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English Pages 252 [273] Year 1971
THE
SHAPE
OF
CHAOS
An Interpretation of the Art of SAMUEL
BECKETT
> The publication of this book was assisted by the Atkinson Fund.
of om chaos INTERPRETATION OF THE ART OF
SAMUEL BisOivaale
david h. hesla
THE
UNIVERSITY
OF
MINNESOTA
PRESS
+
MINNEAPOLIS
© Copyright 1971 by the University of Minnesota. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America at the Lund Press, Minneapolis
Published in Great Britain and India by the Oxford University Press, London and Bombay, and in Canada by the Copp Clark Publishing Co. Limited, Toronto Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 74-167296 ISBN 0-8166-0625-0
Quotations
of Grove
from
the following
Press, Inc., New
works
York:
of Samuel
Endgame,
A
Beckett
are
Play in One
reprinted
by
Act, translated
permission
from
the
French by the author; copyright © 1958 by Grove Press, Inc. Happy Days: A Play in Two Acts, copyright © 1961 by Grove Press, Inc. How It Is, translated from the
French by the author; copyright @ 1964 by Grove Press, Inc. Krapp’s Last Tape and Other Dramatic Pieces, copyright © 1957 by Samuel Beckett; copyright © 1958, 1959, 1960 by Grove
Press, Inc. More Pricks Than Kicks, all rights reserved, first published
by Chatto & Windus, London, 1934. Murphy, first published 1938; first Grove Press edition 1957. Poems in English, copyright © 1961 by Samuel Beckett. Proust, all rights reserved, first published 1931. Stories and Texts for Nothing, copyright © 1967 by Samuel Beckerr, all rights reserved; originally published as Nouvelles et textes pour rien, copyright ©
1958 by Les Editions de Minuit, Paris, France. Molloy, a novel trans-
lated from the French
by Patrick Bowles
in collaboration with
the author;
all rights
reserved in all countries by The Olympia Press, Paris, and Grove Press, New York; first Grove Press edition 1955 (originally published by Grove Press as Three Novels).
Malone Dies, a novel translated from the French
by the author; copyright ©
1956
by
Grove Press; first printing, collected works, 1970 (originally published by Grove Press as Three Novels). The Unnamable, translated from the French by the author; copyright © 1958 by Grove Press, Inc.; first printing, collected works, 1970 (originally published
by Grove
Press as Three Novels).
Waiting for Godot: Tragicomedy
in Two
‘Acts, translated from the original French text by the author; copyright © 1954 by Grove Press, Watt, all rights reserved; originally published by The Olympia Press, Paris, 1953; first American edition, 1959; first printing, collected works, 1970. Quotations from the following works of Samuel Beckett are reprinted by permission of Faber and Faber Led., London: Embers, Endgame, Happy Days, Krapp’s Last Tape,
and Waiting for Godot. These works are fully protected by United States and International Copyright.
Quotations from the following works of Samuel Beckett are reprinted by permission of Calder and Boyars, London: How It Is, More Pricks Than Kicks, Murphy, Poems in English, Proust and Three Dialogues, Stories and Texts for Nothing, Three Novels: Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable, and Watt. These works are fully protected by United States and International Copyright. Lines quoted from ‘The Circus Animals’ Desertion’’ on page 12 are reprinted with permission of The Macmillan Company, New York; The Macmillan Company of Can-
ada; and A. P. Watt & Sons, Ltd., London, from Collected Poems by William Butler Yeats. Copyright 1940 by Georgie Yeats, renewed 1968 by Bertha Georgie Yeats,
Michael Butler Yeats, and Anne Yeats.
Lines quoted from ‘‘Sonnette I, 3" on page 206 are reprinted from Sonnette an Orpheus by Rainer Maria Rilke with permission of Insel Verlag, Frankfurt am Main. The translation on page 243 is reprinted from Sonnets to Orpheus by Rainer Maria Rilke. Translated by M. D. Herter Norton. Copyright 1942 by W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. Copyright renewed 1969 by M. D. Herter Norton. With the permission of the publisher. An alternative translation by J. B. Leishman is available, published
by The Hogarth Press, London. Lines quoted from ‘A Se Stesso"’ on pages 47-48
are reprinted
from
Leopardi:
Poems and Prose, edited by Angel Flores. Copyright © 1966 by Indiana University Press. Reprinted by permission of the publisher. An early version of Chapter III appeared in Critique (Spring 1963).
PREFACE
Sie mégen das Werk auch noch beurtheilen oder ihm Opfer bringen auf welche Art es sey, ihr Bewusstseyn darein legen, — wenn sie sich mit ihrer Kenntniss
dariiber setzen, weiss er, wie viel mehr seine That als ihr Verstehen und Reden ist; — wenn sie sich darunter setzen und ihr sie beherrschendes Wesen darin erkennen, weiss er sich als den Meister desselben.
People may, moreover, judge the work, or it with their consciousness in whatever way edge set themselves over it, he knows how understand and say; if they put themselves own dominating essential reality, he knows
bring it offerings and gifts, or endue they like — if they with their knowlmuch more his act is than what they beneath it, and recognize in it their himself as the master of this. Hegel *