• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.45
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• pp.219-243
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• 2016

The life of Antonin Artaud exactly reproduces a very cruel drama. He lived in constant anguish and suffered from severe mental pain. This research will trace his thoughts in his writings while he was a prisoner of language. Artaud was a poet filled with anxiety about language, things, being, and thought. Whenever he tried to explain the mystery of being by means of mundane language, he experienced psychological agony. His poetic thoughts began to break down, because of his identity loss. Nevertheless, he was destined to grasp the world through language. Artaud had suffered from mental illness during his youth. His mental illness was associated with his difficulty in creating poetry. In this research, the letter, Correspondance avec Jacques $Rivi{\grave{e}}re$, is analyzed. The poet refers to "the collapse of the spirit's core, and the erosion of the fundamental thought that slips away" to convey his linguistic incompetence. Hereafter, he constantly demonstrated anxious mental symptoms. Even though he became mentally deranged, he maintained his consciousness, as is apparent in his writings. Also, his spiritual belief is reflected in his mental uneasiness. While he was traveling through the Tarahumaras area in Mexico, he was obsessed with its primitive belief in the Peyote rituals, and he immersed himself in performing them. His unchristian belief was the product of his mystical personality. Until his last breath, he did not give up writing. Artaud's mental derangement does not mean lunacy, but if one insists in calling it so, that is a metaphor. His derangement comes from his refusal to accept his limitations and from his aspiring to regard his body in the same light as his intellectual perceptions. His intellect could manifest more easily when his mind was elevated to the extreme. Artaud's lunacy is no different from that of a profound philosopher. The lives of poets who suffer from mental derangement are more poetic than the lives of those who do not. Artaud's atypical emotions provide a way of to measure our own limitations, helplessness, and resignation. His scream is nonsegmental but different from that of a mental patient. That difference is why people are interested in his works and wish to delve into his writings.

• Journal of Korean Philosophical Society
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• v.131
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• pp.77-103
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• 2014

It is well known that Nietzsche insists on the affirmation of life, and the subject of 'affirmation of life' is a familiar one in Nietzsche literature. We want to throw an unfamiliar light on this familiar subject, connecting the theme of affirmation with that of redemption, and insisting on the centrality of the theme of redemption in Zarathustra's teaching of ${\ddot{U}}bermensch$. For Nietzsche, the redemption of human life means that its life is endowed with some meaning and its existence is positively justified. With this redemption, an active affirmation of life is possible, which means that we not only endure this life once but also request it for indefinite times. According to Nietzsche, for this kind of redemption and active affirmation we need an ultimate ground of meaning and only the excellence of life, that is, of 'will to power' can serve as this ultimate ground. Accepting the Greek way of identifying virtue with excellence, Nietzsche thought that life can justify itself at the ultimate form of life in ${\ddot{U}}bermensch$. Then, through ${\ddot{U}}bermensch$ the way is opened for man to endow meanings on and justify its life. That is, ${\ddot{U}}bermensch$ is not only the one who affirms its life, but also the very condition in which humanity can justify its life in general. With the goal and ideal of ${\ddot{U}}bermensch$ accepted, the affirmation and redemption of an individual life depends on how it manages to create its own life in relation to this goal and ideal. According to Nietzsche, though we cannot go back to the past, we still can recreate it and change its meanings through working on the future. Only those who try to create a meaningful future and thus recreate the past could redeem and affirm their own lives. That is, for Nietzsche, to affirm and redeem one's life means not just to change one's attitude to life but to create and recreate it with the eye for ${\ddot{U}}bermensch$.