Schopenhauer, Beckett, and the Impoverishment of Knowledge

Evental Aesthetics 2 (4):66-91 (2014)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

In this paper I will explore Samuel Beckett’s significant, yet overlooked, contribution to the study of asceticism and ascetic thought. I will present a reading of Beckett’s seminal play, Waiting for Godot, so as to illustrate the way in which Beckett utilizes and develops numerous aspects of Arthur Schopenhauer’s philosophical system. As I understand it, the Beckettian asceticism manifested in the tragedies of Beckett’s middle period not only utilizes aspects of Schopenhauerian asceticism, it also incorporates broader, non-ascetic aspects of Schopenhauerian thought – namely that of boredom, and the aesthetic theory of the dynamically sublime. In contrast to Schopenhauerian asceticism, which focuses on bodily deprivation, Beckettian asceticism impoverishes not only the body but also the mind. Through the medium of tragedy, Beckett presents a unique ascetic method that centres on impoverishing the mind by preventing the formation of useful, or actionable, representations

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive

    This entry is not archived by us. If you are the author and have permission from the publisher, we recommend that you archive it. Many publishers automatically grant permission to authors to archive pre-prints. By uploading a copy of your work, you will enable us to better index it, making it easier to find.

    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 107,592

External links

  • This entry has no external links. Add one.
Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Analytics

Added to PP
2014-05-14

Downloads
17 (#1,285,314)

6 months
17 (#199,045)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Citations of this work

Schopenhauer's Aesthetic Ideology.Michel-Antoine Xhignesse - 2023 - In David Bather Woods & Timothy Stoll, The Schopenhauerian mind. New York, NY: Routledge. pp. 127-40.
Poverty and Asceticism (Vol. 2 No. 4,2014).Evental Aesthetics - 2014 - Evental Aesthetics 2 (4):1-107.

Add more citations

References found in this work

On the fourfold root of the principle of sufficient reason.Arthur Schopenhauer - 1974 - La Salle, Ill.,: Open Court. Edited by David E. Cartwright, Edward E. Erdmann, Christopher Janaway & Arthur Schopenhauer.
Willing and unwilling: a study in the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer.Julian Young - 1987 - Hingham, MA: Distributors, Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, and Dionysus.Martha C. Nussbaum - 1999 - In Christopher Janaway, The Cambridge Companion to Schopenhauer. New York: Cambridge University Press. pp. 344--74.

Add more references