Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-05T04:21:48.351Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
Series:   Elements in Beckett Studies

Beckett and Derrida

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 November 2024

James Martell
James Martell
Affiliation:
Lyon College

Summary

Uncannily similar projects, Beckett's and Derrida's oeuvres have been linked by literary and philosophy scholars since the 1990s. Taking into consideration their shared historical and personal contexts as writers whose main language of expression was 'adopted' or 'imposed', this Element proposes a systematic reading of their main points of connection. Focusing on their engagement with the intricacies of beginnings and origins, on genetic grounds or surfaces analogous to the Platonic khôra, and on their similar critiques of the aporias of sovereignty, it exposes the reasons why multiple readers, like Coetzee, consider Derridean deconstruction a philosophical mirror of Beckett's literary achievements.
Get access

Keywords

BeckettDerridamodernismsovereigngender studies
Type
Element
Information
Series: Elements in Beckett Studies
Online ISBN: 9781009414364
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication: 19 December 2024

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Bibliography

Abbot, H. Porter (1996), Beckett Writing Beckett: The Author in the Autograph, Cornell: Cornell University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ackerley, Chris J. (2006), ‘An “Other Object of Note”: Circle and Point in Samuel Beckett’s Watt’, Samuel Beckett Today / Aujourd’hui, 16, pp. 319–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bailey, Helen and Davies, William, eds (2021), Beckett and Politics, Cham: Palgrave.Google Scholar
Bair, Deirdre (1978), Samuel Beckett, New York: Summit Books.Google Scholar
Beckett, Samuel (1958), Nouvelles et textes pour rien, Paris: Les éditions de minuit.Google Scholar
Beckett, Samuel (1969), Comment c’est, Paris: Les éditions de minuit.Google Scholar
Beckett, Samuel (1984a), Disjecta, Miscellaneous Writings and a Dramatic Fragment, ed. Cohn, Ruby, New York: Grove Press.Google Scholar
Beckett, Samuel (1984b), Mal vu mal dit, Paris: Les éditions de minuit.Google Scholar
Beckett, Samuel (1989), Molloy, Paris: Les éditions de minuit.Google Scholar
Beckett, Samuel (1992), L’innommable, Paris: Les éditions de minuit.Google Scholar
Beckett, Samuel (2000), Obra poética completa, Madrid: Hiperión.Google Scholar
Beckett, Samuel (2001), Fin de partie, Paris: Les éditions de minuit.Google Scholar
Beckett, Samuel (2004a), Compagnie, Paris: Les éditions de minuit.Google Scholar
Beckett, Samuel (2004b), Malone meurt, Paris: Les éditions de minuit.Google Scholar
Beckett, Samuel (2006a), The Grove Centenary Edition. Volume I: Novels, ed. Auster, Paul, New York: Grove Press.Google Scholar
Beckett, Samuel (2006b), The Grove Centenary Edition. Volume II: Novels, ed. Auster, Paul, New York: Grove Press.Google Scholar
Beckett, Samuel (2006c), The Grove Centenary Edition. Volume III: Dramatic Works, ed. Auster, Paul, New York: Grove Press.Google Scholar
Beckett, Samuel (2006d), The Grove Centenary Edition. Volume IV: Poems, Short Fiction, and Criticism, ed. Auster, Paul, New York: Grove Press.Google Scholar
Beckett, Samuel (2009), The Letters of Samuel Beckett, Vol. I: 1929–1940, ed. Dow Fehsenfeld, Martha and Overbeck, Lois More, New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Beckett, Samuel (2011), The Letters of Samuel Beckett, Vol. II: 1941–1956, ed. Craig, George, Fehsenfeld, Martha Dow, Gunn, Dan, and Overbeck, Lois More, New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Beckett, Samuel (2016), The Letters of Samuel Beckett, Vol. IV: 1966–1989, ed. Craig, George, Fehsenfeld, Martha Dow, Gunn, Dan, and Overbeck, Lois More, New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Beckett, Samuel (2020), Samuel Beckett’s Philosophy Notes, ed. Matthews, Steven and Feldman, Matthew, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Begam, Richard (1996), Samuel Beckett and the End of Modernity, Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Blanchot, Maurice (1978), Death Sentence, trans. Lydia Davis, Barrytown: Station Hill.Google Scholar
