freedom and negativity in the works of samuel beckett and theodor adorno

258 Pages·2015·1.42 MB·English

F N
REEDOM AND EGATIVITY IN THE WORKS OF
S B T A
AMUEL ECKETT AND HEODOR DORNO

Natalie Leeder

Royal Holloway, University of London
PhD Thesis
TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION OF ACADEMIC INTEGRITY ........................................................................... 3
ABSTRACT ........................................................................................................................ 4
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...................................................................................................... 5
ABBREVIATIONS ................................................................................................................ 6
INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................ 9
CHAPTER ONE: FREEDOM AND ITS LIMITS ...................................................................... 44
CHAPTER TWO: THE ILLUSION OF FREEDOM AND THE FREEDOM OF ILLUSION ................ 71
CHAPTER THREE: THE SCARS OF EVIL .......................................................................... 105
CHAPTER FOUR: VIRTUAL FREEDOM ............................................................................ 144
CHAPTER FIVE: METAPHYSICS ..................................................................................... 190
EPILOGUE .................................................................................................................... 227
BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................. 231

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DECLARATION OF ACADEMIC INTEGRITY

I hereby certify that the work presented in this thesis is my own.

Natalie Leeder

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ABSTRACT

This thesis argues that Beckett’s corpus is concerned with the fragile possibility of
freedom as articulated by Adorno. As Chapter 1 demonstrates, this concern begins
with an overt thematisation of freedom in Murphy and Eleutheria that ultimately leads
to an impasse. In line with Adorno’s claim that ‘[f]reedom can be defined in negation
only’, Chapters 2 to 5 proceed to illuminate the deeply negative expressions of
freedom that pervade Beckett’s post-war corpus.
Chapter 2 explores the question of aesthetic freedom⎯a key preoccupation of
Adorno’s⎯in relation to Beckett’s Novellas: if art is wholly determined by its socio-
political context then it makes no sense to talk about freedom in relation to Beckett’s
work. This chapter considers the paradox whereby art simultaneously embodies the
illusion of freedom and the freedom of illusion. Chapter 3 traces the connection
between freedom and evil in The Lost Ones and Endgame, analysing the systematic
network of social unfreedom revealed in the cylindrical world of the former, and
through the oppressive weight of history in the latter.
Recognizing the significance of the philosopher’s critique of the Culture
Industry, Chapter 4 takes some of Adorno’s more nuanced texts as the basis for an
exploration of Beckett’s late media plays. It argues that the aesthetic incorporation of
technology heralds liberatory possibilities in its radical reimagining of the role of
technology as a mediator between subject and world. Finally, Chapter 5 considers the
significance of Adorno’s reconceptualisation of metaphysics in Beckett’s late short
prose, arguing that, while All Strange Away and Imagination Dead Imagine manifest
the horror of absolute immanence, Company registers the transcending impulse of
thought to free itself from the existing world. So, in Beckett’s resolutely negative art
as a whole, a provisional and ephemeral possibility of freedom is kept alive by his
abstaining from any affirmation of the existent.

4
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First and foremost, I would like to thank my supervisor, Andrew Gibson, without
whose support and absolute faith I would not have survived my doctoral study. His
inspirational supervision has developed my mind more than I can say. To Andrew
Bowie, too, I owe a great debt, not least for responding to my queries, deep and
superficial, at all hours of the day and night⎯and always with great humour, kindness
and thought.
My Mum, Dad and brothers, Joseph and Simeon, have provided unending
support, for which I cannot thank them enough. Love and thanks also to my Nanny,
eternally proud of her granddaughter, and my Grandad, who would have loved to
have seen this thesis.
I will always be grateful to David Addyman for introducing me to Beckett
during my Undergraduate. Rupert Gough and the Choir of Royal Holloway deserve a
special mention for accommodating my study and providing me with a wonderful
space of release and fulfilment. Grateful acknowledgement is due to Royal Holloway
for funding my research. I have, furthermore, been constantly overwhelmed
throughout my thesis at the kindness of strangers, too innumerable to list, who have
helped to smooth the path.
Finally, my heartfelt thanks to Sam Hall, who has been with me every step of
the way. To him I dedicate this thesis.

