Abject breath, running over with its own refuse and yet refusing to stop breathing, forms a gasping undertone to Beckett’s oeuvre. To give a sense of the longevity and development of Beckettian respiration, this article examines passages across the range of his career, paying attention to several prose works – the short story ‘Dante and the Lobster’ (1934) and the novels Murphy (1938) and Molloy (1951/55) – and two brief plays: Breath (1969) and Not I (1972). While there is no simple development of Beckett’s writing on the breath, an ambiguous movement can be traced from an initial rejection of a conception of the breath as immaculate and easeful to a deeper exploration of breath as polluted and broken, and to a final, insistent association of respiration with rubbish, and life with death. If there is hope to be found in the Beckettian breath, it lies not on the page but in the breath-carried conversations of the rehearsal room, exemplified above all by his collaboration with Billie Whitelaw on Not I.

中文翻译：

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贝克特的浪费呼吸

卑鄙的呼吸，带着自己的垃圾跑过，却又拒绝停止呼吸，为贝克特的作品构成了喘息的基调。为了了解贝克特呼吸的长久性和发展，本文考察了贝克特职业生涯的各个段落，重点关注几部散文作品——短篇小说《但丁和龙虾》（1934）和长篇小说墨菲（1938）和莫洛伊(1951/55) – 以及两部简短的戏剧：呼吸（1969）和不是我（1972）。虽然贝克特关于呼吸的写作没有简单的发展，但可以追溯到一种模糊的运动，从最初拒绝呼吸完美无瑕和轻松的概念，到对呼吸污染和破碎的更深入探索，再到最后的坚持。呼吸与垃圾、生命与死亡的联系。如果说贝克特式的呼吸有希望的话，那它并不在书页上，而是在排练室里充满呼吸的对话中，最典型的例子就是他与比莉·怀特劳 (Billie Whitelaw) 的合作。不是我。