Self Re-writing and Self Un-writing: Reconsidering Gertrude Stein’s Marginalisation in Discussions of Samuel Beckett’s Autographic Writing

This essay analyses the imbalance identifiable in critical approaches to the gendering of Beckett’s influences with respect to his autographic writing. Contrasting Beckett’s Company with Gertrude Stein’s The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, I unravel the particulars that have led to Stein’s marginalisation as a figure against which we can situate Beckett’s autographic writings, with a view to further understanding why the remarkable correspondence between Beckett and Stein’s autographic praxes has continually evaded critical attention. Building on Porter Abbott’s description of autography as self-writing, I propose that Stein’s autography be considered an example of self-rewriting, and Beckett’s of self-unwriting.