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ABBREVIATIONS

SAMUEL BECKETT

A number of Beckett’s texts are most accessible within collected works. For ease of
reference, I allude to each individual text by its full name and include below the
collection’s full citation and relevant page numbers.
The Complete Dramatic Works (London: Faber and Faber, 2006)
⎯ Waiting for Godot, pp. 7–88
⎯ Endgame, pp. 89–134
⎯ Happy Days, pp. 135–68
⎯ All That Fall, pp. 169–200
⎯ Krapp’s Last Tape, pp. 213–24
⎯ Rough for Theatre II, pp. 235–50
⎯ Embers, pp. 251–64
⎯ Rough for Radio I, pp. 265–72
⎯ Rough for Radio II, pp. 273–84
⎯ Words and Music, pp. 285–94
⎯ Cascando, pp. 295–304
⎯ Film, pp. 321–34
⎯ Eh Joe, pp. 359–68
⎯ Ghost Trio, pp. 405–14
⎯ ….but the clouds…, pp. 415–22
⎯ Catastrophe, pp. 455–62
⎯ Nacht und Träume, pp. 463–66
The Complete Short Prose, 1929–1989, ed. by S. E. Gontarski (New York: Grove
Press, 1995)
⎯ First Love, pp. 25–45
⎯ The Expelled, pp. 46–60
⎯ The Calmative, pp. 61–77
⎯ The End, pp. 78–99
⎯ All Strange Away, pp. 169–81
⎯ Imagination Dead Imagine, pp. 182–5
⎯ Enough, pp. 186–92
⎯ The Lost Ones, pp. 202–23
NoHow On: Company, Ill Seen Ill Said, Worstward Ho, ed. by S. E. Gontarski (New
York: Grove Press, 1996)
⎯ Company, pp. 1–46
⎯ Ill Seen Ill Said, pp. 47–86
⎯ Worstward Ho, pp. 87–116
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Eleutheria, trans. by Barbara Wright (London: Faber and Faber, 1996)
How It Is (London: Calder & Boyars, 1964; repr. 1972)
Molloy, ed. by Shane Weller (London: Faber and Faber, 2009)
Malone Dies, ed. by Peter Boxall (London: Faber and Faber, 2010)
Murphy, ed. by J. C. C. Mays (London: Faber and Faber, 2009)
The Unnamable, ed. by Steven Connor (London: Faber and Faber, 2010)

THEODOR W. ADORNO

AR The Adorno Reader, ed. by Brian O’Connor (Malden, MA and Oxford:
Blackwell, 2000)
AT Aesthetic Theory, ed. by Gretel Adorno and Rolf Tiedemann, trans. by
Robert Hullot-Kentor (London: Continuum, 1997; repr. 2012)
CM Critical Models: Interventions and Catchwords, trans. by Henry W.
Pickford (New York and Chichester: Columbia University Press, 2005)
CI The Culture Industry: Selected Essays on Mass Culture, ed. by J. M.
Bernstein (London: Routledge, 1991; repr. 2003)
HF History and Freedom: Lectures 1964–1965, ed. by Rolf Tiedemann,
trans. by Rodney Livingstone (Cambridge and Malden, MA: Polity
Press, 2008)
IS Introduction to Sociology, ed. by Christoph Gödde, trans. by Edmund
Jephcott (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2000)
KCPR Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, ed. by Rolf Tiedemann (Cambridge:
Polity Press, 2001)
LND Lectures on Negative Dialectics: Fragments of a lecture course
1965/1966, ed. by Rolf Tiedemann, trans. by Rodney Livingstone
(Cambridge and Malden, MA: Polity, 2008)
MCP Metaphysics: Concepts and Problems, ed. by Rolf Tiedemann, trans.
by Edmund Jephcott (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2000)
MM Minima Moralia: Reflections From Damaged Life, trans. by E. F. N.
Jephcott (London and New York: Verso, 2005)
ND Negative Dialectics, trans. by E. B. Ashton (New York and London:
Continuum, 2007)
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NL1 Notes to Literature Volume One, ed. by Rolf Tiedemann, trans. by
Shierry Weber Nicholsen, 2 vols (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1991), I
NL2 Notes to Literature Volume Two, ed. by Rolf Tiedemann, trans. by
Shierry Weber Nicholsen, 2 vols (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1992), II
P Prisms, trans. by Samuel M. Weber (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press,
1981)
PMP Problems of Moral Philosophy, ed. by Thomas Schröder, trans. by
Rodney Livingstone (Cambridge and Oxford: Polity, 2000)
TMR Towards a Theory of Musical Reproduction: Notes, a Draft and Two
Schemata, ed. by Henri Lonitz, trans. by Wieland Honban (Cambridge:
Polity Press, 2006)

MAX HORKHEIMER AND THEODOR W. ADORNO

DE Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical Fragments, ed. by Gunzelin
Schmid Noerr, trans. by Edmund Jephcott (Stanford, CA: Stanford
University Press, 2002)

IMMANUEL KANT

R ‘Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason’, trans. by George di
Giovanni, in Religion and Rational Theology, trans. and ed. by Allen
W. Wood and George di Giovanni (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1996), pp. 39–216
CPR Critique of Pure Reason, trans. and ed. by Paul Guyer and Allen W.
Wood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998)
CPrR Critique of Practical Reason, in Practical Philosophy, trans. and ed.
by Mary Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp.
133–272
GMM Groundwork of The Metaphysics of Morals, in Practical Philosophy,
trans. and ed. by Mary Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1999), pp. 37–108

