A Companion to Samuel Beckett PDF Download

Author: S. E. Gontarski
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1405158697
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 441

View

Book Description
A collection of original essays by a team of leading Beckett scholars and two of his biographers, Companion to Samuel Beckett provides a comprehensive critical reappraisal of the literary works of Samuel Beckett. Builds on the resurgence of international Beckett scholarship since the centenary of his birth, and reflects the wealth of newly released archival sources Informed by the latest in scholarly, critical, and theoretical debates A valuable addition to contemporary Beckett scholarship, and testament to the enduring influence of Beckett’s work and his position as one of the most important literary figures of our time

Author: C. J. Ackerly
Publisher: Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
ISBN: 0802199801
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 722

View

Book Description
The Nobel Prize winning author Samuel Beckett is a literary treasure, and this work represents the only comprehensive reference to the concepts, characters, and biographical details mentioned by, or related to, Beckett. Painstakingly and lovingly compiled by acclaimed Beckett scholars C.J. Ackerley and S.E. Gontarski, it is alphabetical, cross-referenced, and laid out in a very user-friendly format. The Grove Companion to Samuel Beckett provides an organized trove of information for students and scholars alike, and is a must for any serious reader of Beckett. As most Beckettians know, “reading [him] for the first time is an experience like no other in modern literature.” (Paul Auster)

Author: Dirk Van Hulle
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 110707519X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 267

View

Book Description
The New Cambridge Companion to Samuel Beckett offers an accessible introduction to issues animating the field of Beckett studies today.

Author: John Pilling
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521424134
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 278

View

Book Description
The world fame of Samuel Beckett is due to a combination of high academic esteem and immense popularity. An innovator in prose fiction to rival Joyce, his plays have been the most influential in modern theatre history. As an author in both English and French and a writer for the page and the stage, Beckett has been the focus for specialist treatment in each of his many guises, but there have been few attempts to provide a conspectus view. This book, first published in 1994, provides thirteen introductory essays on every aspect of Beckett's work, some paying particular attention to his most famous plays (e.g. Waiting for Godot and Endgame) and his prose fictions (e.g. the 'trilogy' and Murphy). Other essays tackle his radio and television drama, his theatre directing and his poetry, followed by more general issues such as Beckett's bilingualism and his relationship to the philosophers. Reference material is provided at the front and back of the book.

Author: John Calder
Publisher: Alma Books
ISBN: 0714545546
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 161

View

Book Description
ncreasingly Samuel Beckett's writing is seen as the culmination of the great literature of the twentieth century - succeeding the work of Proust, Joyce and Kafka. Beckett is a writer whose relevance to his time and use of poetic imagery can be compared to Shakespeare's in the late Renaissance. John Calder has examined the work of Beckett principally for what it has to say about our time in terms of philosophy, theology and ethics, and he points to aspects of his subject's thinking that others have ignored or preferred not to see. Samuel Beckett's acute mind pulled apart with courage and much humour the basic assumptions and beliefs by which most people live. His satire can be biting and his wit devastating. He found no escape from human tragedy in the comforts we build to shield ourselves from reality - even in art, which for most intellectuals has replaced religion. However, he did develop a moral message - one which is in direct contradiction to the values of ambition, success, acquisition and security which is normally held up for admiration, and he looks at the greed, God-worship, and cruelty to others which we increasingly take for granted, in a way that is both unconventional and revolutionary.If this study shocks many readers it is because the honesty, the integrity and the depth of Beckett's thinking - expressed through his novels, plays and poetry, but also through his other writings and correspondence - is itself shocking, to conventional thinking. Yet what he has to say is also comforting. He offers a different ethic and prescription for living - a message based on stoic courage, compassion and an ability to understand and forgive.

Author: Samuel Beckett
Publisher: Grove Press
ISBN: 9780802150660
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 156

View

Book Description
This work relates the adventures of an unnamed narrator crawling through the mud while dragging a sack of canned food. It is written as a sequence of unpunctuated paragraphs divided into three sections.

