for
Rightwing Rally.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 24 Aug. 2017,