Beckett and Embodiment: Body, Space and Agency

This book explores the representation of the body in relation to the environment in Beckett's work, arguing that the abject, decrepit body demands a reconceptualization of agency. It highlights the importance of sensation and embodiment in our interactions with the material world, enabling possibilities for embodied agency.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 256 pages
Publication date: 19 May 2023
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press

Revealing the profound significance of the body in Samuel Beckett's writings, this groundbreaking study delves into the intricate interplay between the body and its material environment. It accentuates the body's agency and offers a fresh perspective on its role in Beckett's postwar writing, as well as his experimental prose of the 1960s and 1980s.

As the first study to explore Beckett and Merleau-Ponty as thinkers of space, this book poses the intriguing question of how the body's relationship with its surroundings both constrains and empowers agency. It demonstrates how Beckett and Merleau-Ponty inform contemporary debates on post-humanism, ecology, and the body's intricate connection with its material surroundings.

Through a meticulous examination of Beckett's representation of the body in relation to the environment, the author challenges the notion that the abject, decrepit body signifies the impossibility of agency. Instead, she argues that it demands a reconceptualization. By separating dynamic interaction from willed intention, Amanda Dennis reveals how Beckett's oeuvre reimagines subjectivity in dialogue with a disintegrating environment.

In this phenomenological reading of Beckett, the author contends that sensation and embodiment play a vital role in our interactions with the material world, enabling possibilities for embodied agency in collaboration with our physical and linguistic surroundings. The book offers a rich and thought-provoking exploration of the body's agency in Beckett's writings, shedding light on its profound implications for our understanding of human experience and the nature of existence.

Dimension: 234 x 156 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781474463003