Boulter, Jonathan (2020), Posthuman Space in Samuel Beckett’s Short Prose, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Byron, Mark (2020), Samuel Beckett’s Geological Imagination, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Caselli, Daniela (2005), Beckett’s Dantes, Manchester: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
Caselli, Daniela (2023), Insufferable: Beckett, Gender and Sexuality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chattopadhyay, Arka (2018), Beckett, Lacan and the Mathematical Writing of the Real, London: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar
Clément, Bruno (2009), L’Œuvre sans qualités. Rhétorique de Samuel Beckett, Paris: Seuil.Google Scholar
Coetzee, J. M. (2006), ‘Introduction’, in Beckett, Samuel, The Grove Centenary Edition. Volume IV, New York: Grove Press, pp. ix–xiv.Google Scholar
Connor, Steven (2007), Samuel Beckett: Repetition, Theory and Text, Aurora: The Davies Group.Google Scholar
Cordingley, Anthony (2018), How It Is: Philosophy in Translation, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Deleuze, Gilles (1976), Différence et répétition, Paris: Presses universitaires de France.Google Scholar
Dennis, Amanda (2019), ‘Samuel Beckett et la langue maternelle. Ambivalence et expatriation linguistique’, in Mével, Yann (ed.), Samuel Beckett et la culture française, Paris: Garnier, pp. 95–114.Google Scholar
Dennis, Amanda (2021), Beckett and Embodiment: Body, Space, Agency, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Derrida, Jacques (1962), ‘Introduction à l’origine de la géométrie de Husserl’, in Husserl, Edmund, L’origine de la géométrie, trans. Jacques Derrida, Paris: Presses universitaires de France, pp. 3–171.Google Scholar
Derrida, Jacques (1974), Glas, Paris: Galilée.Google Scholar
Derrida, Jacques (1978), Writing and Difference, trans. Alan Bass, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Derrida, Jacques (1979a), L’écriture et la différence, Manchecourt: Éditions du seuil.Google Scholar
Derrida, Jacques (1979b), Marges de la philosophie, Paris: Les éditions de minuit.Google Scholar
Derrida, Jacques (1980), La carte postale, Paris: Flammarion.Google Scholar
Derrida, Jacques (1982), Margins of Philosophy, trans. Alan Bass, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Derrida, Jacques (1984), Edmund Husserl’s ‘Origin of Geometry’: An Introduction, trans. John P. Leavey Jr, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.Google Scholar
Derrida, Jacques (1986), Parages, Paris: Galilée.Google Scholar
Derrida, Jacques (1987a), The Post Card, trans. Alan Bass, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Derrida, Jacques (1987b), Ulysse gramophone, Deux mots pour Joyce, Paris: Galilée.Google Scholar
Derrida, Jacques (1991), A Derrida Reader: Between the Blinds, ed. Kamuf, Peggy, New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Derrida, Jacques (1992), Acts of Literature, ed. Attridge, Derek, New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Derrida, Jacques (1993a), Khôra, Paris: Galilée.Google Scholar
Derrida, Jacques (1993b), Memoirs of the Blind: The Self-Portrait and Other Ruins, trans. Pascale-Anne Brault and Michael Naas, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Derrida, Jacques (1993c), Spectres de Marx. L’état de la dette, le travail de deuil et la nouvelle Internationale, Paris: Galilée.Google Scholar
Derrida, Jacques (1994), Politiques de l’amitié, Paris: Galilée.Google Scholar
Derrida, Jacques (1995), ‘Khôra’, in Derrida, Jacques, On the Name, ed. Dutoit, Thomas, Stanford: Stanford University Press, pp. 89–127.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Derrida, Jacques (1996), Le monolinguisme de l’autre, Paris: Galilée.Google Scholar
Derrida, Jacques (1998), Monolingualism of the Other, Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Derrida, Jacques (2000), Etats d’âme de la psychanalyse, Paris: Galilée.Google Scholar
Derrida, Jacques (2001), ‘La veilleuse’, in Trilling, Jacques, James Joyce ou l’écriture matricide, Belfort: Circé, pp. 7–32.Google Scholar
Derrida, Jacques (2003), Voyous. Deux essais sur la raison, Paris: Galilée.Google Scholar
