Dirk Van Hulle
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780813032009
- eISBN:
- 9780813039657
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813032009.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
By taking the principles of manuscript genetics and using them to engage in a comparative study of James Joyce and Samuel Beckett, this book re-imagines the links between them. The readings reveal ...
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By taking the principles of manuscript genetics and using them to engage in a comparative study of James Joyce and Samuel Beckett, this book re-imagines the links between them. The readings reveal that the most striking similarities between these two lie not in their nationality or style but in their shared fascination with the process of revision. The book's application of genetic theory—the study of a work from manuscript to final form in its various iterations—marks a new phase in this dynamic field of inquiry.Less
By taking the principles of manuscript genetics and using them to engage in a comparative study of James Joyce and Samuel Beckett, this book re-imagines the links between them. The readings reveal that the most striking similarities between these two lie not in their nationality or style but in their shared fascination with the process of revision. The book's application of genetic theory—the study of a work from manuscript to final form in its various iterations—marks a new phase in this dynamic field of inquiry.
Alan Gillis
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199277094
- eISBN:
- 9780191707483
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199277094.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry
This chapter intercedes in contemporary arguments surrounding poetic modernism by ignoring the usual terms of debate, which are often generalized and abstract, and look directly at the form and style ...
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This chapter intercedes in contemporary arguments surrounding poetic modernism by ignoring the usual terms of debate, which are often generalized and abstract, and look directly at the form and style of these poets’ experimental works. The core stylistic manoeuvres and thematic obsessions of Denis Devlin’s poetry in Intercessions are explored, and the specific bent of his religious concerns are interpreted as highly conservative. Brian Coffey’s Third Person is then addressed with similar attention to detail. The elliptical, semantic slippages, and negations of his verse are seen to be couched towards an immanent sense of transcendence. Similar to Devlin, Coffey’s theological preoccupations create a highly conservative form of poetic radicalism. Contrasting sharply with these two, the chapter argues, is the authentic nihilism and gratuitous aggression of Samuel Beckett’s poetry. Focusing on Echo’s Bones, the chapter examines the paradox of Beckett’s militant refusal to confer any positive value to aesthetics, in the light of his infatuation with aestheticism. It traces his poetics in the context of his readings of Proust and Joyce, and concludes that his verse of this time is authentically radical in constituting a fundamental and problematic assault on any value system whatsoever. The verse of all three is read as offering sharply differentiated interpretations of Irish history and culture.Less
This chapter intercedes in contemporary arguments surrounding poetic modernism by ignoring the usual terms of debate, which are often generalized and abstract, and look directly at the form and style of these poets’ experimental works. The core stylistic manoeuvres and thematic obsessions of Denis Devlin’s poetry in Intercessions are explored, and the specific bent of his religious concerns are interpreted as highly conservative. Brian Coffey’s Third Person is then addressed with similar attention to detail. The elliptical, semantic slippages, and negations of his verse are seen to be couched towards an immanent sense of transcendence. Similar to Devlin, Coffey’s theological preoccupations create a highly conservative form of poetic radicalism. Contrasting sharply with these two, the chapter argues, is the authentic nihilism and gratuitous aggression of Samuel Beckett’s poetry. Focusing on Echo’s Bones, the chapter examines the paradox of Beckett’s militant refusal to confer any positive value to aesthetics, in the light of his infatuation with aestheticism. It traces his poetics in the context of his readings of Proust and Joyce, and concludes that his verse of this time is authentically radical in constituting a fundamental and problematic assault on any value system whatsoever. The verse of all three is read as offering sharply differentiated interpretations of Irish history and culture.
Thomas M. Curley
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781942954668
- eISBN:
- 9781789629293
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781942954668.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
In “Samuel Beckett and Samuel Johnson: Like-Minded Masters of Life’s Limitations,” Thomas M. Curley reminds us that Johnson’s overall philosophy of life was traditionally and emphatically Christian. ...
