Estudios Irlandeses (Oct 2019)
Beckett’s Queer Atavism
Abstract
Queer readings of Samuel Beckett’s antipathy to reproduction have focused on his refusal of futurity. This essay expands on previous studies of anti-futurity in Beckett’s work by exploring his fascination with atavism, regression, and decadence. Beckett’s anti-vitalist modernism departs from James Joyce’s preoccupation with the fruitful potentialities of the degenerate body; from his early story “Echo’s Bones” to his final full-length novel How It Is, he links atavism to the queer refusal of generative life. By extension, Beckett’s “queer atavism” presents a striking alternative to recent neovitalist affirmations of the inhuman in queer theory and modernist studies.