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 ======  Giambattista Vico's "Endgame" ======
+{{ :vico:vico_01.jpg?300|Giambattista Vico - Lucian of Samosata Wiki}}
 The influence of the philosophy of Giambattista Vico on James Joyce’s Ulysses and Finnegans Wake is well documented. What is not generally recognised, however, is the influence of the same philosopher on the work of Joyce’s friend and contemporary, Samuel Beckett. That Beckett was familiar with Vico’s magnum opus the New Science is indubitable, for his very first published work, written at Joyce’s request, was an essay entitled “Dante…Bruno.Vico..Joyce” (the dots between the names signifies the difference in centuries between the different authors). In this essay Samuel Beckett goes to some lengths to summarise Vico’s New Science and to show this work was taken by Joyce as a structure for his Work in Progress. (see Beckett, Disjecta. Miscellaneous Writings and a Dramatic Fragment. 1983, p. 19. John Calder Publications Ltd. London) However, one can go further than to say that Beckett’s interest in Vico was not simply to explain his influence on Joyce, and argue that in his own work it is also possible to see how Beckett borrowed from the Italian philosopher to present us with a vision of a postmodern and post-nuclear world – a world, that is, that bears a striking resemblance to Vico’s period of dissolution.