Poetics at the Limit

Samuel Beckett’s writing can be understood as an exploration of the limits of language in two different senses. First, Beckett uses language to explore the possibilities of reduction and minimalism. Second, the limit as the borderline in Beckett’s writing has a spatial meaning: It serves as an alternative to narrative and developmental models of subjectivity and, thus, to ageing. Already in his early work, Beckett deconstructs notions of male creativity. Looking at the poetry collection Echo’s Bones (1935), I use Beckett’s poetics at the limit, with its strategic limitations and transgressions of borders, as a starting point for examining the interrelations of gendered embodiment, masculinities, and ageing.