O objetivo principal deste estudo é investigar diferentes modos de configurar o silêncio na escrita de Samuel Beckett, reconhecendo-a como um work in progress (obra em processo), por meio da análise de algumas de suas peças teatrais e televisivas, um filme, ensaios e novelas. Para tanto, entendemos o silêncio beckettiano como poética (modo de compor), referindo-o a uma proposta de suspensão e manipulação dramatúrgica de linguagens por uma mimese anti-realista - cujas bases ecoam certos aspectos do pensamento sobre arte de Nietzsche - sendo relida posteriormente por autores como Adorno, Blanchot, Deleuze, Andrade e Lapoujade. Procuramos dar ênfase às imagens corporais como uma das maneiras de Beckett compor uma cena que desfigura os códigos tradicionais de representação para revelar as potencialidades de cada linguagem experimentada. Ao final, propomos uma aproximação de sua poética com criações contemporâneas diversas. / The main purpose of this study is to investigate different ways of configuring silence in Samuel Beckett´s writing, by recognizing it as a work in progress, and also by making analysis of some of his pieces for theatre, television, cinema, critical essays and novels. Thus, we understand beckettian silence as a poetics (mode of composing) reffering it to a proposal of creating language suspension and dramaturgical manipulation in an anti-realistic mimesis - whose basis echoes some aspects of Nietzsche´s ideas about art - which is reread by authors such as Adorno, Blanchot, Deleuze, Andrade and Lapoujade. This research emphasizes body images as one of Beckett´s ways of composing a scene that transfigures traditional codes of representation in order to reveal the potential in each language experienced. By the end, we propose an approach of his poetics to different contemporary works.

O objetivo dessa dissertação é a análise da produção ensaística e do conteúdo das aulas ministradas pelo jovem Samuel Beckett no final dos anos 1920 e início dos anos 1930, focando-se nas considerações do irlandês a respeito do romance modernista. O material analisado compreende essencialmente o ensaio Dante...Bruno.Vico..Joyce (1929), a monografia Proust (1931) e as anotações da aluna Rachel Burrows tomadas das aulas ministradas por Beckett na Trinity College de Dublin nos anos 1930 e 1931, compiladas e comentadas no volume crítico Beckett before Beckett (2008) de Brigitte Le Juez. Intentamos enfatizar o que há de particular e de interessado nas leituras do jovem em seu início de carreira literária, buscando dar relevo às tomadas de posições estéticas, explícitas ou implícitas, em suas críticas e em suas aulas. Da influência marcante de seu conterrâneo James Joyce, comentamos o procedimento modernista de adicionar notas intertextuais às obras literárias e a busca por uma linguagem na qual forma e conteúdo encontre máxima fusão. De Proust, realçamos a veia estrategicamente pessimista da leitura beckettiana, analisando sua exposição do conceito de Hábito, as problemáticas da percepção distorcida do objeto pelo sujeito, e a complexidade da construção da personagem literária em constante mutação. Visando ilustrar de que modo tais tomadas de posições estéticas se desenvolveram na prática de sua produção ficcional, lançamos mão também da análise de determinados aspectos de seu primeiro romance, Dream of Fair to Middling Women, escrito em 1932, mas publicado apenas postumamente em 1992. De suas aulas, debatemos a impessoalidade do narrador e a exposição da complexidade incoerente da sucessão de eventos e personagens como critérios que orientam a defesa de Stendhal e Flaubert como precursores do romance modernista e a escolha de Balzac como alvo central de suas críticas à artificialidade da concatenação plausível de eventos do romance e da coerência lógica das personagens. Por fim, debatemos as razões da escolha beckettiana de André Gide como escritor exemplar do romance modernista francês em suas aulas, levando em conta o interesse do irlandês pelas considerações de Gide sobre a obra de Dostoievsky. Concluímos indicando a importância conferida por Beckett à incorporação da crítica e à exposição da incoerência dos elementos do romance como sinais de uma afinidade a uma estética do fracasso. / The purpose of this dissertation is to analyze the critical writings and the content of the lectures ministered by the young Samuel Beckett in the end of the 1920s and the beginning of the 1930s, focusing on the considerations of the Irishman on the modern novel. The material analyzed comprehends essentially the essay Dante...Bruno.Vico..Joyce (1929), the monograph Proust (1931) and the notes taken by Rachel Burrows on Becketts lectures at the Trinity College of Dublin in the years of 1930 and 1931, as compiled and commented by Brigitte Le Juez in her critical volume Beckett before Beckett (2008). We intended to emphasize the particularities and the interests of the young man at the beginning of his literary carrier, stressing the aesthetics positions taken, explicitly as implicitly, on his criticism and his lectures. On the notable influence of his countryman James Joyce, we commented the modernist procedure of the note snatching incorporated on the literary works and the search for a language in which form and content could find its maximum fusion. On Proust, we highlighted the strategic pessimism of Becketts rendering by analyzing his exposure on the concept of Habit, the problematic of the distortive perception of the object by the subject, and the constructions complexity of the literary character constantly evolving. In order to illustrate the way in which the aesthetics positions taken developed in the practice of his fictional work, we also analyzed some aspects of his first novel, Dream of Fair to Middling Women, written in 1932, but only published posthumously. On the subject of his lectures, we discussed the narrators impersonality and the explanation on the incoherent complexity of the chain of events and characters as parameters that orientate the defense of Stendhal and Flaubert as the precursors of the modern novel and the designation of Balzac as the central target of his critics about the artificiality of the plausible concatenation of events and the logical coherence of fictional characters. Finally, we discuss the reasons of Becketts choice of André Gide as the exemplar writer of the French modern novel in his lectures, taking on account the Irishman interest in Gides considerations about Dostoevskys oeuvre. We conclude by indicating the importance conferred by Beckett on the critical incorporation and the exposure of the elements incoherence in the novel as signs of an affinity to an aesthetic of failure.

