Ubu enchaîné

Within Alfred Jarry’s substantial body of work, the so-called “Ubu cycle” forms a varied set of interwoven texts, written both before and after the play Ubu roi itself: on one hand, versions or significant fragments of the play had already been incorporated, for instance, into César-Antéchrist; others would be reused in Ubu cocu, Ubu enchaîné or Ubu sur la butte. Others still — the “Paralipomènes d’Ubu” (literally: “the remainders,” the offcuts) — create a kind of “world of Ubu,” whose customs Jarry pretends to explore in the tone of a naturalist describing the species of a continent he is discovering.