Beckett, Lacan and the Voice (Samuel Beckett in Company Book 1)

Samuel Beckett in Company: Beckett and Relation: A Preface to the Series Bibliography Table of contents Abbreviations and editions used for works by Beckett Acknowledgements Lacan with Beckett: Departures The Voices of Samuel Beckett: Introduction and First Approaches Listening A Complex Field Lacan and the Voice: A Preliminary Overview Lacan and Beckett: Affinities? The Limits of Certain Uses of Lacan 'Jouissance': a Factor of 'Empêchement' Further Developments Referring to Lacan: A Change of Orientation Psychoanalysis, Beckett and the Voice: An Outline of Concepts. Structure of Our StudyI -- The Voice and Its Structure Initial Concepts Voice and Retroaction of the Signifier The 'Buffering' Effect of the Paternal Metaphor 'Foreclosure' of the Paternal Metaphor The Model of the 'Pastout' or the 'Unlimited' An 'Unborn' Subject An Impassive Mother A Nonexistent Other The Voice: Real and 'Lalangue' The Hallucinated Voice II -- Disjunction of Pronouns Metaphorical Formation of the 'I' 'I' and the Drive: 'Not I' Staging the 'He': 'A Piece of Monologue' III. -- Continuous, Interrupted, Responses 1. The Continuous 2. Interruption 3. Inscription. 4. Image and ReadingIV -- Exteriority and Artifice 1. The Voice of the Machine 2. Discursive Apparatus Singularity of the Voice: A Conclusion Bibliography Index.

The voice traverses Beckett's work in its entirety, defining its space and its structure. Emanating from an indeterminate source situated outside the narrators and characters, while permeating the very words they utter, it proves to be incessant. It can alternatively be violently intrusive, or embody a calming presence. Literary creation will be charged with transforming the mortification it inflicts into a vivifying relationship to language. In the exploration undertaken here, Lacanian psychoanalysis offers the means to approach the voice's multiple and fundamentally paradoxical facets with regards to language that founds the subject's vital relation to existence. Far from seeking to impose a rigid and purely abstract framework, this study aims to highlight the singularity and complexity of Beckett's work, and to outline a potentially vast field of investigation.

Literary Criticism,European,English,Irish,Scottish,Welsh