Emptied of Theatre: Breath and the Phenomenology of Disembodiment

Abstract

The fourth chapter examines the variety of means that Beckett applies so as to generate that lack of the subject. The evasion of figuration, the withdrawal from representation and the abeyance of the mimetic are related facets of Beckett’s method of representational reduction. The chapter examines the de-centred field of subjectivity and its polysemous modes of absence and presence and argues that Breath is intrinsically intermedial given that is operates in-between presence and absence/emptiness, in-between embodiment and ambiguity of corporeal experience. Intermediality is traced in the context of the quasi-generic and inter-generic features of Beckett’s late style in the theatre, the de-centred field of subjectivity and its polysemous modes of absence and presence.