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In “Samuel Beckett and Samuel Johnson: Like-Minded Masters of Life’s Limitations,” Thomas M. Curley reminds us that Johnson’s overall philosophy of life was traditionally and emphatically Christian. But he was a fearful believer, part of whose anxiety, Curley argues, stemmed from a sense of existential emptiness flowing from his abiding vision that we do not really live in the present but, exist primarily by means of past or future apprehensions of living. Perhaps no famous modern author, Curley contends, was more fascinated by Johnson and his anxieties than Samuel Beckett. Beckett turned a blind eye to the traditional magisterial figure of the Great Cham and instead focused upon a doubt-ridden and phobia-filled persona, a subversive Johnson, wrought in the Irishman’s own image and serving as a formative influence on his canon. Johnson’s influence upon Beckett—however unlikely—proves upon deeper scrutiny to be profound.Less
In “Samuel Beckett and Samuel Johnson: Like-Minded Masters of Life’s Limitations,” Thomas M. Curley reminds us that Johnson’s overall philosophy of life was traditionally and emphatically Christian. But he was a fearful believer, part of whose anxiety, Curley argues, stemmed from a sense of existential emptiness flowing from his abiding vision that we do not really live in the present but, exist primarily by means of past or future apprehensions of living. Perhaps no famous modern author, Curley contends, was more fascinated by Johnson and his anxieties than Samuel Beckett. Beckett turned a blind eye to the traditional magisterial figure of the Great Cham and instead focused upon a doubt-ridden and phobia-filled persona, a subversive Johnson, wrought in the Irishman’s own image and serving as a formative influence on his canon. Johnson’s influence upon Beckett—however unlikely—proves upon deeper scrutiny to be profound.
Neil Cornwell
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- July 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780719074097
- eISBN:
- 9781781700969
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719074097.003.0008
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature
This chapter explores several of Samuel Beckett's works, where one can find traces of the absurd. It first takes a look at traces of Kafka in Beckett's work, and then studies the prose fiction of ...
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This chapter explores several of Samuel Beckett's works, where one can find traces of the absurd. It first takes a look at traces of Kafka in Beckett's work, and then studies the prose fiction of Beckett's prewar period, a period that covers three works: Dream of Fair to Middling Women, More Pricks Than Kicks and Murphy. This is followed by a discussion of Beckett's foray into drama, wherein Endgame and Waiting for Godot are examined. The chapter also explores the Kharmasian trace in Beckett, views Watt as the epitome of Beckettian absurdism and considers the nature of the absurd in terms of Beckett.Less
This chapter explores several of Samuel Beckett's works, where one can find traces of the absurd. It first takes a look at traces of Kafka in Beckett's work, and then studies the prose fiction of Beckett's prewar period, a period that covers three works: Dream of Fair to Middling Women, More Pricks Than Kicks and Murphy. This is followed by a discussion of Beckett's foray into drama, wherein Endgame and Waiting for Godot are examined. The chapter also explores the Kharmasian trace in Beckett, views Watt as the epitome of Beckettian absurdism and considers the nature of the absurd in terms of Beckett.
Patrick Hayes
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199587957
- eISBN:
- 9780191723292
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199587957.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, World Literature, 20th-century and Contemporary Literature
Coetzee's importance within the tradition of the novel lies in the way he has developed and extended the legacy of modernist writing in general, and Samuel Beckett's modernism in particular. This ...
