ABSTRACT
J. Milton and James Joyce follow the classic shape – the expansion from lyric through drama to epic. They present themselves with flawless prophetic detachment, demonstrating their mastery of each genre before progressing to a more ambitious one. Samuel Beckett’s career, if anything, has a stronger predictive logic about it. But part of his distinctiveness lies in the way he has managed to invert this classic literary shape. Some of Beckett’s later and shorter texts are particularly difficult to judge because of the force of this predictive logic. But the problem is perhaps more urgent in the case of a piece like How It Is. Hugh Kenner treats Beckett as if he succeeds at the outset in making a philosophical statement. Instead of a linear reduction, H. Kenner represents Beckett’s career as essentially static – the exploratory element is a merely formal affair.
