Samuel Beckett's prose works will be analyzed in order to discuss his contribution to the transformation of the novel, from the Thirties to the Eighties. Beckett's major concerns focus on the essential character of representation, and on its role in the signification of the subject. His works map out a movement from a thematics of representation to a deconstruction of representation, both as function and as object of discourse. In this sense, he will be read as an epistemological rhetorician. In order to elucidate an "evolutionary" paradigm, typical of the movement from modernism to "post-modernism", a double contextualized reading of Beckett's works will take into consideration the intra-textual dynamics of the Beckettian corpus, as well as major issues in Twentieth Century Western philosophy and literary theory (with reference to Kierkegaard, Husserl, Heidegger, Peirce, Deleuze, Derrida, Jakobson, Lacan, etc.). Texts closely examined in class include: Murphy; The First Trilogy (Molloy;  Malone Dies; The Unnamable), How it is; and The Second Trilogy (Company; Ill seen Ill said; Worstward Ho). Also passages from Disjecta, Beckett's critical writings, will receive extended consideration. Students will present one report (of about 30 minutes) to the class, on a given text, which will be discussed in the same session, and which will then take the form of a 15-20 page paper, due at the end of the semester. Class participation counts significantly towards the course grade.