Citizendia
Your Ad Here

This article is about the Irish writer. For the fictional scientist, see Sam Beckett. Dr Samuel "Sam" Beckett is a Fictional character and the Protagonist on the Science fiction Television series
Samuel Beckett

Louis le Brocquy, Image of Samuel Beckett (detail), 1979, oil on canvas, 80 x 80 cm
Born Samuel Barclay Beckett
13 April 1906(1906-04-13)
Foxrock, Dublin, Ireland
Died 22 December 1989 (aged 83)
Paris, France
Pen name Andrew Belis (Recent Irish Poetry)[1]
Occupation novelist, short story writer, playwright, poet, essayist
Nationality Irish
Genres Drama, fictional prose, poetry
Literary movement High Modernism
Notable award(s) Nobel Prize in Literature
1969
Influences
Influenced

Samuel Barclay Beckett (13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish writer, dramatist and poet. Events 1111 - Henry V is crowned Holy Roman Emperor. 1204 - The Fourth Crusade sacks Constantinople Year 1906 ( MCMVI) was a Common year starting on Monday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common year starting Foxrock ( is a Suburb of Dublin, Ireland. It is located in Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County, in the postal district of Dublin 18 Dublin (ˈdʌblɨn/ /ˈdʊblɨn or /ˈdʊbəlɪn/, bˠalʲə aːha klʲiəh or cliə(ɸ is both the largest city and capital of Ireland. Ireland (pronounced /ˈaɾlənd/ Éire) is the third largest island in Europe, and the twentieth-largest island in the world Events 1790 - The Turkish fortress of Izmail is stormed and captured by Suvorov and his Russian armies Year 1989 ( MCMLXXXIX) was a Common year starting on Sunday (link displays 1989 Gregorian calendar) Paris (ˈpærɨs in English; in French) is the Capital of France and the country's largest city This article is about the country For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic France topics. A pen name, nom de plume, or literary double, is a Pseudonym adopted by an Author or their publishers to conceal their identity Employment is a Contract between two parties, one being the employer and the other being the employee. Nationality is a relationship between a Person and their State of Origin, Culture, association Affiliation and/or Loyalty The Irish people ( Irish: Muintir na hÉireann, na hÉireannaigh, na Gaeil) are a Western European Ethnic group who originate A literary genre is a category of literary composition Genres may be determined by Literary technique, tone, Content, or even (as in the case of fiction Drama is the specific mode of Fiction represented in Performance. For the Wikipedia guideline regarding editing articles see WikipediaManual of Style. This is a list of modern literary movements: that is movements after the Renaissance. Modernism describes an array of Cultural movements rooted in the changes in Western society in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century The Nobel Prize in Literature (Nobelpriset i litteratur is awarded annually since 1901 to an author from any country who has in the words from the will of Alfred Arnold Geulincx ( Antwerp, January 31, 1624 – November 1669 was a Flemish Philosopher. James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 &ndash 13 January 1941 was an Irish expatriate writer widely considered to be one of the most influential writers of the Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust (maʁsɛl pʁust (10 July 1871 &ndash 18 November 1922 was a French Novelist Essayist and Critic Jean Racine ( ( December 22, 1639 &ndash April 21, 1699) was a French Dramatist, one of the "big three" of Edmund John Millington Synge ( (16 April 1871 – 24 March 1909 was an Irish Playwright, Poet, Prose writer and collector of Folklore. Seán O'Casey ( Irish Seán Ó Cathasaigh (30 March 1880 &ndash 18 September 1964 was a major Irish dramatist and Memoirist A committed irish Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 1854 – 30 November 1900 was an Irish Playwright, Novelist, poet and Author of Donatien Alphonse François de Sade, Marquis de Sade ( June 2, 1740 – December 2, 1814) ( was a French aristocrat Laurence Sterne ( November 24, 1713 &ndash March 18, 1768) was an Irish -born English Novelist and an Anglican Democritus ( Greek:) was a pre-Socratic Greek Materialist Philosopher (born at Abdera in Thrace ca John Milton ( 9 December, 1608 – 8 November, 1674) was an English Poet, Prose Polemicist and Immanuel Kant (ɪmanuəl kant 22 April 1724 12 February 1804 was an 18th-century German Philosopher from the Prussian city of Königsberg George Berkeley (ˈbɑrkli (12 March 1685 14 January 1753 also known as Bishop Berkeley, was a Philosopher. Edward Franklin Albee III ( "AWL-bee" born March 12 1928 is a three time Pulitzer Prize winning American playwright known for works including Paul Benjamin Auster (born February 3, 1947, Newark New Jersey) is a Brooklyn -based author known for works blending Absurdism John Banville (born 1945 is an Irish Novelist and Journalist. Donald Barthelme ( April 7, 1931 – July 23, 1989) was an American author of short fiction and Novels He also William Seward Burroughs II ( – ˈbʌroʊz was an American Novelist, Essayist, Social critic, painter and Spoken word Italo Calvino ( October 15, 1923 &ndash September 19, 1985) (ˈiːtalo kalˈviːno was an Italian journalist and writer of short Marina Carr (born 1964 is an Irish playwright Born in County Offaly, Carr attended University College Dublin before holding posts as writer-in-residence Don DeLillo (born November 20 1936 is an American author best known for his Novels which paint detailed portraits of American life in the late 20th and early 21st centuries Philip Kindred Dick (December 16 – March 2) was an American Science fiction Novelist and Short story Writer. Václav Havel, GCB, CC, ( (born October 5, 1936) is a Czech Playwright Writer and Politician Eugène Ionesco, born Eugen Ionescu ( November 26, 1909 – March 28, 1994 B S Johnson (Bryan Stanley Johnson ( 5 February, 1933 - 13 November, 1973) was an English experimental novelist poet literary critic Sarah Kane ( February 3, 1971 &ndash February 20, 1999) was an English Playwright. Derek Mahon (born 23 November 1941) is a Northern Irish poet He was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland. David Alan Mamet (born November 30, 1947) is an American Author, Essayist, Playwright, Screenwriter and Bruce Nauman (born December 6, 1941, in Fort Wayne, Indiana Edna O'Brien (born 15 December 1930 is an Irish novelist and Short story writer whose works often revolve around the inner feelings of women and their problems in relating Jamie O'Neill (born 1962 in Dun Laoghaire, Ireland) is an Irish Author who lived and worked in England for two decades he now Damian Pettigrew (born in Quebec) is a Canadian Filmmaker and Multimedia artist, best known for his cinematic portraits of Balthus and Alberto Ruy-Sánchez Lacy is a Mexican Writer and Editor born in Mexico City on 7 December 1951. Sam Shepard (born November 5, 1943) is an American artist who worked as an award-winning Playwright, Writer and Actor. Sir Tom Stoppard OM, CBE (born 3 July 1937 is a British Screenwriter playwright Events 1111 - Henry V is crowned Holy Roman Emperor. 1204 - The Fourth Crusade sacks Constantinople Year 1906 ( MCMVI) was a Common year starting on Monday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common year starting Events 1790 - The Turkish fortress of Izmail is stormed and captured by Suvorov and his Russian armies Year 1989 ( MCMLXXXIX) was a Common year starting on Sunday (link displays 1989 Gregorian calendar) The Irish people ( Irish: Muintir na hÉireann, na hÉireannaigh, na Gaeil) are a Western European Ethnic group who originate A writer is anyone who creates a written work although the word usually designates those who write creatively or professionally as well as those who have written in many different forms A playwright, also known as a dramatist, is a person who writes dramatic literature or Drama. A poet is a person who writes Poetry. Etymology From the Ancient greek: ποιέω, poieō: "I make or compose"

