{"title":"Waiting with Beckett in the Anthropocene.","authors":"Laura Salisbury","doi":"10.3366/jobs.2024.0415","DOIUrl":"10.3366/jobs.2024.0415","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":41421,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF BECKETT STUDIES","volume":"33 1","pages":"14-40"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2024-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7616253/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141725490","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"<i>Samuel Beckett and Technology</i>, ed. Galina Kiryushina, Einat Adar and Mark Nixon","authors":"Brian Wall","doi":"10.3366/jobs.2023.0409","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/jobs.2023.0409","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":41421,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF BECKETT STUDIES","volume":"30 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135691203","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Notes on Contributors","authors":"","doi":"10.3366/jobs.2023.0410","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/jobs.2023.0410","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":41421,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF BECKETT STUDIES","volume":"92 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135691204","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"<i>Happy Days</i> in Porto, directed by Niall Henry, Blue Raincoat Theatre Company","authors":"Seán Golden","doi":"10.3366/jobs.2023.0407","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/jobs.2023.0407","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":41421,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF BECKETT STUDIES","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135691391","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"We Wrote to Samuel Beckett","authors":"Magnus Hedlund, Claes Hylinger","doi":"10.3366/jobs.2023.0405","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/jobs.2023.0405","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":41421,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF BECKETT STUDIES","volume":"12 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135691207","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The present essay argues that Beckett's concept of ‘formal integrity’, which he first articulated in his discussion of Film with the production team in 1964, was in fact shaped long before Film was on Beckett's writing desk. Rather, it emerged gradually during the early genesis of Play, the work that has often been associated with Film as the two were written around the same time and deal with similar themes. In order to make this point, the essay engages with the draft material in a recently discovered notebook that contains the earliest stage of the play's genesis – the manuscripts that were long considered lost and not recoverable. While paying due attention to the relevance to Play of the other works populating the notebook, the main focus lies on the development of what it terms Beckett's conceptual (rather than textual) writing style, which is a consequence of his quest for ‘formal integrity’. More specifically, the essay demonstrates that this ‘formal integrity’ goes beyond Beckett's extreme attention to Play's form (something that has been noted in literature), but hinges on correspondences between both formal and textual elements. In other words, it refers just as much to the content as it does to form, but content differently conceived as compared to his earlier plays.
{"title":"Before <i>Play</i>, With <i>Play</i>, After <i>Play</i>: The Shaping of ‘formal integrity’ in the Early Drafts of <i>Play</i>","authors":"Olga Beloborodova","doi":"10.3366/jobs.2023.0404","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/jobs.2023.0404","url":null,"abstract":"The present essay argues that Beckett's concept of ‘formal integrity’, which he first articulated in his discussion of Film with the production team in 1964, was in fact shaped long before Film was on Beckett's writing desk. Rather, it emerged gradually during the early genesis of Play, the work that has often been associated with Film as the two were written around the same time and deal with similar themes. In order to make this point, the essay engages with the draft material in a recently discovered notebook that contains the earliest stage of the play's genesis – the manuscripts that were long considered lost and not recoverable. While paying due attention to the relevance to Play of the other works populating the notebook, the main focus lies on the development of what it terms Beckett's conceptual (rather than textual) writing style, which is a consequence of his quest for ‘formal integrity’. More specifically, the essay demonstrates that this ‘formal integrity’ goes beyond Beckett's extreme attention to Play's form (something that has been noted in literature), but hinges on correspondences between both formal and textual elements. In other words, it refers just as much to the content as it does to form, but content differently conceived as compared to his earlier plays.","PeriodicalId":41421,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF BECKETT STUDIES","volume":"78 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135691387","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The article revisits the reference to the 18 th century Irish philosopher George Berkeley in Samuel Beckett's first published novel, Murphy. Previous scholarship assumed that references to Berkeley's theory of immaterialism were inherent to the novel's exploration of the relations between the mind and the world. However a comparison of the novel's manuscript, typescript and the final printed version reveals that they were a relatively late addition. As Beckett was typing up the manuscript in June 1936 he expanded on a previous cryptic allusion to Berkeley, and added two more. Beckett's reluctance to engage with Berkeley in the earlier version may be due in part to his scepticism towards the Irish Revival which adopted the famous philosopher as a national model for Irish thinking. It was Beckett's reading of Arnold Geulincx in 1936, it is argued, that made him revisit Berkeley's views and contrast them with Geulingian ethics which he viewed more favourably. The first reference to Berkeley in the published novel echoes a comparison he made between him and Arnold Geulincx in a letter to McGreevy, highlighting the relevance of this reference point for Beckett's treatment of Berkeley. The denial that Murphy's mind was ‘involved in the idealist tar’ is shown to be subsequent to Beckett's reading of Geulincx. Finally, the reference to ‘percipi’ and ‘percipere’ in the description of Murphy's state following his game of chess with Mr. Endon is correlated with Geulincx's ethics to suggest that, however briefly, Murphy becomes aware of his own impotence.
