Whoroscope (Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Samuel Beckett
- First Published: 1930
- Type of Work: Dramatic monologue
- Genres: Poetry, Dramatic monologue
- Subjects: Memory, Philosophy or philosophers, Science or scientists, Prostitution or prostitutes, Dreams, Seventeenth century, Death or dying, Catholics or Catholic Church, Mathematics or mathematicians, Universe, Astrology or astrologers, Eggs
The Poem
Whoroscope is exactly one hundred lines of rambling monologue supposedly mouthed by the famous seventeenth century French philosopher and scientist René Descartes while waiting to be served an egg which he might consider sufficiently mature to be eaten. There is no rhythmical pattern, and the poem’s mannered colloquialisms and oratorical informalities give it an aura less of poetry than of desultory chatter. Samuel Beckett uses minor and sometimes intimate details of Descartes’s life that he found in a biography of the philosopher written by Adrien Baillet....
[The entire page is 2235 words long]
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