Devine aphasia1:
You must go on, I can’t go on, I’ll go on2.
Decoding Samuel Beckett’s style
1From Lucky’s speech, in Waiting for Godot; 2from The Unnamable p.134.
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1
University of Exeter, Psychology, United Kingdom
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2
University of Exeter, English, United Kingdom
Beckett was perhaps the most influential writer of the 20th century, but many find his work difficult. We suggest a clue to understanding much of Beckett lies in his use of ‘aphasic’ language.
In 1988 Beckett became aphasic following a stroke. During recovery he wrote his last piece, the poem what is the word, for actor Joe Chaikin, himself aphasic. It consists of fractionated language, replete with modal verbs, striving, like so much of Beckett’s work, to express ‘self’ with access to affect and intentionality, but minus propositional-representational language: ‘the clash between can't and must’, as he put it. Interestingly, Beckett scholars have not seen the poem as ‘aphasic’ in nature, probably because it seems to perfectly resemble his recognisable style. Writers struggle to find words to express thoughts; struggle was the very signature of Beckett’s art; obsessed with speech denuded of 'intellect', decoupled from consciousness. He sought a way of expressing ‘self’ without propositional language, which he found in aphasia. Widely read in neurology, and very familiar with aphasia, he used his fascination with 'function running away with organ' in his writing.
We explore relationships between Beckett’s work, aphasic experience and his obsession with compulsive language. Using examples of aphasic modal lexical speech automatisms (stereotyped, unchanging utterances; Table 1), and developments of modalizing language (Nespoulous et al., 1998), we examine how Hughlings Jackson’s emotional/non-propositional language, offers insights into Beckett’s desire to detach language from the expression of a thinking, intending self.
Examining the compulsive, disinhibited language that often characterises aphasia, we show where Beckett found his language of feeling, which continues to resonate within readers and audiences. For Beckett, when ‘everything seems inexpressible, there remains the need to express’.
The aging Beckett wrote, "…with old age…diminished concentration…memory …intelligence — what you…might call 'brain damage' — the more chance there is for saying something closest to what one really is… though everything seems inexpressible, there remains the need to express…" (Shainberg, 1987), encapsulating the essence of severe aphasic experience and dependency on automatisms and modularized speech.
Significantly, in what is the word, the sense that there is any ‘I’ to express is compromised, despite the compulsion to express. Without personal pronouns – ‘folly for [me] to’, ‘folly for [him] to’, ‘folly for [us] to’ – the ‘folly’ involved in the hopeless search for the right word intensifies subjective frustration. The aphasic condition represents a process of subjective reshaping, becoming other to the familiar, pre-aphasic self. Affects and intentions remain as compulsions – self that cannot know itself in its suffering, yet still feels enough to witness becoming something other, something it cannot recognise.
Moran in Molloy states: “To be literally incapable of motion at last, that must be something! My mind swoons when I think of it. And mute (‘une aphasie complète’) into the bargain! … just enough brain intact to allow you to exult! (Beckett, 1994, 140-1).” It is the ‘aphasic’ writing that explores the possibility that dissolution of self can sit alongside having ‘just enough brain’ to experience its disappearance. Devine aphasia indeed.
References
Beckett, S. (2009). Molloy. London: Faber.
Beckett, S. (2002). Poems: 1930–1989. London: Calder Publications.
Beckett, S. (2010b). The Unnamable. London: Faber.
Code, C. (1982). Neurolinguistic analysis of recurrent utterance in aphasia.
Cortex, 18, 141-152.
Nespoulous, J-L., Code, C., Virbel, J., Lecours, A-R. (1998) Hypotheses on the dissociation between “referential” and “modalizing” verbal behaviour in aphasia. Applied Psycholinguistics, 19, 311-331.
Salisbury, L. (2008). ‘What Is the Word’: Beckett’s aphasic modernism. Journal of Beckett Studies, 17, 78–126.
Shainberg, L. (1987), Exorcising Beckett. Paris Review, 104, 100–37.
Keywords:
Aphasia,
Samual Beckett,
aphasic speech automatism,
modalizing language,
non-propositional language
Conference:
54th Annual Academy of Aphasia Meeting, Llandudno, United Kingdom, 16 Oct - 18 Oct, 2016.
Presentation Type:
Platform Sessions
Topic:
Academy of Aphasia
Citation:
Code
C and
Salisbury
L
(2016). Devine aphasia1:
You must go on, I can’t go on, I’ll go on2.
Decoding Samuel Beckett’s style
1From Lucky’s speech, in Waiting for Godot; 2from The Unnamable p.134..
Front. Psychol.
Conference Abstract:
54th Annual Academy of Aphasia Meeting.
doi: 10.3389/conf.fpsyg.2016.68.00009
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Received:
24 Mar 2016;
Published Online:
15 Aug 2016.
*
Correspondence:
Prof. Chris Code, University of Exeter, Psychology, Exeter, EX4 4QG, United Kingdom, c.f.s.code@exeter.ac.uk