Le terme désœuvrement apparaît comme une des grandes notions qui peuplent la critique littéraire du 20ème siècle. Il marque la mise en mouvement de l'absence de l’œuvre dans laquelle l'écriture tend vers l'espace où rien ne peut être fait. La Trilogie romanesque de Beckett et les romans de Blanchot se croisent dans cet espace du désœuvrement. Les deux écrivains tentent de faire opérer la fin de la littérature en cherchant une nouvelle forme qui réalise le chaos. Dans leur œuvre, le temps, l'espace, la narration et le langage sont mis en redéfinition en abandonnant tous leurs caractères traditionnels. L’œuvre s'approche donc du fragmentaire. / The term worklessness became one of the main concepts in the literary criticism of the 20th century. It marked the absence of the work on the way to a literary space where nothing can be done. Both Beckett and Blanchot tried to put an end to literature by creating a new form that could express the chaos. In theirs novels, time, space, narration and language no longer remain their traditional characteristics. The works of the two authors are close to what we call fragmented novel.

This dissertation represents an interpretation of the different forms of negativity in the modernist work that can be understood in terms of that which is unsaid, unsayable, or any other means of refusing to give an affirmative proposition regarding the world the work describes. It explores this negativity as both a representation of that which cannot be represented, and as an operational negativity, or negation, that takes part in the unmaking of the work's figures. The function of this negativity, as interpreted in Marcel Proust's Remembrance of Things Past (1913-1927), James Joyce's Ulysses (1922) and Krapp's Last Tape (1959) by Samuel Beckett, is to rewrite the representations of the work. Negativity is then also understood as a transformation and conditioning of elements already present in the literary work, that lead to ambivalent and problematic representations in the work. In this sense, negativity can be understood as a form of rewriting of the work's representations. The interpretations of the works of Proust, Joyce and Beckett are guided by this understanding, as given in the introduction, of negativity. In the analysis of Proust's novel, in "The Unmaking of Proust: Negation and Errors in Remembrance of Things Past", this form of negativity is situated in relation to Proust's handling of epistemological questions and mimetic references to reality in his work. The analysis of Joyce's work in "The Wandering of Language in James Joyce's Ulysses" discusses his treatment of language and the origins of language as being characterized by a negation that increases the difficulty of the language, and attempts to negate its origins. Finally, in the analysis of Beckett's "Krapp's Last Tape", in "Beckett, Proust, and the End of Literature", it is shown that negativity conditions both the reception of the influence of Proust by Beckett, and the play's attempt to suggest the end of writing. In conclusion the dissertation returns to the idea of negativity as a form of rewriting, and briefly indicates that the function of negativity in these novels can be understood as a form of invention. / Thesis (M.A.)--Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education, 2000.

This dissertation represents an interpretation of the different forms of negativity in the modernist work that can be understood in terms of that which is unsaid, unsayable, or any other means of refusing to give an affirmative proposition regarding the world the work describes. It explores this negativity as both a representation of that which cannot be represented, and as an operational negativity, or negation, that takes part in the unmaking of the work's figures. The function of this negativity, as interpreted in Marcel Proust's Remembrance of Things Past (1913-1927), James Joyce's Ulysses (1922) and Krapp's Last Tape (1959) by Samuel Beckett, is to rewrite the representations of the work. Negativity is then also understood as a transformation and conditioning of elements already present in the literary work, that lead to ambivalent and problematic representations in the work. In this sense, negativity can be understood as a form of rewriting of the work's representations. The interpretations of the works of Proust, Joyce and Beckett are guided by this understanding, as given in the introduction, of negativity. In the analysis of Proust's novel, in "The Unmaking of Proust: Negation and Errors in Remembrance of Things Past", this form of negativity is situated in relation to Proust's handling of epistemological questions and mimetic references to reality in his work. The analysis of Joyce's work in "The Wandering of Language in James Joyce's Ulysses" discusses his treatment of language and the origins of language as being characterized by a negation that increases the difficulty of the language, and attempts to negate its origins. Finally, in the analysis of Beckett's "Krapp's Last Tape", in "Beckett, Proust, and the End of Literature", it is shown that negativity conditions both the reception of the influence of Proust by Beckett, and the play's attempt to suggest the end of writing. In conclusion the dissertation returns to the idea of negativity as a form of rewriting, and briefly indicates that the function of negativity in these novels can be understood as a form of invention. / Thesis (M.A.)--Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education, 2000.

