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Samuel Beckett's work harbors an inevitable complicity with traditional modes and values. His idealist and even nihilist inclinations, for example, are closely related to the abstracting and systematizing tendencies that have predominated in Western thinking. His drama and fiction, in reproducing these tendencies, also help to reinforce and legitimate them. Beckett's work can thus be said to encourage an attitude of stoic resignation or life-denying withdrawal. Sylvie Debevec Henning's study reveals an important countertendency. In examining Beckett's art and literary criticism, his novel Murphy, plays Krapp's Last Tape and Endgame, his only film venture, and the late story "The Lost Ones," she shows that through a variety of double-voiced techniques—irony, parody, and satire—Beckett also brings a powerful critical light to bear upon our culture's repeated attempts to reduce or eliminate the more problematic aspects of existence and even mocks our desire to do so. His disquieting and occasionally uproarious interweaving of contradictory perspectives—somber and carnivalized, established and contestory—suggests that suffering and anguish are fundamental to life, while it affirms their relation to laughter and creative vigor within a richer, if less settled, cultural context. Drawing upon the work of Nietzsche, Heidegger, Foucault, Derrida, and particularly Bakhtin, Henning argues that Beckett's profound critique of Western intellectual tradition does not necessarily entail the loss of all positive values and beliefs. On the contrary, his use of carnivalesque and dialogized modes signals a revitalizing capacity that has not been fully appreciated.
This book is the first introduction to unite accessible accounts not only of Beckett's life and work, but of the key literary and theoretical concepts used in the study of his writing.
Reads Beckett's comic timing as part of a post-war ethics of representationSamuel Beckett is a funny writer. He is also an author whose work is taken to respond ethically to the unspeakable seriousness of the post-Holocaust situation. How can these two statements sit together?Ranging widely over Beckett's fiction, drama, and critical writings, and including readings of Murphy, the Trilogy, Waiting for Godot, Endgame, the late prose, and the late plays, the book demonstrates that it is through Beckett's comic timing that we can understand the double gesture of his art: the ethical obligation to represent the world how it is while, at the same time, opening up a space for how it ought to be.Key Features:* Presents innovative readings of the comedy found in Beckett's fiction, drama and critical writings* Spans Beckett's entire oeuvre, using published and unpublished sources* Engages with recent and contemporary philosophical approaches to literature, including work by Derrida, Badiou, Levinas, and Adorno* Makes a unique contribution to theoretical work on comedy and laughter* Provides a rigorous introduction to the theoretical debates surrounding the relationship between modernist literature and a post-war ethics of representation
Palgrave Advances in Samuel Beckett Studies explores the evolution of critical approaches to Beckett's writing. It will appeal to graduate students (and advance undergraduates) as well as scholars, for it offers both an overview of Beckett studies and investigates current debates within the interdisciplinary critical arena. Each of the contributors is an eminent Beckett specialist who has published widely in the field. The volume contains an introduction, twelve essays and a guide for further reading.
A survey of Beckett criticism in English, French and German. Samuel Beckett (1906-1989) is an important figure in 20th century literary history: his plays, such as Waiting for Godot and Endgame, have acquired a world-wide reputation, and his novels have proved important touchstones for the critical debates in contemporary literary theory. Born in Dublin, Beckett spent most of his writing life in France and wrote equally well in French and English; his German was also fluent, allowing him to direct hisown plays in German theatres. Any attempt to deal with Beckett must therefore consider the critical response his works have provoked in all three languages. A Critique of Beckett Criticism is the first attempt in book formto give a comprehensive survey of the history and scope of Beckett criticism in French, English, and German. Three parallel chapters examine the three major strands of Beckett criticism, retracing its development using a historical perspective and pointing out different trends, currents and fashions in opinion. Directions for further research are also suggested. P.J. MURPHY is a lecturer in contemporary British literature at the University College of the Cariboo, British Columbia; WERNER HUBER is a professor of English literature at Chemnitz University of Technology; ROLF BREUER is professor of English literature at the University of Paderborn; KONRAD SCHOELL is professor of French literature at the Pädagogische Hochschule Erfurt.
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)
Presents a series of critical essays discussing the structure, themes, and subject matter of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot.
Writer Samuel Beckett (1906–89) is known for depicting a world of abject misery, failure, and absurdity in his many plays, novels, short stories, and poetry. Yet the despair in his work is never absolute, instead it is intertwined with black humor and an indomitable will to endure––characteristics best embodied by his most famous characters, Vladimir and Estragon, in the play Waiting for Godot. Beckett himself was a supremely modern, minimalist writer who deeply distrusted biographies and resisted letting himself be pigeonholed by easy interpretation or single definition. Andrew Gibson’s accessible critical biography overcomes Beckett’s reticence and carefully considers the writer’s work in relation to the historical circumstances of his life. In Samuel Beckett, Gibson tracks Beckett from Ireland after independence to Paris in the late 1920s, from London in the ’30s to Nazi Germany and Vichy France, and finally through the cold war to the fall of communism in the late ’80s. Gibson narrates the progression of Beckett’s life as a writer—from a student in Ireland to the 1969 Nobel Prize winner for literature—through chapters that examine individual historical events and the works that grew out of those experiences. A notoriously private figure, Beckett sought refuge from life in his work, where he expressed his disdain for the suffering and unnecessary absurdity of much that he witnessed. This concise and engaging biography provides an essential understanding of Beckett's work in response to many of the most significant events of the past century.