An attempt at a phonosemantic analysis of Samuel Beckett's Stirrings Still

Abstract

The subject of investigation is the poetic ordering of Beckett’s late short text “Stirrings Still”. It seems that critical attention has been focused too much on the narrative and philosophical dimensions of Beckett’s prose, while especially his late short fiction displays many features of a poetic text and reveals techniques characteristic of the lyrical mode of expressing. Their striking features comprise a metrical organization of passages, a dense patterning of verbal material, alliteration and paronomasia (signaled already in the title “Stirrings Still”), the elliptical construction of the plot and syntax. Analyzing the rhythmic, phonological and lexical patterns aims to show the way in which these texts suggest meaning, tantalizingly resisting its clarification. Suggestiveness, polysemy and ellipsis as principles organizing these late works by Beckett definitely bring them within the realm of poetic texts.