Critics and audiences alike have neglected the idea of Wilde as a precursor to Beckett. But I contend that a closer look at each writer's aesthetic and philosophic tendencies-for instance, their interest in the fluid nature of self, their understanding of identity as a performance, and their belief in language as both a way in and a way out of stagnancy -will connect them in surprising and highly significant ways. This thesis will focus on the ways in which Wilde prefigures Beckett as a dramatist. Indeed, many of the themes that Beckett, free from the constraints of a censor and from the societal restrictions of Victorian England, unabashedly details in his drama are to be found residing obscurely in Wilde. Understanding Beckett's major dramatic themes and motifs therefore yields new strategies for reading Wilde.

This paper is intended to compliment and describe the body of work that has been produced within the time I have been enrolled as a graduate student at Virginia Commonwealth University's Photography and Film department. The paper will include information on both my MFA candidacy presentation as well as a description of the evolution of my artistic endeavors. The main focus of this document is to discuss my formal examination of performance based video works pertaining to the absurd as described by Camus, and later expressed by Samuel Beckett, also the role of the masculine body's physicality within ritualized actions.

O objeto de estudo desta tese é a composição pictórica de Ohio Impromptu, de Samuel Beckett. Sendo assim, apresenta uma poética visual como estratégia interdisciplinar de análise da obra, incluindo a sua versão em filme. A partir de sua contextualização histórico-social na pós-modernidade, tendo por base autores como Zygmunt Bauman e David Harvey, juntamente com a definição, delimitação e contextualização das referências artísticas presentes na peça e no filme, é analisado o modo como as escolhas pictóricas feitas pelo autor interferem no conceito de espaço e suas relações com o tempo, assim como o espaço do livro enquanto elemento de conexão entre espaço e tempo em relação ao espectador-leitor, Listener, Reader e autor. O espaço é analisado por dois ângulos: o pictórico, ou seja, de que modo o espaço é trabalhado e tratado na obra de arte contemporânea, especialmente no que se refere à ruptura do espaço do quadro e o derretimento das fronteiras da obra enquanto categoria; o literário, a partir do que Gaston Bachelard propõe como poética do espaço – uma topoanálise da obra enquanto espaço de síntese do imemorial com a memória, um estudo psicológico sistemático dos locais da nossa vida privada. Nesse teatro do passado, que é a nossa memória, às vezes acreditamos nos conhecer no tempo; no entanto, o que realmente conhecemos é apenas uma série de fixações nos espaços de estabilidade de seres que não querem seguir adiante no tempo, que no seu próprio passado, quando vão à procura do tempo perdido, querem suspender a passagem do mesmo. A poética do espaço lida com o espaço da nossa solidão e, ali, espaço é tudo, já que o tempo não anima a memória. As metáforas apresentadas por Gaston Bachelard podem ser facilmente relacionadas com o universo de Ohio Impromptu, não somente porque Listener e Reader estão colocados em uma sala, ao redor de uma mesa, mas principalmente porque o texto está imerso no espaço do devaneio que é, de acordo com o autor, a casa das memórias. Ohio Impromptu é uma casa com sótãos e porões, cantos e corredores cheios de memórias não reveladas, palavras não ditas, sentimentos e faces inesquecíveis – uma síntese perfeita do imemorial com a memória. Através de uma poética visual, somada a uma topoanálise, chegamos à presença velada do autor e sua própria história permeando o espaço da obra, e a um conceito de tempo como antítese do tempo pósmoderno; um tempo que persiste pela repetição, que resiste ao apagamento; o tempo do mito. Através destes procedimentos de análise, chegamos a uma noção de tempo em Beckett enquanto kairos. / The object of study of this dissertation is the pictorial composition of Ohio Impromptu, by Samuel Beckett. Therefore, it presents a visual poetics as an interdisciplinary strategy of analysis of the work, including its film version. From its socialhistorical contextualization within postmodernity, based on authors such as Zygmunt Bauman and David Harvey, altogether with the definition, delimitation and contextualization of the artistic references present in the play and in the film, it is analyzed the way the pictorial choices made by the author interfere in the concept of space and its relations with time, as much as the space of the book as an element of connection between space and time in regard to the reader-spectator, Listener, Reader, and author. The space is analyzed from two perspectives: the pictorial one, that is, the way the space is constructed and treated in contemporary artwork, especially in regard to the rupture of the space of the painting and the melting of the frontiers of the work as category; the literary one, from what Gaston Bachelard proposes as a poetics of the space – a topoanalysis of the work as a space of synthesis of the immemorial with memory, a systematic psychological study of the locals of our private life. In this theater of the past, which is our memory, sometimes we believe to know ourselves in time; instead, what we really know is just a series of fixations in the spaces of stability of human beings who do not want to move on in time, who in their own past, when they go in search of the lost time, want to suspend the passage of time. Space retains the compressed time. The poetics of space deals with the space of our loneliness. Here, space is everything, for time does not animate memory. The metaphors presented by Gaston Bachelard can be easily related to the universe of Ohio Impromptu, not only because Listener and Reader are set in a room, around a table, but especially because the text is immersed in the space of reverie which is, according to the author, the house of memories. Ohio Impromptu is a house of attics and basements, corners and corridors full of unrevealed memories, unspoken words, unforgettable feelings and faces – a perfect synthesis of the immemorial with memory. Through a visual poetics, added to a topoanalysis, we reach the veiled presence of the author and his own story permeating the space of the work, and a concept of time as an antithesis of the postmodern time; a time that persists through repetition, a time that resists erasure; the time of myth. Through these procedures of analysis, we reach a concept of time in Beckett as kairos.

