%0 Journal Article %T On Music in Samuel Beckett %A Xuyan Shen %J Opticon1826 %D 2012 %I Ubiquity Press %R 10.5334/opt.ah %X What is the importance of music in Samuel Beckett¡¯s aesthetics? This essay discusses Samuel Beckett¡¯s writings from the perspective of music as a thought-mechanism. The main focus of my essay lies in the subtle meanings contained in the trope ¡°music¡±, rather than any specific musical composition. I shall start by reading closely the coda of Beckett¡¯s Proust and formulate several key elements in defining the Beckettian ¡°music¡±. The following Interlude on John Keats¡¯s To Autumn discusses the relationship between language and the imagination of ¡°music¡±. The poem can help us better understand Beckett¡¯s aesthetics. Then with reference to Gilles Deleuze and Alain Badiou, I offer an analysis of three specific kinds of languages Beckett uses to process the ¡°music¡± in his writings ¨C the language of cutting, the language of blending, and the language of gap, each of them as a stride closer to the imagination of ¡°music¡±. %K Samuel Beckett %K Gilles Deleuze %K Alain Badiou %K music %U http://www.opticon1826.com/article/view/191