Samuel Beckett por Gilles Deleuze: acontecimiento y construcción de posibles

Abstract

Samuel Beckett and Gilles Deleuze are two of the most relevant names of the 20th century. They share similarities concerning several problems, such as repetition, habit, the dissolution of identities and the lack of meaning in our experience of the world and of otherness. The crossing of the two opens up new perspectives both in Deleuzian and Beckettian studies. On the side of Deleuze, it permits us to reconsider the place of negativity within his affirmative, “joyous” philosophy. Because Deleuze finds in Beckett a certain productivity of impotence, impossibility and silence. On the side of Beckett, this encounter opens up the point of view of the vitalism and the constructivism that can be found in his work, taking distance from some interpretations that turn his work solely into a philosophical consideration of nothingness. First, we will study Deleuze’s general conception of literature, as it is presented in Critique and clinique (1993), which is marked by the beckettian pourpose of “making holes” in the surface of languages in order to show what lies behind the words. Literature confronts us with the limits of language and of our possibles. In that way, it seeks to broaden what is visible, audible, and livable in each time. Then we will follow closely Deleuze’s reading of Beckett drawing on the texts where he directly adresses him. We will unfold the main lines of that reading refering to a series of poetic and philosophical “formulations” in which his aesthetical project can be resumed. In order to accomplish so, we will follow the notions of the event and becoming-imperceptible, focusing on Deleuze’s analysis of Quad and Film.