Samuel Beckett and Arnold Geulincx: Tracing 'a literary fantasia'

Description

amuel Beckett once wrote that were he in the 'unfortunate position' of a critic studying his work, one of his points of departure would be the ideas of the 17th-century philosopher, Arnold Geulincx. Samuel Beckett and Arnold Geulincx: Tracing 'a literary fantasia' is the first full-length study to document the extent of the influence Geulincx's philosophy had on Beckett's prose and late drama. Establishing itself as a reference point for Beckett's published and unpublished writings, David Tucker's study presents a clear, chronological exploration of Beckett's engagement with Geulincx, and of how this engagement marks, and is marked by, broader changes in Beckett's aesthetic thinking. By positioning close, interpretative philosophical readings alongside analyses of archival materials, Tucker sets out an affirmative and reconciliatory approach to divergent strands in contemporary Beckett Studies.

David Tucker is a Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Sussex and currently teaches at the University of Oxford, UK. He is the editor of British Social Realism in the Arts since 1940 (Palgrave, 2011).

'Every now and again, rarely, a book comes along that offers a definitive account of a particularly vexing critical question - this study is one of them. Drawing on a range of published and unpublished materials, David Tucker offers a comprehensive and sensitive examination of the role Geulincx plays in Beckett's writing and aesthetics, and in doing so makes us think differently about Beckett's work.' -- Mark Nixon, Director, Beckett International Foundation, and Lecturer, University of Reading, UK Samuel Beckett's debt to Arnold Geulincx has been recognized on occasion, as it were, but this is the first detailed treatment of its lasting impact. David Tucker traces Beckett's early readings of the Belgian post-Cartesian philosopher from their manifest presence in Murphy (1938), through their more subtle intimations in the great writings of the 1940s, to their faint stirrings in the later prose, showing that Geulincx's Ethica and their central axiom, ubi nihil vales, ibi nihil velis, continued to define for Beckett a viable ethical principle in a worthless world. -- Professor Chris Ackerley, University of Otago, New Zealand This book charts comprehensively the deep influence of Arnold Geulincx on Beckett. Underpinning lucid textual readings with detailed archival evidence, Tucker's impressive study offers new understandings of the significance of Beckett's career-long engagement with this seventeenth-century ultrarationalist thinker. It is of relevance not only to scholars of Beckett, but also to those interested in the intersections of philosophy and literature within modern European culture. * Dr Eoghan Smith, Lecturer, Carlow College, Ireland * One of the merit's of Tucker's study is that it bolsters a careful consideration of the historical and the archival evidence with a close attention to the texture of Beckett's texts. Just as important, it attempts an evenhanded appraisal of previous readers' under- and over-estimation of Geulincx's significance for Beckett...The most well-researched account of Beckett and Geulincx that we are likely to get...Tucker's study succeeds admirably in this regard, and in doing so performs a long-overdue service to Beckett studies. Accordingly, this book will also serve as a key reference point for the fast-growing body of scholarship on Beckett and philosophy more broadly. -- John Bolin, University of Exeter * College Literature *