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Coetzee's importance within the tradition of the novel lies in the way he has developed and extended the legacy of modernist writing in general, and Samuel Beckett's modernism in particular. This chapter shows that he engages with Beckett in a discerning and critical way, emphasizing the particular importance of Beckett's representation of nothingness and alterity in The Unnamable, and how this relates to a prose style that embraces folly and literary weakness. With reference to the early fiction, especially In the Heart of the Country and Waiting for the Barbarians, this chapter argues that Coetzee adapts Beckett's style to his attempt to rethink the way in which a more directly political kind of fiction might explore the problem of recognition.Less
Coetzee's importance within the tradition of the novel lies in the way he has developed and extended the legacy of modernist writing in general, and Samuel Beckett's modernism in particular. This chapter shows that he engages with Beckett in a discerning and critical way, emphasizing the particular importance of Beckett's representation of nothingness and alterity in The Unnamable, and how this relates to a prose style that embraces folly and literary weakness. With reference to the early fiction, especially In the Heart of the Country and Waiting for the Barbarians, this chapter argues that Coetzee adapts Beckett's style to his attempt to rethink the way in which a more directly political kind of fiction might explore the problem of recognition.
Daniela Caselli
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- July 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780719071560
- eISBN:
- 9781781701973
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719071560.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century and Contemporary Literature
This introductory chapter considers the inclusion of Dante in Beckett studies, where the former stands out and stands for Samuel Beckett's isolation and greatness. It addresses the main argument of ...
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This introductory chapter considers the inclusion of Dante in Beckett studies, where the former stands out and stands for Samuel Beckett's isolation and greatness. It addresses the main argument of the study, that Dante's presence in Beckett is part of a critique of value and authority, the latter becoming a critical issue when studying the relationships between these two authors. This chapter also identifies the approaches that are focused on quantifying ‘how much Dante’ can be found in Beckett, or on determining how accurate or revealing Beckett's representations of Dante may be.Less
This introductory chapter considers the inclusion of Dante in Beckett studies, where the former stands out and stands for Samuel Beckett's isolation and greatness. It addresses the main argument of the study, that Dante's presence in Beckett is part of a critique of value and authority, the latter becoming a critical issue when studying the relationships between these two authors. This chapter also identifies the approaches that are focused on quantifying ‘how much Dante’ can be found in Beckett, or on determining how accurate or revealing Beckett's representations of Dante may be.
Kirsten Shepherd-Barr
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780231164702
- eISBN:
- 9780231538923
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231164702.003.0008
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter examines the relevance of evolution to Samuel Beckett's drama and tackles questions such as: How do the common critical descriptors of Beckett's works as about death, endlessness, and ...
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This chapter examines the relevance of evolution to Samuel Beckett's drama and tackles questions such as: How do the common critical descriptors of Beckett's works as about death, endlessness, and meaninglessness relate to characterizations of his vision as “unsentimental” and “harsh,” terms often used to describe the nature of Darwinian evolution by natural selection? What is Beckett's theater saying about the interplay between the organism and its environment? Focusing on Beckett's works such as Waiting for Godot and Happy Days, this chapter considers his depiction of the natural world, including climate and weather, his allusions to Charles Darwin, and how he addresses themes such as entropy and adaptation, symbiosis and antagonism, extinction, and change.Less
This chapter examines the relevance of evolution to Samuel Beckett's drama and tackles questions such as: How do the common critical descriptors of Beckett's works as about death, endlessness, and meaninglessness relate to characterizations of his vision as “unsentimental” and “harsh,” terms often used to describe the nature of Darwinian evolution by natural selection? What is Beckett's theater saying about the interplay between the organism and its environment? Focusing on Beckett's works such as Waiting for Godot and Happy Days, this chapter considers his depiction of the natural world, including climate and weather, his allusions to Charles Darwin, and how he addresses themes such as entropy and adaptation, symbiosis and antagonism, extinction, and change.
Cóilín Parsons
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- June 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780198767701
- eISBN:
- 9780191821585
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198767701.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century and Contemporary Literature, European Literature
This chapter analyzes the work of Samuel Beckett, engaging with the debate that has emerged in the last two decades over the location of Beckett’s abstract, disorienting landscapes. Rather than ...
