“Fun de partie” 2) Puns and paradigms in Endgame
Chris Ackerley
As Samuel Beckett observed in Murphy (65). “In the beginning was the pun.”  This proposal is intended to complement that of my colleague, Dr Constantin Grigorut, who has already submitted his abstract in which he proposes to discuss, with specific reference to Fin de partie, the ways in which the double articulation of language can create “une vision double de l’univers, comique et tragique à la fois.”  My intention would be to follow his paper with another, looking at the function of puns in Endgame, that is, looking at the same, similar and different plays upon words and double articulations as they appear in the English version of the play (written originally in French).  Our combined intention would be to comment on a curious kind of intertextuality, that deriving from the author’s translation, or rewriting, of his own work.

My paper would consider in detail many of the instances raised by my colleague, to determine their correspondences in the English text.  I shall touch on the problems created by the constraints of a particular language system (that is, homophonic effects and plays upon words that are possible in the one language but not in the other, and the compensatory strategies therefore required); but I shall also consider the implicit cultural constraints that permit certain effects in English that are not possible in the original French.  In effect, our close attention to paronomasia and punning should lead to provocative questions and conclusions concerning the unique status of Beckett’s double-visioned drama, and the sense of a “text” that is finally the product of a double articulation, “une oeuvre profondément intertextuelle.”  Our intention would be, of course, to work together in such a way that the issues raised by Dr Grigorut with respect to Fin de partie would be taken up from a different linguistic perspective in my discussion of Endgame, so that our joint presentation, too, would also be, insofar as this is possible, a “profoundly intertextual work/writing/occasion.”
University of Otago
Borderless Beckett:
International Samuel Beckett Symposium in Tokyo 2006
September 29 – October 1