{"title":"‘The Young Fellow of Trinity College’: Beckett, Berkeley, and the Genesis of <i>Murphy</i>","authors":"Einat Adar","doi":"10.3366/jobs.2023.0401","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/jobs.2023.0401","url":null,"abstract":"The article revisits the reference to the 18 th century Irish philosopher George Berkeley in Samuel Beckett's first published novel, Murphy. Previous scholarship assumed that references to Berkeley's theory of immaterialism were inherent to the novel's exploration of the relations between the mind and the world. However a comparison of the novel's manuscript, typescript and the final printed version reveals that they were a relatively late addition. As Beckett was typing up the manuscript in June 1936 he expanded on a previous cryptic allusion to Berkeley, and added two more. Beckett's reluctance to engage with Berkeley in the earlier version may be due in part to his scepticism towards the Irish Revival which adopted the famous philosopher as a national model for Irish thinking. It was Beckett's reading of Arnold Geulincx in 1936, it is argued, that made him revisit Berkeley's views and contrast them with Geulingian ethics which he viewed more favourably. The first reference to Berkeley in the published novel echoes a comparison he made between him and Arnold Geulincx in a letter to McGreevy, highlighting the relevance of this reference point for Beckett's treatment of Berkeley. The denial that Murphy's mind was ‘involved in the idealist tar’ is shown to be subsequent to Beckett's reading of Geulincx. Finally, the reference to ‘percipi’ and ‘percipere’ in the description of Murphy's state following his game of chess with Mr. Endon is correlated with Geulincx's ethics to suggest that, however briefly, Murphy becomes aware of his own impotence.","PeriodicalId":41421,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF BECKETT STUDIES","volume":"30 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135691388","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Beckett’s thirteen short prose pieces Texts for Nothing seems to shuttle between two discrete worlds that somehow bear upon each other, although the nature of the relation between them is highly mobile. One possible approach to the work is through Beckett’s reference to the idea of a ‘form of life’ in TFN6: ‘Or to know it’s life still, a form of life, ordained to end, as others ended and will end’ ( Beckett, 1995 , 125). The phrase holds out the possibility of a graspable difference between the two worlds abovementioned: in one of them life has form, in the other, it does not. Beckett’s source for the term, which goes back to Goethe, is Ernst Cassirer’s Kant’s Life and Thought. ‘Form of life’ can also be found sporadically in Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations and, more consistently in the work of Giorgio Agamben, to whose thought I appeal to at the end of this essay. But before that I consider in detail the way Texts for Nothing grapples with the question of how a form can be given to a life, and in particular the opposition between narrative and poesis that the work grapples with.
{"title":"‘Viewless Forms’/ Form-of-Life: Death, Story and <i>Poiēsis</i> in <i>Texts for Nothing</i>","authors":"Conor Carville","doi":"10.3366/jobs.2023.0403","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/jobs.2023.0403","url":null,"abstract":"Beckett’s thirteen short prose pieces Texts for Nothing seems to shuttle between two discrete worlds that somehow bear upon each other, although the nature of the relation between them is highly mobile. One possible approach to the work is through Beckett’s reference to the idea of a ‘form of life’ in TFN6: ‘Or to know it’s life still, a form of life, ordained to end, as others ended and will end’ ( Beckett, 1995 , 125). The phrase holds out the possibility of a graspable difference between the two worlds abovementioned: in one of them life has form, in the other, it does not. Beckett’s source for the term, which goes back to Goethe, is Ernst Cassirer’s Kant’s Life and Thought. ‘Form of life’ can also be found sporadically in Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations and, more consistently in the work of Giorgio Agamben, to whose thought I appeal to at the end of this essay. But before that I consider in detail the way Texts for Nothing grapples with the question of how a form can be given to a life, and in particular the opposition between narrative and poesis that the work grapples with.","PeriodicalId":41421,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF BECKETT STUDIES","volume":"8 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135691396","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}