Melencolias and scientific ironies in Endgame:: Beckett, Walther, Durer, Musil

Beckett's Endgame evokes two 'classic' German figurations of melancholy: Walther von der Vogelwelde's self-portrait in his poem "I sat upon a stone" and Durer's Melencolia I. In Durer's engraving for the first time the tradition of melancholy and the emblems of science were blended together, as they were to be in Beckett's ironic allusions to science in Endgame. But the play also echoes Musil's melancholic views on science and history in The Man without Qualities. The striking analogies between the incipit of the novel and passages of Hamm's story in the play run parallel to the authors' common interest in science and ironic view of its limits.