Beckett's work is stark and fundamentally minimalist. Minimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design especially Visual art and music, where the work is stripped down to its most fundamental features As a student, assistant, and friend of James Joyce, Beckett is considered by many one of the last modernists; as an inspiration to many later writers, he is sometimes considered one of the first postmodernists. James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 &ndash 13 January 1941 was an Irish expatriate writer widely considered to be one of the most influential writers of the Modernist literature is the literary form of Modernism and especially High modernism; it should not be confused with modern literature, which is the history The term Postmodern literature is used to describe certain tendencies in post- World War II literature He is also considered one of the key writers in what Martin Esslin called "Theatre of the Absurd". Martin Julius Esslin ( June 6, 1918 &ndash February 24, 2002) was a Hungarian -born English producer and script The Theatre of the Absurd ( French: Théâtre de l'Absurde) is a designation for particular plays written by a number of primarily European Playwrights

He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1969 "for his writing, which—in new forms for the novel and drama—in the destitution of modern man acquires its elevation". The Nobel Prize in Literature (Nobelpriset i litteratur is awarded annually since 1901 to an author from any country who has in the words from the will of Alfred [2] Beckett was elected Saoi of Aosdána in 1984. Saoi (sˠiː (pl saoithe; lit "wise one" hist head of poetic school master is the highest honour that members of Aosdána, an association of people He died in Paris of respiratory problems.

