Beckett and Embodiment

The abject, decrepit body in Beckett does not signal the impossibility of agency but demands its reconceptualisation. Analysing the body in relation to its environment in Beckett’s work, the author redefines the power to do and act. Separating dynamic interaction from willed intention, Amanda Dennis shows how Beckett’s oeuvre refashions subjectivity in dialogue with a disintegrating environment. The book provides a phenomenological reading of Beckett to argue that sensation and embodiment, by supporting our interactions with our material world, enable possibilities for embodied agency in collaboration with our physical and linguistic surroundings.