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This chapter analyzes the work of Samuel Beckett, engaging with the debate that has emerged in the last two decades over the location of Beckett’s abstract, disorienting landscapes. Rather than trying to locate and fix Beckett’s non-representational landscapes, as one strand of Beckett criticism attempts, this chapter asks where Beckett may have found the inspiration for his landscapes, and why. Moving from Beckett’s pre-war prose to his post-war plays, the chapter links together More Pricks Than Kicks and Molloy to argue that the turn to dislocated spaces began much earlier than critics have imagined, and has its roots in Beckett’s interest in landscape, ruins, and maps in More Pricks. Beckett’s shift from his early work to his post-war prose is, in many ways, a compacted archive of Irish landscape representation, as it moves from the antiquarian interests of the Survey to the abstractions of modernism.Less
This chapter analyzes the work of Samuel Beckett, engaging with the debate that has emerged in the last two decades over the location of Beckett’s abstract, disorienting landscapes. Rather than trying to locate and fix Beckett’s non-representational landscapes, as one strand of Beckett criticism attempts, this chapter asks where Beckett may have found the inspiration for his landscapes, and why. Moving from Beckett’s pre-war prose to his post-war plays, the chapter links together More Pricks Than Kicks and Molloy to argue that the turn to dislocated spaces began much earlier than critics have imagined, and has its roots in Beckett’s interest in landscape, ruins, and maps in More Pricks. Beckett’s shift from his early work to his post-war prose is, in many ways, a compacted archive of Irish landscape representation, as it moves from the antiquarian interests of the Survey to the abstractions of modernism.
Helen Deutsch
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- February 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226143828
- eISBN:
- 9780226143859
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226143859.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, 18th-century Literature
This chapter sums up the key findings of this study on the autopsy of the body of Samuel Johnson. It discusses alternate versions of Johnsonian afterlife in texts by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Vladimir ...
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This chapter sums up the key findings of this study on the autopsy of the body of Samuel Johnson. It discusses alternate versions of Johnsonian afterlife in texts by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Vladimir Nabokov, and Samuel Beckett. This chapter suggests that each of these demonstrated how the love of Johnson endures not despite his mortality but because of it.Less
This chapter sums up the key findings of this study on the autopsy of the body of Samuel Johnson. It discusses alternate versions of Johnsonian afterlife in texts by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Vladimir Nabokov, and Samuel Beckett. This chapter suggests that each of these demonstrated how the love of Johnson endures not despite his mortality but because of it.
Seb Franklin
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780262029537
- eISBN:
- 9780262331135
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262029537.003.0004
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Technology and Society
This chapter evaluates the ways in which literary texts can be read as aesthetic formulations of control. The chapter first examines Deleuze’s positioning of Franz Kafka’s The Trial at the emergence ...
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This chapter evaluates the ways in which literary texts can be read as aesthetic formulations of control. The chapter first examines Deleuze’s positioning of Franz Kafka’s The Trial at the emergence of control societies, before working through the ways in which language and literature were addressed by cyberneticians in the 1940s and 1950s. The second half of the chapter draws on the work of Deleuze, Friedrich Kittler, and Lev Manovich in order to track a series of parallel developments in user-oriented computing, conceptualizations of labor, and Samuel Beckett’s prose, plays, and television works. In so doing the chapter posits control as a cultural logic grounded in the ideal of producing action from discrete symbols and vice versa—an ideal that reveals complex connections between histories of technology, economy, and aesthetic production. The chapter ends by returning to the concept of exclusion discussed in chapter 3 in order to suggest some ways in which this concept, properly examined and historicized, might point not only towards the forms of violence that are specific to control, but also towards new sources of critique and political action.Less
This chapter evaluates the ways in which literary texts can be read as aesthetic formulations of control. The chapter first examines Deleuze’s positioning of Franz Kafka’s The Trial at the emergence of control societies, before working through the ways in which language and literature were addressed by cyberneticians in the 1940s and 1950s. The second half of the chapter draws on the work of Deleuze, Friedrich Kittler, and Lev Manovich in order to track a series of parallel developments in user-oriented computing, conceptualizations of labor, and Samuel Beckett’s prose, plays, and television works. In so doing the chapter posits control as a cultural logic grounded in the ideal of producing action from discrete symbols and vice versa—an ideal that reveals complex connections between histories of technology, economy, and aesthetic production. The chapter ends by returning to the concept of exclusion discussed in chapter 3 in order to suggest some ways in which this concept, properly examined and historicized, might point not only towards the forms of violence that are specific to control, but also towards new sources of critique and political action.
