In this paper, I make an attempt to refute Andrew Gibson's assertion that albeit Badiou's reading of Beckett in terms of the major concepts of his own philosophy, the process of post-evental fidelity and subjectivation, which is crucial in Badiou's ethics of the event, is entirely missing in Beckett's works. My contention is that the place of the event in Worstward Ho, where the narrator, after the long ‘worstward’ process of 'saying on', pronounces the latest "nohow on," clearly demonstrates the nature of post-evental fidelity in Beckett. The fidelity here, the good in Beckett, consists in promising the "on," while pronouncing the "no," i.e., beginning the poetic naming of the event again without naming the unnamable. In other words, the whole text itself, which begins with the significant "On," is an act of fidelity to this event which will happen at the end of the text. This is what Badiou himself refers to as a 'futural' fidelity to an event. To prove this, I compare Badiou's reading of Worstward Ho with that of Improvisation of a Faun by Stéphane Mallarmé. In both writers the place and activity of the event is one and the same thing. After introducing the two types of events in Beckett, I discuss how the beauty and the good is achieved in the poetic naming of events in Beckett. Badiou notes that beauty surges forth when we understand that the path of words(the multiple) goes counter to the demand of the thought(the one). Beauty takes place when the poetic naming of events seizes thought at the edge of the void superimposing the multiple onto the void.

In this paper, I make an attempt to refute Andrew Gibson's assertion that albeit Badiou's reading of Beckett in terms of the major concepts of his own philosophy, the process of post-evental fidelity and subjectivation, which is crucial in Badiou's ethics of the event, is entirely missing in Beckett's works. My contention is that the place of the event in Worstward Ho, where the narrator, after the long ‘worstward’ process of 'saying on', pronounces the latest "nohow on," clearly demonstrates the nature of post-evental fidelity in Beckett. The fidelity here, the good in Beckett, consists in promising the "on," while pronouncing the "no," i.e., beginning the poetic naming of the event again without naming the unnamable. In other words, the whole text itself, which begins with the significant "On," is an act of fidelity to this event which will happen at the end of the text. This is what Badiou himself refers to as a 'futural' fidelity to an event. To prove this, I compare Badiou's reading of Worstward Ho with that of Improvisation of a Faun by Stéphane Mallarmé. In both writers the place and activity of the event is one and the same thing. After introducing the two types of events in Beckett, I discuss how the beauty and the good is achieved in the poetic naming of events in Beckett. Badiou notes that beauty surges forth when we understand that the path of words(the multiple) goes counter to the demand of the thought(the one). Beauty takes place when the poetic naming of events seizes thought at the edge of the void superimposing the multiple onto the void.

Badiou, Beckett, Mallarmé, Worstward Ho, event, subject, the poetic naming of the event