Reading Deleuze Reading Beckett: Toward a Poetics of Depotentialization in Watt
Date Issued
2016
Date
2016
Author(s)
Hu, Wan-Chien
Abstract
This master thesis examines Samuel Beckett’s Watt from a perspective built upon Gilles Deleuze’s engagement with Beckett in “The Exhausted.” By resorting to Deleuze’s conception of the exhausted, this thesis argues that the textual and structural peculiarities of Watt could be understood as various ways to exhaust the possible on different levels of determination. Characterized as “the great serial novel” by Deleuze and further argued by this thesis, Watt is not only a text formed by exhaustive series but also an exhaustive text that renders its reader exhaustible and exhausted. Pairing Deleuze with Beckett in this enterprise of reading Watt toward a poetics of depotentialization serves a twofold purpose. The first chapter deals with the issue of language that scholars consider problematic in Deleuze’s discussion of Beckett’s mode of exhaustion. Instead of reinforcing the point of view that Deleuze’s engagement of Beckett is infested with problems—ranging from “the problem of language” in general to “the problem of metaphoricity” in particular, this thesis argues to the contrary that concern for such problems is not warranted. After mapping out the constellation of ideas and debates surrounding Deleuze’s conception of the exhausted, the second chapter proceeds to examine the textual and structural peculiarities of Watt in relation to the question of the possible and argues against the perspective that considers Beckett’s interwar novel as an “anti-logical” effort that seeks to move “beyond the metaphysics of presence.” This thesis argues that the structural design of Watt forms a special textual space in which there is a double possible to be depotentialized. By reading Watt toward a poetics of depotentialization, this thesis concludes that Watt is not only a text formed by exhaustive series but also an exhaustive text that renders its reader exhaustible and exhausted.
Subjects
Deleuze
Beckett
Watt
depotentialization
poetics
Type
thesis