desubjectification beckett

7/24/2019 Desubjectification Beckett

1/12

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Dalarna University entre for Irish Studies

Biopolitical Beckett: Self-desubjectification as ResistanceAuthor(s): Jacob LundSource: Nordic Irish Studies, Vol. 8, No. 1, Samuel Beckett (2009), pp. 67-77Published by: Dalarna University Centre for Irish StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25699543Accessed: 20-12-2015 14:45 UTC

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2/12

Biopolitical

Beckett:

Self-desubjectification

as

Resistance1

Jacob

Lund

In

an

article

published

in theNew

Left

Review

in

2006,

the

year

of

Samuel Beckett s

centenary,

Terry

Eagleton

put

a

question

mark after

his

title

Political

Beckett? ,

therebyhinting

at

some

political

dimension

in

Beckett,

whom

he

characterises

as

one of the twentieth

century s

most

apparently non-political

artists .1

Following

Theodor

Adorno,

Eagleton

claims

thatBeckett s work is

post-Auschwitz

art,

and

that it

maintains

a

compact

with failure

in

the teeth of

Nazi

triumphalism,

undoing

its lethal absolutism

with

the

weapons

of

ambiguity

and

indeterminacy.

His favourite

word,

he

commented,

was

perhaps .

Against

fascism s

megalomaniac

totalities,

he

pits

the

fragmentary

and

unfinished .2

In

what

follows

I will

pursue

this

compact

with

failure,

this

ambiguity

and

indeterminacy,

and will

try

even

to

completely

remove

the

question

mark

regarding

the

political

impact

of Beckett s

work,

by

proposing

that it in its

complex investigations

of the relation between

language

and

subjectivity

-

might

possess

a

so-called

6/opolitical

potential.

In other

words,

I

suggest

that

the

answer,

or one

of the

answers,

to

the

question

Political Beckett?

might

be

5/opolitical

Beckett .

According

toMichel

Foucault,

modern

society

is characterised

by

the

integration

of life

and the

living

being

into

the

mechanisms of

power,

that

is,

by

a

consideration of

the

very processes

of

life and

the

possibility

of

controlling

and

modifying

them;

hence the

term

biopower .

In

order

to

function

and

control its

subjects, biopower

is

dependant on representable and recognizable identities; itdepends on its

subjects

affirmation

of their

subject positions

and of

the

predicates

attributed

to

them.

In

continuation of

thework of

Foucault,

the Italian

This

paper

was

originallypresented

at

theGlobal Beckett

conference

in

dense, Denmark,

26

November

2006.1 would like

to

thank ll the

participants

of

that

conference,

especially

Steven Connor

for

his

critique

and

Daniel

Katz

for

his

encouragement.



3/12

Nordic Irish tudies

thinkers

Giorgio

Agamben

and

Maurizio Lazzarato

conceive of

a

reversal

of

biopower

into

biopolitics,

understood

as

the

production

of

new

forms

of

life.

Tf

power

seizes

life

as

the

object

of

its exercise then

Foucault

is interested in

determining

what

there is

in

life that

resists,

and

that,

in

resisting

this

power,

creates forms of

subjectification

and forms

of

life that

escape

its

control. 3

Focusing

on

the

subject-constituting

personal

pronoun

as

accounted

for

by

French

linguist

Emile

Benveniste

in

his

theory

of

enunciation,

one

might

read

the

development

from

Beckett s The

Unnamable,

in

which the

subject

is

questioned

and destabilised

through

the first

person,

via

Company,

inwhich

only

the

second

and the third

person

is

used,

to

Worstward

Ho,

in

which there

is

a

total

lack

of

person,

as a

movement

of

self-desubjectification.

In

pointing

out

this

act

of

self

desubjectification

I

will, however,

in these

pages

primarily

deal with

a

few lines from The Unnamable and

practically

leave

out

Company

and

Worstward

Ho.4

Thus

I

will

argue

that

this

abstention from

affirming

an

identity

nd

a

fixed

subject-position,

this

indeterminacy

and

sustainment

of

a

subjective potentiality,

has

political

implications,

in

that the

condition of possibility for biopower lies precisely in its ability to

administer

identifiable

and

representable subjects.

The Unnamable

opens

by

explicitly

pointing

towards the

enunciational

situation:

Where now?

Who

now?

When now?

Unquestioning.

I, say

I.

Unbelieving.

Questions,

hypotheses,

call them

that.

