Biography EssaySamuel Beckett, whose play Waiting for Godot has influenced several generations of contemporary playwrights throughout the world, was a dramatist who considered himself a much better n...
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Samuel Beckett (1906-1989), the Irish novelist, playwright, and poet who became French by adoption, was one of the most original and important writers of the century. He won the Nobel Prize for litera...
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Samuel Beckett, whose play Waiting for Godot has influenced several generations of contemporary playwrights throughout the world, is a dramatist who considers himself a much better novelist. He thinks...
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Samuel Beckett is an Irishman who has lived in France since 1938 and who has written much of his drama and fiction in French. The phenomenal success of his play En attendant Godot (1952; published in ...
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When Samuel Beckett was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature in 1969, the Swedish Academy stated that it was for "a body of work that in new forms of fiction and the theatre, has transmuted the desti...
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Critical Essay by Alain Robbe-grillet
The human condition, Heidegger says, is to be there. Probably it is the theater, more than any other mode of representing reality, which reproduces this situation...
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Critical Essay by Germaine BrÉe
Samuel Beckett's fictional world, especially Watt, contains a quasi-Rabelaisian parody of all the rhetorical and logical devices that have permitted Weste...
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Critical Essay by John Rees Moore
Beckett's humor seems inseparable from dead seriousness. All his best jokes depend on a double-edged attitude toward the fact of human creation. In order to la...
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Critical Essay by Laura Barge
Stylistically and thematically, [First Love, The Expelled, The Calmative, and The End] mark what is probably the most distinct transition in the entire [Beckett] canon. S...
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Critical Essay by A. J. Leventhal
One has to go back to Samuel Beckett's first published fictional work to find the image that is to figure almost continuously in the novels as well as in the p...
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Critical Essay by Robert Wilcher
Just as the 'quality of language' in Proust was more important than 'any system of ethics or aesthetics' [according to Beckett], so the qua...
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Critical Essay by Laura Barge
The most basic questions [in criticism] have to do with what in conventional literature would be called character and setting. But Beckett's reduction has robbed u...
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Critical Essay by Ted L. Estess
John Calder has estimated that, if the present production of books continues unabated, Beckett will by the year 2000 rank fourth behind Jesus, Napoleon, and Wagner amon...
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Critical Essay by Maureen Howard
All the literary turns of [Beckett's] work never obscure his vital presence for me—that of an Irishman talking on and on, endlessly imagining forms, his ...
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Critical Essay by Hugh Kenner
"A unique moral figure," I wrote of [Beckett] five years ago, "not a dreamer of rose gardens but a cultivator of what will grow in the wasteland, who...
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Critical Essay by Leonard Michaels
Among living writers, I most admire Samuel Beckett because he is the least living of them. "Imagination Dead Imagine," he says, as if he already speaks...
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Critical Essay by Edith Kern
[No] one has been more felicitous in illustrating black humor than Winnie in Beckett's Happy Days, as she asks the rhetorical question: "How can one better m...
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Critical Essay by Mark J. Sachner
Beckett's novels push the concern of art beyond its visible object, beyond even "the fiction of the artist" in the act of manipulating that objec...
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Critical Essay by J. D. O'hara
In English the Irish are the great sentimentalists. The dour Scots, the babbling Welsh, and the destiny-laden English are not in it for sheer heart-wringing senti...
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Critical Essay by Robert Martin Adams
Beckett is Irish as was Joyce; but there is no sign that the politics of Irish independence ever disturbed Beckett as they did the writer who was eighteen years h...
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Critical Essay by Enoch Brater
Though the originality and durability of Beckett's novels and plays assure his reputation as a major writer of our time, his work as poet has attracted far less s...
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Critical Essay by Vivian Mercier
Perhaps because his father was not religious, Beckett seems to have felt no anguish in turning away from the Anglican beliefs of his youth; his mother, on the other ha...