O século XVIII foi um período de grandes mudanças na estrutura social e econômica vigente. Como conseqüência, a forma de organização do espaço de moradia também se alterou. Houve uma reordenação do espaço doméstico com a criação de lugares privados dentro e fora da casa e a valorização dos jardins ao redor das grandes propriedades rurais inglesas. A ascensão da nova classe média e um crescente interesse pela introspecção e privacidade propiciaram a formação destes espaços reservados ao isolamento. A partir do surgimento do romance na primeira metade do século XVIII, o espaço doméstico viu-se valorizado e descrito com mais atenção na narrativa literária. Este cuidado em retratar a vida doméstica na literatura surgiu a partir do desejo de representar a vida dos homens comuns de modo mais autêntico. Em Pamela, romance do escritor inglês Samuel Richardson publicado pela primeira vez na Inglaterra em 1740, observamos esta ênfase no espaço interior do recolhimento e da introspecção. A relação que se estabelece entre as personagens e o espaço dentro do romance é vital para a construção do enredo. / Great social and economic changes were brought about in the eighteenth-century causing, among other alterations, the rearrangement of the living spaces in the houses. This reorganization of the domestic space was responsible for the creation of private spaces inside and outside the great English country houses together with an improvement in the surrounding gardens. At that time the new middle classes were gaining more and more political and economic power and developing a taste for privacy, which required the creation of specific places inside and outside the houses for the enjoyment of the pleasures of isolation and introspection. With the rise of the novel in the first half of the eighteenth century, this domestic space was also valued, pictured and described with more attention in literature. This increasing interest in the domestic life is associated with a wish to portray the everyday lives of ordinary men with greater authenticity. In Pamela, a novel by Samuel Richardson published for the first time in England in 1740, this emphasis in the private space of isolation and introspection is clearly depicted. The deep correlation between space and characters in the novel is vital for the development of the plot.

Bibliography: leaves 333-361.

Nous posons comme hypothèse de départ que, chez Beckett, une réponse aux questions posées par le problème du temps s'élabore à travers l'énonciation. Ce fonctionnement particulier apparaît dès les premiers textes beckettiens, mais sera étudié plus précisément à travers les Textes pour rien datant de 1950. Le premier chapitre propose une présentation des différentes caractéristiques propres aux Textes pour rien en rapport avec l'expérience du temps telle que l'écriture de Beckett en témoigne. Nous lirons en parallèle les Confessions de saint Augustin afin de voir de quelle façon Beckett a repris la question dans la poétique de son oeuvre. Dans le second chapitre, le statut du langage, tel que la psychanalyse le révèle et tel qu'il est pris en charge par le linguiste Émile Benveniste, permettra de voir comment le sujet se met en scène dans les modalités de sa parole. Chez Beckett en général et dans les Textes pour rien en particulier, certaines figures du temps, celles de l'attente, de la nostalgie, de l'habitude, du ressassement et de la fin participent à la constitution d'un présent en cours qui détermine à la fois la forme et le sens de l'oeuvre. Cette question du temps étant liée par sa nature même à celle de la mémoire, nous revenons dans le troisième chapitre à Augustin pour décrire la voix des Textes pour rien en ce qu'elle est tributaire d'une logique singulière de la mémoire (individuelle, intertextuelle et autotextuelle). En fait, la « mauvaise mémoire » des personnages, associée à un intertexte évident même s'il n'est pas toujours clairement identifiable, fonctionne de telle sorte que toute l'activité mémorielle servant au rappel de souvenirs et d'un héritage culturel commun devient la matière même du texte, par le travail d'une mémoire immanente au texte. Nous verrons alors que, chez Beckett, l'énonciation fait partie de l'expérience du temps plutôt qu'elle sert à la décrire et que, renonçant au temps physique ou chronologique, les Textes pour rien mettent en acte une temporalité qui n'est pas tant subjective que révélatrice d'une certaine forme de sujet. ______________________________________________________________________________ MOTS-CLÉS DE L’AUTEUR : Beckett, Textes pour rien, Temps, Mémoire, Figure, Énonciation.