Keep

going,

going

on,

call

that

going,

call

that

on. 5

The

opening

mocks

the narrative

convention

that

requires

the

narrator,

at

the

beginning

of his

story,

to

orientate

the reader

regarding

time,

place

and

person

by

means

of

the

indexical

forms of

language,

that

is,

the shifters

or

indicators of

enunciation

that

connect

person,

time

and

place

to

the

perspective

of

the

speaker

-

the kind

of orientation

we

see,

for

instance,

at

the

beginning

of

Molloy:

T

am

in

my

mother s

room.

It s

I

who live

there

now. 6 These deictic markers, these shiftersor indicators of enunciation

-

comprising

verb

tenses,

personal

pronouns,

temporary

forms

and

spatial

terms

such

as

Molloy s

am ,

T,

now ,

there

and here

-

are

destined

to

let

the

individual

speaker appropriate

language

and take

over

its entire

resources

in

order

to

use

it for

his

own

behalf,

and

they

can

only

be

fully

understood

if

the reader

or

listener

reconstructs

the

position

of the

speaker.

As Benveniste

observes,

these words differ from other

68



4/12

Biopolitical

Beckett:


s

Resistance

linguistic

signs

in

that

they

are

signifiers

whose

reference,

but

not

signified,

shifts

according

to

when,

where and

by

whom

they

are

brought

into

use.

Agamben

claims

that

[t]here

is

politics

because

man

is the

living

being who,

in

language, separates

and

opposes

himself

to

his

own

bare

life

and,

at

the

same

time,

maintains himself

in

relation

to

that

bare life

in

an

inclusive

exclusion .7

In

light

of this

statement,

the

sentence

T,

say

I.

Unbelieving

could be said

to

sum

up

the

problem

of

subjectivity

central

to

the whole

oeuvre

of Samuel Beckett:

namely,

the human

relation

to

language

and the

impossibility

of

directly expressing

the

speaking subject.

It

is

impossible

in

narrative

to create

a

statement

in

which

the

subject

of

the

enunciation is

completely

co-extensive and

congruent

with

the

subject

of

the

utterance,

and vice

versa.

The

enunciating subject

can

neither

be enunciated

nor

uttered

as

enunciating.

In

actualizing language,

the

subject

of enunciation

is

expropriated by

what

becomes

the

subject

of

the

utterance.

The

linguistic personal

pronoun,

the word

T,

takes

the

place

of the

living,

existential

non

linguistic

subject

of the

enunciation,

which

is

why

the

narrating

voice,

towards the

end,

has to

say

T

say

I,

knowing

it s not I .

(U, 408)

The

sentence

T,

say

I.

Unbelieving

inscribes

a

traditional first

person-I

as

the

subject

of

the

text

that

is,

the

one

who

speaks

-

but

this

I-subject

cannot

appropriate

the

sentence

and is

immediately

transformed

into

an

I-object whereby

the second

person,

the

one

spoken

to,

is

inscribed

as

say

I .

The

sentence

is

then

reformulated

as

It,

say

it,

not

knowing

what ,

in

which

the

subjective

T

is

simply replaced

by

the

objective

it .

The

unity

of

the first

person

has

disintegrated

and

there is

no

longer

any

deictic location

of

an

T,

no

source

of

the

speaking

voice,

no

subject

of the

enunciation.

The

narrative situation is

characterized

by

a

fundamental

uncertainty

as

regards

who

is

speaking.

It

is

not

the

subject

of enunciation

who

seemingly

tries

to

express

him

or

herself

through

an

actualization of

language,

Unbelieving ,

but

some

unspecific other. The subject of enunciation is, in its inscription in

language,

denied

its

self,

its

personal being,

and

cannot

-

and

perhaps

will

not

-

occupy

the

place

of

subject

of

the

utterance.

A

hundred

pages

later,

the T

of the

beginning

is thus

replaced

by

an

impersonal

someone :

Someone

says

I,

unbelieving.

(U,

406)

The

conditions of

possibility

for

becoming

an

T in

language

remain,

as

Judith

Butler

remarks

with

reference

to

Benveniste,

indifferent

to

the T

that

one

69



5/12

Nordic Irish tudies

becomes: 'The

more

one

seeks

oneself

in

language,

the

more one

loses

oneself

precisely

therewhere

one

is

sought.'8

Thus,

The Unnamable

sabotages

the formal

apparatus

of the

discursive enunciation

by

not

allowing

anyone

to

identify

themselves

with,

and undertake

responsibility

for its

time,

place

and

person;

by only

asking,

not

answering

the

questions:

Where

now?

