ABSTRACT
Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot dramatises desire and longing. It can be boldly interpreted within a hermeneutics of contemplative yearning. The dramatic employment of silence and the body are the primary means of achieving this. Many regard the English Jesuit priest, Gerard Manley Hopkins as one of the greatest nineteenth-century European poets. In the light of western secularisation and de-traditionalisation, this is an intriguing phenomenon. Hopkins learnt to read the forms of nature and personhood as a response to his desire for Christ and his intent to imitate his sacrifice. Tennessee Williams was a master at dramatising individuals’ desperate search for peace and happiness in a world which he believed was at times brutally cruel and uncaring. Williams’ characters search for peace of mind and happiness but their desire for these is thwarted by their own fragility and the cruelty of the world from which they attempt to escape.