David Lloyd
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781474415729
- eISBN:
- 9781474426831
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474415729.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Drama
The introduction reviews Beckett’s life-long engagement with the visual arts and artists and explores previous critical work that has tended to take his statements on art largely as statements about ...
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The introduction reviews Beckett’s life-long engagement with the visual arts and artists and explores previous critical work that has tended to take his statements on art largely as statements about literary aesthetics. It argues for the need to attend to the actual works which Beckett saw and to understand his theatre as a form of visual and not primarily textual art. The introduction also summarizes the overall theoretical argument of the book that focuses on Beckett’s thinking of the “thing” as a post-representational category.Less
The introduction reviews Beckett’s life-long engagement with the visual arts and artists and explores previous critical work that has tended to take his statements on art largely as statements about literary aesthetics. It argues for the need to attend to the actual works which Beckett saw and to understand his theatre as a form of visual and not primarily textual art. The introduction also summarizes the overall theoretical argument of the book that focuses on Beckett’s thinking of the “thing” as a post-representational category.
Kevin Brazil
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- November 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198824459
- eISBN:
- 9780191863240
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198824459.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century and Contemporary Literature
Towards the end of his life Samuel Beckett reflected that ‘[l]iterature and painting are like oil and water’—two substances that can never be mixed together. Yet in spite of this—or perhaps because ...
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Towards the end of his life Samuel Beckett reflected that ‘[l]iterature and painting are like oil and water’—two substances that can never be mixed together. Yet in spite of this—or perhaps because of it—Beckett repeatedly used writing about art as a means to reflect on his own practice as a novelist: in letters, diaries, and in his published art criticism. This chapter traces Beckett’s engagement with art during the 1930s and 1940s, the period when he wrote his most significant novels: Molloy, Malone Dies, and The Unnamable. It argues that Beckett saw modernist painting as offering an example of formal necessity that could stand against the demands for political commitment circulating in postwar French critical debates, and it draws on detailed archival and manuscript research to show how Beckett’s art criticism informed the style and composition of his postwar trilogy.Less
Towards the end of his life Samuel Beckett reflected that ‘[l]iterature and painting are like oil and water’—two substances that can never be mixed together. Yet in spite of this—or perhaps because of it—Beckett repeatedly used writing about art as a means to reflect on his own practice as a novelist: in letters, diaries, and in his published art criticism. This chapter traces Beckett’s engagement with art during the 1930s and 1940s, the period when he wrote his most significant novels: Molloy, Malone Dies, and The Unnamable. It argues that Beckett saw modernist painting as offering an example of formal necessity that could stand against the demands for political commitment circulating in postwar French critical debates, and it draws on detailed archival and manuscript research to show how Beckett’s art criticism informed the style and composition of his postwar trilogy.
David Lloyd
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781474415729
- eISBN:
- 9781474426831
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474415729.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, Drama
This chapter explores Beckett’s writings on Dutch painter Bram van Velde, especially his 1949 “Three Dialogues with Georges Duthuit”. It discusses his dismissal of the work of French artists Pierre ...
