Samuel Beckett and Catastrophe is a groundbreaking collection of original essays that explore the relation between Samuel Beckett and catastrophe in terms of war, the Holocaust, nuclear disasters and ecological crisis. Responding to the post-catastrophic situations in the twentieth century, Beckett created characters who often seem to have been through an unknown catastrophe. Although the importance of catastrophe in Beckett has been noted sporadically, there has been no substantial attempt to discuss his aesthetics and work in relation to it. This collection will therefore serve as the first sustained study to explore the theme of catastrophe in Beckett and will be a highly significant contribution to Beckett studies.
Author(s): Michiko Tsushima, Yoshiki Tajiri, Mariko Hori Tanaka
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 221
City: Cham
Acknowledgements
Contents
Notes on Contributors
Introduction
References
Catastrophe and Aesthetic Creation
Tickling Your Catastrophe, or Beckett’s Laughing Antistrophe
Catastrophe, That Old Gag
Catastrophe, Ecology and Survival
Notes
References
The Not-All Catastrophe in Ill Seen Ill Said/Mal vu mal dit and ‘Comment Dire’/‘What Is the Word’
Catastrophe of the Imaginary
From ‘Limited Wholes’ to the Lacanian Not-All
Instability of the ‘Not-All’
Imaginary as Real
Unity of a Fragmented Reality
Equivocation, Synonymy and Homonymy
Worsening
Unity
Ill Saying
Notes
References
Beckett’s Grey and the Temporality of Afterness
The Grey Point
The Post-Catastrophic Temporality of ‘After’
‘I Emit Grey’—Malone Dies
The Succession of Grey Rectangles—Ghost Trio
Grey Scenes—Endgame
Openness to Other Futures
Notes
References
Beckett’s Monadology and the Anti-Catastrophic Aesthetics
‘Impossibility of Catastrophe’
‘The Light in the Monad’
‘Baroque Solipsism’
Murphy’s Monadology
‘Sealed Vessels’
Pre-established Harmony
Synthesis of Pre-established Harmony and Pensum
An Addendum
Notes
References
Catastrophes in History
Beckett’s Sense of History in the Age of Catastrophe
The Age of Catastrophe
Lisbon’s Great Day
The Age of Catastrophe 2.0
Notes
References
Imagination’s Dead: Beckett’s Catastrophic Realism
Preamble: Catastrophic Circumspection
Enigmas of Catastrophe: What on Earth?
Dead Imagination: Imagination’s Dead
Conclusion
Notes
References
Catastrophe and Everyday Life in Samuel Beckett
The Everyday Life of the Nuclear Age
The Everyday in Endgame
Everyday Life as Survival After the Catastrophe of Birth
Catastrophe and the Absurdity of the Everyday
The Perspective from Outer Space
Notes
References
Ecological Catastrophe and the Role of Art
Slow Violence and Slow Going: Encountering Beckett in the Time of Climate Catastrophe
Unthinkable Tense
What Is Lost?
What Remains?
Notes
References
A Feminist Counter-Apocalyptic Interpretation of Precarity: Reading Samuel Beckett’s Catastrophe in the Post-catastrophe Age
Precarity in the Time of Ecological Catastrophe
Is Catastrophe a Play with a Dénouement?
Resistance to an Incompetent Director/dictator
Uncertain Catastrophe
Beyond Post-Colonialism
A Touch of Light
Other Futures
Notes
References
Gestures of Helpless Compassion: Beckett’s Eco-Poetics of Extinction
Ecological Thought and Image
Scenic Remains
Helpless Compassion, Uneasy Complicity
Notes
References
Index
