‘The Young Fellow of Trinity College’: Beckett, Berkeley, and the Genesis of Murphy

Abstract

The article revisits the reference to the 18th century Irish philosopher George Berkeley in Samuel Beckett's first published novel, Murphy. Previous scholarship assumed that references to Berkeley's theory of immaterialism were inherent to the novel's exploration of the relations between the mind and the world. However a comparison of the novel's manuscript, typescript and the final printed version reveals that they were a relatively late addition. As Beckett was typing up the manuscript in June 1936 he expanded on a previous cryptic allusion to Berkeley, and added two more. Beckett's reluctance to engage with Berkeley in the earlier version may be due in part to his scepticism towards the Irish Revival which adopted the famous philosopher as a national model for Irish thinking. It was Beckett's reading of Arnold Geulincx in 1936, it is argued, that made him revisit Berkeley's views and contrast them with Geulingian ethics which he viewed more favourably. The first reference to Berkeley in the published novel echoes a comparison he made between him and Arnold Geulincx in a letter to McGreevy, highlighting the relevance of this reference point for Beckett's treatment of Berkeley. The denial that Murphy's mind was ‘involved in the idealist tar’ is shown to be subsequent to Beckett's reading of Geulincx. Finally, the reference to ‘percipi’ and ‘percipere’ in the description of Murphy's state following his game of chess with Mr. Endon is correlated with Geulincx's ethics to suggest that, however briefly, Murphy becomes aware of his own impotence.