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This chapter explores Beckett’s writings on Dutch painter Bram van Velde, especially his 1949 “Three Dialogues with Georges Duthuit”. It discusses his dismissal of the work of French artists Pierre Tal-Coat and André Masson in the context of French post-war cultural debates and explains his preference for van Velde’s work, in which image and figure are completely disintegrated. It shows how Beckett’s thinking of the thing parallels but eventually goes beyond that of Martin Heidegger and foregrounds the notion of gaze and voice as things. It argues that van Velde’s work brings Beckett to the fragmentation of his dramas into distinct elements of voice, action, gesture and gaze, and analyzes Krapp’s Last Tape and Film as examples of this process.Less
This chapter explores Beckett’s writings on Dutch painter Bram van Velde, especially his 1949 “Three Dialogues with Georges Duthuit”. It discusses his dismissal of the work of French artists Pierre Tal-Coat and André Masson in the context of French post-war cultural debates and explains his preference for van Velde’s work, in which image and figure are completely disintegrated. It shows how Beckett’s thinking of the thing parallels but eventually goes beyond that of Martin Heidegger and foregrounds the notion of gaze and voice as things. It argues that van Velde’s work brings Beckett to the fragmentation of his dramas into distinct elements of voice, action, gesture and gaze, and analyzes Krapp’s Last Tape and Film as examples of this process.
Sozita Goudouna
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781474421645
- eISBN:
- 9781474444927
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474421645.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
This section introduces a critical framework that discusses the interplay and interconnectedness of media and the dynamic tension between theatricality and the visual arts in the spectrum of ...
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This section introduces a critical framework that discusses the interplay and interconnectedness of media and the dynamic tension between theatricality and the visual arts in the spectrum of Beckett's Breath (1969). Argumentation builds upon the investigation of Fried's seminal theory “Art and Objecthood,” (1967) and Beckett's aesthetic theory in the “Three Dialogues with Georges Duthuit”(1949); both discourses are considered in relation to disciplinary or medial entanglements.Less
This section introduces a critical framework that discusses the interplay and interconnectedness of media and the dynamic tension between theatricality and the visual arts in the spectrum of Beckett's Breath (1969). Argumentation builds upon the investigation of Fried's seminal theory “Art and Objecthood,” (1967) and Beckett's aesthetic theory in the “Three Dialogues with Georges Duthuit”(1949); both discourses are considered in relation to disciplinary or medial entanglements.
Neil Levi
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780823255061
- eISBN:
- 9780823260867
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823255061.003.0007
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
This chapter examines the place of an individual character's name in Samuel Beckett's Molloy and its significance for understanding the distinctive formal features of his postwar prose. The name ...
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This chapter examines the place of an individual character's name in Samuel Beckett's Molloy and its significance for understanding the distinctive formal features of his postwar prose. The name Youdi is generally acknowledged in Beckett criticism to be an anti-Semitic slang name for a Jew. Yet as a rule, that meaning is no sooner acknowledged than disavowed. The chapter asks: what if we take that anti-Semitic meaning seriously? Beckett writes Molloy immediately after the Second World War and in the wake of a deep engagement with the work of the French novelist and notorious antisemite Louis-Ferdinand Céline, whose anti-Jewish writings explicitly invoke and elaborate upon the paranoid fantasy of Judaization. It is argued that we can read the narrative function of the antisemitic slang name in Molloy as a way for Beckett to present his own poetics as a negation and working through of the antisemitic mode of interpreting the subject's place in the world: the birth of Beckett's style, that is, out of the negation of the spirit of antisemitism.Less
This chapter examines the place of an individual character's name in Samuel Beckett's Molloy and its significance for understanding the distinctive formal features of his postwar prose. The name Youdi is generally acknowledged in Beckett criticism to be an anti-Semitic slang name for a Jew. Yet as a rule, that meaning is no sooner acknowledged than disavowed. The chapter asks: what if we take that anti-Semitic meaning seriously? Beckett writes Molloy immediately after the Second World War and in the wake of a deep engagement with the work of the French novelist and notorious antisemite Louis-Ferdinand Céline, whose anti-Jewish writings explicitly invoke and elaborate upon the paranoid fantasy of Judaization. It is argued that we can read the narrative function of the antisemitic slang name in Molloy as a way for Beckett to present his own poetics as a negation and working through of the antisemitic mode of interpreting the subject's place in the world: the birth of Beckett's style, that is, out of the negation of the spirit of antisemitism.
