Forming a pair with the voice, the gaze is a central structuring element of Samuel Becketts creation. And yet it takes the form of a strangely impersonal visual dimension testifying to the absence of an original exchange of gazes capable of founding personal identity and opening up the world to desire. The collapse of conventional reality and the highlighting of seeing devices -- eyes, mirrors, windows -- point to the absence of a unified representation. While masks and closed spaces show the visible to be opaque and devoid of any beyond, light and darkness, spectres -- manifestations without origin -- reveal a realm beyond the confines of identity, where nothing provides a mediation with the seen, or sets it within perspective. Finally, Becketts use of the audio-visual media deepens his exploration of the irreducibly real part of existence that escapes seeing. This study systematically examines these essential aspects of the visual in Becketts creation. The theoretical elaborations of Jacques Lacan -- in relation with corresponding developments in the history and philosophy of the visual arts -- offer an indispensible framework to understand the imaginary not as representation, but as rooted in the fundamental opacity of existence.

About the Author
"Paul Stewart is Professor of Literature at the University of Nicosia. He is the author of two books on BeckettSex and Aesthetics in Samuel Becketts Works (Palgrave, 2011) and Zone of Evaporation: Samuel Becketts Disjunctions (Rodopi, 2006)and the series editor for Samuel Beckett in Company, published by ibidem Press. He has published widely on Beckett in such journals as The Journal of Beckett Studies and Samuel Beckett Today / Aujourdhui. He is also a creative writer (his novel Now Then was published by Armida in 2014) and a performer in theatre, television, and film."


Book Information
ISBN 9783838212395
Author Llewellyn Brown
Format Paperback
Page Count 610
Imprint ibidem-Verlag, Jessica Haunschild u Christian Schon
Publisher ibidem-Verlag, Jessica Haunschild u Christian Schon
Weight(grams) 666g