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.

The goal of the present study is to examine the way in which Samuel Beckett, an artist whose work contributes also to philosophy, presents his metaphysical vision of the world through drama, where different plays represent different philosophical interpretations of the world. Using Paul Ricœur’s Memory, History, Forgetting as a theoretical platform, this thesis will concentrate on the manner in which Krapp’s Last Tape presents identity as a phenomenological construction based on cumulative past experiences inserted into and spread throughout time. Based on this assumption, to tamper with one’s conceptions of a memory-time continuum is to alter the identity which is a result of this dynamic. The Beckettian vision of the world does not see identity – the ever-elusive self, as many authors would say – simply as a unique and separate phenomenon that, by staying constant through time, serves as the basis for one’s phenomenological experience ; rather, in Krapp’s Last Tape the self is the sum of mnemonic experiences lived through time, which in turn impacts the identity of the individual. This philosophical perception of identity is further complicated by other phenomenological questions which must come into play if we are to study the way in which this identity is perceived not only by the reader-spectator, but also by the subject himself. For example, how does the ideal image that Krapp constructs of himself impact his identity ? Does he modify memory so as to conform to the idealistic vision he has created of himself, and does this image, perceived as the desired Other, foment in him a feeling of alterity when faced with himself as he is, as opposed to the fulfillment of the desired Other by which he measures his success ? / Thesis (Master, French) -- Queen's University, 2008-09-26 09:07:19.995

This study carries out both a technical and a thematic analysis of the novels by Albert Camus, L&amp / #8217 / Etranger, La Peste, and La Chute, and Samuel Beckett, Molloy, Malone Dies, and The Unnamable. In the technical analysis of the novels, the study explores the differences in characterization and narrative technique. It argues that the differences in these two issues mainly emerge from the difference in the two authors&amp / #8217 / views of art. In the thematic analysis, on the other hand, the study focuses on the recurring themes in the two authors&amp / #8217 / novels. It argues that Camus and Beckett explore similar themes in their novels because both writers belong to the absurd tradition. In other words, although their notions of art are different, their views of the human condition are quite similar, which is reflected in the common themes they explore in their novels.

Thesis (Ph.D)--Universität Heidelberg, 1993. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 329-344) and indexes.

104f. / Submitted by Suelen Reis (suziy.ellen@gmail.com) on 2013-05-15T13:57:08Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao Celso Oliveira Jr..pdf: 490842 bytes, checksum: 9f7edcaaec7f31b637755643010da97b (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Alda Lima da Silva(sivalda@ufba.br) on 2013-05-16T17:56:37Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao Celso Oliveira Jr..pdf: 490842 bytes, checksum: 9f7edcaaec7f31b637755643010da97b (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2013-05-16T17:56:37Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao Celso Oliveira Jr..pdf: 490842 bytes, checksum: 9f7edcaaec7f31b637755643010da97b (MD5) Previous issue date: 2005 / A fundamentação teórica e literária sobre os conceitos de estupor, de fraturas narrativas e de interrupção de fluxo narrativo. Os estudos sobre o efeito de estupor sob o ponto de vista da psiquiatria e da psicanálise, do ritmo e efeitos da narrativa. O estudo crítico sobre o estupor em William Shakespeare, Anton Tchekhov e Samuel Beckett. O sentido e a evolução dos pressupostos fundamentais da tragédia. O estupor como hýbris. A precipitação trágica do drama beckettiano a partir destes pressupostos. Uma gênese da poética beckettiana, através das suas relações filosóficas e da sua experiência como crítico literário e de arte. O retrato do artista enquanto crítico. As relações filosóficas de Beckett e a constituição do Beckett-escritor a partir do Beckett-crítico. Leitura dos escritos críticos de Beckett sobre a obra de James Joyce, de Marcel Proust e de pintores modernos, em articulações com exemplos da obra dramatúrgica e ficcional do autor Leitura crítica do drama Eleutheria, escrito por Samuel Beckett em 1947. O estupor, enquanto hýbris, atuando como estratégia de libertação e motivo de ruína. / Salvador

Samuel Beckett is often thought of as an experimental writer but little critical attention has been paid to the question of what the term ‘experimental’ means when applied to Beckett’s work (and arguably literature in general). One might suggest that to call Beckett an experimental writer is to identify him as a member of the avant-garde, placing his writing in opposition to more commercially-orientated, ‘mainstream’ works of literature. Alternatively, the term might be taken to highlight Beckett’s formal innovations – his capacity to change conceptions of what literature is and does. This study, though, will specify another way in which we might understand Beckett’s writing to be experimental. Drawing on Beckett’s engagement with experimental and therapeutic psychology, the study suggests that Beckett’s works might be seen as experiments in a more scientific sense. Through readings of his later works for page, stage and screen, the chapters of this study suggest that Beckett’s writing can contribute to our knowledge of psychological concepts such as perception, attention and mental imagery. Beckett’s works, I argue, might be defined as experimental insofar as they position and stimulate human bodies in ways that allow us to better understand our complex, but partial, experiences of the world.