Who now? When

now?

This

suspended

identification

thereby implies

a

renunciation of the

possibility,

described

by

Benveniste,

for

appropriating

language

through

the

shifters

and

using

it

on

one's

own

behalf,

as a means

of

expressing

oneself.

It

also

implies

a

renunciation

of the

concomitant

idea that the

word

T

designates

the

one

who

speaks,

and

at

the

same

time

implies

an

utterance

about

that :

that

one,

in

saying

T,

cannot

not

be

speaking

about

oneself:9

T

seem

to

speak,

it

is

not

I,

about

me,

it

is

not

about

me.'

(U,

293)

The

T

is

a

paradox.

The

linguistic

T,

to

which

I

refer

by

the

concept

of

the

subject

of

utterance,

is

at

the

same

time

a

non-I,

in

that

the

narrator

not

only

uses

the

personal

pronoun

to

refer

to

him

or

herself

but also

to

mark

the distance

to

his

or

her self.

In his article

'The

nature

of

pronouns',

Benveniste

notes

that in

contrast to common nouns, 'the instances of the use of / do not

constitute

a

class of reference since

there

is

no

'object'

definable

as

/

to

which these instances

can

refer

in

an

identical

fashion'.10

The

meaning

of the

pronoun

can

be

defined

only through

reference

to

the

event

of

discourse

in

which

it is used.

The

reality

to

which

the

word

T refers is

therefore

not

a

real,

but

a

discursive

reality,

and

subjectivity

comes to

depend

on

enunciation:

V

cannot

be

defined

except

in

terms

of

'locution',

not in terms

of

objects

as a

nominal

sign

is.

/

signifies

'the

person

who is

uttering

the

present

instance

of discourse

containing

7.'11

Elsewhere,

in

'Subjectivity

in

Language',

Benveniste

shows

that

subjectivity

is

the

capacity

of the

speaker

to

posit

himself

as

subject:

Ego'

is

he who

says

'ego'.'12

This

implies

that the

does

not

refer

to

a

pre-existing

subjective

substance,

some

wordless

experience

of the

ego

or sense of being oneself, but rather to itsown saying,whereby theT

itself becomes

the

referent

it

is

meant to

signify.13

t

is thus

literally

in

and

through

language

that the

individual

is constituted

as a

subject.

The

personal

pronoun

is

an

'empty' signifier;

a

shifter

that does

not

refer

to

an

exterior

reality

but

which,

being

always

available,

is

'filled'

by

whoever

utters

it. It

is

a

marker of the

subject

only

as

long

as

that

subject

is

within

an

enunciation.

Subjectivity

can

thus be defined

only

70



6/12

Biopolitical

Beckett:


s

Resistance

through

this

linguistic

T that

transcends the

totality

f

lived

experience,

and that

provides

the

permanence

of the

consciousness.14

In

Agamben s

reading

of

Benveniste,

the

proper

meaning

of

pronouns

-

as

shifters

nd indicators

of

the

enunciation

-

is

inseparable

from

the

reference

to

the

event

of discourse.

The

articulation

-

the

shifting

that

they

effect

is

not

from the

non-linguistic

to

the

linguistic,

but from

langue

to

parole;

from the

language

system

to

its

use;

from the

code

to

the

message.

Deixis,

or

indication,

does

not

simply

demonstrate

an

unnamed

object,

the

individual

speaker,

but

first and

foremost

the

very

instance of

discourse,

its

taking place.

The

place

indicated

by

the

demonstration

and

fromwhich

only

every

other indication is

possible,

is

a

place

of

language.

Indication

is thus the

category

within

which

language

refers

to

its

own

taking

place.15

The crucial

question

for

Agamben

concerns

the

consequences

of

subjectiflcationfor

the

living

individual}6

What

happens

in,

and

for,

the

individual

living being,

the

infant

-

in

the

etymological

sense

of

a

being

who

cannot

speak

-

in

the

moment

he tries

to

appropriate

language, saysT and begins to speak? As Agamben has shown on the

basis of Benveniste s

analyses,

the

T,

the

subjectivity

to

which

the

infant

gains

access,

is

a

discursive

reality referring

neither

to

a

concept

nor

to

a

real

individual.17

The

T,

as

a

unity

transcending

any

possible

experience

and

providing

the

permanence

of

consciousness,

is

nothing

but the

appearance

in

Being

of

an

exclusively

linguistic

property .18

Hence

Benveniste s conclusion:

Tt

is in

the instance of

discourse

in

which I

designates

the

speaker

that

the

speaker proclaims

himself

as

the

subject.

