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IN SEARCH OF LOST IMAGE
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TERESA ROSELL NICOLAS
ABSTRACT
The aim of this paper is to investigate Samuel Beckett’s work and its
interconnections with Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time. Beckett’s early
essay Proust not only sheds light on the French writer through his observation
of the Proustian masterpiece, but also reveals certain aspects that will be
relevant in Beckett’s later productions. In this sense, Krapp’s Last Tape and
LImage, both written in 1958, prove to be especially fruitful, as they show
traces of some problematic issues presented by the French author, such as
time, habit and memory. Krapp’s Last Tape is considered to be Beckett's
most Proustian and anti-Proustian piece, as it offers a reconfiguration of
the concepts related to involuntary memory by subverting the Proustian
enunciation and the treatment of the figure of the artist, that is, the vision of
success and failure in the creative process."
! The title of this paper is taken from the article by Florence Godeau: Image premiere, image
derniére, in Marcel Proust, Europe, Revue litteraire mensuelle 1012-1013 (September 2013),
155-163.
21.