Samuel Beckett

:For other things named Beckett, see Beckett (disambiguation)

Fame: novels and the theatre

In 1945, Beckett returned to Dublin for a brief visit. During his stay, he had a revelation in his mother's room in which his entire future literary direction appeared to him. This experience was later fictionalized in the play Krapp's Last Tape (1958). In the play, Krapp's revelation is set on the East Pier in Dun Laoghaire during a dark and stormy night. Some critics have identified Beckett with Krapp to the point of presuming Beckett's own artistic epiphany was at the same location, in the same weather.

Related Topics:
1945 - 1958 - Dun Laoghaire

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In 1946 Sartre?s magazine Les Temps Modernes published the first part of Beckett?s story Suite, not realizing that Beckett had only submitted the first half of the story. Simone de Beauvoir refused to publish the second part. Beckett began to write Mercier et Camier, his fourth novel. In 1947 he began writing Eleutheria.

Related Topics:
Sartre - Simone de Beauvoir - Mercier et Camier - Eleutheria

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During the late 1940s and early 1950s, Beckett wrote his best-known novels, the series written in French (often referred to, against Beckett's explicit wishes, as "the Trilogy") and later translated into English, mostly by the author: Molloy (finished in 1947, published in 1951, English, translated in collaboration with Patrick Bowles, 1953), Malone Dies (finished in 1948, published in 1951, English translation 1956) and The Unnamable (1953, English translation 1957). In these three novels, the reader can trace the development of Beckett's mature style and themes. Molloy has many of the characteristics of a conventional novel: time, place, movement and plot. Indeed, on one level it is a detective novel. In Malone Dies, movement and plot are more or less dispensed with, but there is still some indication of place and the passage of time. The 'action' of the book takes the form of an interior monologue. Finally, in The Unnamable all sense of place and time have also disappeared. The essential theme seems to be the conflict between the voice's drive to continue speaking so as to continue existing and its almost equally strong urge to find silence and oblivion. It is tempting to see in this a reflection of Beckett's experience and understanding of what the war had done to the world. Despite the widely-held view that Beckett's work is essentially pessimistic, the will to live seems to win out.

Related Topics:
1951 - Patrick Bowles - 1953 - Malone Dies - 1956 - The Unnamable - 1957

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Beckett is most famous for the play Waiting for Godot, which was famously described by the critic Vivian Mercier as 'a play in which nothing happens, twice'. Like most of his works after 1947, the play was first written in French (under the title En attendant Godot) between October 1948 and January 1949, published in 1952, premiering in 1953, with the English translation appearing two years later. The play was a critical, popular, and controversial success in Paris. It opened in London in 1955 to mainly bad reviews, but the tide turned with positive reactions by Harold Hobson in the Sunday Times and, later, Kenneth Tynan. In the United States, it flopped in Miami, and had a qualified success in New York. After this, the play became extremely popular, with highly successful performances in the United States and Germany, and it is still frequently performed today.

Related Topics:
Waiting for Godot - Vivian Mercier - 1947 - 1948 - 1949 - 1952 - 1953 - 1955 - Harold Hobson - Sunday Times - Kenneth Tynan - United States - Miami - New York - Germany

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As has already been noted, Beckett was now writing mainly in French. He translated all of his works into the English language himself, with the exception of Molloy, which translation was collaborative (see above). The success of Waiting for Godot opened up for Beckett a career in theatre, and he went on to write numerous successful plays, including Endgame (1957) the aforementioned Krapp's Last Tape (written in English), Embers (1959) and Happy Days (also written in English) (1960). In general, the plays of this period reflect the same themes as the novels: despair and the will to survive in the face of an uncomprehending world. In all the works of this period, it is also possible to see the working out of Beckett's faith in writing as a process of self-relevation and of dealing with the space between the self and the world of objects. In most, if not all, of these writings there is also a prominent comedic element in the handling of the themes.

Related Topics:
English language - Molloy - Waiting for Godot - Endgame - 1957 - 1959 - 1960

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