Samuel Beckett in Confinement: The Politics of Closed Space

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Confinement appears repeatedly in Samuel Becketts oeuvre from the asylums central to Murphy and Watt to the images of confinement that shape plays such as Waiting for Godot and Endgame. Drawing on spatial theory and new archival research, Beckett in Confinement explores these recurring concepts of closed space to cast new light on the ethical and political dimensions of Becketts work. Covering the full range of Becketts writing career, including two plays he completed for prisoners, Catastrophe and the unpublished Mongrel Mime, the book shows how this engagement with the ethics of representing prisons and asylums stands at the heart of Becketts poetics. "James Littles Beckett in Confinement offers a brilliant analysis of the politics behind Becketts production of closed space, both as a writer and as a director. It carefully examines the move from writing about closed space to creating an art of confinement. To argue that Becketts use of confined space is central to the political dynamics of his works, James Little also superbly employs genetic criticism to open up the confined space of the published text and bring highly relevant draft materials back into the critical conversation." Dirk Van Hulle, Professor of Bibliography and Modern Book History, University of Oxford, UK "The many characters Beckett invented share one characteristic: they are all imprisoned or trapped in some way, no matter where they are. Samuel Beckett in Confinement: The Politics of Closed Space draws on untapped riches from Becketts correspondence and the archives to reconsider the obsession with entrapment, coercion and detention central to Becketts varied oeuvre. In this exciting and illuminating analysis, James Little offers a fresh and original reading of the works ethical and political dimensions, and shows us why we need to stop thinking about confinement as a metaphysical metaphor." Emilie Morin, Professor of Modern Literature, University of York, UK

Reviews

Littles references to recent performances of Becketts plays in different parts of the world (be it Not I or Godot) testify to their immense potential to resonate with their audiences in various political and cultural contexts. His comprehensive and extremely well-researched investigation of Beckett's creation of confined spaces, whether onstage or on the page (207), by means of the genetic-critical methodology, is illuminating, persuasive and extremely well-written, and as such is a valuable scholarly resource both within and beyond Beckett studies. * Recherche littraire / Literary Research *
What is then drawn out so meticulously in Samuel Beckett in Confinement is the playwrights rigorous refinement of stage space, stripping away, vaguening or undoing, resisting specificity in order to achieve greater resonance. In Becketts words: As much precision as possible. But minimum of explications (qtd. in Little 207). Gratifyingly, Little follows Beckett only in part, giving us both precision and explication in a book that adds substantially to our understanding, not simply of Beckett, but the functioning of theatre as a fundamentally spatial medium. * HJEAS: Hungarian Journal of English and American Studies *
Once the preserve of the prisoners, lunatics and ascetics that so fascinated Samuel Beckett, confinement has become all too familiar over recent months. And while it is clearly a recurrent theme in Becketts works, James Littles adroit study shows that it is much more than this: not only do carceral spaces prove fundamental to understanding Becketts idiosyncratic dramatic and aesthetic visions, but his remarkable art of confinement (90) also proves key to unveiling the implicit political and ethical implications of his plays and prose. * Contemporary Theatre Review *
The scope of this study will make it of interest to scholars across many disciplines. [...] What Beckett in Confinement contributes to the ongoing discussion of a Beckettian politics is an understanding of how the confined spaces of his oeuvre equip readers and audiences with a set of cognitive and conceptual tools for an ethical and political analysis of closed space. Little argues that the politics of Becketts spatial aesthetic is its resistance to the representation of enclosed spaces on the terms of the state, sidestepping hermeneutic closure to open up a multiplicity of closed spaces to socio-political critique. [...] It is a powerful argument for seeing Becketts oeuvre as a formal engagement with politics that places the ethical question foremost, with the spatial forms of his work shaped by a relation to the inalienable alterity of confinement that retains, rather than assimilates, its difference. * The Modernist Review *
It is clear that James Little's reading range is immense, and his arduous archival work makes reading his book essential for any researcher of the work of Samuel Beckett. * Beckettiana (trans. by Bloomsbury Academic) *
Little is persuasive in his claim that Beckett produces his stage spaces in self-conscious engagement with his socio-political context. And he writes very beautifully of prison productions of Godot. His knowledge and command of the archive is also extraordinary. * Irish University Review *
Little joins the growing list of scholars and readers recalibrating what we might broadly call Becketts politics as the historical arc of Beckett criticism shifts from seeing Beckett as a disengaged aesthete to something of a political philosopher. Joining these, Little takes a fresh approach to such issues as he returns to the famous confined spaces of Becketts texts in more broadly philosophical and political terms, shifting the calculus from restriction and confinement as an imaginative resource to the principle of coercive confinement in prose and on stage, confinements often extended beyond the seeable. Space itself is explored as a political issue. Amid a crowded field of Beckett scholarship, such recalibrations are most welcome. * S. E. Gontarski, Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor of English, Florida State University, USA *
James Littles Beckett in Confinement offers a brilliant analysis of the politics behind Becketts production of closed space, both as a writer and as a director. It carefully examines the move from writing about closed space to creating an art of confinement. To argue that Becketts use of confined space is central to the political dynamics of his works, James Little also superbly employs genetic criticism to open up the confined space of the published text and bring highly relevant draft materials back into the critical conversation. * Dirk Van Hulle, Professor of Bibliography and Modern Book History, University of Oxford, UK *
The many characters Beckett invented share one characteristic: they are all imprisoned or trapped in some way, no matter where they are. Samuel Beckett in Confinement: The Politics of Closed Space draws on untapped riches from Becketts correspondence and the archives to reconsider the obsession with entrapment, coercion and detention central to Becketts varied oeuvre. In this exciting and illuminating analysis, James Little offers a fresh and original reading of the works ethical and political dimensions, and shows us why we need to stop thinking about confinement as a metaphysical metaphor. * Emilie Morin, Professor of Modern Literature, University of York, UK *

Author Bio

James Little is a postdoctoral researcher at Charles University, Prague and Visiting Professor at Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic.