The Unhappy Consciousness: The Poetic Plight of Samuel Beckett: An Inquiry at the Intersection of Phenomenology and Literature (Analecta Husserliana Series Volume XIII) Book

Kaelin's essay furnishes a methodical alternative to the intuitionistic criticism of standard cultural historians, as well as a strongly argued defence against arguments that have labeled Beckett, along with Ionesco and Pinter, as a dramatist of the absurd. He argues that absurdity there is in Beckett's work, but it is not a celebration of the irrationality human beings often fall heir to; absurdity, rather, is one of the marks of the human condition which imposes on man the necessity of acting in order to become what he in some sense already is. According to Kaelin, philosophy in Beckett's writings is a tool for the creation of a positive value that is all the more poignant for evolving from the negative values haunting the human condition. And further, Kaelin argues, Beckett may be seen as having used a number of philosophical notions from Cartesian dualism and Schopenhauer's idealism to Hegelian dialectic and existentialist self-confrontation.

This book offers a highly original perspective to the body of Beckett scholarship. By articulating the process by which Beckett's view of the relationship between philosophy and literature is carried over into his own works, Kaelin brings us closer toward an adequate, balanced view of his literary achievement.