Abstract
The work of Samuel Beckett is frequently associated with themes silence, typically a silence that relates to the solitude and solipsism of his narrators. Focusing on Beckett’s prose, and with an overwhelming emphasis on the late text Company, Gould instead shows the ways in which silence relates to ethics and relationality. Through and with a reading Company, Gould discusses: the silence of the face, which he explores alongside Levinas and Agamben; the philosophical connection between silence and finitude; and the silence of reading, as both a critical and a phenomenological activity. The chapter concludes with a brief reconsideration of the relationship between Samuel Beckett and the criticism of Maurice Blanchot.
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Gould, T. (2018). Broken Silence: Samuel Beckett. In: Silence in Modern Literature and Philosophy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93479-2_3
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