Hissing and Ambush. Life of the (pen)ultimate Breath in mirlitonnades

Abstract

Within the contraction process that marks Beckett’s literature, mirlitonnades, developed between 1976 and 1978, constitutes a critical point. In spite of the shortness of the whole and its units, the work is heavy with tensions that cannot be solved in a synthetic way. Focused on the paradoxical cruxes, this paper interrogates a series of poems from mirlitonnades, considering three facets that have also permeated other zones of Beckett’s work –his essays and his short-prose fiction. In the first place, we investigate the techniques a language uses aiming to reach the silence; secondly, the way the poetic voice outlines a life close to his end; finally, the three heterogeneous temporalities that crash in mirlitonnades –the dead time, time as a rest, time as a flux and a reflux. By analyzing these three unsettled issues we will arrive to the conclusion that it is impossible to establish a sharp distinction between language and silence, life and death –even though they never completely match.