Chapter 1 - Shakespeare and Beckett on the Edges

Summary

Outlining the historical scope of the book, this chapter discusses Shakespeare’s and Beckett’s works in periods that were conceived of as inherently transformational. The chapter will address the early links between Shakespeare and Beckett that were established in British theatre history. The second part of this chapter will read the scenes on Dover cliff in Act IV of King Lear as a metaphor for the theatre in which both Beckett and Shakespeare explore the edges of their very medium. This latter part examines Beckett’s ‘variations on rise and fall’ in many of his plays, such as All that Fall, Rough for Theatre and Waiting for Godot – which, in dialogue with King Lear, dramatize the experience of blindness, crawling and falling.