Review: Samuel Beckett & Compagnie

Chronic Conditions: Beckett, Bergson and Samuel Johnson

This article analyses the work of the twentieth-century late modernist Samuel Beckett, in light of the turn-of-the-century anti-rationalist Henri Bergson (1859-1941) and the eighteenth-century neoclassicist Samuel Johnson (1709-1784). What unites these three very different thinkers is a concern over habitual, automatic and involuntary behavior, which in all three cases has a distinctly neurolog...

Jackson’s Parrot: Samuel Beckett, Aphasic Speech Automatisms, and Psychosomatic Language

This article explores the relationship between automatic and involuntary language in the work of Samuel Beckett and late nineteenth-century neurological conceptions of language that emerged from aphasiology. Using the work of John Hughlings Jackson alongside contemporary neuroscientific research, we explore the significance of the lexical and affective symmetries between Beckett's compulsive an...

978 - 0 - 521 - 11388 - 5 - Samuel Beckett and the Postcolonial Novel

From this place nineteen years ago the Republic of Ireland was proclaimed. This was the scene of an event which will ever be counted an epoch in our history – the beginning of one of Ireland’s most glorious and sustained efforts for independence. It has been a reproach to us that the spot has remained so long unmarked. To-day we remove the reproach. All who enter this hall henceforth will be re...

Violence du langage dans l’œuvre dramatique de Samuel Beckett : la quête du néant

L’homme beckettien représente grosso modo sur la scène de théâtre des années cinquante le spectacle de souffrance physique et de désintégration totale du sujet qui est le fait d’un trauma et d’un complexe plus profonds, celui du vide de matières scéniques et du mal fondamental qu’on traiterait d’existentiel. En d’autres termes, le mal est dans ce monde quelque chose d’inné chez l’être humain. C...

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