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INTRODUCTION

Can it be we are not free? It might be worth looking into.
⎯ Molloy, p. 32
This thesis takes as its basis Theodor W. Adorno’s provocative claim that ‘[f]reedom
can be defined in negation only’ (ND, p. 321), and argues that Beckett’s writing shifts
from an overt and thematic exploration of freedom to what Adorno describes as a
‘determinate negation’ of various ‘concrete expression[s] of unfreedom’ (HF, p. 243).
I will expand upon Adorno’s philosophy later in this Introduction; for now, let it
suffice to clarify the term ‘determinate negation’, a concept that derives from Hegel,
but takes on a different significance in Adorno. Hegel’s conception of determinate
negation is based on the idea that, contra Scepticism, the ‘refutation of a theory leads
not to nothingness, but to another theory that could not exist without the one that it
refutes’.1 Negation as critique leads to positivity in that what is negated is superseded
rather than abstractly rejected. Adorno’s concerns about this ‘transfiguration of
negativity as redemption’ (DE, p. 18) lead him to adapt the term for his own purposes.
For Adorno, no affirmation follows from determinate negation: rather, the process
aims to divulge the truth by revealing the contradictions in play without attempting to
resolve them. A determinate negation of unfreedom, then, does not place its
opposite⎯freedom⎯in the palms of our hands as in a historical dialectic of progress:
rather, it reveals the untruth of the existing and allows us to ‘get in touch negatively
with its truth’.2 This negative access to truth⎯the possibility of freedom⎯is always
provisional, fragile and fleeting. For Adorno, determinate negation prevents us from
jeopardising that which we are attempting to salvage by prematurely converting it into
a positivity. Paradoxically, we can learn more about freedom from Beckett’s deeply
negative expressions of unfreedom than from the portrayal of an idealized utopia that
would be blind to its dependence on the given world.

1 Andrew Bowie, Adorno and the Ends of Philosophy (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2013), p. 190.
2 Berlin, Walter Benjamin Archiv, Akademie der Künste, MS 440, ‘Ästhetik’ (1961), p. 127. Quoted in
Bowie, p. 161 (author’s translation).
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Freedom in Beckett is at once a philosophical problem and a fragile,
ultimately unrealizable possibility. Fundamentally, it is a condition that is never
actualised as such⎯not even in the early works Murphy and Eleutheria, the only two
of Beckett’s texts to manifest an overt and sustained engagement with the concept.
Nonetheless, I argue that the interest in freedom Beckett so patently if provisionally
evinces in the thematics of Murphy and Eleutheria endures in his later texts in far
more intricate and nuanced ways. While a reader of mid- to late-Beckett might be
excused for doubting the significance of freedom in a corpus seemingly so
preoccupied with suffering, confinement and impotence, I read in these texts an
intractable impulse to preserve and, where this is no longer possible, generate a
minimal space of freedom that acts in direct opposition to an abjectly unfree social
totality.
In this, I am sustaining a tradition within Beckett studies that, by means of
disparate historical and/or philosophical routes, positions the writer as political and
radical.3 Such a tradition is threatened by a trend of unsettlingly conservative thought
often affiliated with archive-inspired materialism and also a related revival of
humanism in Beckett studies. At the heart of this former, political tradition lies
Adorno, whose seminal 1961 essay, ‘Trying to Understand Endgame’, revolutionised
the then predominant existential-humanist reception of Beckett by insisting on the
play’s distinct and complex relation to its socio-political context. Beyond this,
moreover, Beckett’s work became for Adorno the paradigmatic example of post-
Holocaust art, testifying to its acute historical moment in the only way that would not
betray it: negatively. For Adorno, while art is indisputably tethered to the world⎯not
least in its status as a commodity⎯it also, through its purposelessness, opposes it and
thus, as I discuss in Chapter 2, transcends it in a small but significant way. This is a

3 Paradigmatic of this tradition are Alain Badiou and Andrew Gibson, the major exponent and
interpreter of Badiou’s conception of Beckett in the English-speaking world. See, for example,
Alain Badiou, On Beckett, ed. by Nina Power and Alberto Toscano (Manchester: Clinamen Press,
2003); Andrew Gibson, Beckett and Badiou: The Pathos of Intermittency (Oxford and New York:
Oxford University Press, 2006). Other figures of note include James McNaughton, Tyrus Miller
and Seán Kennedy. For representative parts of their work, see, respectively, McNaughton,
‘Beckett, German Fascism, and History: The Futility of Protest’, Samuel Beckett Today /
Aujourd’hui, 15 (2005), 101–116; Miller, ‘Dismantling Authenticity: Beckett, Adorno, and the
“Postwar”’, Textual Practice, 8 (1994), 43–57; and Kennedy, ‘Introduction: Ireland/Europe…
Beckett/Beckett’, in Beckett and Ireland, ed. by Seán Kennedy (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2010), pp. 1–22. Laura Salisbury’s work can also at times be aligned with these
thinkers. See, for example, Samuel Beckett: Laughing Matters, Comic Timing (Edinburgh:
Edinburgh University Press, 2012).
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