“Is that the word ?” Samuel Beckett and the Port-Royal Philosophy of Language

Abstract

Because of its doctrinal rigorousness and emphasis on penitential zeal, the pressure exerted by Catholicism in 1920’s and 1930’s Ireland has sometimes been likened to the growing influence of Jansenism in late 17th century France. In that respect, the biography and works of Samuel Beckett highlight an interesting scholarly dilemma. Although he went into a life-long exile precisely because he resented the culturally stultifying atmosphere of the Irish Free State, and may have found in the typically anti-religious stance of French intellectualism a confirmation of his own defiance against religious creeds, his early interest in the literary and philosophical manifestations of French Jansenism somehow complexifies the issue. As this article will argue, using a comparison between Pascal’s Pensées and Malone Dies, Beckett’s own brand of intellectualism seems to stand halfway between the fully antagonistic stance of the free thinker and the unconditional acceptance of an imposed doctrine.