And

so

it

is

literally

true

that the

basis of

subjectivity

is

in

the

exercise of

language. 19

In his

book

Remnants

of

Auschwitz,

Agamben

describes

how

enunciation

-

how this

subject-constituting

appropriation

of

language

that

establishes the

passage

from the

general,

virtual

language

to

concrete, actual discourse

-

simultaneously implies the

desubjectification

and the

expropriation

of the

speaking subject:

[T]he

psychosomatic

individual

must

fully

abolish

himself

and

desubjectify

himself

as

a

real

individual

to

become

the

subject

of

enunciation

and to

identify

imselfwith

the

pure

shifter

,

which

is

absolutely

without

any

substantiality

nd

content

other

than

its

71



7/12

Nordic

Irish tudies

mere

reference

to

the

event

of

discourse.

But,

once

stripped

f all

extra-linguistic

meaning

and

constituted

as

a

subject

of

enunciation,

the

subject

discovers

that

he

has

gained

access

not

so

much

to

a

possibility

of

speaking

as

to

an

impossibility

f

speaking

[...]

Appropriating

the formal

instruments f

enunciation

[which

are theshifters, orexample thepronounT], he is introduced nto

a

language

from

which,

by

definition,

nothing

will

allow

him to

pass

into discourse. And

yet,

in

saying

T,

you ,

this ,

now

he is

expropriated

of

all

referential

reality,

letting

himself

be

defined

solely

through

he

pure

and

empty

relation

to

the

event

of

discourse.20

The

shifter

T

does

not

refer

or

correspond

to

a

living

being

in

an

exterior

reality;

it

effects

a

shifting

not

from the

non-linguistic

to

the

linguistic,

but

from

language

to

discourse,

from the

language

system

to

its

use.

The

deictic

shifter

does

not

simply

demonstrate

an

unnamed

object,

the

psychosomatic

individual,

but

first of

all

the

very

event

of

discourse,

its

taking place,

and

thereby

in

a

certain

sense

excludes

the

reality

of

the

speaker.

In

our

very

subjectification,

our

appropriation

of

and entrance into

language,

in which we transform

language

into

discourse

by

removing

ourselves

from

infancy,

our

individual

living

reality

is

expropriated

and

desubjectified.

Thus

Agamben

traces

a

constitutive

desubjectification

in

every

subjectification.

In

accordance with

Agamben s

descriptions

of

desubjectification,

Maurice Blanchot maintains that the

T

of The

Unnamable

cannot

be

assigned

to

the

author,

Samuel

Beckett,

since

that

would

be

an

attempt

to

relate

it

to

what

he

calls

a

real

tragedy

of

a

real existence and

something

actually

experienced .

It

would,

moreover,

be

an

attempt

to

reassure

ourselves with

a

name,

to

situate the book s contents

on

that

personal

level where

someone

is

responsible

for all

that

happens

in

a

world where

we are

spared

the ultimate disaster

which is

to

have

lost

the

right

to

say

I .21

Certainly

there is

no one

to

undertake

responsibility

for

theT of The Unnamable; but this perhaps not only has to do with

losing

the

right

to

say

T,

but

also

with

demonstrating

what this

saying

I

implies, along

with

an

extremely

deliberate

way

of

saying

I

no

more ,

to

borrow the titleofDaniel

Katz

book.

Following

Agamben,

we

could

claim thatBeckett s work

testifies

to

the fact that

the

subject

is

not

only

an

effect of

language,

but also

the

site where

language

can

or

cannot

be

72



8/12

Biopolitical

Beckett:


s

Resistance

actualised

or

realised

in

discourse.

'The

subject

is

[...]

the

possibility

that

language

does

not

exist,

does

not take

place

-

or,

better,

that

it

takes

place

only through

its

possibility

of

not

being

there,

its

contingency.

