Chapter 8 - Dreaming ‘all away’ in the Final Texts

Summary

Chapter 8 focuses on Beckett’s poetics of elsewhere in his final texts, in which, as intimated in two of his late poems, the impression of going ‘where never before’ is contradicted by the feeling of having always been there. Because Beckett’s texts dating from the last decade of his life allude to his entire writing career in the manner of the life reviews he lends many of his creatures, a close scrutiny of three of Beckett’s late works – his penultimate play (for television) Nacht und Träume (Night and Dreams), his final prose piece Stirrings Still, and his last poem ‘Comment dire’ / ‘What Is the Word’ – permits recapitulating many of the elements investigated in the previous chapters Finally, this concluding chapter, reiterating Beckett’s engagement with the philosophical, religious, and mystic traditions on which he drew throughout his career, argues for Beckett’s strong consonance with Schopenhauer and the Buddha’s teachings he first learned from the German philosopher.