Lois Gordon
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- October 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780300092868
- eISBN:
- 9780300132021
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300092868.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century and Contemporary Literature
This chapter narrates the history and biography of Samuel Beckett after World War II, a period where he would produce his greatest works: Waiting for Godot, Molloy, Malone Dies, and The Unnamable. It ...
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This chapter narrates the history and biography of Samuel Beckett after World War II, a period where he would produce his greatest works: Waiting for Godot, Molloy, Malone Dies, and The Unnamable. It explores the factors that would lead to Beckett's maturation, the events he would witness that would influence his writing. It would be Beckett's work, then, that would extend to the limits of tragedy and comedy in the theatre, in a form he called tragicomedy—a vision that he gained from his life experiences through 1946. His view that evil could not go without confrontation, as well as his belief that the defense of good gives dignity and meaning to life, extends to his work—as despite his neutrality as an Irish citizen, Beckett could not stomach the thought of standing idly by while those around him suffered. Thus this chapter gives full view of the character and thoughts that make Beckett as he is, and how this character seeped into his plays.Less
This chapter narrates the history and biography of Samuel Beckett after World War II, a period where he would produce his greatest works: Waiting for Godot, Molloy, Malone Dies, and The Unnamable. It explores the factors that would lead to Beckett's maturation, the events he would witness that would influence his writing. It would be Beckett's work, then, that would extend to the limits of tragedy and comedy in the theatre, in a form he called tragicomedy—a vision that he gained from his life experiences through 1946. His view that evil could not go without confrontation, as well as his belief that the defense of good gives dignity and meaning to life, extends to his work—as despite his neutrality as an Irish citizen, Beckett could not stomach the thought of standing idly by while those around him suffered. Thus this chapter gives full view of the character and thoughts that make Beckett as he is, and how this character seeped into his plays.
Anthony Cordingley
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781474440608
- eISBN:
- 9781474453868
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474440608.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
This chapter sets out the history of the reception of Beckett’s How It Is and accounts for its relative neglect. The main lines of critical interpretation are identified and then challenged. The ...
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This chapter sets out the history of the reception of Beckett’s How It Is and accounts for its relative neglect. The main lines of critical interpretation are identified and then challenged. The work’s particular hermeneutic problems are discussed in relation to different theoretical orientations (post-structuralist, psychoanalytic, historicist and materialist), before exploring the text’s own representation of the relationships between voice and writing, memory and archive.Less
This chapter sets out the history of the reception of Beckett’s How It Is and accounts for its relative neglect. The main lines of critical interpretation are identified and then challenged. The work’s particular hermeneutic problems are discussed in relation to different theoretical orientations (post-structuralist, psychoanalytic, historicist and materialist), before exploring the text’s own representation of the relationships between voice and writing, memory and archive.
Mark Quigley
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780823245444
- eISBN:
- 9780823252565
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823245444.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature
This chapter builds on recent scholarship exploring the historical and material dimensions of Beckett’s thought and aesthetics, especially as they relate to postcoloniality and the geopolitical ...