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Critical Essay by Anthony S. Brennan
Most of Beckett's characters have, to put it mildly, come down in the world. From the heroic heights of freewheeling movement that some of them achieve on b...
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Critical Essay by Jean-jacques Mayoux
[From] his earliest prose Beckett gives himself a persona, a personal representative whom he can know and probe as cosa mentale, yet he presents him at first as e...
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Critical Essay by June Schlueter
The characters of Beckett's plays, from Waiting for Godot to those in the dramatic pieces comprising Ends and Odds, take their places in a playworld in which th...
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Critical Essay by Eric P. Levy
The Lost Ones demonstrates, as clearly as any of Beckett's longer efforts in prose fiction, how much each successive work depends on what has preceded. This is no...
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Critical Essay by Hugh Kenner
There is no literary parallel for [Molloy, Malone Dies, and The Unnamable,] the three books in which Samuel Beckett, releasing a certain violence of temperament evident i...
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Critical Essay by George Craig
With every new thing that Samuel Beckett has written there has been the temptation to say "Here at last is the real Beckett: this is where it was all leading.�...
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Critical Essay by Bryan Appley Ard
Samuel Beckett is the greatest living master of the English language. When it comes down to the elemental craft involved in placing one word next to another he has n...
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Critical Essay by Mel Gussow
From first to last, Samuel Beckett celebrates life while waiting fearfully for the arrival of death cloaked in the "old terror of night." His three new short...
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Critical Essay by John Simon
Samuel Beckett is unquestionably the greatest playwright of the second half of our century. But he was always a minimalist, exulting in making do with less even as he stri...
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Critical Essay by Richard Gilman
Beckett is the great master of less is more, of the fertile silence and the echoing nuance; no other living dramatist is so free of cant, sentimentality and verbal fus...
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Critical Essay by Valentine Cunningham
Who reads Beckett? As opposed, that is, to watching his stuff on stage or on television. One doubts if they are all that many…. But publishers appear to b...
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Critical Essay by Tom F. Driver
The roots of modern tragicomedy lie in Chekhov, who was the first important modern playwright to make art out of the representation of the qualities of life rather than...
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Critical Essay by Ronald Binns
[In] contrast to the progression of Joyce's oeuvre, where each new work appeared more exhaustive and revolutionary than its predecessors, Beckett came to offer a ...
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Critical Essay by Jeremy Treglown
As you would expect, the situation [in Company] is as you would expect. A narrator narrates about someone almost terminally deprived, who may or may not be the narrat...
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Critical Essay by J. D. O'hara
"Company" reports on a life from the inside; it is striking evidence of the primacy of mind over matter in the heavily documented world of modern li...
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Critical Essay by Michael Wood
The setting of almost all of Samuel Beckett's work is that of Krapp's Last Tape, written in 1958: "A late evening in the future." The future ...
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Critical Essay by Peter Fenves
A special continuity runs through Beckett's works. On almost any page of his numerous novels, stories, plays, and even poems, the words conspire to create a sense...
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Critical Essay by Parrish Dice Henry
Company's fifty-seven pages make it rather an extended utterance from the master of compression whose appearances of the recent past have carried titles lik...
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In the following essay, Doherty provides a stylistic examination of Ping and traces its revisions to gather further insight into the story.
Beckett's short prose work, Ping, of 1967 is a comple...
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In the following excerpt, Cochran surveys Beckett's early short fiction, including his short story collection More Pricks than Kicks.
“assumption”
Samuel Beckett was 23, a scholar...
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In the following essay, Pireddu considers the disjointed and confused nature of the short texts in Fizzles, arguing that these texts “exhibit the idea of aborted endeavor as their constitutive ...
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In the following essay, Fletcher finds similarities between Beckett's “Fingal” and James Joyce's “Ivy Day in the Committee Room.”
In freshman classes, I tend ...
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In the following essay, Harrington investigates the influence of James Joyce on Beckett's short fiction, arguing that “A Case in a Thousand” is “the most apparent adoption ...
