"When the Panting Stops": Breath and Breathing in Beckett and How It Is

Abstract

Abstract:The art of Irish writer Samuel Beckett (1906-89) remains a limit point for prose fiction and theatre, and exerts a strong attraction for contemporary visual art practices. In this essay I consider his work, and the novella How It Is in particular, in terms of a repeated internal motif and central element of performance, "breath."