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This chapter builds on recent scholarship exploring the historical and material dimensions of Beckett’s thought and aesthetics, especially as they relate to postcoloniality and the geopolitical re-alignments of the post-World War II era. Focusing particularly on his essays and his 1950s novel “trilogy,” the chapter examines how Beckett develops a radically new vision of the novel as part of a crucially important critique of subjectivity that marks the transition between late-modernist and postmodernist aesthetics. Tracing the relationship between this transition and a broader shift within postcoloniality from an era of late-imperial nationalisms to one of an incipient globalization, the chapter considers how Beckett’s handling of form helps bring into relief distinct phases of postcoloniality that are often blurred together. At the same time, the chapter illuminates how Beckett’s unrelenting inscription of absence at the heart of twentieth-century literary aesthetics constitutes part of a broader initiative within Irish late modernism that encompasses the spare accounts of the Blasket Island writers along with Beckett’s more well-known engagements with Joyce and Irish modernist poetry.Less
This chapter builds on recent scholarship exploring the historical and material dimensions of Beckett’s thought and aesthetics, especially as they relate to postcoloniality and the geopolitical re-alignments of the post-World War II era. Focusing particularly on his essays and his 1950s novel “trilogy,” the chapter examines how Beckett develops a radically new vision of the novel as part of a crucially important critique of subjectivity that marks the transition between late-modernist and postmodernist aesthetics. Tracing the relationship between this transition and a broader shift within postcoloniality from an era of late-imperial nationalisms to one of an incipient globalization, the chapter considers how Beckett’s handling of form helps bring into relief distinct phases of postcoloniality that are often blurred together. At the same time, the chapter illuminates how Beckett’s unrelenting inscription of absence at the heart of twentieth-century literary aesthetics constitutes part of a broader initiative within Irish late modernism that encompasses the spare accounts of the Blasket Island writers along with Beckett’s more well-known engagements with Joyce and Irish modernist poetry.
David Lloyd
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781474415729
- eISBN:
- 9781474426831
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474415729.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, Drama
Chapter 3 explores Beckett’s relationship with the Romanian-Jewish painter Avigdor Arikha. After long practicing as an abstract painter, in 1965 Arikha committed himself to working “from ...
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Chapter 3 explores Beckett’s relationship with the Romanian-Jewish painter Avigdor Arikha. After long practicing as an abstract painter, in 1965 Arikha committed himself to working “from observation”. His painting breaks with the traditions of Cézanne and Matisse, and was inspired by his discovery of Caravaggio. The chapter analyzes Arikha’s painting and Beckett’s later theatre through their shared aesthetic values and common interest in Caravaggio. Beckett’s plays like Come and Go, Footfalls and Not I are viewed as the realization of tableau and as a staging of the emergence of the human as thing.Less
Chapter 3 explores Beckett’s relationship with the Romanian-Jewish painter Avigdor Arikha. After long practicing as an abstract painter, in 1965 Arikha committed himself to working “from observation”. His painting breaks with the traditions of Cézanne and Matisse, and was inspired by his discovery of Caravaggio. The chapter analyzes Arikha’s painting and Beckett’s later theatre through their shared aesthetic values and common interest in Caravaggio. Beckett’s plays like Come and Go, Footfalls and Not I are viewed as the realization of tableau and as a staging of the emergence of the human as thing.
Neil Cornwell
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- July 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780719074097
- eISBN:
- 9781781700969
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719074097.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature
This book offers a comprehensive account of the absurd in prose fiction. As well as providing a basis for courses on absurdist literature (whether in fiction or in drama), it offers a broadly based ...
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This book offers a comprehensive account of the absurd in prose fiction. As well as providing a basis for courses on absurdist literature (whether in fiction or in drama), it offers a broadly based philosophical background. Sections covering theoretical approaches and an overview of the historical literary antecedents to the ‘modern’ absurd introduce the largely twentieth-century core chapters. In addition to discussing a variety of literary movements (from Surrealism to the Russian OBERIU), the book offers detailed case studies of four prominent exponents of the absurd: Franz Kafka, Samuel Beckett, Daniil Kharms and Flann O'Brien. There is also wide discussion of other English-language and European contributors to the phenomenon of the absurd.Less
This book offers a comprehensive account of the absurd in prose fiction. As well as providing a basis for courses on absurdist literature (whether in fiction or in drama), it offers a broadly based philosophical background. Sections covering theoretical approaches and an overview of the historical literary antecedents to the ‘modern’ absurd introduce the largely twentieth-century core chapters. In addition to discussing a variety of literary movements (from Surrealism to the Russian OBERIU), the book offers detailed case studies of four prominent exponents of the absurd: Franz Kafka, Samuel Beckett, Daniil Kharms and Flann O'Brien. There is also wide discussion of other English-language and European contributors to the phenomenon of the absurd.
