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Full Description
The animals that appear in Samuel Beckett's work are diverse and unpredictable. They serve as victim and persecutor, companion and adversary, disconcerting observers and objects oblivious to the human gaze. Bringing together an international array of Beckett specialists, this is the first full-length study to explore the significance of the animals that populate Beckett's prose, drama and poetry. Essays theorise a broad spectrum of animal manifestations while focusing on the roles that distinct animal forms play within Beckett's work, including horses, sheep, cats, dogs, bees, insects and others. Contributors situate close readings within a larger literary and cultural context, drawing on thinkers ranging from Aristotle to Deleuze, Foucault and Agamben, and on authors such as Flaubert, Kafka and Coetzee. The result is an incisive and provocative collection that traverses disciplinary boundaries, revealing how Beckett's creatures challenge conventional notions of species identity and, ultimately, what it means to be human.
Contents
List of contributors; List of abbreviations; Acknowledgements; Introduction Mary Bryden; Part I. Animality: 1. Forms of weakness: animalisation in Kafka and Beckett Shane Weller; 2. Beckett, Coetzee, and animals Yoshiki Tajiri; 3. The Beckettian bestiary Mary Bryden; 4. 'Quite exceptionally anthropoid': species anxiety and metamorphosis in Beckett's humans and other animals David Wheatley; 5. An animal inside: Beckett/Leibniz's stone, animal, human, and the unborn Naoya Mori; 6. Pavlov's dogs and other animals in Samuel Beckett Ulrika Maude; 7. Little animals in the brain: Beckett's 'porteurs de la mémoire' Yoshiyuki Inoue; Part II. The Specificity of Animals: 8. 'Think, pig!': Beckett's animal philosophies Jean-Michel Rabaté; 9. Beckett's 'necessary' cat(s) Linda Ben-Zvi; 10. Making flies mean something Steven Connor; 11. 'Hooves!': the equine presence in Beckett Joseph Anderton; 12. The dancing bees in Samuel Beckett's Molloy: the rapture of unknowing Angela Moorjani; 13. Despised for their obviousness: Samuel Beckett's dogs Chris Ackerley; 14. Beckett and sheep Julie Campbell; 15. 'Eyes in each other's eyes': Beckett, Kleist, and the fencing bear Maximilian de Gaynesford; 16. Words without acts: Beckett's parrots Brigitte Le Juez.
