Abstract This is a comparative study of Samuel Beckett’s Textes pour rien (1950, published 1958) and John Cage’s Lecture on Nothing (1949, published 1961). These two projects, each of which emblematizes the lifelong artistic pursuit of its creator, offer a glimpse at the affinity between the two creators themselves. This article examines these two works and their authors according to three axes: first, nothing and how it is defined and deployed in each author’s creation, with an emphasis on the function of the prepositions “on” and “for” used in each author’s title; second, silence, which, in both cases, serves an important function as one of nothing’s major phenomenological counterparts—notably in Cage’s subsequent composition 4’33” and in Beckett’s quest to suppress the narrative voice of subjectivity; third, noise, which I will claim is the paradoxical but determinant residue that results from each author’s search for nothing and for silence.

中文翻译：

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“On”或“for”Nothing/Rien：Samuel Beckett 和 John Cage 中的Nothing, Silence and Noise

摘要 这是对塞缪尔·贝克特 (Samuel Beckett) 的 Textes Pour rien (1950，1958 年出版)和约翰·凯奇 (John Cage) 的《虚无讲座》(1949 年，1961 年出版)的比较研究。这两个项目，每一个都象征着其创作者毕生的艺术追求，让我们一睹两位创作者之间的亲密关系。本文从三个轴心审视这两部作品及其作者：第一，无以及它在每个作者的创作中是如何定义和部署的，重点是每个作者标题中使用的介词“on”和“for”的作用; 其次，沉默，在这两种情况下，作为虚无的主要现象学对应物之一发挥着重要的作用——特别是在凯奇随后的作品 4'33” 和贝克特对压制主观性叙事声音的追求中；三、噪音