No description available.

This essay examines the grotesque in Samuel Becketts wellknown play Waiting for Godot. The play is primarily seen as an icon of absurdism, and it is such not appropriate to examine the play as if it belongs to the litterary genre of grotesque. The primary purpose of absurdism is to reveal the pointless- and emptiness of existence. In order to illustrate these points absurdism will often make use of the common characteristics of the grotesque. With this in mind I present, within this essay, an eximination of whether Samuel Becket makes use of these characteristics to assist his portayal of emptiness in Waiting for Godot. A prior understanding of absurdism is required and i have as such primarly used Martin Esslins famous studies. The studies of the grotesque are mainly represented by two theorists. Michail Bachtin's theory is based around the medieval carnival culture, whose archetype was the duality of the body expressed through the pregnant death. Bachtin seeks to highlight the grotesques close connection with laughter as a relief and covers it's use during the middle ages and the renneissance. Wolfgang Kayser studies the term as it is used during the romanticism and modernism. Kayser describes the grotesque as "cold" and alienating. He describes the word as an ”estranged world”. The analysis relies mostly on Bachtin's theories and examines the play from the viewpoint of the picture of the grotesque body, sense of time, the logic of the upside down world and the connection to the carnivals culture of laughter but also examines if Kayser's theories of the ”estranged world” are compatible. Finally, I reach the conclusion that even though Bachtins theory treats the grotesque in a time long before Beckett's, a reading of Waiting for Godot from the perspective of the carnival culture is interesting.  The laughter and the open, grotesque body, plays as expected a large role in the handling of the emptiness, the cyclic sense of time is found in the play and never ceases to repeat, the upside down world's logic and it's abolition of hierarchies is significant and the world in the play seems alien to itself.

