20 dic 2005

Maybe the central question of Beckett studies is how much, or whether?, to recuperate negativity in positive form. If there is no recuperation, no going after a positive through a "via negativa," what is the justification, the pay off? On the other hand, aren't positive recuperations simply sentimentalized readings of uncompromisingly negative texts? No, I think it could be shown that Beckett himself invites these recuperations... The short text "neither" illustrates this aporia:

To and fro in shadow from inner to outershadow

from impenetrable self to impenetrable unself by way of neither

as between two lit refuges whose doors once neared gently close,
once turned away from gently part again

beckoned back and forth and turned away

heedless of the way, intent on the one gleam or the other

unheard footfalls only sound

till at last halt for good, absent for good from self and other

then no sound

then gently light unfading on that unheeded neither

unspeakable home