The book offers new readings of Samuel Beckett's short stories and novels written between 1929 and 1938 in the context of his signature. The signature is defined through the terms language, the neutrum and memory. The study attempts to create a concise definition of signature and analyse it in the context of Beckett's early writings.

lgrsnf/AN 3349229.pdf.pdf

Rafał Borkowski

Transatlantic Studies in British and North American Culture, Berlin, 2022

Peter Lang Group, Frankfurt a.M., 2022

Germany, Germany

Cover
Dedication
Table of Contents
Introduction
Part One
Chapter 1: The Concept of the Signature
1.1. Physicality of the signature
1.2. The proper names, manner and style
1.3. The Signature as an act and event
Chapter 2: The Signature of Samuel Beckett
2.1. The role of the receiver in the signature
2.2. Signature and poetics
2.3. The definition of the signature
2.4. The artistic signature of Samuel Beckett
Chapter 3: The Language
3.1. The concept of language in Beckett’s early writings
Chapter 4: The Neutrum
4.1. The neutral language
4.2. The threshold of possibility
4.3. Aporia and the limit
4.4. Epochē and the reduction
Chapter 5: Memory and time
5.1. Body and mind
5.2. Memory, movement, symbol
5.3. The principles of Samuel Beckett’s signature
Part Two
Chapter 1: Early criticism in Dante... Bruno. Vico.. Joyce. (1929) and Proust (1931)
1.1. Searching for the artistic voice: Dante... Bruno. Vico.. Joyce.
1.1.1. Symbol, sign, language: ‘The danger is in neatness of identifications.’
1.1.2. The dynamic reduction: ‘Church—Marriage—Burial’
1.2. In search of time and memory: Proust
1.1.1. Time and sign: ‘That double-headed monster of damnation and salvation’
Chapter 2: More Pricks Than Kicks (1934)
2.1. More Pricks Than Kicks: the young artist’s ‘intricate festoons of words’
2.2. ‘Dante and the Lobster:’ The space of ‘somewhere else’
2.3. ‘Ding-Dong:’ The spherical journey into the mind
Chapter 3: Murphy (1938)
3.1. Between pain and persistence
3.2. Constructing the fundaments: The kite, the horoscope and the Mental Hospital
3.3. Murphy, ‘the puppets’ and the system
3.4. The mind-body split
Chapter 4: ‘Echo’s Bones:’ A short story (wr. 1933 – publ. 2014)
4.1. A connector between early and post-war texts: ‘Echo’s Bones’
4.2. The story’s construction: ‘This little triptych’
4.3. A system of structural relations: ‘A classic-romantic corpse’
Conclusions
Bibliography

The study offers new readings of early works, both novels and short stories, of Samuel Beckett in the context of Beckett’s signature. The author analyses the given signature through such terms as language, the neutrum and memory, simultaneously incorporating the mentioned terms in the context of Beckett’s early prose. The first part of the book is theoretical and concentrates on coining the term signature through different philosophical viewpoints (e.g., Lotman, Blanchot, Bergson), whereas the second part analyses Beckett’s early works in the context of the signature (e.g., Proust, More Pricks Than Kicks, Murphy). The book also analyses a posthumously-published short story Echo’s Bones that opens new interpretation paths for twenty-first century Beckettologists.
Erscheinungsdatum: 03.08.2022

2024-02-27