O objeto de estudo desta tese é a composição pictórica de Ohio Impromptu, de Samuel Beckett. Sendo assim, apresenta uma poética visual como estratégia interdisciplinar de análise da obra, incluindo a sua versão em filme. A partir de sua contextualização histórico-social na pós-modernidade, tendo por base autores como Zygmunt Bauman e David Harvey, juntamente com a definição, delimitação e contextualização das referências artísticas presentes na peça e no filme, é analisado o modo como as escolhas pictóricas feitas pelo autor interferem no conceito de espaço e suas relações com o tempo, assim como o espaço do livro enquanto elemento de conexão entre espaço e tempo em relação ao espectador-leitor, Listener, Reader e autor. O espaço é analisado por dois ângulos: o pictórico, ou seja, de que modo o espaço é trabalhado e tratado na obra de arte contemporânea, especialmente no que se refere à ruptura do espaço do quadro e o derretimento das fronteiras da obra enquanto categoria; o literário, a partir do que Gaston Bachelard propõe como poética do espaço – uma topoanálise da obra enquanto espaço de síntese do imemorial com a memória, um estudo psicológico sistemático dos locais da nossa vida privada. Nesse teatro do passado, que é a nossa memória, às vezes acreditamos nos conhecer no tempo; no entanto, o que realmente conhecemos é apenas uma série de fixações nos espaços de estabilidade de seres que não querem seguir adiante no tempo, que no seu próprio passado, quando vão à procura do tempo perdido, querem suspender a passagem do mesmo. A poética do espaço lida com o espaço da nossa solidão e, ali, espaço é tudo, já que o tempo não anima a memória. As metáforas apresentadas por Gaston Bachelard podem ser facilmente relacionadas com o universo de Ohio Impromptu, não somente porque Listener e Reader estão colocados em uma sala, ao redor de uma mesa, mas principalmente porque o texto está imerso no espaço do devaneio que é, de acordo com o autor, a casa das memórias. Ohio Impromptu é uma casa com sótãos e porões, cantos e corredores cheios de memórias não reveladas, palavras não ditas, sentimentos e faces inesquecíveis – uma síntese perfeita do imemorial com a memória. Através de uma poética visual, somada a uma topoanálise, chegamos à presença velada do autor e sua própria história permeando o espaço da obra, e a um conceito de tempo como antítese do tempo pósmoderno; um tempo que persiste pela repetição, que resiste ao apagamento; o tempo do mito. Através destes procedimentos de análise, chegamos a uma noção de tempo em Beckett enquanto kairos. / The object of study of this dissertation is the pictorial composition of Ohio Impromptu, by Samuel Beckett. Therefore, it presents a visual poetics as an interdisciplinary strategy of analysis of the work, including its film version. From its socialhistorical contextualization within postmodernity, based on authors such as Zygmunt Bauman and David Harvey, altogether with the definition, delimitation and contextualization of the artistic references present in the play and in the film, it is analyzed the way the pictorial choices made by the author interfere in the concept of space and its relations with time, as much as the space of the book as an element of connection between space and time in regard to the reader-spectator, Listener, Reader, and author. The space is analyzed from two perspectives: the pictorial one, that is, the way the space is constructed and treated in contemporary artwork, especially in regard to the rupture of the space of the painting and the melting of the frontiers of the work as category; the literary one, from what Gaston Bachelard proposes as a poetics of the space – a topoanalysis of the work as a space of synthesis of the immemorial with memory, a systematic psychological study of the locals of our private life. In this theater of the past, which is our memory, sometimes we believe to know ourselves in time; instead, what we really know is just a series of fixations in the spaces of stability of human beings who do not want to move on in time, who in their own past, when they go in search of the lost time, want to suspend the passage of time. Space retains the compressed time. The poetics of space deals with the space of our loneliness. Here, space is everything, for time does not animate memory. The metaphors presented by Gaston Bachelard can be easily related to the universe of Ohio Impromptu, not only because Listener and Reader are set in a room, around a table, but especially because the text is immersed in the space of reverie which is, according to the author, the house of memories. Ohio Impromptu is a house of attics and basements, corners and corridors full of unrevealed memories, unspoken words, unforgettable feelings and faces – a perfect synthesis of the immemorial with memory. Through a visual poetics, added to a topoanalysis, we reach the veiled presence of the author and his own story permeating the space of the work, and a concept of time as an antithesis of the postmodern time; a time that persists through repetition, a time that resists erasure; the time of myth. Through these procedures of analysis, we reach a concept of time in Beckett as kairos.

