The Metaphysical Vision

The Metaphysical Vision: Arthur Schopenhauers Philosophy of Art and Life and Samuel Becketts Own Way to Make Use of It expands upon the ideas and theories set forth in the authors Die eigentlich metaphysische Ttigkeit: ber Schopenhauers sthetik und ihre Anwendung durch Samuel Beckett, published (in German) in 1982 and hailed by Catharina Wulf in her book The Imperative of Narration (1997) as an excellent study and the most thorough enquiry into Beckett and Schopenhauer. In the last years of the twentieth century, new documents regarding Samuel Becketts reading and thinking, especially important notebooks and letters, have become accessible to scholars. These documents show much more clearly than could ever be demonstrated previously that Beckett had a strong, lifelong interest in Schopenhauers philosophy. There is no other philosopher to whom Beckett refers more often in his personal comments throughout the years of his writing up to his seventies; no other philosopher whose view of life and the world comes closer to the image of human existence we find in Samuel Becketts literary work. The striking similarity in matters of world view and human life, and especially the evidence obtained from Becketts previously unknown notebooks and letters, call for a close systematic study of the Beckett-Schopenhauer relationship. Due to its comprehensiveness and in-depth approach, The Metaphysical Vision is, and will be for many years to come, what its forerunner was for more than two decades: the most thorough enquiry into Beckett and Schopenhauer.