The Madman and the Nun (Cyclopedia of Literary Characters)
At a glance:
- Author: StanisławIgnacy Witkiewicz
- First Published: 1925
- Type of Work: Play
- Type of Plot: Surrealism
- Time of Work: The 1920’s
- Setting: Central Europe
- Genres: Drama, Surrealist literature
- Subjects: Surrealism, Europe or Europeans, Art or artists, Poetry or poets, 1920’s, Mental illness, Creative process, Imagination, Psychoanalysis or psychoanalysts, Psychiatry or psychiatrists, Nuns
- Locales: Europe
Characters Discussed
Alexander Walpurg, a mad poet confined in an insane asylum. The twenty-nine-year-old Walpurg embodies the romantic conception of the poet as reflected in his model, German poet Heinrich von Kleist. His life has been in total service to his art and has been lived on the edge, filled with excesses in drink, drugs, sex, and violence. Walpurg represents the romantic stereotype of the poet physically as well, with his dark complexion, brooding good looks, slender figure, and disheveled beard and mustache. Walpurg views the creative process as a power that...
[The entire page is 715 words long]
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