The Beckett Studies Reader

The Beckett Studies Reader PDF Author: S. E. Gontarski
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780813011974
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 238

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Book Description
For fifteen years the journal of Beckett Studies attracted (and maintained the loyalty of) superb Beckett scholars. Because of the journal's irregular publication schedule, however, back issues of the original series are virtually impossible to come by. This collection makes available for the first time in book form those essays of exceptional merit that have never been reprinted. Samuel Beckett is one of the stellar figures in post-World War II English and European literature. This collection contains fresh perspectives on such fundamental themes in his work as the idea of the "absurd," the Manichean tension of light and dark, and the Cartesian split of mind and body, self and other. Specific essays offer, for instance, an existential reading of the short mime Act Without Words, I; an analysis of the Jungian libido operating in the novel Molloy; a study of Beckett's play with language in the radio play Embers; and a critique of a central question in Beckett studies, his relationship to the philosophical tradition of solipsism. In 1992, Florida State University made a commitment to regular publication of the JBS in a new series under S. E. Gontarski's editorship. This collection offers important essays from the first phase of the journal (1976-91).

The Beckett Studies Reader

The Beckett Studies Reader PDF Author: S. E. Gontarski
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780813011974
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 238

Get Book Here

Book Description
For fifteen years the journal of Beckett Studies attracted (and maintained the loyalty of) superb Beckett scholars. Because of the journal's irregular publication schedule, however, back issues of the original series are virtually impossible to come by. This collection makes available for the first time in book form those essays of exceptional merit that have never been reprinted. Samuel Beckett is one of the stellar figures in post-World War II English and European literature. This collection contains fresh perspectives on such fundamental themes in his work as the idea of the "absurd," the Manichean tension of light and dark, and the Cartesian split of mind and body, self and other. Specific essays offer, for instance, an existential reading of the short mime Act Without Words, I; an analysis of the Jungian libido operating in the novel Molloy; a study of Beckett's play with language in the radio play Embers; and a critique of a central question in Beckett studies, his relationship to the philosophical tradition of solipsism. In 1992, Florida State University made a commitment to regular publication of the JBS in a new series under S. E. Gontarski's editorship. This collection offers important essays from the first phase of the journal (1976-91).

Samuel Beckett is Closed

Samuel Beckett is Closed PDF Author: Michael Coffey
Publisher: OR Books
ISBN: 9781944869595
Category : FICTION
Languages : en
Pages : 206

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Book Description
A powerful, genre-defying meditation, with Beckett at its origin, that touches on mysteries as varied as literary celebrity, baseball, and why we feel the need to be cruel to one another Following the schema of Samuel Beckett's unpublished "Long Observation of the Ray," of which only six manuscript pages exist, poet and critic Michael Coffey interleaves multiple narratives according to an arithmetic sequence laid out by Beckett in his notes. This rhythm of themes and genres--involving personal memoir, literary criticism, Beckett studies, contemporary political reportage and accounts of state-sponsored torture in appropriated texts, plus an Arabian Tale and even a baseballplay-by-play--produce a work at once sculptural, theatrical, mathematical and above all lyrical, a new form of narrative answering to a freshened rule set. In executing Beckett's most radical undertaking--one scholar referred to "Long Observation of the Ray" as a "monument to extinction"--Coffey gives readers access to an open field in which ruminations on writing mix with an engagement with Beckett scholarship as well as the unsettling chaos in today's world. Although Beckett, like any writer, had his share of abandoned works, he was in the habit of "unabandoning" on occasion. Coffey's effort here salvages a Beckett project from a half-century ago and brings it to the surface, with the contemporary markings of its hauling.

The New Samuel Beckett Studies

The New Samuel Beckett Studies PDF Author: Jean-Michel Rabaté
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108471854
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 281

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Book Description
Discusses the most recent advances in the Beckett field and the new methods used to approach it.

Samuel Beckett's Hidden Drives

Samuel Beckett's Hidden Drives PDF Author: James Donald O'Hara
Publisher: Crosscurrents
ISBN: 9780813015279
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 310

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Book Description
"Culminates with the closest, most detailed and systematic reading of Beckett's most important novel, Molloy, yet produced. . . . No other work in Beckett studies has attempted to deal with these works in this much detail, with this strong a thesis, and, most important, with this much success. . . . A masterwork. It will completely revise how we think of Beckett's creative process and how we read Molloy."--S. E. Gontarski, Florida State University While much has been written on the subject of Joyce's uses of sources and models, little has been written about Samuel Beckett's similar preference for using formal systems of thought as scaffolding for his own work. In the most comprehensive study of his use of source material, J. D. O'Hara examines specifically Beckett's almost obsessive concern with psychological sources and themes and his use of Freudian and Jungian narrative structures. Beginning with Beckett's early monograph, Proust, O'Hara traces Beckett's preference for Schopenhauer's philosophy as the system of thought most appropriate for thinking and writing about Proust. O'Hara then examines Beckett's shift from philosophical to psychological models, specifically to Freudian and Jungian texts. Beckett used these, as O'Hara demonstrates, for characterization and plot in his early writings. Beckett's use of depth psychology, however, in no way allows the reader to hang either a "Freudian" or "Jungian" tag on Beckett. O'Hara cautions his readers against inferring "truth value" from what is more properly understood as scaffolding--a temporary arrangement used during the construction of his own absolutely unique art form. O'Hara analyzes this scaffolding in the novel Murphy, the story collection More Pricks Than Kicks, the short works "First Love" and "From an Abandoned Work," and the radio play All That Fall. He concludes with the most comprehensive and detailed reading of Molloy available anywhere. No serious reader of Beckett will want to be without this book.

