Henry Bataille


Félix-Henri "Henry" Bataille was a French poet, playwright. engraver and lithographer, popular during the early 20th century.

Biography

Bataille's parents died when he was young. He attended the École des Beaux-Arts and Académie Julian to study painting, but started writing when he was 14. Henry wrote plays and poems, but after the success of his second play, La Lépreuse, he became a playwright exclusively. Bataille's early works explored the effects of passion on human motivation and how stifling the social conventions of the times could be. For example, Maman Colibri, is about a middle-aged woman's affair with a younger man. Later, Bataille would gravitate towards the theatre of ideas and social drama.
Bataille was also a theorist of subconscious motivation. While he did not use his theories in most of his own works, he influenced later playwrights such as Jean-Jacques Bernard and the "school of silence".

Works