Contents

Biography

Early life and education

The Beckett family (originally Becquet) were rumoured to be of Huguenot stock and to have moved to Ireland from France after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, though this theory has been criticised as unlikely. The Huguenots were members of the Protestant Reformed Church of France (or French Calvinists) from the sixteenth to the eighteenth This article is about the country For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic France topics. The Edict of Nantes was issued on April 13, 1598 by Henry IV of France to grant the Calvinist Protestants of [3] The Becketts were members of the Church of Ireland. The Church of Ireland (Eaglais na hÉireann is an autonomous province of the Anglican Communion, operating across the island of Ireland. The family home, Cooldrinagh in the Dublin suburb of Foxrock, was a large house and garden complete with tennis court that was built in 1903 by Samuel's father William. Dublin (ˈdʌblɨn/ /ˈdʊblɨn or /ˈdʊbəlɪn/, bˠalʲə aːha klʲiəh or cliə(ɸ is both the largest city and capital of Ireland. Foxrock ( is a Suburb of Dublin, Ireland. It is located in Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County, in the postal district of Dublin 18 The house and garden, together with the surrounding countryside where he often went walking with his father, the nearby Leopardstown Racecourse, the Foxrock railway station and Harcourt Street station at the city terminus of the line, all feature in his prose and plays. Beckett's father was a quantity surveyor and his mother a nurse. A quantity surveyor (QS or cost engineer is a professional person working within the Construction industry. [4] At the age of five, Beckett attended a local playschool, where he started to learn music, and then moved to Earlsford House School in the city centre near Harcourt Street. In 1919, Beckett went to Portora Royal School in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh—the school Oscar Wilde attended. Portora Royal School for boys located in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland, is one of a number of 'free schools' founded by Royal Charter Enniskillen ( is the county town (and largest town in County Fermanagh and the west of Northern Ireland. County Fermanagh (fɚr'mænɘ Contae Fhear Manach or Fear Manach ('Men of Monach'in Irish) is the westernmost of the six counties that form Northern Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 1854 – 30 November 1900 was an Irish Playwright, Novelist, poet and Author of A natural athlete, Beckett excelled at cricket as a left-handed batsman and a right-arm medium-pace bowler. Cricket is a bat-and-ball team Sport that originated in England and is now played in more than 100 countries Andrew-Strauss-Cricketer-detailjpg|thumb|right|250px| Andrew Strauss batting for England during the 2005 NatWest Series]] In the Sport of Cricket, batting Muralijpg|thumb|250px|right|The world's leading off-spin bowler Muttiah Muralitharan sends down a delivery]] A bowler in the Sport of Cricket is usually Later, he was to play for Dublin University and played two first-class games against Northamptonshire. The University of Dublin, corporately designated the Chancellor Doctors and Masters of the University of Dublin (since the 19th century located in Dublin, First-class cricket refers to the class of Cricket matches of three or more days scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players and officially adjudged first-class by Northamptonshire County Cricket Club is one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English domestic Cricket structure representing the historic county of As a result, he became the only Nobel laureate to have an entry in Wisden Cricketers' Almanack, the "bible" of cricket. Wisden Cricketers' Almanack (often referred to simply as Wisden or colloquially as "the Bible of Cricket" is by far the best [5]

Early writings

Beckett studied French, Italian, and English at Trinity College, Dublin from 1923 to 1927. Trinity College Dublin ( TCD; Irish Coláiste na Tríonóide Baile Átha Cliath; Latin: Collegium Sacrosanctae et Individuae Trinitatis Reginae While at Trinity, one of his tutors was the eminent Berkeley scholar and Berkelian Dr. A. A. Luce. Arthur Aston Luce MC (21 August 1882 &ndash 28 June 1977 Irish professor of Philosophy at Trinity College Dublin and also Precentor of Beckett graduated with a B.A., and—after teaching briefly at Campbell College in Belfast—took up the post of lecteur d'anglais in the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris. History It was founded in 1894 thanks to a bequest from Henry James Campbell, who had made his fortune in the linen trade Belfast ( is the capital city of Northern Ireland and the seat of government in Northern Ireland. École Normale de Musique de ParisThe École normale supérieure (also known as Normale Sup’, Normale, ENS, ENS-Paris, ENS-Ulm or Paris (ˈpærɨs in English; in French) is the Capital of France and the country's largest city While there, he was introduced to renowned Irish author James Joyce by Thomas MacGreevy, a poet and close confidant of Beckett who also worked there. James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 &ndash 13 January 1941 was an Irish expatriate writer widely considered to be one of the most influential writers of the This article is about the poet also spelled 'McGreevy' For the Canadian politician see Thomas McGreevy. This meeting was soon to have a profound effect on the young man, and Beckett assisted Joyce in various ways, most particularly by helping him research the book that would eventually become Finnegans Wake. Finnegans Wake is a fictional work by James Joyce, published in 1939 [6]