The

human

being

is

the

speaking

being,

the

living

being

who

has

language,

because

the

human

being

is

capable

of

not

having language,

because

it

is

capable

of

its

own

infancy.'22

The

unnameability

of

the

Unnamable

can

be

read

as

a

refusal

to

comply

with

the

alienating

demand

to

identify

with

the

'empty' signifier

T,

a

refusal

to

affirm

n

identity

nd

a

fixed

subject-position:

I

shall

not

say

I

again,

ever

again,

it's

too

farcical.

I

shall

put

in

it's

[sic ]

place,

whenever

I hear

it,

the

third

erson,

if I think f

it.

Anything

to

please

them.

twill make

no

difference.

U,

358)

In

themeantime

no

sense

in

bickering

about

pronouns

and other

parts

of

blather.

The

subject

doesn't

matter,

there is

none.

(U,

363

64)

...

someone

says

you,

it's

the

fault

of

the

pronouns,

there is

no

name

for

me,

no

pronoun

for

me,

all the

trouble

comes

from

that,

that,

it's

a

kind

of

pronoun

too,

it

isn't that

either,

I'm not that

either,

et

s

leave

all that.

U,

408)

What

happens

is

a

continuous

un-saying

or

negation

of

the

pronouns

that

are

meant to

function

as

references

to

the

speaking

subject,

and thus

to

indicate

the

origin

of

the

discourse.

The

narrating

I inThe Unnamable

does

not

appropriate

language

and does

not

identify

itself

with

the

personal

pronoun;

it

never enters

and

connects

itself

with

what

is

told.

Thus Benveniste's

definition

of

subjectivity

as

the

speaker's

capacity

to

posit

him-

or

herself

as

subject

-

"Ego'

is he

who

says

'ego"23

-

cannot

be

applied

to

the unnameable

narrator-subject

of

The

Unnamable,

as

it

refuses to identifywith the linguistic ego which ismeant to represent it.

'Do

they

believe

I

believe

it

is

I

who

am

speaking?

That's

theirs

too.

To

make

me

believe

I

have

an

ego

all

my

own,

and

can

speak

of

it,

s

they

of theirs.

Another

trap

to

snap

me

up among

the

living.'

(U,

348)

In

the

terminology

of

Benveniste,

one

could

say

that the

semiotic

linguistic

signified

of

the

words,

their

signifie,

is

present

without

being

'filled'

by

an

extra-linguistic

semantic

referent.

hat the novel

stages

is "the

active

73



9/12

Nordic Irish tudies

non-being

of the

subject.

A

subjectivity

is

expressed

through

its

resistance

to

allowing

itself

to

be

expressed.

We

are,

in

the

very

precise

formulation of

Wolfgang

Iser

dealing

with

'Subjektivitat

als

Selbstaufhebung

ihrer

Manifestationen',

that

is,

'subjectivity

as

the

autogenous

cancellation

of its

own

manifestations';

but this does

not

mean,

as

Iser

through

his continual reference

to

'the

basic

self

seems

to

claim,

that there is

an

already

constituted

subject

or

self,

which exists

before these

negations

or

self-cancellations.

The

subject

is

only

constituted

through

the

negations,

in

other

words,

through

the

simultaneously

subjectifying

and

de-subjectifying

actualization

of

language.

It

is

in

the

light

of the

demonstration

of

this

simultaneously subjectifying

and

de-subjectifying

experience

of

language

that

Beckett's

work

might

be

said

to

have

a

political,

or

rather

a

ft/opolitical

dimension.

In

his book

Homo

Sacer,

Agamben

locates

the

foundation

for

the

political

in

the

human

being's linguistic

nature,

in

the

fact that

we,

in

language,

separate

and

oppose

ourselves

to

our

own

bare life

and,

at

the

same

time,

maintain ourselves in relation to that bare life. Immediately before this,

he claims that the

fundamental,

categorical

binaries

of

Western

politics

are

naked

life/political

existence, zoe/bios,

exclusion/inclusion.

According

to

Agamben,

the

primary

ambition of

biopower

is

an

attempt

to

produce,

in

the

human

body,

an

absolute

distinction

between the

living

being

and

the

speaking

being,

between

zoe

(simple

vegetative,

organic

life)

and

bios

(the

conscious,

politically

qualified

life

of the

free

human

being)

and between the non-human

and the

human.

The

most

extreme

result

of this

ambition

is the

completely

desubjectified

and

wordless

Muselmann

of the

Nazi

camps.

