Sharing her bewilderment: 'Not I', experimentation and the perception of speech

Powell, Joshua 2017. Sharing her bewilderment: 'Not I', experimentation and the perception of speech. Journal of Beckett Studies 26 (2) , pp. 221-238. 10.3366/jobs.2017.0204

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Abstract

Samuel Beckett is often thought of as an experimental writer but little critical attention has been paid to the question of what the term ‘experimental’ means when applied to Beckett's work (and arguably literature in general). One might suggest that to call Beckett an experimental writer is to identify him as a member of the avant-garde, placing his writing in opposition to more commercially-orientated, ‘mainstream’ works of literature. Alternatively, the term might be taken to highlight Beckett's formal innovations – his capacity to change conceptions of what literature is and does. This article, though, specifies another way in which we might understand Beckett's writing to be experimental. Drawing on Beckett's engagement with the discipline of psychology, the article puts forward the case that Beckett's works can be seen as experiments in a more scientific sense. Beckett's writing, I suggest, can be defined as experimental insofar as it works to change our understandings of particular psychophysiological concepts and phenomena. Through a consideration of the 1972 play Not I, this article argues that one concept Beckett's work investigates is speech perception. Reading Beckett's play alongside various psychological experiments on auditory and visual speech perception, the article concludes that Beckett's play can be seen as scientifically-informed aesthetic experimentation, though not scientific research.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Published Online
Status:	Published
Schools:	English, Communication and Philosophy
Publisher:	Edinburgh University Press
ISSN:	0309-5207
Date of Acceptance:	2017
Last Modified:	21 Mar 2024 13:17
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/166761

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