ABSTRACT
This chapter argues against the oft-quoted accusation that the 'formal' aspects of Derrida's work mean that deconstruction has more affinity with discourse than with the non-discursive, visual, spatial or performative dimensions of embodiment and sexuality. It looks at Derrida's return to Artaud and specific questions of avant-garde poetics in his later writing. Artaud's Theatre of Cruelty called for a re-inspiration of 'breath' 'the question of breathing is of prime importance' against the degenerative affects of classical metaphysics and its lingering influence on modern philosophy and art. The dualisms between body and mind, text and performance, instituted a breathless death of what Artaud affirmed as the 'life-force' or 'existence'. Derrida's early essays on Artaud initially portray his work as instigating an original and powerful critique of philosophy. Derrida credits Artaud both with overcoming a certain 'naive' metaphysics and with being irreducible to the 'essentialist' interpretations of avant-garde readers such as Maurice Blanchot.