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In the following essay, Noble underscores the common characteristics of the language in Beckett's short stories and Derrida's language theory, contending that “the texts of Derrid...
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In the following essay, Vandervlist identifies the repudiation of action as a unifying theme of the stories in More Pricks than Kicks.
Samuel Beckett's early stories may not appear, at first si...
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In the following essay, Gontarski assesses Beckett's achievements as a short fiction writer.
While short fiction was a major creative outlet for Samuel Beckett, it has heretofore attracted only...
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In the following essay, Scholes approaches “First Love” as a hypertext and recommends that the reader explore links found in the story.
There is a page on the World Wide Web called ...
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In the following essay, Ayers applies Mikhail Bakhtin's theory of dialogue to “First Love.”
Discussing Beckett and Bakhtin together presents a challenge, to say the least; it seem...
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In the following essay, van Peer places “First Love” within the philosophical tradition of cynicism.
My interpretation of “First Love” forms part of a larger argument, that...
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In the following essay, Hillenaar provides a psychoanalytical reading of “First Love.”
“First Love” is the first soliloquy that Beckett wrote, just after World War II. It h...
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In the following essay, Boxall maintains that “First Love” signals a turning point in Beckett's writing style with his employment of the monologue form as well as his “osci...
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In the following essay, Johansson explores Beckett's utilization of the apophatic approach, which is the theory that God is unknowable, in his short texts.
Samuel Beckett's rambling disc...
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In the following essay, Campbell situates Beckett's unpublished story “Echo's Bone's” within his earlier and later texts.
The dead die hard, trespassers on the beyon...
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In the following essay, Connelly investigates the relationship between the short stories in More Pricks than Kicks and the visual arts, particularly the work of the Irish painter Jack Yeats.
When the ...
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In the following essay, Hunter determines the influence of Joyce's Dubliners on More Pricks than Kicks.
Reviewing More Pricks than Kicks in 1934, Edwin Muir identified a Beckett very much at ho...
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In the following essay, Albert utilizes “Lessness” to test the narratological approach of Monika Fludernik's Towards a ‘Natural’ Narratology.
1. Introduction
Accordi...
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In the following essay, Praeger explores Beckett's views on language and linguistics by studying the writer's translation of his own work Mercier et Camier.
Until recently, Beckett...
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In the following essay, Wood analyzes Beckett's essays as lying on a continuum between systematic philosophy on one end and self-deconstruction on the other.
Whilst it is easy to see where Beck...
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In the following essay, Fraser discusses the differences between “imagination” and “fancy” as they relate to the pornographic elements of All Strange Away.
On first looking...
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In the following essay, Catanzaro argues that the dismembered bodies of couples in Beckett's works are metaphors for the failure of communication in relationships.
Beckett's plays of the...
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In the following essay, Green presents Dream of Fair to Middling Women as a critique of the novel form.
Written in the summer of 1932, Dream of Fair to Middling Women entered the world inauspiciously ...
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In the following essay, Miskinis examines Beckett's postmodern nihilism.
In Proust, Beckett remarks, “by no expedient of macabre transubstantiation can the grave sheets serve as swaddlin...
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In the following essay, Garforth analyzes the plays Beckett translated and produced for performance in Germany, finding in them variants in language, style, and meaning.
Samuel Beckett is often descri...
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In the following essay, Mehta examines Ohio Impromptu as a modernist interpretation of the classic theatrical impromptu form.
Beckett called his play an impromptu.1 An impromptu in the theatre is a qu...
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In the following essay, Kumar argues that the chess symbolism in Endgame serves as a unifying element for the play as well as a metaphor for existential uncertainty and despair.
Samuel Beckett'...
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In the following essay, Malkin discusses Beckett's dramatic presentation of memory in Krapp's Last Tape and Not I.
Krapp's Last Tape (1958) embodies memory and the dislocations of...
