Crawling Creating Creatures: On Beckett's Liminal Minds

Bernini, M.

Abstract

The continuity and contiguity between animal and human beings in Beckett’s work has been the subject of sustained critical attention. The recurring dehumanisation or degeneration of his characters’ mental faculties and behaviours has largely been analysed as an ‘ostensible animalization’ of human nature – following a reading of the ‘creaturely’ spectrum as a regression from the human to the animal. In contrast, this article considers the creaturely level in Beckett’s narrative as occupied by undeveloped human cognisers as opposed to (and sometimes rancorously opposing) fully fledged Humans. If Beckett’s formal minimalism has been extensively foregrounded, this essay draws on contemporary cognitive science and phenomenology in order to define and examine what the author calls Beckett’s cognitive liminalism – his literary exploration of liminal states of cognition and experience, of which the concept of the ‘creature’ constitutes a foundational element.

Citation

Bernini, M. (2015). Crawling Creating Creatures: On Beckett's Liminal Minds. European Journal of English Studies, 19(1), 39-54. https://doi.org/10.1080/13825577.2015.1004916

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Sep 30, 2014
• Online Publication Date: Mar 12, 2015
• Publication Date: Mar 12, 2015
• Deposit Date: May 15, 2015
• Publicly Available Date: Nov 20, 2015
• Journal: European Journal of English Studies
• Print ISSN: 1382-5577
• Electronic ISSN: 1744-4233
• Publisher: Taylor and Francis Group
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 19
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 39-54
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13825577.2015.1004916
• Keywords: Samuel Beckett, Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable, Company, Creature, Cognition, Phenomenology, Consciousness, Emergence, Predictive mind, Attunement.
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1405499