Accident as Event

2020 ◽  
pp. 35-64
Author(s):  
Julia Jordan
Keyword(s):  
Samuel Beckett ◽  
Late Modernism ◽  
Central Concern ◽  
Muriel Spark ◽  
Traumatic Violence

Dealing with a broad sweep of experimental novels of the period that make accident a central concern, this chapter examines writing by Samuel Beckett, Brigid Brophy, Eva Figes, Gabriel Josipovici, Nicholas Mosley, Muriel Spark, and Stefan Themerson. In these the accident emerges as a thematic motif or philosophical principle: as chronological paralysis, traumatic violence, revelatory or epiphanic understanding, or eroticized encounter with technology. In late modernism, the uneasy mingling of the precariousness induced by an awareness of life as threatened by the atomic as well as constituted by it seems contradictory to an understanding of the accident as inevitable. This is prevalent in Beckett’s invocation of the void as much as in the frantic figurations of a writer like Brophy. The accident then emerges as what reveals the late modernist disposition to passivity, non-mastery, dissolution, and silence, pushing at the limits of what can and cannot be known.

Racine Lighting Beckett

2016 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 225-242
Author(s):  
Cal Revely-Calder
Keyword(s):  
Samuel Beckett ◽  
Trinity College ◽  
Trinity College Dublin ◽  
The Trinity

Critics have recently begun to pay attention to the influence Jean Racine's plays had on the work of Samuel Beckett, noting his 1930–31 lectures at Trinity College Dublin, and echoes of Racine in early texts such as Murphy (1938). This essay suggests that as well as the Trinity lectures, Beckett's later re-reading of Racine (in 1956) can be seen as fundamentally influential on his drama. There are moments of direct allusion to Racine's work, as in Oh les beaux jours (1963), where the echoes are easily discernible; but I suggest that soon, in particular with Come and Go (1965), the characteristics of a distinctly Racinian stagecraft become more subtly apparent, in what Danièle de Ruyter has called ‘choix plus spécifiquement théâtraux’: pared-down lighting, carefully-crafted entries and exits, and visual tableaux made increasingly difficult to read. Through an account of Racine's dramaturgy, and the ways in which he structures bodily motion and theatrical talk, I suggest that Beckett's post-1956 drama can be better understood, as stage-spectacles, in the light of Racine's plays; both writers give us, in Myriam Jeantroux's phrase, the complicated spectacle of ‘un lieu à la fois désert et clôturé’. As spectators to Beckett's drama, by keeping Racine in mind we can come to understand better the limitations of that spectatorship, and how the later plays trouble our ability to see – and interpret – the figures that move before us.

Samuel Beckett and the Rule of Law

1993 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-72
Author(s):  
Phil Baker
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Samuel Beckett ◽  
The Rule Of Law

‘Minister of Horses’: Samuel Beckett according to Fernando Arrabal

2015 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 223-241
Author(s):  
José Francisco Fernández
Keyword(s):  
Samuel Beckett ◽  
Fernando Arrabal

This study takes the form of a chronicle of the life-long friendship between Samuel Beckett and Spanish playwright Fernando Arrabal. First, the circumstances in which they became acquainted will be explored. Then, that streak of irreverent humour shared by both writers will be discussed, especially in relation to their interest in Surrealism. Following this, the Spaniard's opinions on Beckett's partner, Suzanne Deschevaux-Dumesnil, will be considered. Finally, Arrabal's trial for blasphemy in 1967 is examined in detail, including Beckett's letter in his defence.

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