Author: James Knowlson
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1408857669
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 878

View

Book Description
_______________ 'A triumph of scholarship and sympathy... one of the great post-war biographies' - Independent 'A landmark in scholarly criticism... Knowlson is the world's largest Beckett scholar. His life is right up there with George Painter's Proust and Richard Ellmann's Joyce in sensitivity and fascination' - Daily Telegraph 'It is hard to imagine a fuller portrait of the man who gave our age some of the myths by which it lives' - Evening Standard _______________ SHORTLISTED FOR THE WHITBREAD PRIZE _______________ Samuel Beckett's long-standing friend, James Knowlson, recreates Beckett's youth in Ireland, his studies at Trinity College, Dublin in the early 1920s and from there to the Continent, where he plunged into the multicultural literary society of late-1920s Paris. The biography throws new light on Beckett's stormy relationship with his mother, the psychotherapy he received after the death of his father and his crucial relationship with James Joyce. There is also material on Beckett's six-month visit to Germany as the Nazi's tightened their grip. The book includes unpublished material on Beckett's personal life after he chose to live in France, including his own account of his work for a Resistance cell during the war, his escape from the Gestapo and his retreat into hiding. Obsessively private, Beckett was wholly committed to the work which eventually brought his public fame, beginning with the controversial success of "Waiting for Godot" in 1953, and culminating in the award of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969.

Author: Enoch Brater
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1408137232
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 205

View

Book Description
Beckett is acknowledged as one of the greatest playwrights and most innovative fiction writers of the twentieth century with an international appeal that bridges both general and more specialist readers. This collection of essays by renowned Beckett scholar Enoch Brater offers a delightfully original, playful and intriguing series of approaches to Beckett's drama, fiction and poetry. Beginning with a chapter entitled 'Things to Ponder While Waiting for Godot', each essay deftly illuminates aspects of Beckett's thinking and craft, making astute and often surprising discoveries along the way. In a series of beguiling discussions such as 'From Dada to Didi: Beckett and the Art of His Century', 'Beckett's Devious Interventions, or Fun with Cube Roots' and 'The Seated Figure on Beckett's Stage', Brater proves the perfect companion and commentator on Beckett's work, helping readers to approach it with fresh eyes and a renewed sense of the author's unique aesthetic. 'An eloquent, witty and erudite collection of essays that illuminates Beckett's drama and prose fiction from a number of complementary perspectives. Brater's precise explication of the interwoven tropes of language and mise-en-scène is combined with a fine grasp of the overarching structure of work ... to create a rich and suggestive series of reflections on Beckett's aesthetics.' - Robert Gordon, Professor of Drama, Goldsmiths, University of London

Author: Samuel Beckett
Publisher: OR Books
ISBN: 1682190129
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 46

View

Book Description
By the winner of the 1969 Nobel Prize for Literature A dense inner monologue, Stirrings Still was written by Beckett in 1987 and 1988, when he had become increasingly reflective about his life. It portrays, in Beckett’s spare style, a “consciousness” exploring a “self,” faced with uncertainties about its own existence. Stirrings Still is a spellbinding work, full of a sense of farewell. It is dedicated to Beckett’s longtime friend and publisher Barney Rosset. Samuel Beckett (1906-1989) was a playwright, poet and novelist whose work has had a formative influence on 20th century culture. Born in Foxrock, Ireland, he moved to Paris after an abortive attempt at being an academic. Years of penury and obscurity followed, during which time he consorted with artists such as James Joyce, Alberto Giacometti, and Marcel Duchamp. During World War II, he was an active member of the French Resistance, and after the war he was honored with the Croix de Guerre and the Médaille de la Résistance. In 1954, Beckett’s play “Waiting for Godot” was introduced to an unsuspecting America by Barney Rosset at Grove Press; Beckett became a signature author of the fledgling company. Although he was highly regarded by a small circle of literary aficionados, it was not until Beckett won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969 (he famously gave away the prize money that accompanied it) that his work began to reach a wider audience. His writing is characterized by meticulousness and a ceaseless fascination with the puzzle of fitting words to actions, and with the simultaneous impossibility and necessity of doing so that marks the human condition.

Author: Chris Ackerley
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780571227389
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 686

View

Book Description
'Reading Beckett for the first time is an experience like no other in modern literature.' - Paul AusterThe Faber Companion is the most comprehensive reference to the ideas, characters, and life of Samuel Beckett. Alphabetically ordered and cross-referenced, it provides a wealth of information for all serious readers of Beckett.'Ackerley and Gontarski have amassed an amazing amount of information about Samuel Beckett and his works. The Faber Companion will prove useful to everyone - from the neophyte who seeks other work by Beckett to the seasoned Beckett scholar who is not necessarily an expert on the writer's use of astrology or zoology. In short, from A to Z, all readers of Beckett will be enriched.' - Ruby Cohn