Memory as Techné: Remapping the Beckettian Dynamics of Remembrance in That Time

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis short article examines the significance of memory in Beckett’s works, in particular That Time. Memory appears as a reality-making technique that immortalizes fleeting vignettes of human vicissitude. On the one hand, such intimations of memory and mobilization of personal history in Beckett’s works have been read as coping mechanisms that helped Beckett to survive a series of traumatic events, and on the other, they have been examined as the author’s self-evaluative efforts. Beckett’s appropriation of memory can be understood as a critical techné, a ventriloquial kaleidoscopic apparatus that enables the author to revisit and critique the lines of flight and their existential residues that remained in his memory. This short article examines Beckett’s use of personal memory as an animate, visceral device, a diachronic means of reading the past, or an apparatus that dwells in a space beyond intended generic contestations, and categorical definitions of memory as an agent of registering temporalities. Memory, in this respect, becomes a marker of personal cartography expressed through stories as techné. Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.Notes1. David Ross translates technê as art (Oxford 2009), while in Roger Crisp’s translation the term appears as skills.2. Henceforth, QT.