In 1929, Beckett published his first work, a critical essay entitled Dante. . . Bruno. Vico. . Joyce. The essay defends Joyce's work and method, chiefly from allegations of wanton obscurity and dimness, and was Beckett's contribution to Our Exagmination Round His Factification for Incamination of Work in Progress, a book of essays on Joyce which also included contributions by Eugene Jolas, Robert McAlmon, and William Carlos Williams, among others. Our Exagmination Round His Factification for Incamination of Work in Progress is a 1929 collection of critical essays on the subject of James Joyce 's book Eugene Jolas (1894-1952 was a Writer, Translator and Literary critic. Robert Menzies McAlmon ( March 9, 1896 - February 2, 1956) was an American Author, Poet and Publisher William Carlos Williams ( 17 September 1883 &ndash 4 March 1963) was an American poet closely associated with modernism Beckett's close relationship with Joyce and his family, however, cooled when he rejected the advances of Joyce's daughter Lucia. It was also during this period that Beckett's first short story, "Assumption", was published in Jolas' periodical transition. The journal transition was founded in 1927 by Poet Eugene Jolas and his wife Maria McDonald, along with editors Elliot The next year he won a small literary prize with his hastily composed poem "Whoroscope", which draws from a biography of René Descartes that Beckett happened to be reading when he was encouraged to submit.

In 1930, Beckett returned to Trinity College as a lecturer. He soon became disillusioned with his chosen academic vocation, however. He expressed his aversion by playing a trick on the Modern Language Society of Dublin, reading a learned paper in French on a Toulouse author named Jean du Chas, founder of a movement called Concentrism; Chas and Concentrism, however, were pure fiction, having been invented by Beckett to mock pedantry. Toulouse ( pronounced in standard French, and in the local accent ( Occitan: Tolosa, pronounced) is a city in southwest A pedant, or pædant, is a person who is overly concerned with Formalism and Precision, or who 'makes a show of learning'

Beckett resigned from Trinity at the end of 1931, terminating his brief academic career. He commemorated this turning point in his life by composing the poem "Gnome", inspired by his reading of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship and eventually published in the Dublin Magazine in 1934:

Spend the years of learning squandering
Courage for the years of wandering
Through a world politely turning
From the loutishness of learning. ˈjoːhan ˈvɔlfgaŋ fɔn ˈgøːtə (in English generally ˈgɝːtə 28 August 1749 22 March 1832 was a German writer Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship (Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre is the second Novel by Johann Wolfgang Goethe, published in 1795-96 [7]

After leaving Trinity, Beckett began to travel in Europe. He also spent some time in London, where in 1931 he published Proust, his critical study of French author Marcel Proust. Samuel Beckett 's essay Proust, from 1930 is an Aesthetic and Epistemological manifesto which is more concerned with Beckett's influences and Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust (maʁsɛl pʁust (10 July 1871 &ndash 18 November 1922 was a French Novelist Essayist and Critic Two years later, in the wake of his father's death, he began two years' treatment with Tavistock Clinic psychotherapist, Dr. Wilfred Bion, who took him to hear Carl Jung's third Tavistock lecture, an event which Beckett would still recall many years later. See Tavistock Institute for the independent charity focussing on group relations Wilfred Ruprecht Bion DSO (8 September 1897-8 November 1979 was a British psychoanalyst. The lecture focused on the subject of the "never properly born," and aspects of it would become evident in Beckett's later works including Watt and Waiting for Godot. Waiting for Godot is a play by Samuel Beckett, in which two characters wait for someone named Godot who never arrives [8] In 1932, he wrote his first novel, Dream of Fair to Middling Women, but after many rejections from publishers decided to abandon it; the book would eventually be published in 1993. Despite his inability to get it published, however, the novel did serve as a source for many of Beckett's early poems, as well as for his first full-length book, the 1933 short-story collection More Pricks Than Kicks. The short story is a literary genre of Fictional Prose Narrative that tends to be more concise and to the point than longer works of fiction such More Pricks Than Kicks is a collection of short prose by Samuel Beckett, first published in 1934