Following

Martin

Heidegger,

Agamben

does

not

see

the human

being

as

'a

living

being

who

must

abolish

or

transcend

himself

in order

to

become

human

-

man

is

not

a

duality

of

spirit

and

body,

nature

and

politics,

life

and

logos,

but

is

instead resolutely situated at the point of their indistinction'.24Thus

Beckett's

unnameable

being,

this

'wordless

thing

in

an

empty

space'

(U,

390)

can

be

read

as a

manifestation

of

Agamben's

idea

of

infancy,

which

forms

the

basis

for

an

ethical

and

political

attempt

to

resist

and

counter-act the

biopolitical

ambition

to

completely

separate

naked life

from

political

existence,

the

living

being

from

the

linguistic

being.

It

is

a

matter

of

remaining

within the double-movement

of

subjectification

and

74



10/12

Biopolitical

Beckett:


s

Resistance

desubjectification,

in this no-man's-land

between

identity

and

non

identity,

ince this

place,

which is

so

difficult

to

encircle and

maintain,

is

the site of resistance

against biopower.

It

is

the foundation

upon

which

a

new

minor

biopolitics

can

be

created.

In contrast

to

The

Unnamable,

the

personal

pronoun

T

is

completely

abandoned

in

Worstward

Ho,

written

some

thirty

ears

later.

'On.

Say

on.

Be said

on.

Somehow

on.

Till

nohow

on.

Said nohow

on.'25

It

starts

where The Unnamable

leftoff

-

'you

must

go

on,

I can't

go

on,

I'll

go

on'

(U,

418)

-

while

at

the

same

time

echoing

its

beginning

-

T.

Say

I'

-

by

substituting

an

'on' for

the

.

A

few

lines later

we

read

'All

of

old.

Nothing

else

ever.

Ever

tried.

Ever

failed.

No

matter.

Try

again.

Fail

again.

Fail better.'

The

text

continues

for

forty

pages

in

a

comma-less,

elliptical

and

repetitive

manner,

only

to

end

as

it

begins,

with

the

word

on:

'Said nohow

on.'26

The

sentence 'Fail

again.

Fail

better'

emphasizes

the

perseverance

with which

Beckett

-

as a

77

year

old,

14

years

after

having

received

the

Nobel

Prize

-

still maintained what

Eagleton

calls 'a

compact

with

failure'. This 'aesthetics of failure' was already foreshadowed in

Beckett's

first

publication,

the

poem

Whoroscope,

in

which he

stated

'Fallor,

ergo

sum '

(T

fail,

therefore

I

am'),

and

was

formulated

more

directly

in

1949,

in

a

famous

passage

in

the

dialogues

with

Georges

Duthuit:

'To

be

an

artist

is

to

fail,

as

no

other dare

fail,

that failure is

his

world and the

shrink

from

it

desertion,

art

and

craft,

good

housekeeping,

living.'27

The failure

that

constitutes Beckett's artistic

goal

is

a

failure

to

represent

altogether,

a

creative

incompetence.

'I'm

working

with

impotence, ignorance',

as

he said in

an

interviewwith Israel

Shenker.28

The

question,

however,

is how

impotent

the Beckettian

subject

of

enunciation is

in

its

attempts

to

fail;

whether this better

failing

does

actually

bear

witness

to

the

one

who

fails

and,

in

continuation

of

that,

to

a

potency

and

a

potentiality

in

relation

to

the

language

in

which the

failing takesplace.

'Desubjectification',

as

Agamben

claims,

'does

not

only

have

a

dark side. It is

not

simply

the

destruction of all

subjectivity.

There is also

this

other

pole,

more

fecund

and

poetic,

where the

subject

is

only

the

subject

of

its

own

desubjectification'.29

By

going

on,

'unbelieving'

but

'with

the

obligation

to

express',

the

Beckettian

expropriated

subject

of

enunciation

can

be

said

to

appropriate

its

own

expropriation.

Rather than

75



11/12

Nordic Irish

tudies

impotence,

Beckett's

work bears

witness

to

a

potentiality,

to

a

subject

that is

capable

of

becoming

the

subject

of its

own

desubjectification:

a

subject

that resists and evades

biopolitical

control.

Notes and References

1

Terry

agleton,

'Political

eckett?',

in

ew

Left

Review

40

(July/Aug

006),

67-74,

67.

2

Eagleton,

70.

3

Maurizio

Lazzarato,

'From

Biopower

to

Biopolitics',

translated

by

Ivan A.

Ramirez,

mPli

13(2002),

99-113,

100.