Beckett's Happy Days

Beckett's Happy Days PDF Author: S. E. Gontarski
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780814254028
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 86

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Book Description
Beckett's Happy Days: A Manuscript Study by S. E. Gontarski traces the development of Samuel Beckett's final two-act play, composed in English between October 1960 and May 1961, through annotated and bedoodled manuscript notebooks, holographs, and typescript drafts to the final published and performed text. The analysis details Beckett's most salient alterations and revisions, including his development of the work's tapestry of fragmented, half-remembered literary allusions. The current reissue of Beckett's Happy Days comes at a timely moment not only in Beckett studies but also in the general growth in programs of book history and digital humanities. Gontarski's study is not just a look back to origins. It traces an arc of research that developed over forty years as the Samuel Beckett archive at the University of Reading matured, as the fields of genetic and textual research grew, and as book history reemerged on a grand, international scale. In this timeframe, the Beckett Digital Manuscript and Library Projects responded to interest in Beckett studies and archival studies, taking textual production, genetic study, and book history into the twenty-first century with their emphasis on electronic access and digital collation. At The Ohio State University, the Rare Books and Manuscripts archive held papers central to Gontarski's study. Beckett's Happy Days is thus a fundamental, even seminal, part of that forty-year scholarly trajectory, and in its current edition, is readily accessible to individual students and scholars alike.

The New Cambridge Companion to Samuel Beckett

The New Cambridge Companion to Samuel Beckett PDF Author: Dirk Van Hulle
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316240649
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 267

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Book Description
In the past decade, there has been an unprecedented upsurge of interest in Samuel Beckett's works. The New Cambridge Companion to Samuel Beckett offers an accessible and engrossing introduction to a key set of issues animating the field of Beckett studies today. This Companion considers Beckett's lasting significance by addressing a host of relevant topics. Written by a team of renowned scholars, this volume presents a continuum in Beckett studies ranging from theoretical approaches to performance studies, from manuscript research to the study of bilingualism, intertextuality, late modernism, history, philosophy, ethics, body and mind. The emphasis on burgeoning critical approaches aids the reader's understanding of recent developments in Beckett studies while prompting further exploration, assisted by the guide to further reading.

Murphy

Murphy PDF Author: Samuel Beckett
Publisher: Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
ISBN: 9780802198365
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
Murphy, Samuel Beckett’s first published novel, is set in London and Dublin, during the first decades of the Irish Republic. The title character loves Celia in a “striking case of love requited” but must first establish himself in London before his intended bride will make the journey from Ireland to join him. Beckett comically describes the various schemes that Murphy employs to stretch his meager resources and the pastimes that he uses to fill the hours of his days. Eventually Murphy lands a job as a nurse at Magdalen Mental Mercyseat hospital, where he is drawn into the mad world of the patients which ends in a fateful game of chess. While grounded in the comedy and absurdity of much of daily life, Beckett’s work is also an early exploration of themes that recur throughout his entire body of work including sanity and insanity and the very meaning of life.

Samuel Beckett's Library

Samuel Beckett's Library PDF Author: Dirk Van Hulle
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107001269
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 331

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Book Description
The first study to assess the importance of the marginalia, inscriptions, and other manuscript notes in the 750 volumes of Samuel Beckett's personal library.

I Can't Go On, I'll Go On

I Can't Go On, I'll Go On PDF Author: Samuel Beckett
Publisher: Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
ISBN: 0802198406
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 621

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Book Description
Winner of the Nobel Prize for literature and acknowledged as one of the greatest writers of our time, Samuel Beckett has had a profound impact upon the literary landscape of the twentieth century. In this one-volume collection of his fiction, drama, poetry, and critical writings, we get an unsurpassed look at his work. Included, among others, are: - The complete plays Waiting for Godot, Krapp’s Last Tape, Cascando, Eh Joe, Not I, and That Time - Selections from his novels Murphy, Watt, Mercier and Camier, Molloy, and The Unnamable - The shorter works “Dante and the Lobster,” “The Expelled,” Imagination Dead Imagine, and Lessness - A selection of Beckett’s poetry and critical writings With an indispensable introduction by editor and Beckett intimate Richard Seaver, and featuring a useful select bibliography, I Can’t Go On, I’ll Go On is indeed an invaluable introduction to a writer who has changed the face of modern literature.

Beckett and Buddhism

Beckett and Buddhism PDF Author: Angela Moorjani
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009021850
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 450

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Book Description
Beckett and Buddhism undertakes a twenty-first-century reassessment of the Buddhist resonances in Samuel Beckett's writing. These reverberations, as Angela Moorjani demonstrates, originated in his early reading of Schopenhauer. Drawing on letters and archives along with recent studies of Buddhist thought and Schopenhauer's knowledge of it, the book charts the Buddhist concepts circling through Beckett's visions of the 'human predicament' in a blend of tears and laughter. Moorjani offers an in-depth elucidation of texts that are shown to intersect with the negative and paradoxical path of the Buddha, which she sets in dialogue with Western thinking. She brings further perspectives from cognitive philosophy and science to bear on creative emptiness, the illusory 'I', and Beckett's probing of the writing process. Readers will benefit from this far-reaching study of one of the most acclaimed writers of the twentieth century who explored uncharted topologies in his fiction, theatre, and poetry.