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Going through the motions: natural science and movement in Samuel Beckett's trilogy
Textual Practice Pub Date : 2021-09-01 , DOI: 10.1080/0950236x.2021.1971286
Patrick Armstrong 1
Affiliation  

ABSTRACT

This article argues that scientific language and theory, combined with Samuel Beckett's study of philosophy, helps to shape the representations of movement patterns in his post-war trilogy of novels. Taking its cue from Beckett's engagement with scientific writing in the late 1920s and early 1930s, this article explores the physical and imperceptible forces that complicate the movements of characters in his prose fiction. The advances in quantum physics, which resonated with Beckett's attraction to both ancient atomism and the seventeenth-century ‘Natural Science Period’ of philosophy, inform his prose style and structural principles. By making use of newly available material, including archival research, I show that the terminology of natural science frequently reverberates through his writing, especially in his peculiar descriptions of moving bodies. I suggest that, for Beckett, the artistic process becomes a contraction, reducing motion to its fundamental terms in an attempt to understand the processes that underpin it. Movement, nonetheless, remains unpredictable, ceaseless, and technically difficult to represent.



中文翻译:

走过场:塞缪尔·贝克特三部曲中的自然科学与运动

摘要

本文认为,科学语言和理论与塞缪尔贝克特的哲学研究相结合,有助于在他的战后小说三部曲中塑造运动模式的表现形式。借鉴贝克特在 20 年代末和 1930 年代初从事科学写作的经验,本文探讨了使他的散文小说中人物动作复杂化的物理和潜移默化的力量。量子物理学的进步与贝克特对古代原子论和 17 世纪“自然科学时期”哲学的吸引力产生共鸣,影响了他的散文风格和结构原则。通过利用新的可用材料,包括档案研究,我表明自然科学的术语经常在他的作品中回荡,特别是在他对运动物体的奇特描述中。我建议,对于贝克特来说,艺术过程变成了一种收缩,将运动简化为它的基本术语,以试图理解支撑它的过程。尽管如此,运动仍然是不可预测的、不断的,并且在技术上难以表现。

更新日期:2021-09-01
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