Beckett also published a number of essays and reviews around the time, including "Recent Irish Poetry" (in The Bookman, August 1934) and "Humanistic Quietism", a review of his friend Thomas MacGreevy's Poems (in The Dublin Magazine, July–September 1934). The Bookman was a monthly magazine published in London from 1891 until 1934 by Hodder & Stoughton. The Dublin Magazine was an Irish literary journal founded and edited by the poet Seamus O'Sullivan (real name James Sullivan Starkey and published These two reviews focused on the work of MacGreevy, Brian Coffey, Denis Devlin and Blanaid Salkeld, despite their slender achievements at the time, comparing them favourably with their Celtic Revival contemporaries and invoking Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot and the French symbolists as their precursors. Brian Coffey ( June 8, 1905 - April 14, 1995) was an Irish Poet and Publisher. Denis Devlin ( April 15, 1908 - August 21, 1959) was along with Samuel Beckett and Brian Coffey, one of the generation Blanaid Salkeld (1880-1959 was an Irish poet dramatist and actor whose well-known literary salon was attended by among others Patrick Kavanagh and Flann Celtic Revival covers a variety of movements and trends mostly in the 19th and 20th centuries which drew on Celtic art and traditions Ezra Weston Loomis Pound ( Hailey, Idaho Territory, United States October 30 1885 – Venice, Italy November 1 1972 was an American Expatriate Thomas Stearns Eliot, OM (September 26 1888 – January 4 1965 was a poet Dramatist, and Literary critic. Symbolism was a late nineteenth-century Art movement of French and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts In describing these poets as forming 'the nucleus of a living poetic in Ireland',[9] Beckett was tracing the outlines of an Irish poetic modernist canon. Modernism describes an array of Cultural movements rooted in the changes in Western society in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century

In 1935—the year that Beckett successfully published a book of his poetry, Echo's Bones and Other Precipitates—he was also working on his novel Murphy. The Novel Murphy (1938 was Samuel Beckett 's third work of Prose Fiction. In May of that year, he wrote to MacGreevy that he had been reading about film and wished to go to Moscow to study with Sergei Eisenstein at the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography in Moscow. Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein (Сергей Михайлович Эйзенштейн January 23, 1898 &ndash February 11, 1948) was The All-Russian State University of Cinematography named after S Moscow (Москва́ romanised: Moskvá, IPA: see also other names) is the Capital and the largest city of In mid-1936, he wrote to Sergei Eisenstein and Vsevolod Pudovkin, offering to become their apprentices. Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein (Сергей Михайлович Эйзенштейн January 23, 1898 &ndash February 11, 1948) was Vsevolod Illarionovich Pudovkin (Всеволод Илларионович Пудовкин ( February 16, 1893 – June 20, 1953) was a Nothing came of this, however, as Beckett's letter was lost due to Eisenstein's quarantine during the smallpox outbreak, as well as his focus on a script re-write of his postponed film production. Beckett, meanwhile, finished Murphy, and then in 1936 departed for extensive travel around Germany, during which time he filled several notebooks with lists of noteworthy artwork that he had seen, also noting his distaste for the Nazi savagery which was then overtaking the country. Nazi Germany and the Third Reich are the common English names for Germany under the regime of Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Workers Returning to Ireland briefly in 1937, he oversaw the publishing of Murphy (1938), which he himself translated into French the next year. He also had a falling-out with his mother, which contributed to his decision to settle permanently in Paris (where he would return for good following the outbreak of World War II in 1939, preferring—in his own words—'France at war to Ireland at peace'). World War II, or the Second World War, (often abbreviated WWII) was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including [10] Sometime around December 1937, Beckett had a brief affair with Peggy Guggenheim. Peggy Guggenheim ( August 26, 1898 – December 23, 1979) was an American Art collector

In Paris, in January 1938, while refusing the solicitations of a notorious pimp who ironically went by the name of Prudent, Beckett was stabbed in the chest and nearly killed. A pimp (also called fleshmonger) finds and manages clients for Prostitutes and engages them in Prostitution (in Brothels in most cases and James Joyce arranged a private room for the injured Beckett at the hospital. The publicity surrounding the stabbing attracted the attention of Suzanne Deschevaux-Dumesnil, who knew Beckett slightly from his first stay in Paris; this time, however, the two would begin a lifelong companionship. At a preliminary hearing, Beckett asked his attacker for the motive behind the stabbing, and Prudent casually replied, "Je ne sais pas, Monsieur. Je m'excuse" ("I do not know, sir. I'm sorry"). [11] Beckett occasionally recounted the incident in jest, and eventually dropped the charges against his attacker—partially to avoid further formalities, but also because he found Prudent to be personally likeable and well-mannered.

