by James Joyce (1882 - 1941)
Soliloquy
Language: English
By the voice a faint light is shed. Dark lightens while it sounds. Deepens when it ebbs. Lightens with flow back to faint full. Is whole again when it ceases. The strokes now faint now clear as if carried by the wind but not a breath and the cries now faint now clear. [...] As he stood there all bowed down and to his ears faint from deep within again and again oh how something and so on was he not so far as he could see already there where never till then?
Stanze 1: Samuel Beckett, Company, London : John Calder, 1980
Stanzas 2-3: Samuel Beckett, Stirrings Still, London : John Calder, 1986-89
Text Authorship:
- by James Joyce (1882 - 1941), appears in Stirrings Still [author's text not yet checked against a primary source]
Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):
- by Rebecca Saunders (b. 1967), "Soliloquy", 2007 [ 6 voices ], Edition Peters [sung text not yet checked]
Researcher for this page: Joost van der Linden [Guest Editor]
This text was added to the website: 2025-10-20
Line count: 8
Word count: 93