Derrida, Jacques (2004), ‘Living On’/‘Borderlines’, in Bloom, Harold, de Man, Paul, Derrida, Jacques, Hartman, Geoffrey, and Miller, J. Hillis, Deconstruction and Criticism, New York: Continuum, pp. 75–176.Google Scholar
Derrida, Jacques (2005a), The Politics of Friendship, trans. Georges Collins, London: Verso.Google Scholar
Derrida, Jacques (2005b), Rogues. Two Essays on Reason, trans. Pascale-Anne Brault and Michael Naas, Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Derrida, Jacques (2006a), ‘Comment ne pas trembler?’ Annali della Fondazione europea del disegno, Milan: Mondadori, pp. 91–103.Google Scholar
Derrida, Jacques (2006b), Specters of Marx, trans. Peggy Kamuf, New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Derrida, Jacques (2007), Learning to Live Finally, trans. Pascale-Anne Brault and Michael Naas, New York: Palgrave.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Derrida, Jacques (2008), La bête et le souverain I, Paris: Galilée.Google Scholar
Derrida, Jacques (2009), The Beast and the Sovereign. Volume I, trans. Geoffrey Bennington, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Derrida, Jacques (2011), The Beast and the Sovereign. Volume II, trans. Geoffrey Bennington, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Derrida, Jacques (2012), ‘La mélancholie d’Abraham’, Les Temps modernes, 669–70, pp. 30–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Derrida, Jacques (2013), ‘The Night Watch’, ‘Two Words for Joyce’, ‘Ulysses Gramophone’, in Mitchell, Andrew J. and Slote, Sam (eds.), Derrida and Joyce, Albany: SUNY Press, pp. 87–108, 281–98, 41–86.Google Scholar
Derrida, Jacques (2021), Clang, trans. G. Bennington and Wills, David, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Derrida, Jacques and Attridge, Derek (2009), ‘Cette étrange institution qu’on appelle littérature’, in Dutoit, Thomas and Romanski, Philippe (eds), Derrida d’ici, Derrida de là, Paris: Galilée, pp. 253–92.Google Scholar
Derrida, Jacques and Bennington, Geoffrey (1991), Jacques Derrida, Tours: Seuil.Google Scholar
Derrida, Jacques and Bennington, Geoffrey (1993), Jacques Derrida, trans. Geoffrey Bennington, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Derrida, Jacques and Ben-Naftali, Michael (2017), ‘Abraham’s Melancholy’, Oxford Literary Review, 39:2, pp. 153–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Derrida, Jacques and Plissart, Marie-Françoise (1998), Right of Inspection, trans. David Wills, New York: Monacelli Press.Google Scholar
Derrida, Jacques and Plissart, Marie-Françoise (2010), Droit de regards, Brussels: Les impressionnes nouvelles.Google Scholar
Kirby, Dick, and Kofman, Amy Z. (2001), Derrida: Screenplay and Essays on the Film, New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Dick, Kirby, and Kofman, Amy Z. (2005), Derrida, New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Feldman, Matthew (2006), Beckett’s Books, New York: Continuum.Google Scholar
Freud, Sigmund (1946), Gesammelte Werke. Schriften Aus dem Nachlass 1892–1938, London: Imago.Google Scholar
Freud, Sigmund (1957), ‘On Narcissism’, in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume XIV (1914–1916), London: Hogarth Press, pp. 67–102.Google Scholar
Gontarski, S. E. (1996), ‘Introduction’, in Beckett, Samuel, Nohow On, New York: Grove Press, pp. vii–xxviii.Google Scholar
Graham, Alan (2021), ‘“Made of Words”: Beckett and The Politics of Language’, in Bailey, Helen and Davies, William (eds), Beckett and Politics, Cham: Palgrave, pp. 55–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hägglund, Martin (2008), Radical Atheism, Stanford: Stanford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hegel, G. W. F. [1807] (1977), Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. A. V. Miller, New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hegel, G. W. F. [1807] (2010), Phänomenologie des Geistes, Cologne: Anaconda.Google Scholar
Heidegger, Martin (2008), Being and Time, trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson, New York: Harper.Google Scholar
Hiebel, Hans (1995), ‘Quadrat 1 and 2 as a Television Play’, Samuel Beckett Today / Aujourd’hui, 4, pp. 335–43.Google Scholar
Katz, Daniel (1999), Saying I No More: Subjectivity and Consciousness in the Prose of Samuel Beckett. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.Google Scholar