O objeto de estudo desta tese é a composição pictórica de Ohio Impromptu, de Samuel Beckett. Sendo assim, apresenta uma poética visual como estratégia interdisciplinar de análise da obra, incluindo a sua versão em filme. A partir de sua contextualização histórico-social na pós-modernidade, tendo por base autores como Zygmunt Bauman e David Harvey, juntamente com a definição, delimitação e contextualização das referências artísticas presentes na peça e no filme, é analisado o modo como as escolhas pictóricas feitas pelo autor interferem no conceito de espaço e suas relações com o tempo, assim como o espaço do livro enquanto elemento de conexão entre espaço e tempo em relação ao espectador-leitor, Listener, Reader e autor. O espaço é analisado por dois ângulos: o pictórico, ou seja, de que modo o espaço é trabalhado e tratado na obra de arte contemporânea, especialmente no que se refere à ruptura do espaço do quadro e o derretimento das fronteiras da obra enquanto categoria; o literário, a partir do que Gaston Bachelard propõe como poética do espaço – uma topoanálise da obra enquanto espaço de síntese do imemorial com a memória, um estudo psicológico sistemático dos locais da nossa vida privada. Nesse teatro do passado, que é a nossa memória, às vezes acreditamos nos conhecer no tempo; no entanto, o que realmente conhecemos é apenas uma série de fixações nos espaços de estabilidade de seres que não querem seguir adiante no tempo, que no seu próprio passado, quando vão à procura do tempo perdido, querem suspender a passagem do mesmo. A poética do espaço lida com o espaço da nossa solidão e, ali, espaço é tudo, já que o tempo não anima a memória. As metáforas apresentadas por Gaston Bachelard podem ser facilmente relacionadas com o universo de Ohio Impromptu, não somente porque Listener e Reader estão colocados em uma sala, ao redor de uma mesa, mas principalmente porque o texto está imerso no espaço do devaneio que é, de acordo com o autor, a casa das memórias. Ohio Impromptu é uma casa com sótãos e porões, cantos e corredores cheios de memórias não reveladas, palavras não ditas, sentimentos e faces inesquecíveis – uma síntese perfeita do imemorial com a memória. Através de uma poética visual, somada a uma topoanálise, chegamos à presença velada do autor e sua própria história permeando o espaço da obra, e a um conceito de tempo como antítese do tempo pósmoderno; um tempo que persiste pela repetição, que resiste ao apagamento; o tempo do mito. Através destes procedimentos de análise, chegamos a uma noção de tempo em Beckett enquanto kairos. / The object of study of this dissertation is the pictorial composition of Ohio Impromptu, by Samuel Beckett. Therefore, it presents a visual poetics as an interdisciplinary strategy of analysis of the work, including its film version. From its socialhistorical contextualization within postmodernity, based on authors such as Zygmunt Bauman and David Harvey, altogether with the definition, delimitation and contextualization of the artistic references present in the play and in the film, it is analyzed the way the pictorial choices made by the author interfere in the concept of space and its relations with time, as much as the space of the book as an element of connection between space and time in regard to the reader-spectator, Listener, Reader, and author. The space is analyzed from two perspectives: the pictorial one, that is, the way the space is constructed and treated in contemporary artwork, especially in regard to the rupture of the space of the painting and the melting of the frontiers of the work as category; the literary one, from what Gaston Bachelard proposes as a poetics of the space – a topoanalysis of the work as a space of synthesis of the immemorial with memory, a systematic psychological study of the locals of our private life. In this theater of the past, which is our memory, sometimes we believe to know ourselves in time; instead, what we really know is just a series of fixations in the spaces of stability of human beings who do not want to move on in time, who in their own past, when they go in search of the lost time, want to suspend the passage of time. Space retains the compressed time. The poetics of space deals with the space of our loneliness. Here, space is everything, for time does not animate memory. The metaphors presented by Gaston Bachelard can be easily related to the universe of Ohio Impromptu, not only because Listener and Reader are set in a room, around a table, but especially because the text is immersed in the space of reverie which is, according to the author, the house of memories. Ohio Impromptu is a house of attics and basements, corners and corridors full of unrevealed memories, unspoken words, unforgettable feelings and faces – a perfect synthesis of the immemorial with memory. Through a visual poetics, added to a topoanalysis, we reach the veiled presence of the author and his own story permeating the space of the work, and a concept of time as an antithesis of the postmodern time; a time that persists through repetition, a time that resists erasure; the time of myth. Through these procedures of analysis, we reach a concept of time in Beckett as kairos.