1. State in non-technical terminology the objective(s) of the proposed research, and
I will use this grant to produce a book on Samuel Beckett’s engagement with the
concept of degeneration as a way of accounting for the decline of Ireland’s
Protestant ascendancy. As early as 1931, Beckett was taking extensive notes
from Max Nordau’s Degeneration, and an early unpublished essay, “Censorship in
the Saorstat [sic],” written in 1934, is clearly cognizant of the debates about
contraception and ‘race suicide’ in an Irish context. Far from being aloof from
these issues, Beckett was keenly interested and aware of their implications for
Irish society and, following his visit to Nazi Germany in the 1936-7, Europe more
generally.
Degeneration theory provided an important resource of myth for a post-Darwinian
world that had been shaken to its very foundations, providing an important outlet
for anxieties caused by the massive social changes that attended urbanization,
industrialization and the democratization of political life in the mid-to-late
nineteenth century, identifying a new set of outcasts threatening society at its very
core. My project will demonstrate the extent to which Beckett’s work developed
from a prescient and precise refusal of the entire logic of degeneration as he
encountered it in Europe and, in particular, Ireland.
In order to complete this research, I will travel to the Harry Ransom Research
Center at the University of Austin, Texas, to consult their extensive collection of
Beckett manuscripts, in particular the holdings on “L’Expulse” (Box 3.6); “Le
Calmant” (Box 1.90); “Premier Amour” (Box 5.6); Molloy (Box 5.1); Malone Dies
(Box 4.30); Malone Meurt (Box 4.4); and L’Innomable (Box 3.10 and 4.1).
Certain materials at the Beckett International Foundation at the University of
Reading in England will also be central, including MS3000; MS5000; MS1656. By
tracing the evolution of Beckett's most important post-war works, I hope to
demonstrate the extent to which his revisions worked to underline more and more
clearly the degenerate nature of his characters who, it will be argued, are meant to
stand over and against the increasingly sinister discourses around national and
individual 'fitness' sponsored by eugenics and degeneration theory.
In order to complete my archival research, I will need to purchase a laptop
computer.
