Samuel Beckett and the Philosophical Image

Beckett often made use of images from the visual arts and readapted them staging them in his plays or using them in his fiction. Anthony Uhlmann sets out to explain how an image differs from other terms like ''metaphor'' or ''representation'' and in the process to analyse Beckett''s use of images borrowed from philosophy and aesthetics. This study first published in 2006 carefully examines Beckett''s thoughts on the image in his literary works and his extensive notes to the philosopher Arnold Geulincx. Uhlmann considers how images might allow one kind of interaction between philosophy and literature and how Beckett makes use of images which are borrowed from or drawn into dialogue with philosophical images from Geulincx Berkeley Bergson and the ancient Stoics. Uhlmann''s reading of Beckett''s aesthetic and philosophical interests provides a revolutionary reading of the importance of the image in his work.