Samuel Beckett's Debt to Aristotle: Cosmology, Syllogism, Space, Time

2010 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 181-195 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony Cordingley
Keyword(s):  
Trinity College ◽  
Space Time ◽  
Formal Logic ◽  
Trinity College Dublin ◽  
Space And Time ◽  
Creative Transformation ◽  
Cosmic Order

This essay argues for the presence of Aristotelian ideas of cosmic order, syllogism, space and time in Beckett's . It accounts for how such ideas impact upon the novel's 'I' as he attempts to offer a philosophical 'solution' to his predicament in an underworld divorced from the revolving heavens. Beckett's study of formal logic as a student at Trinity College, Dublin and his private study of philosophy in 1932 is examined in this light; particularly his “Philosophy Notes,” along with some possible further sources for his knowledge. The essay then reveals a creative transformation of Aristotelian ideas in which led to formal innovations, such as the continuous present of its narrative.

The Physical Cosmos: Aristotelian Dialectics

2018 ◽  
pp. 76-109
Author(s):  
Anthony Cordingley
Keyword(s):  
World View ◽  
Narrative Structure ◽  
Ancient World ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Trinity College Dublin ◽  
Creative Transformation ◽  
Cosmic Order ◽  
Spatio Temporal ◽  
The Many ◽  
The Impact

This chapter explores the impact of the dialectics of the Ancient world after Plato upon Beckett’s French novels and the peculiar set of relations between characters and their physical environment in How It Is. It accounts for the presence of Aristotelian ideas of cosmic order, syllogism, space and time. Beckett’s study of formal logic as a student at Trinity College, Dublin and his private study of philosophy in 1932 is examined in this light; particularly his “Philosophy Notes,” along with further sources for his knowledge. The Aristotelian world view of his “I” is shown to be confronted with a set of relations resembling those of the Ancient Greek Stoics. The materiality of spatio-temporal relations in How It Is and the metaphysical coordinates between the “I”, its cosmos and any transcendent other are interrogated. The dialectic between Aristotelian and Stoic physics and metaphysics in How It Is emerges as a conceptual framework for exploring many of the novel’s contradictions, as well as the many confusions and digressions of its narrator/narrated. Beckett’s creative transformation of this ancient dialectic is shown, furthermore, to lead him to formal innovations, such as the novel’s continuous present tense and its complex narrative structure.

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.

Are We Doing Diversity Justice? A Critical Exchange

2020 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 112-119
Author(s):  
Chiamaka Enyi-Amadi ◽  
Emma Penney
Keyword(s):  
Trinity College ◽  
Literary Culture ◽  
Value Systems ◽  
Irish Literature ◽  
Critical Race ◽  
Roundtable Discussion ◽  
Literary Value ◽  
Irish Studies ◽  
Trinity College Dublin ◽  
Race Analysis

This critical exchange is based on a conversation between the authors which took place during the Irish University Review Roundtable Discussion: Displacing the Canon (2019 IASIL Conference, Trinity College Dublin). As authors we give first-hand accounts of our experience writing, editing, and teaching in Ireland, attempting to draw out concerns we have for the future of Irish literature and Irish Studies that specifically relate to race. The conversation here suggests that race directly impacts what we consider valuable in our literary culture. We both insist on decentring universalism as a governing literary critical concept and insist on the urgent application of critical race analysis to the construction of literary value systems in Ireland.

Poetry and Science: William Wordsworth and his Irish Friends William Rowan Hamilton and Francis Beaufort Edgeworth, c. 1829

Romanticism ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-101
Author(s):  
Brandon C. Yen
Keyword(s):  
Literary History ◽  
William Wordsworth ◽  
Trinity College ◽  
Bodleian Library ◽  
Trinity College Dublin ◽  
The Relationship

Through hitherto neglected manuscripts at Trinity College Dublin, the Bodleian Library, and the Wordsworth Trust, this paper explores the relationship between William Wordsworth and his Irish friends William Rowan Hamilton and Francis Beaufort Edgeworth around 1829. It details the debates about poetry and science between Hamilton (Professor of Astronomy at Trinity College Dublin and Royal Astronomer of Ireland) and Edgeworth (the novelist Maria Edgeworth's half-brother), in which Wordsworth was embroiled when he visited Ireland in the autumn of 1829. By examining a variety of documents including letters, poems, lectures, and memoirs, a fragment of literary history may be restored and a clearer understanding may be reached of the tensions between poetry and science in Wordsworth's poetry, particularly in The Excursion, and of the Irish provenance of a memorable passage in ‘On the Power of Sound’.

Espaço, Tempo e Modernidade

GEOgraphia ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 51
Author(s):  
Gilvan Luiz Hansen
Keyword(s):  
Modern Philosophy ◽  
Space Time ◽  
Space And Time ◽  
Time Concepts

Resumo Este artigo é uma discussão introdutória acerca da importância das concepções de espaço e tempo na modernidade. O objetivo deste texto é enfatizar os aspectos teóricos e práticos dos conceitos de espaço e tempo, mediante a apresentação de três perspectivas de interpretação desta questão na filosofia desenvolvida na modernidade. Palavras-chave: Modernidade, Espaço, Tempo, Filosofia Moderna, J. Habermas.Abstract This article is an introductory debate about the importance of space and time conceptions in modernity. The objective from this text is emphasize the theoretical and practical aspects of space and time concepts, by presentation of three interpretation perspectives of this question in the philosophy developed in modernity. Keywords: Modernity, Space, Time, Modern Philosophy, J. Habermas.

scholarly journals Spatial and space-time correlations in systems of subpopulations with genetic drift and migration.

Genetics ◽  
1993 ◽  
Vol 133 (3) ◽  
pp. 711-727
Author(s):  
B K Epperson
Keyword(s):  
Population Genetics ◽  
Time Correlation ◽  
Space Time ◽  
Spatial Correlations ◽  
Gene Frequencies ◽  
Migration Patterns ◽  
Migration Rates ◽  
Space And Time ◽  
Time Correlations ◽  
And Migration

Abstract The geographic distribution of genetic variation is an important theoretical and experimental component of population genetics. Previous characterizations of genetic structure of populations have used measures of spatial variance and spatial correlations. Yet a full understanding of the causes and consequences of spatial structure requires complete characterization of the underlying space-time system. This paper examines important interactions between processes and spatial structure in systems of subpopulations with migration and drift, by analyzing correlations of gene frequencies over space and time. We develop methods for studying important features of the complete set of space-time correlations of gene frequencies for the first time in population genetics. These methods also provide a new alternative for studying the purely spatial correlations and the variance, for models with general spatial dimensionalities and migration patterns. These results are obtained by employing theorems, previously unused in population genetics, for space-time autoregressive (STAR) stochastic spatial time series. We include results on systems with subpopulation interactions that have time delay lags (temporal orders) greater than one. We use the space-time correlation structure to develop novel estimators for migration rates that are based on space-time data (samples collected over space and time) rather than on purely spatial data, for real systems. We examine the space-time and spatial correlations for some specific stepping stone migration models. One focus is on the effects of anisotropic migration rates. Partial space-time correlation coefficients can be used for identifying migration patterns. Using STAR models, the spatial, space-time, and partial space-time correlations together provide a framework with an unprecedented level of detail for characterizing, predicting and contrasting space-time theoretical distributions of gene frequencies, and for identifying features such as the pattern of migration and estimating migration rates in experimental studies of genetic variation over space and time.

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