World War II

Beckett joined the French Resistance after the 1940 occupation by Germany, working as a courier, and on several occasions over the next two years was nearly caught by the Gestapo. The French Resistance is the collective name used for the French Resistance movements which fought against the Nazi German The ( contraction of ge heime Sta ats' po' lizei: "Secret State Police" was the official Secret police of Nazi Germany

In August 1942, his unit was betrayed and he and Suzanne fled south on foot to the safety of the small village of Roussillon, in the Vaucluse département in the Provence Alpes Cote d'Azur region. Roussillon is a Village and commune in the Luberon area of the Vaucluse ''department'' in southern France. The Vaucluse ( Provençal Occitan: Vauclusa in classical norm or Vau-Cluso in Mistralian norm is a department in the southeast of In the context of the political and geographic organization of France and many of its former colonies a department (département depaʁtǝmɑ̃ is an Administrative division Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur (PACA ( Provençal Occitan: Provença-Aups-Còsta d'Azur in classical norm or Prouvènço-Aup-Costo d'Azur in Mistralian Here he continued to assist the Resistance by storing armaments in the back yard of his home. During the two years that Beckett stayed in Roussillon he indirectly helped the Maquis sabotage the German army in the Vaucluse mountains,[12] though he rarely spoke about his wartime work. The Maquis (ma'ki were the predominantly rural guerrilla bands of the French Resistance.

Beckett was awarded the Croix de guerre and the Médaille de la Résistance by the French government for his efforts in fighting the German occupation; to the end of his life, however, Beckett would refer to his work with the French Resistance as 'boy scout stuff'. The Croix de Guerre (sometimes lowercase in French Croix de guerre, meaning "Cross of War" is a military decoration of both France and The French Médaille de la Résistance ( Resistance Medal) was awarded by General Charles de Gaulle "to recognise the remarkable acts of faith Some troops are co-educational for those troops this article is relevant to them [13] '[I]n order to keep in touch',[14] he continued work on the novel Watt (begun in 1941 and completed in 1945, but not published until 1953) while in hiding in Roussillon. Watt was Samuel Beckett 's second published novel in English, largely written on the run in the south of France during the Second World

Fame: novels and the theatre

French literature
By category
French literary history

Medieval
16th century · 17th century
18th century · 19th century
20th century · Contemporary
French writers

Chronological list
Writers by category
Novelists · Playwrights
Poets · Essayists
Short story writers
France portal
Literature portal
This box: view • talk • edit

In 1945, Beckett returned to Dublin for a brief visit. This article is a general introduction to French literature For detailed information on French literature in specific historic periods see the separate historical articles in the Medieval French literature is for the purpose of this article Literature written in Oïl languages (particularly Old French and early Middle For more information on historical developments in this period see Renaissance, History of France, and Early Modern France. French literature of the 17th century &mdashthe so-called Grand Siècle &mdashspans the reigns of Henry IV of France, the Regency of Marie de Medici French literature of the 18th century usually refers to the literature written between 1715, the year of the death of King Louis XIV of France, and 1798 the year French literature of the nineteenth century is for the purpose of this article literature written in French from (roughly 1799 to 1900 French literature of the twentieth century is for the purpose of this article literature written in French from (roughly 1895 to 1990 Contemporary French literature is French literature roughly from the 1990s to Today. Chronological list of French language authors (regardless of nationality by date of birth 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 1958 play Krapp's Last Tape. Krapp's Last Tape is a one-act play, written in English by Samuel Beckett. In the play, Krapp’s revelation is set on the East Pier in Dún Laoghaire during a stormy night, and 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. Dún Laoghaire (in Irish d̪ˠuːn̪ˠ ˈɫeːrʲə sometimes spelled Dún Laoire; Anglicised as Dunleary, dʌn ˈlɪəri is a suburban Throughout the play, Krapp is listening to a tape he made earlier in his life; at one point he hears his younger self saying this: “. . . clear to me at last that the dark I have always struggled to keep under is in reality my most. . . ” However, Krapp fast-forwards the tape before the audience can discover the complete revelation.