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In the following essay, Tassi suggests options for staging Shakespearian plays in light of Beckett's absurdist theater.
Comparisons of William Shakespeare and Samuel Beckett have been popular a...
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In the following essay, Thomas studies Happy Days for evidence of a subtext influenced by D. H. Lawrence's novel Lady Chatterley's Lover.
The importance of Beckett's use of litera...
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In the following essay, Gontarski finds Play to be a crucial element in the formation of Beckett's theatrical sensibility.
To date none of the commonly available English texts for Samuel Becket...
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In the following essay, Katz studies Watt as a transition between Beckett's life in Ireland and England and his move to France as well as between his early conventionally composed works and his...
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In the following essay, Cloonan discusses several of Beckett's novels.
Samuel Beckett easily divides into groups of two, the Anglo/Irish writer and the French author, the playwright and the pur...
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In the following essay, Katz discusses Beckett's Molloy and First Love.
Toward the beginning of the first part of Samuel Beckett's Molloy, Molloy utters the following words concerning th...
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In the following essay, translated from the French version originally published in the October 1957 issue of Etudes Anglaises, Mayoux highlights Beckett's “laying open” the essenc...
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In the following essay, Lawley probes Beckett's characters' tendency to leave the known—albeit unhappy—stability of their lives and throw themselves, unbalanced, toward dea...
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In the following essay, Lawley concentrates on the roles that voice, silence, movement, and stillness play in illuminating defensive mechanisms of human existence in That Time.
“Esse est percip...
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In the following essay, Metman explores the different embodiments of God, treatment of women, and the depiction of the human condition in Beckett's earlier dramatic works.
Introduction
Jung (19...
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In the following essay, Guicharn and Beckelman examine the irony of the characters' acknowledgement and awareness of their own existence in Beckett's plays.
Despite the success of Gen&#x...
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In the following essay, Cohn studies the layers of reality and unreality in Beckett's plays and discusses the characters' awareness of the symbiotic nature of these (un)realities.
Plato ...
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In the following essay, Wilcher maintains that in his works, Beckett strives to defy definition and leave the audience/readers disconcerted, yet searching for their own understanding.
Just as the ...
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In the following essay, Connor analyzes the voices, sounds, silences, and use of repetition in Beckett's plays. Connor contends that without being able to depend on physicality, the sounds coup...
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In the following essay, Elam illustrates Beckett's repetitive use of aged, disembodied heads and faces in his later short plays to represent death, darkness, the afterlife, and Hell on Earth. E...
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In the following essay, Brater studies the uniqueness of many of the opening lines from Beckett's plays, explores their portent, and probes the non-linear aspects of the plays.
I
Although Becke...
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In the following essay, Kennedy argues that although Beckett's plays have postmodernist elements, they are fundamentally different from true postmodern works.
Our general topic (at the Strasbou...
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In the following essay, Doherty provides a stylistic examination of Ping and traces its revisions to gather further insight into the story.
Beckett's short prose work, Ping, of 1967 is a comple...
Read more
In the following essay, Scholes approaches “First Love” as a hypertext and recommends that the reader explore links found in the story.
There is a page on the World Wide Web called ...
Read more
In the following essay, Ayers applies Mikhail Bakhtin's theory of dialogue to “First Love.”
Discussing Beckett and Bakhtin together presents a challenge, to say the least; it seem...
Read more
In the following essay, van Peer places “First Love” within the philosophical tradition of cynicism.
My interpretation of “First Love” forms part of a larger argument, that...
Read more
In the following essay, Hillenaar provides a psychoanalytical reading of “First Love.”
“First Love” is the first soliloquy that Beckett wrote, just after World War II. It h...
Read more
In the following essay, Boxall maintains that “First Love” signals a turning point in Beckett's writing style with his employment of the monologue form as well as his “osci...
Read more
In the following essay, Johansson explores Beckett's utilization of the apophatic approach, which is the theory that God is unknowable, in his short texts.
