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The Study of the English Language – Alfred Jarry

in TYPO 2: A Journal of Lettrism, Surrealist Semantics & Constrained Design.

Alfred Jarry’s absurdist essay, The Study of the English Language in which a man is able to learn an entire new language after hearing a loud explosion, is now available to read in TYPO 2: A Journal of Lettrism, Surrealist Semantics & Constrained Design.

TYPO 2 is available here: https://blackscatbooks.com/2023/03/27/typo-2

Or here:

US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BZFLSJ95

UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0BZFLSJ95

Aus: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B0BZFLSJ95

Can: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0BZFLSJ95

Alfred Jarry’s The Study of the English Language is also one of the essays in Speculations, a collection of Jarry’s Surrealist, absurdist essays published by Black Scat Books.

Alfred Jarry spent his brief and turbulent life experimenting with genres of fiction. In his last few years, he created a new fictional form: the absurdist speculative essay. R J Dent’s new English translation of Speculations contains 68 of Jarry’s essays, originally printed between 1901 and 1904 as a series, ‘Spéculations’, in the French journal Le Revue Blanche.

In Jarry’s darkly comic collection of surrealist and satirical prose pieces, the renowned author deploys his characteristic satirical eye and dark humour to devastating effect. The essays in Speculations range in tone from the wildly comic to the deeply tragic and cover a diversity of subjects, ranging from French Trees to Cannibalism. For Jarry, nothing is sacred; everything is worthy material for his surreal satire; the Passion is presented as a sporting event; buses are the prey of big game hunters, and even the Queen is licked from behind.