Unfinished Business: Tracing Incompletion in Jean Genet’s Posthumously Published Plays (Faux Titre, 135)

This is the first study systematically to appraise Splendid's, "Elle", and Le Bagne, the three plays by Jean Genet published after his death, both in the context of the dramatist's dramatic canon and with respect to one another. After showing that their unusual publishing history necessarily sets these works apart from Haute surveillance, Les Bonnes, Le Balcon, Les NÈgres, and Les Paravents, it argues that from Splendid's to Le Bagne, the question of incompletion is 'exteriorized' - moving from a purely thematic to an increasingly formal context - and that the status of each posthumously published work differs: Splendid's is a 'completed' play, thematizing incompletion; "Elle", with its seemingly incomplete form having thematic currency, is a 'properly unfinished' play; and as the intentionally 'fragmentary', purposefully suspended 'beginning' of a play, Le Bagne is shaped by incompletion.