Samuel Beckett's rambling disc...
Read more
In the following essay, Campbell situates Beckett's unpublished story “Echo's Bone's” within his earlier and later texts.
The dead die hard, trespassers on the beyon...
Read more
In the following essay, Albert utilizes “Lessness” to test the narratological approach of Monika Fludernik's Towards a ‘Natural’ Narratology.
1. Introduction
Accordi...
Read more
In the following essay, Fletcher finds similarities between Beckett's “Fingal” and James Joyce's “Ivy Day in the Committee Room.”
In freshman classes, I tend ...
Read more
In the following essay, Harrington investigates the influence of James Joyce on Beckett's short fiction, arguing that “A Case in a Thousand” is “the most apparent adoption ...
Read more
In the following essay, Noble underscores the common characteristics of the language in Beckett's short stories and Derrida's language theory, contending that “the texts of Derrid...
Read more
In the following essay, Gontarski assesses Beckett's achievements as a short fiction writer.
While short fiction was a major creative outlet for Samuel Beckett, it has heretofore attracted only...
Read more
In the following essay, Praeger explores Beckett's views on language and linguistics by studying the writer's translation of his own work Mercier et Camier.
Until recently, Beckett...
Read more
In the following essay, Malkin discusses Beckett's dramatic presentation of memory in Krapp's Last Tape and Not I.
Krapp's Last Tape (1958) embodies memory and the dislocations of...
Read more
In the following essay, Tassi suggests options for staging Shakespearian plays in light of Beckett's absurdist theater.
Comparisons of William Shakespeare and Samuel Beckett have been popular a...
Read more
In the following essay, Cloonan discusses several of Beckett's novels.
Samuel Beckett easily divides into groups of two, the Anglo/Irish writer and the French author, the playwright and the pur...
Read more
In the following essay, Katz discusses Beckett's Molloy and First Love.
Toward the beginning of the first part of Samuel Beckett's Molloy, Molloy utters the following words concerning th...
Read more
In the following essay, Wood analyzes Beckett's essays as lying on a continuum between systematic philosophy on one end and self-deconstruction on the other.
Whilst it is easy to see where Beck...
Read more
In the following essay, Fraser discusses the differences between “imagination” and “fancy” as they relate to the pornographic elements of All Strange Away.
On first looking...
Read more
In the following essay, Catanzaro argues that the dismembered bodies of couples in Beckett's works are metaphors for the failure of communication in relationships.
Beckett's plays of the...
Read more
In the following essay, Green presents Dream of Fair to Middling Women as a critique of the novel form.
Written in the summer of 1932, Dream of Fair to Middling Women entered the world inauspiciously ...
Read more
In the following essay, Miskinis examines Beckett's postmodern nihilism.
In Proust, Beckett remarks, “by no expedient of macabre transubstantiation can the grave sheets serve as swaddlin...
Read more
In the following essay, Garforth analyzes the plays Beckett translated and produced for performance in Germany, finding in them variants in language, style, and meaning.
Samuel Beckett is often descri...
Read more
In the following essay, Mehta examines Ohio Impromptu as a modernist interpretation of the classic theatrical impromptu form.
Beckett called his play an impromptu.1 An impromptu in the theatre is a qu...
Read more
In the following essay, Kumar argues that the chess symbolism in Endgame serves as a unifying element for the play as well as a metaphor for existential uncertainty and despair.
Samuel Beckett'...
Read more
In the following essay, Morrison studies the prevalent motifs of sterility, abortion, sexual disability, deprivation, and futility in Beckett's dramas and novels.
"I summoned up my remai...
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Samuel Beckett's "Krapp's Last Tape" is about a man, Krapp, who through his spools of tape, looks back on his life whilst alone in his den. He is at present sixty-nine years of age and has retrieved a...
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Samuel Beckett
Samuel (Barclay) Beckett
