Author: David Kleinberg-Levin
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1474216889
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 329
Book Description
At stake in this book is a struggle with language in a time when our old faith in the redeeming of the word-and the word's power to redeem-has almost been destroyed. Drawing on Benjamin's political theology, his interpretation of the German Baroque mourning play, and Adorno's critical aesthetic theory, but also on the thought of poets and many other philosophers, especially Hegel's phenomenology of spirit, Nietzsche's analysis of nihilism, and Derrida's writings on language, Kleinberg-Levin shows how, because of its communicative and revelatory powers, language bears the utopian "promise of happiness," the idea of a secular redemption of humanity, at the very heart of which must be the achievement of universal justice. In an original reading of Beckett's plays, novels and short stories, Kleinberg-Levin shows how, despite inheriting a language damaged, corrupted and commodified, Beckett redeems dead or dying words and wrests from this language new possibilities for the expression of meaning. Without denying Beckett's nihilism, his picture of a radically disenchanted world, Kleinberg-Levin calls attention to moments when his words suddenly ignite and break free of their despair and pain, taking shape in the beauty of an austere yet joyous lyricism, suggesting that, after all, meaning is still possible.
Beckett's Words
Author: David Kleinberg-Levin
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1474216889
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 329
Book Description
At stake in this book is a struggle with language in a time when our old faith in the redeeming of the word-and the word's power to redeem-has almost been destroyed. Drawing on Benjamin's political theology, his interpretation of the German Baroque mourning play, and Adorno's critical aesthetic theory, but also on the thought of poets and many other philosophers, especially Hegel's phenomenology of spirit, Nietzsche's analysis of nihilism, and Derrida's writings on language, Kleinberg-Levin shows how, because of its communicative and revelatory powers, language bears the utopian "promise of happiness," the idea of a secular redemption of humanity, at the very heart of which must be the achievement of universal justice. In an original reading of Beckett's plays, novels and short stories, Kleinberg-Levin shows how, despite inheriting a language damaged, corrupted and commodified, Beckett redeems dead or dying words and wrests from this language new possibilities for the expression of meaning. Without denying Beckett's nihilism, his picture of a radically disenchanted world, Kleinberg-Levin calls attention to moments when his words suddenly ignite and break free of their despair and pain, taking shape in the beauty of an austere yet joyous lyricism, suggesting that, after all, meaning is still possible.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1474216889
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 329
Book Description
At stake in this book is a struggle with language in a time when our old faith in the redeeming of the word-and the word's power to redeem-has almost been destroyed. Drawing on Benjamin's political theology, his interpretation of the German Baroque mourning play, and Adorno's critical aesthetic theory, but also on the thought of poets and many other philosophers, especially Hegel's phenomenology of spirit, Nietzsche's analysis of nihilism, and Derrida's writings on language, Kleinberg-Levin shows how, because of its communicative and revelatory powers, language bears the utopian "promise of happiness," the idea of a secular redemption of humanity, at the very heart of which must be the achievement of universal justice. In an original reading of Beckett's plays, novels and short stories, Kleinberg-Levin shows how, despite inheriting a language damaged, corrupted and commodified, Beckett redeems dead or dying words and wrests from this language new possibilities for the expression of meaning. Without denying Beckett's nihilism, his picture of a radically disenchanted world, Kleinberg-Levin calls attention to moments when his words suddenly ignite and break free of their despair and pain, taking shape in the beauty of an austere yet joyous lyricism, suggesting that, after all, meaning is still possible.
