Samuel Beckett, Ludwig Wittgenstein and the I

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Reading Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Beckett marked: 'The metaphysical subject doesnot belong to the world but is a boundary of it'. Wittgenstein expanded, 'I confront every object but notthe I', prefiguring Beckett's, 'Could you ever say I to yourself in your lifetime?'Beckett scholarship has seldom acknowledged Wittgenstein's I. The connection, however, has crucialimplications for biographical, philosophical, and genetic approaches. It begins with the proposition thatthe I is among 'the most misleading representational techniques in our language', for Wittgenstein - 'toored a herring' for Beckett's Unnamable - instigating a search for an absent referent. It leads, for both, tothe necessity of the I's elimination; inevitably, Wittgenstein argued, 'we'd see the previousrepresentation wasn't essential to the facts', the idea underpinning Beckett's Not I and Company. Theseparallels remain unelucidated.Beyond mere affinities, this project will demonstrate how Beckett's late interest in Wittgenstein coincideswith a shift in the I's depiction across his oeuvre. This will situate Wittgenstein's significance whilequestioning how this late development challenges/develops his earlier, better known, philosophicalinfluences. Finally, it explores how Beckett becomes one of Wittgenstein's important critics.