Beckett later revealed to James Knowlson (which Knowlson relates in the biography Damned to Fame) that the missing word on the tape is "ally". He told Knowlson this revelation was inspired in part by his relationship to James Joyce. Beckett claimed he was faced with the possibility of being eternally in the shadow of Joyce, certain to never best him at his own game. Then he had a revelation, as Knowlson says, which “has rightly been regarded as a pivotal moment in his entire career. " Knowlson goes on to explain the revelation as told to him by Beckett himself: "In speaking of his own revelation, Beckett tended to focus on the recognition of his own stupidity . . . and on his concern with impotence and ignorance. He reformulated this for me, while attempting to define his debt to James Joyce: 'I realized that Joyce had gone as far as one could in the direction of knowing more, [being] in control of one’s material. He was always adding to it; you only have to look at his proofs to see that. I realized that my own way was in impoverishment, in lack of knowledge and in taking away, in subtracting rather than in adding. '" Knowlson explains: "Beckett was rejecting the Joycean principle that knowing more was a way of creatively understanding the world and controlling it . . . In future, his work would focus on poverty, failure, exile and loss -- as he put it, on man as a 'non-knower' and as a 'non-can-er. '"

In 1946, Jean-Paul Sartre’s magazine Les Temps Modernes published the first part of Beckett’s short story "Suite" (later to be called "La fin", or "The End"), not realizing that Beckett had only submitted the first half of the story; Simone de Beauvoir refused to publish the second part. Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (21 June 1905 &ndash 15 April 1980 commonly known simply as Jean-Paul Sartre (ʒɑ̃ pol saʁtʁə was a French "La Beauvoir" redirects here also see Beauvoir (disambiguation Beckett also began to write his fourth novel, Mercier et Camier, which was not to be published until 1970. Mercier and Camier is a novel by Samuel Beckett.Written immediately before his celebrated trilogy of Molloy, Malone Dies The novel, in many ways, presaged his most famous work, the play Waiting for Godot, written not long afterwards, but more importantly, it was Beckett’s first long work to be written directly in French, the language of most of his subsequent works, including the "trilogy" of novels he was soon to write: Molloy, Malone Dies and The Unnamable. Waiting for Godot is a play by Samuel Beckett, in which two characters wait for someone named Godot who never arrives Molloy is a novel by Samuel Beckett. The English translation is by Beckett and Patrick Bowles. Malone Dies is a novel by Samuel Beckett. It was first published in 1951 in French, as Malone Meurt, and later translated into English The Unnamable is a 1953 novel by Samuel Beckett. It is the third and final entry in Beckett's "Trilogy" of novels which begins with Despite being a native English speaker, Beckett chose to write in French because—as he himself claimed—in French it was easier for him to write 'without style'. [15]

Beckett is publicly most famous for the play Waiting for Godot. Waiting for Godot is a play by Samuel Beckett, in which two characters wait for someone named Godot who never arrives In a much-quoted article, the critic Vivian Mercier wrote that Beckett "has achieved a theoretical impossibility—a play in which nothing happens, that yet keeps audiences glued to their seats. Vivian Mercier (1919 – 1989 was an Irish Literary critic. He was born in Clara, County Offaly, Ireland and educated first at What's more, since the second act is a subtly different reprise of the first, he has written a play in which nothing happens, twice. " (Irish Times, 18 February 1956, p. The Irish Times is an Irish daily broadsheet news paper launched in the late 1850s. Events 3102 BC - Epoch (origin of the Kali Yuga. 1229 - The Sixth Crusade: Frederick II Holy Year 1956 ( MCMLVI) was a Leap year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. 6. ) Like most of his works after 1947, the play was first written in French with the title En attendant Godot. Beckett worked on the play between October 1948 and January 1949. [16] He published it in 1952, and premiered it in 1953. The English translation appeared two years later. The play was a critical, popular, and controversial success in Paris. It opened in London in 1955 to mainly negative reviews, but the tide turned with positive reactions by Harold Hobson in The Sunday Times and, later, Kenneth Tynan. The Sunday Times is a Sunday Broadsheet Newspaper distributed in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland. Kenneth Peacock Tynan ( 2 April 1927 - 26 July 1980) was an influential and often controversial British Theatre Critic In the United States, it flopped in Miami, and had a qualified success in New York City. The United States of America —commonly referred to as the The City of New York After this, the play became extremely popular, with highly successful performances in the U. S. and Germany. It is still frequently performed today.

As noted, Beckett was now writing mainly in French. He translated all of his works into the English language himself, with the exception of Molloy, whose translation was collaborative with Patrick Bowles. English is a West Germanic language originating in England and is the First language for most people in the United Kingdom, the United States The success of Waiting for Godot opened up a career in theatre for its author. Beckett went on to write a number of successful full-length plays, including 1957's Endgame, the aforementioned Krapp's Last Tape (written in English), 1960's Happy Days (also written in English), and 1963's Play. Endgame by Samuel Beckett, is a one-act play with four characters Happy Days is a play in two acts written in English, by Samuel Beckett. Play is a one-act play by Samuel Beckett. It was written between 1962 and 1963 and first produced in German as

In 1961, in recognition for his work, Beckett received the International Publishers' Formentor Prize, which he shared that year with Jorge Luis Borges.

