Sadean Intertext and Aesthetics in Samuel Beckett's Works

This is the first full-length study of the relevance of the Marquis de Sade (1740–1814) to the works of Samuel Beckett (1906–1989). Since the publication of his correspondence between 2009 and 2016, Beckett's interest in Sade has become more widely known and the question of a Sadean presence in Beckett's œuvre has been drawing increasing critical attention. However, Sade's sulphurous reputation tends to overshadow the complex intellectual implications of his thought and works, at the crossroads between philosophy, politics, pornography, and poetry.

This book provides novel ways to make sense of Sade's appeal for Beckett beyond his taste for the irreverent: indeed, beneath Sade's 'obscenity of surface', Beckett found a world of discourses simultaneously nourished by and revolting against key philosophical and ideological traditions that had shaped the Enlightenment and from which Modernism would later emerge. This research identifies empirical evidence of Sadean intertext in Beckett's works, such as direct borrowings or references, and also retraces Beckett's indirect encounters with Sade's legacy via secondary sources (philosophy, psychology, literature) that he is known to have read and exploited in his works. The study complements and builds on this empirical base with an interpretative analysis of Beckett's relationship to the Sadean and notions of 'sadism', arguing that these motifs can not only throw light on his attitude towards such matters as Enlightenment rationalism and psychoanalytic theory, but also illuminate his relationship with the work of other modernist authors such as Franz Kafka.

This book, therefore, aims not simply at documenting Beckett's interest in Sade, but also at piecing together a more comprehensive picture of the reasons for that interest, demonstrating that this Sadean evidence can be used as a meaningful index for a study of the evolution of Beckett's thought, style, and aesthetics throughout his life, as well as providing new insights into the intertextual dimension of his writings.