The Shape of Chaos: An Interpretation of the Art of Samuel Beckett 0816606250, 9780816606252

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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 *