Henry Bataille

Félix-Henri Bataille (4 April 1872 in Nîmes – 2 March 1922 in Rueil-Malmaison[1]) was a French dramatist and poet. His works were popular between 1900 and the start of World War I.

Henry Bataille
Henry Bataille 1911
Born	(1872-04-04)4 April 1872 Nîmes
Died	2 March 1922(1922-03-02) (aged 49) Rueil-Malmaison
Known for	French dramatist, poet.

Bataille's parents died when he was young.[2] He attended the École des Beaux-Arts and Académie Julian[3] to study painting, but started writing when he was 14. Henry wrote plays and poems, but after the success of his second play, La Lépreuse, he became a playwright exclusively. Bataille's early works explored the effects of passion on human motivation and how stifling the social conventions of the times could be. For example, Maman Colibri, is about a middle-aged woman's affair with a younger man. Later, Bataille would gravitate towards the theater of ideas and social drama.

Bataille was also a theorist of subconscious motivation. While he did not use his theories in most of his own works, he influenced later playwrights such as Jean-Jacques Bernard and the "school of silence".