Glitches in Logic in Beckett's Watt: Toward a Sensory Poetics.

Watt, Samuel Beckett's 'anti-logical' interwar novel, is generally recognized as a parody of the binary oppositions that underlie logical systems. This article moves beyond readings of Watt as a pastiche of logical positivism or as the sign of rationalism's exhaustion to argue that the novel's 'glit...

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Publicado en:Journal of Modern Literature Vol. 38; no. 2; pp. 103 - 117
Autor principal: Dennis, Amanda M.
Formato: Artículo
Publicado: Indiana University Press Winter2015
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Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
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        Watt (Book)
        Logic in literature
        Beckett, Samuel, 1906-1989
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        Experimental literature
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          Watt (Book)
          Logic in literature
          Beckett, Samuel, 1906-1989
          Interwar Period (1918-1939) in literature
          Experimental literature
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        body
        experimental novel
        laughter
        phenomenology
        Samuel Beckett
      ab: Watt, Samuel Beckett's 'anti-logical' interwar novel, is generally recognized as a parody of the binary oppositions that underlie logical systems. This article moves beyond readings of Watt as a pastiche of logical positivism or as the sign of rationalism's exhaustion to argue that the novel's 'glitches in logic' initiate a sensual poetics whereby sound-textures come to rival semantic sense. The text does exploit the pitfalls of rational systems, particularly their tendency to elide the body and their inability to code for infinite numbers or emotions, but where the zeros and ones of binary code approach absurdity, different possibilities for meaning emerge. Through references to bodily experience, desires, and ailments, as well as through associations of sounds and laughter, Watt, anticipating characteristics of Beckett's later texts, emphasizes the body as necessary to the construction of meaning in language.
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