Kearney, Richard (1995), States of Mind, New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
Kenny, Eva (2020), ‘A Fetish for Failure’, Dublin Review of Books, https://drb.ie/articles/a-fetish-for-failure.Google Scholar
Knowlson, James (1996), Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett, New York: Simon & Schuster.Google Scholar
Little, James (2020), Samuel Beckett in Confinement: The Politics of Closed Space, London: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar
Martell, James (2013), ‘Between Beckett and Derrida: A Hegelian Death’, in Chattopadhyay, Arka and Martell, James (eds), Samuel Beckett and the Encounter of Philosophy and Literature, London: Roman, pp. 136–55.Google Scholar
Martell, James (2020), ‘How to Tremble beyond Sovereignty: Derrida’s Beckettian Spectre’, Oximora, 17, pp. 99–118.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martell, James (2024a), ‘Between the Ocean and the Ground: Giving Surfaces’, Derrida Today, 17:1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martell, James (2024b), ‘Modernism’s Totalities: From the Marquis de Sade to Titus-Carmel’, Journal of Modern Literature, 48:1.Google Scholar
Maude, Ulrika (2011), Beckett, Technology, and the Body, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
McMullan, Anna (2021), Beckett’s Intermedial Ecosystems, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moorjani, Angela (1982), Abysmal Games in the Novels of Samuel Beckett, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
O’Connell, Brenda (2021), ‘Insufferable Maternity and Motherhood in “First Love”’, in Bailey, Helen and Davies, William (eds), Beckett and Politics, Cham: Palgrave, pp. 107–21.Google Scholar
Olk, Claudia (2022), Shakespeare and Beckett, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Plato, (1903), Platonis Opera, ed. Burnet, John, Oxford: Oxford University Press. www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0180%3Atext%3DTim.%3Asection%3D52a.Google Scholar
Rabaté, Jean-Michel (2016), Think Pig! Beckett at the Limits of the Human, New York: Fordham University Press.Google Scholar
Rabaté, Jean-Michel (2020), Beckett and Sade, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Salisbury, Laura (2015), Samuel Beckett: Laughing Matters, Comic Timing, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Santner, Eric (2011), The Royal Remains, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schelling, F. W. J [1809] (2006), Philosophical Investigations into the Essence of Human Freedom, trans. Jeff Love and Johannes, Schmidt: SUNY Press.Google Scholar
Schulz, Hans-Joachim (1973), This Hell of Stories: A Hegelian Approach to the Novels of Samuel Beckett, The Hague: Mouton.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sharkey, Rodney (2010), ‘Beaufret, Beckett, and Heidegger: The Question of Influence’, Samuel Beckett Today / Aujourd’hui, 22, pp. 409–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simpson, Hannah (2022a), Samuel Beckett and Disability Performance, Cham: Palgrave.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simpson, Hannah (2022b), Samuel Beckett and the Theatre of the Witness, Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Szafraniec, Asja (2007), Beckett, Derrida, and the Event of Literature, Stanford: Stanford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Trezise, Thomas (1990), Into the Breach. Samuel Beckett and the Ends of Literature, Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Uhlmann, Anthony (1999), Beckett and Poststructuralism, New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Van Hulle, Dirk and Weller, Shane (2014), The Making of Samuel Beckett’s L’Innommable / The Unnamable, London: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar
Weller, Shane (2005), A Taste for the Negative: Beckett and Nihilism, London: Legenda.Google Scholar

Save element to Kindle

To save this element to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Beckett and Derrida
Available formats
×

Save element to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Beckett and Derrida
Available formats
×

Save element to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Beckett and Derrida
Available formats
×