4

See

my

'Enunciation,

Subjectivity,

and

Neutrality:

Artistic

Experience

in Samuel

Beckett',

in ordisk Estetisk

Tidskrift/The

ordicJournal

of

Aesthetics 9-30

(2004),

76-86,

for

a

reading

of Worstward Ho

that further

develops

the line of

thought

propounded

here.

Samuel

Beckett: The

Unnamable,

in

Molloy.

Malone

Dies.

The Unnamable

(London:

John Calder, 1994), 293-418, 293. Subsequent references will appear parenthetically in

the

text

as

(U, 293).

6

Samuel

Beckett,

Molloy,

in

Molloy.

Malone

Dies. The

Unnamable, 5-176,

7. See also

Angela

Moorjani,

'Beckett's

Devious

Deictics',

in

Lance

St John Butler

Robin J.

Davis, eds.,

Rethinking

Beckett.

A Collection

of

Critical

Essays

(London:

Macmillan

Press,

1990),

20-30,

20.

7

Giorgio Agamben,

Homo Sacer:

Sovereign

Power and Bare

Life,

translated

by

Daniel

Heller-Roazen

(Stanford:

Stanford

University

Press,

1998),

8.

8

Judith

Butler,

Excitable

Speech.

A

Politics

of

the

Performative

(New

York London:

Routledge,

1997),

30.

9

Emile

Benveniste,

Problems

in

General

Linguistics,

translated

by Mary

Elizabeth

Meek

(Coral

Gables:

University

f

Miami

Press,

1971),

197.

10

Benveniste,

218.

11

Benveniste,

218.

12

Benveniste,

224.

13

See

Daniel

Katz,

Saying

I

No More:

Subjectivity

and Consciousness

in

the Prose

of

Samuel Beckett

(Evanston,

Illinois: Northwestern

University

Press,

1999),

which has

been

a

major

inspiration

for

my

reading

of

Beckett,

and

upon

which

I

draw

heavily

in

this

exposition

of Benveniste's

analysis

of

the

personal

pronoun

and

subjectivity

in

language.

14

See

Katz. See also

Giorgio Agamben,

Infancy

and

History,

translated

by

Liz

Heron

(London

New York:

Verso,

1993),

45,

and

Remnants

of

Auschwitz:

The Witness

and

the

Archive,

translated

by

Daniel

Heller-Roazen

(New

York

:

one

Books,

1999),

121.

76



12/12

Biopolitical

Beckett:


s

Resistance

15

See

Giorgio

Agamben, Language

and Death. The

Place

of

Negativity,

translated

by

Karen E.

Pinkus with Michael Hardt

(Minneapolis

&

Oxford:

University

of

Minnesota

Press,

1991),

25.

16

See

Agamben,

Remnants

of

Auschwitz,

121.

17

See

Benveniste,

226.

18

Agamben,

Remnants

of

Auschwitz,

121.

19

Benveniste,

226.

20

Agamben,

Remnants

of

Auschwitz,

116.

21

Maurice

Blanchot,

'Where now?

Who

now?' in The

Siren's

Song,

ed.

Gabriel

Josipovici

(Brighton:

Harvester

Press,

1982),

194

[translation

modified].

22

Agamben,

Remnants

of

Auschwitz,

146.

23

Benveniste,

224.

24

Agamben,

Homo Sacer:

Sovereign

Power

and

Bare

Life,

153.

25

Samuel

Beckett,

WorstwardHo

(London:

John

Calder,

1983),

7.

26

Beckett, WorstwardHo,

47.

27

Samuel

Beckett,

'Three

Dialogues'

in

Disjecta.

Miscellaneous

Writings

and

a

Dramatic

Fragment,

ed.

Ruby

Cohn

(London:

John

Calder,

1983),

138-145,

145.

28

Israel

Shenker,

'An

Interview with

Beckett'

in New

York

Times,

5

May

1956,

reprinted

in Samuel Beckett: The

Critical

Heritage,

eds.

Lawrence

Graver

and

Raymond

Federman

(London,

Henley

&

Boston:

Routledge

&

Kegan

Paul,

1979),

146

149, 149.

29

I

am sure

that

you

are more

pessimistic

than

I

am

.

.

.':

An

interview

with

Giorgio

Agamben',

trans.

Jason

Smith,

in

Rethinking

Marxism: A

Journal

of

Economics,

Culture

&

Society

16:2

2004),

115-124,

124.

77

desubjectification beckett

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