L’objet de cette étude est de dégager une idée de scène de l’écriture théâtrale de Beckett. L’interrogation est suscitée par la place particulière que semble occuper l’oeuvre dans le champ théâtral, que l’on pense aux dramaticules qui remettent en cause le partage du « théâtre de texte » et de ce que l’on approche plutôt aujourd’hui à travers l’idée de « performance », ou au fait que « le cas Beckett » est souvent convoqué pour exemplifier les rapports difficiles entre texte et mise en scène. On propose de penser que ces singularités sont les symptômes d’une entreprise plus radicale de mise en crise de la catégorie de l’incarnation qui informe implicitement une certaine compréhension du fait théâtral. L’exploration des assises philosophiques du refus beckettien de l’incarnation, et l’étude de la manière dont la poétique dramatique de l’écrivain met en volume, à divers niveaux, un conflit entre « la vie » et « l’abstrait », là où l’art théâtral est habituellement décrit comme reposant sur leur fusion, permettront de dégager, au croisement du théâtre et de la philosophie, des motifs théoriques qui travaillent en profondeur la conception traditionnelle de la scène, et de dessiner une autre idée, beckettienne, de scène. Qualifier l’apparition scénique des pièces de l’écrivain sera donc, simultanément, l’occasion d’envisager l’écriture théâtrale en d’autres termes, et notamment loin de l’opposition du texte et de la scène. / This work aims to define an idea of the stage through the study of Beckett’s dramatic texts. Our line of enquiry arises from the unusual position of his works within the theatrical field : whether one calls to mind the short plays which do not fit the division into « text-based theatre » and what is more commonly approached today through notions of « performance », or the fact that « the case of Beckett » is often evoked to exemplify the problematic relations that can exist between text and stage direction. We put forward the hypothesis that these particularities are the symptoms of the way Beckett’s plays undertake more radically to jeopardise the categories of incarnation and embodiment on which a certain understanding of theatre is grounded. Exploring the philosophical bases of Beckett’s refusal of incarnation/embodiment, and studying the way his poetics on various levels acts so as to throw into relief a conflict between « the living » and « the abstract », when dramatic art is usually described as their fusion, allows us to shed light on theoretical patterns shaping the traditional conception of the theatre, and to put forward another idea, a Beckettian idea, of the stage. Describing the way his plays conceive of scenic apparition will then also be a way to think of writing for the theatre in other terms, ones far removed from the opposition of text and stage.

This dissertation explores Irish and English fiction before, during, and shortly after the Second World War, a period of complex change in the relations between England and Ireland as British imperial control in Ireland ended. Ireland's neutrality in response to England's declaration of war intensified the nations' apparent differences, yet as my study brings to light, the War also fostered new affinities between England and Ireland, despite each country's inclination to define itself against the other by contrast. Each country's tendency toward xenophobic self-definition gave rise to policies and perspectives that resemble thinking and life in a fascist state. The fiction that I discuss responds to those tendencies by revealing possibilities for collectives that are more dynamically constituted around forms of vision and engagement involving shared responsibility and individual freedom. Chapter 1 reads Virginia Woolf's novel Between the Acts (1941) as a working through of contrasting responses to dictators from a 1938 diary entry and her manifesto Three Guineas, published the same year. I argue that character interactions and self-reflection in response to a play performed in the novel allow characters to recognize fascist tendencies in their own thinking and discover collective visions contrary to the total allegiance prized in Nazi spectacle and English propaganda. Against the mostly ahistorical critical treatments of Flann O'Brien's The Third Policeman (written 1939-1940, published 1966), Chapter 2 traces affinities between the narrator's deluded belief in his own superiority in a milieu of suppressed violence and the psychological environment Irish neutrality created. Focusing on Elizabeth Bowen's novel The Heat of the Day (1948) and wartime short fiction, Chapter 3 argues that her characters' behavior challenges stereotypes about English and Irish residents promoted by the other country. Rather than offering the escape from the War that some English visitors desire, Ireland provides a vantage point for seeing their London lives in new ways. Chapter 4 takes Nazi narratives of German history as reference points for interpreting Samuel Beckett's Watt (written 1942-1945, published 1953) and Molloy (1955), in particular the narrators' attempts to hide their control over the narratives they shape and the collectives that surround them.

My PhD. thesis "Physiognomy of Writing: In the Folds of Literary Ornament" deals with the relation between literature and ornament. It interconnects the sphere of literary history and literary theory with that of visuality. Ornament is analyzed and interpreted as a theoretical figure which allows an examination of literature from the point of view of its visuality and its movement. This approach, elaborated and applied here, labeled "physiognomy of writing", offers a possibility of a visual reading of literature; it represents a way to read literary texts not only in terms of their meaning and message, but also from the point of view of their visual and figural performance. In the first part I outline the concept of ornament in its historical, esthetic and philosophical frames, and explain how to use it in order to interpret literature. The second part offers readings of several 20th century literary texts (Franz Kafka, Rainer Maria Rilke, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Samuel Beckett, Louis Wolfson and Blanche T.) from the perspective of the affinity of their literary speech and particular ornamental manifestations.

The aim of the thesis is to provide a comprehensive view of the works of Samuel Beckett from the beginning to the novel Molloy. It is based on analysis of individual works and the subsequent attempt to uncover their interconnections. The thesis is divided into three parts: theory, poetry and prose. The first part deals mainly with the concept of incoherent reality which Beckett speaks about for the first time in his essay Proust and then returns to in other texts. In the novel Dream of Fair to Middling Women he makes it the basis of his own aesthetic. Behind the phenomena of the outer world lies chaos and nothingness and the artist's task is to integrate it into his work. The second part discusses the changes in the subject of the poems, his being or not being in particular surroundings, the amount of literary allusions, the themes and the form of the poems, above all the particular techniques Beckett uses and the degree of their regularity and elaboration. The third part raises similar questions about prose. The unquestionable centre of Beckett's poems and prose is the subject of the poems and the main character, characterized by tension between inside and outside. The change in the character is caused by outweighing of the tendency to stay inside. This also results in the reduction in allusions...