Politicizing Samuel Beckett’s Postwar Plays
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18485/kis.2020.52.170.5Keywords:
politics, Samuel Beckett, Giorgio Agamben, bare life, state of exceptionAbstract
This article examines Samuel Beckett’s post-WWII plays in order to contrive a political connection that has received insufficient attention in Beckett studies. The investigation is two-fold: first, I shall make textual analyses of Rough for Radio II and Catastrophe to investigate various performances of linguistic babbles; and second, I shall theorize Giorgio Agamben’s conceptual notions of “bare life” and the “state of exception” based on the analyses done in the first part. This article hopes to throw useful light on a political reading of Beckett’s work and to foreground the embedded problems in a modern democracy.
References
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O'Brien, Eoin. "Saint-Lô: 'Humanity in Ruins.'" The House of Industry Hospitals 1772-1987 The Richmond, Whitworth and Hardwicke (St Laurence's Hospital): A Closing Memoir. O'Brien, Lorna Browne and Kevin O'Malley, ed. and comp. Monkstown: Anniversary, 1988. 285.
Shenker, Israel. "An Interview with Beckett." 1956. Samuel Beckett: The Critical Heritage. Lawrence Graver and Raymond Federman, eds. London: Routledge, 1979. 146-148.
Adorno, Theodor W. Negative Dialectics. Trans. E. B. Ashton. London: Routledge, 1973.
Agamben, Giorgio. Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1995.
Agamben, Giorgio. State of Exception. Trans. Kevin Attell. Chicago: U. of Chicago P, 2005. <a href="https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226009261.001.0001" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Crossreff</a>
Agamben, Giorgio. The Open: Man and Animal. Trans. Kevin Attell. Stanford: Stanford UP, 2004.
Anderton, Joseph. Beckett's Creatures: Art of Failure after the Holocaust. London: Bloomsbury, 2016. 15. <a href="https://doi.org/10.5040/9781474234566" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Crossreff</a>
Beckett, Samuel. Disjecta: Miscellaneous Writings and a Dramatic Fragment. Ed. and fwd. Ruby Cohn. London: John Calder, 1983.
Beckett, Samuel. Samuel Beckett. Vol.4. Grove Centenary ed. New York: Grove, 2006.
Beckett, Samuel. The Complete Dramatic Works. London: Faber, 1986.
Beckett, Samuel. The Letters of Samuel Beckett: Volume II 1941-1956. Eds. George Craig, et al. Vol. 2. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2011.
Boxall, Peter. "Samuel Beckett: Towards a Political Reading." Irish Studies Review 10.2 (2002): 159-170. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/09670880220148366" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Crossreff</a>
Derrida, Jacques. Aporias. Trans. Thomas Dutoit. California: Stanford UP, 1993. 20-21.
Eagleton, Terry. "Political Beckett?" New Left Review 40 (2006): 67-74.
Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality. Trans. Robert Hurley. Vol. 1. New York: Vintage, 1990.
Gordon, Neve. "On Visibility and Power: An Arendtian Corrective of Foucault." Human Studies 25.2 (2002): 129. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1015599323147" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Crossreff</a>
Gussow, Mel. "Stage View; Beckett Distills his Vision" [Theater review]. New York Times, 31 July 1983.
Gussow, Mel. "Theater: Three Short Plays by Samuel Beckett" [Theater review]. New York Times, 16 June 1983.
Knowlson, James. Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett. London: Bloomsbury, 1996.
Lemke, Thomas. Biopolitics: An Advanced Introduction. Trans. Eric Frederick Trump. New York: New York UP, 2011.
O'Brien, Eoin. "Saint-Lô: 'Humanity in Ruins.'" The House of Industry Hospitals 1772-1987 The Richmond, Whitworth and Hardwicke (St Laurence's Hospital): A Closing Memoir. O'Brien, Lorna Browne and Kevin O'Malley, ed. and comp. Monkstown: Anniversary, 1988. 285.
Shenker, Israel. "An Interview with Beckett." 1956. Samuel Beckett: The Critical Heritage. Lawrence Graver and Raymond Federman, eds. London: Routledge, 1979. 146-148.
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2020-10-28
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The Heritage of Modernism
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How to Cite
Politicizing Samuel Beckett’s Postwar Plays. (2020). Literary History — Journal of Literary Studies, 52(170), 89–102. https://doi.org/10.18485/kis.2020.52.170.5