Beckett's Dying Words
Author: Christopher Ricks
Publisher: Oxford University Press on Demand
ISBN: 9780192824073
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 218
Book Description
Most people most of the time want to live for ever. But there is another truth; the longing for oblivion. With pain, wit, and humour, the art of Samuel Beckett variously embodies this truth, this ancient enduring belief that it is better to be dead than alive, best of all never to have been born. Beckett is the supreme writer of an age which has created new possiblities and impossibilities even in the matter of death and its definition, an age of transplants and life-support. But howdoes a writer give life to dismay at life itself, to the not-simply-unwelcome encroachments of death? After all, it is for the life, the vitality, of their language that we value writers. As a young man, Beckett himself praised Joyce's words. `They are alive.' Beckett became himself as a writer when he realized in his very words a principle of death. In cliches, which are dead but won't lie down. In a dead language and its memento mori. In words which mean their own opposites, cleaving andcleaving. In the self-stultifying or suicidal turn, dubbed the Irish bull. In what Beckett called a syntax of weakness. This book explores the relation between deep convictions about life or death and the incarnations which these take in the exact turns of a great writer - the realizations of an Irishman who wrote in English and in French, two languages with different apprehensions of life and of death.
Publisher: Oxford University Press on Demand
ISBN: 9780192824073
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 218
Book Description
Most people most of the time want to live for ever. But there is another truth; the longing for oblivion. With pain, wit, and humour, the art of Samuel Beckett variously embodies this truth, this ancient enduring belief that it is better to be dead than alive, best of all never to have been born. Beckett is the supreme writer of an age which has created new possiblities and impossibilities even in the matter of death and its definition, an age of transplants and life-support. But howdoes a writer give life to dismay at life itself, to the not-simply-unwelcome encroachments of death? After all, it is for the life, the vitality, of their language that we value writers. As a young man, Beckett himself praised Joyce's words. `They are alive.' Beckett became himself as a writer when he realized in his very words a principle of death. In cliches, which are dead but won't lie down. In a dead language and its memento mori. In words which mean their own opposites, cleaving andcleaving. In the self-stultifying or suicidal turn, dubbed the Irish bull. In what Beckett called a syntax of weakness. This book explores the relation between deep convictions about life or death and the incarnations which these take in the exact turns of a great writer - the realizations of an Irishman who wrote in English and in French, two languages with different apprehensions of life and of death.
Beckett's Words
Author: David Kleinberg-Levin
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1474216838
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 329
Book Description
A radical re-reading of Samuel Beckett's work as promising happiness and enlightenment. Kleinberg-Levin rejects the traditional interpretation of Beckett's work as nihilistic and negative, proposing a Beckett unlike we've ever encountered before.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1474216838
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 329
Book Description
A radical re-reading of Samuel Beckett's work as promising happiness and enlightenment. Kleinberg-Levin rejects the traditional interpretation of Beckett's work as nihilistic and negative, proposing a Beckett unlike we've ever encountered before.
The Painted Word
Author: Lois Oppenheim
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 9780472111176
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 260
Book Description
Exploring Beckett's relationship with the visual arts and its influence on his creative expression
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 9780472111176
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 260
Book Description
Exploring Beckett's relationship with the visual arts and its influence on his creative expression
How it is
Author: Samuel Beckett
Publisher: Grove Press
ISBN: 9780802150660
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 156
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.
Publisher: Grove Press
ISBN: 9780802150660
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 156
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.
Samuel Beckett, W.B. Yeats, and Jack Yeats
Author: Gordon S. Armstrong
Publisher: Bucknell University Press
ISBN: 9780838751411
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 292
Book Description
In contrast to the many critics who consider W. B. Yeats a dominant influence on Beckett's drama, this study demonstrates that the two are almost diametrically opposed in their theater and that the real bridge to Beckett's art is to be found in the narrative and pictorial creations of the younger Yeats brother, Jack.
Publisher: Bucknell University Press
ISBN: 9780838751411
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 292
Book Description
In contrast to the many critics who consider W. B. Yeats a dominant influence on Beckett's drama, this study demonstrates that the two are almost diametrically opposed in their theater and that the real bridge to Beckett's art is to be found in the narrative and pictorial creations of the younger Yeats brother, Jack.
