Beckett in Theory 2011/12
I was like all the other students of philosophy at the time, and for me, the rupture came with Beckett: Waiting for Godot , a breath-taking spectacle. - Michel Foucault Bruno Clement, writing of early critical responses to Beckett's Trilogy by, amongst others, George Bataille, Maurice Blanchot, and Alain Robbe-Grillet, notes that they are all written "under influence." I mean... their content is indebted, in more than one way, depending on the particular case, to the discourse used by the work itself. Writing "under influence," philosophers from Bataille to Badiou have chosen to write their philosophy through Beckett. Richard Begam, Anthony Uhlmann, Steven Connor, Leslie Hill, Thomas Trezise, and other notable Beckett critics have commented extensively on the impact this has had in the realm of Beckett studies. Andrew Gibson has demonstrated the reciprocal impact Beckett has upon a reading of Badiou, for whom Beckett constitutes "a so