Beckett Judaizing Beckett: "a Jew from Greenland" in Paris

• Published in: Samuel Beckett Today / Aujourd'hui
• Main Author: Blackman, Jackie
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: Brill 2007
• Subjects: Literature and Literary Theory; Greenland
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/18757405-018001024; https://brill.com/view/journals/sbt/18/1/article-p325_24.xml; https://brill.com/downloadpdf/journals/sbt/18/1/article-p325_24.xml

Through a biographical and thematic examination of Beckett's experience of Jews, Judaism and anti-Semitism in Dublin, Germany, and France, this paper will provide new information pertinent to an understanding of Beckett's postwar ethical and aesthetic approach. I will argue that the subtle yet discernible traces of Judaic suffering and otherness which can be found in Beckett's early plays demonstrate a unique form of hypersensitivity, which, in the aftermath of the catastrophe, can be seen to embody a timely and appropriate response to the problematics of Judaic mimesis.