Endgame
Author: Samuel Beckett
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780802150240
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 91
Book Description
Four characters play a game of life, concluding with the exit of one character and the immobility of the remaining three, in a study of man's relationship to his fellows
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780802150240
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 91
Book Description
Four characters play a game of life, concluding with the exit of one character and the immobility of the remaining three, in a study of man's relationship to his fellows
Beckett and Decay
Author: Kathryn White
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1441112952
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 178
Book Description
The word 'decay' is often used by critics in general reference to Beckett's thematic emphasis and philosophical outlook. However, this book explores the idea of decay as the fundamental core of Beckett's work, dominating it thematically, linguistically and artistically. Kathryn White explores Beckett's representation of physical decay, mental and spiritual deterioration and finally the idea that 'decay' is to be found in language itself. This study explores the importance of both theme and form in Beckett's work and considers whether Beckett will, in future generations, be remembered both for his representation of existence and his innovations in language.
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1441112952
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 178
Book Description
The word 'decay' is often used by critics in general reference to Beckett's thematic emphasis and philosophical outlook. However, this book explores the idea of decay as the fundamental core of Beckett's work, dominating it thematically, linguistically and artistically. Kathryn White explores Beckett's representation of physical decay, mental and spiritual deterioration and finally the idea that 'decay' is to be found in language itself. This study explores the importance of both theme and form in Beckett's work and considers whether Beckett will, in future generations, be remembered both for his representation of existence and his innovations in language.
Beckett and Musicality
Author: Sara Jane Bailes
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317175905
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 302
Book Description
Discussion concerning the ’musicality’ of Samuel Beckett’s writing now constitutes a familiar critical trope in Beckett Studies, one that continues to be informed by the still-emerging evidence of Beckett’s engagement with music throughout his personal and literary life, and by the ongoing interest of musicians in Beckett’s work. In Beckett’s drama and prose writings, the relationship with music plays out in implicit and explicit ways. Several of his works incorporate canonical music by composers such as Schubert and Beethoven. Other works integrate music as a compositional element, in dialogue or tension with text and image, while others adopt rhythm, repetition and pause to the extent that the texts themselves appear to be ’scored’. But what, precisely, does it mean to say that a piece of prose or writing for theatre, radio or screen, is ’musical’? The essays included in this book explore a number of ways in which Beckett’s writings engage with and are engaged by musicality, discussing familiar and less familiar works by Beckett in detail. Ranging from the scholarly to the personal in their respective modes of response, and informed by approaches from performance and musicology, literary studies, philosophy, musical composition and creative practice, these essays provide a critical examination of the ways we might comprehend musicality as a definitive and often overlooked attribute throughout Beckett’s work.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317175905
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 302
Book Description
Discussion concerning the ’musicality’ of Samuel Beckett’s writing now constitutes a familiar critical trope in Beckett Studies, one that continues to be informed by the still-emerging evidence of Beckett’s engagement with music throughout his personal and literary life, and by the ongoing interest of musicians in Beckett’s work. In Beckett’s drama and prose writings, the relationship with music plays out in implicit and explicit ways. Several of his works incorporate canonical music by composers such as Schubert and Beethoven. Other works integrate music as a compositional element, in dialogue or tension with text and image, while others adopt rhythm, repetition and pause to the extent that the texts themselves appear to be ’scored’. But what, precisely, does it mean to say that a piece of prose or writing for theatre, radio or screen, is ’musical’? The essays included in this book explore a number of ways in which Beckett’s writings engage with and are engaged by musicality, discussing familiar and less familiar works by Beckett in detail. Ranging from the scholarly to the personal in their respective modes of response, and informed by approaches from performance and musicology, literary studies, philosophy, musical composition and creative practice, these essays provide a critical examination of the ways we might comprehend musicality as a definitive and often overlooked attribute throughout Beckett’s work.
Samuel Beckett's Self-Referential Drama
Author: Shimon Levy
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
ISBN: 1782847820
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 201
Book Description
An exploration of Samuel Beckett's drama, using the criteria that ensue from the works themselves, with particular attention given to the relationship between the medium and the message. This fully revised second edition includes chapters on the radioplays and film and television scripts.
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
ISBN: 1782847820
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 201
Book Description
An exploration of Samuel Beckett's drama, using the criteria that ensue from the works themselves, with particular attention given to the relationship between the medium and the message. This fully revised second edition includes chapters on the radioplays and film and television scripts.