The Echoic Imagination

Abstract

I argue that Samuel Beckett’s concept of imagination in the short story Echo’s Bones, written in 1933, may usefully provide an antidote to Adorno’s neglect of the same faculty in Aesthetic Theory. First, I discuss Adorno’s ideas concerning imagination and non-violent synthesis; second, I show how Echo’s Bones critically attends to these two concepts. In Beckett’s writing, the aesthetic imagination allows the reader to receive the work (without logical categories); to synthesize aesthetic material; and to transform tradition. Beckett’s concept of imagination is critical and receptive, and also shows how the artwork may unify historical and experiential material in the aesthetic object without coercion.