Samuel Beckett (1906-1989), irlandais d’expression française et anglaise, peut être considéré comme un des écrivains modernistes du XXe siècle les plus influents. Son nom est surtout associé au théâtre de l’absurde, un style de théâtre des années 50 inspiré des surréalistes et des dadaïstes, dont l’origine était le traumatisme de la Seconde Guerre mondiale. Parmi les pièces absurdes les plus importantes se trouve En attendant Godot de Beckett, une pièce connue et jouée dans le monde entier. Ce que Samuel Beckett nous montre dans En attendant Godot est évidemment l’absurdité de la vie, et l’absurdité de ce qui n’est pas encore venu ou déterminé. Le point central dans cette pièce est – malgré l’absence d’histoire, de sens et de but – sa représentation de la condition humaine : les relations, la communication, l’inquiétude et, bien sûr, l’attente. Le but de se mémoire sera d’examiner de quelle manière Beckett révèle son image de la condition humaine à travers d’une pièce rompant avec toute convention théâtrale classique.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of New Brunswick, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Florida State University, 2004. / Advisor: Dr. S.E. Gontarski, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Humanities Program. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed June 16, 2004). Includes bibliographical references.

Romantic literature's preoccupation with subjectivity, and the nature of the self, is recognised as influential on modern conceptions of consciousness, and in particular as a precursor of psychoanalysis. This thesis examines Coleridge's understanding of consciousness, as expressed in his prose, to demonstrate that he theorised a language of the unconscious; a non-arbitrary, authentic language that remains inaccessible. By comparing this idea with Julia Kristeva's theory of Semiotic language, the thesis will show that this language is indeed recognised in her psychoanalytic theory as a product of the unconscious. Most importantly, it will show that while Coleridge's supernatural poetry laments the inaccessibility of unconscious language, Kristevan theory demonstrates it to be present in that very poetry.

Dr. Samuel Johnson noted in his "Preface to Shakespeare" that ". . . human judgment, though it be gradually gaining upon certainty never becomes infallible . . . ." This observation is the central concern which unifies the diversity of thought and form in Johnson's work, a central unity which this thesis has illustrated chiefly with examples from The Rambler.The first of six chapters chronologically surveys the scholarship which is related to this topic, noting first that the criticism generally has overlooked Johnson's concern with questions about the nature of perception, judgment, comprehension, and understanding. Instead typical evaluations of Johnson's work have described it as attitude or prejudice rendered in grandiloquent style--content contained within static form--a flat conception which either ignores or misunderstands Johnson's process of building into his work questions concerning the perceptions embodied there. This chapter begins by documenting an initial barrier to anunderstanding of Johnson's work: the interference of his personality. Throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, biographies of Johnson overshadowed his own work, largely deflecting serious critical attention from that work. However, the survey further notes that there were critics during these centuries who observed this problem and argued for a redirected scholarly attention to the work itself. The survey then concludes by noting that these arguments were picked up in the twentieth century and translated into serious textual criticism of Johnson's work, particularly his periodical essays.Chapter two argues that for a full understanding of Johnson's work, it must be viewed against the backdrop of a shaping concern. The chapter identifies this concern as Johnson's desire to connect experience with its meaning or consequence. Although we automatically assume that monumental or panoramic happenings have meaning, Johnson desired to make clear that these larger meanings were merely the accumulation of less significant meanings. Consequently, the concern which shapes and directs his work is his effort to illuminate a connection between the seemingly insignificant events of everyday life and the larger human meaning of which they are a part.Using citations from Johnson's Dictionary, Rasselas, and the Rambler, chapter three documents Johnson's additional perception that the human condition is a state of "universal uncertainty." In Johnson's view, uncertainty is a universally experienced characteristic of the human condition. Indeed, uncertainty is not simply one part of our condition; it comprises human experience.This uncertain condition results in Johnson's frequently expressed reservations about the reliability of human judgment. Chapter four analyzes Johnson's assertion that individual perception is inferior to the accumulating mass of a collective human understanding.Johnson's alternative response to the demands of uncertainty is described in chapter five. To counteract the egocentricity of individual perception, Johnson argues that judgment must be the product of moral reflection rather than intellectual ratiocination.This assertion then is embodied in a writing process which constantly attempts to outmaneuver the ability of the human intelligence to defeat its own best interests--a tendency which is largely the product of solipsistic shortsightedness. Chapter six provides examples of this writing process as it occurs in particular essays. Explications of these essays then demonstrate the active vision which is the paper's major subject.