Later life and work

The 1960s were a period of change, both on a personal level and as a writer. In 1961, in a secret civil ceremony in England, he married Suzanne, mainly for reasons relating to French inheritance law. The success of his plays led to invitations to attend rehearsals and productions around the world, leading eventually to a new career as a theatre director. In 1956, he had his first commission from the BBC Third Programme for a radio play, All That Fall. He was to continue writing sporadically for radio, and ultimately for film and television as well. He also started to write in English again, though he continued to do some work in French until the end of his life.

Tomb of Samuel Beckett at the Cimetière de Montparnasse [1]
Tomb of Samuel Beckett at the Cimetière de Montparnasse [1]

Actor Cary Elwes explains in his video diary of The Princess Bride that Beckett was a neighbour of the Roussimoff family, and used to give one of the Roussimoff sons, André René, a lift to school every day, since the boy was unable to take the school bus owing to his large size. Montparnasse is an area of Paris, France, on the left bank of the river Seine, centred on the intersection of the Boulevard du Montparnasse Ivan Simon Cary Elwes (born October 26, 1962) is an English Actor credited as Cary Elwes, known for his performances in The Princess Bride is a 1987 film based on the 1973 novel of the same name by William Goldman, combining Comedy, André René Roussimoff would, in later years, go on to become professional wrestler André the Giant. Professional wrestling, or pro wrestling, is a non-competitive professional Sport, where all matches are scripted by the promotion's booking staff André René Roussimoff (May 19 1946 &ndash January 27 1993 best known as André the Giant, was a French professional wrestler and Actor [2]

In 1969, Beckett, on holiday in Tunis with Suzanne, learned he had won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Tunis ( Arabic: تونس Tūnis) is the Capital of the Tunisian Republic and also the Tunis The Nobel Prize in Literature (Nobelpriset i litteratur is awarded annually since 1901 to an author from any country who has in the words from the will of Alfred Suzanne, who saw that her intensely private husband would be, from that moment forth, saddled with fame, called the award a "catastrophe. ". [17] While Beckett did not devote much time to interviews, he would still sometimes personally meet the artists, scholars, and admirers who sought him out in the anonymous lobby of Paris' Hotel PLM, which was near his Montparnasse home[18]

Suzanne died on 17 July 1989. Events 180 - Twelve inhabitants of Scillium in North Africa are executed for being Christians Year 1989 ( MCMLXXXIX) was a Common year starting on Sunday (link displays 1989 Gregorian calendar) Beckett, suffering from emphysema and possibly Parkinson's disease and confined to a nursing home, died on December 22 of the same year. Emphysema is a chronic obstructive Pulmonary disease ( COPD) formerly termed a chronic obstructive Lung disease (COLD Parkinson's disease (also known as Parkinson disease or PD) is a degenerative disorder of the Central nervous system that often impairs the sufferer's Events 1790 - The Turkish fortress of Izmail is stormed and captured by Suvorov and his Russian armies The two were interred together in the Cimetière du Montparnasse in Paris, and share a simple marble gravestone which follows Beckett's directive that it be "any colour, so long as it's grey. Montparnasse Cemetery ( French: Cimetière de Montparnasse) is a famous cemetery in the Montparnasse quarter of Paris, part of the A headstone, tombstone or gravestone is a marker normally carved from stone, placed over or next to the site of a Burial "

Works

Beckett's career as a writer can be roughly divided into three periods: his early works, up until the end of World War II in 1945; his middle period, stretching from 1945 until the early 1960s, during which period he wrote what are probably his most well-known works; and his late period, from the early 1960s until Beckett's death in 1989, during which his works tended to become shorter and shorter and his style more and more minimalist.

Early works

Beckett's earliest works are generally considered to have been strongly influenced by the work of his friend James Joyce: they are deeply erudite, seeming to display the author's learning merely for its own sake, resulting in several obscure passages. The opening phrases of the short-story collection More Pricks than Kicks (1934) affords an representative sample of this style:

It was morning and Belacqua was stuck in the first of the canti in the moon. More Pricks Than Kicks is a collection of short prose by Samuel Beckett, first published in 1934 He was so bogged that he could move neither backward nor forward. Blissful Beatrice was there, Dante also, and she explained the spots on the moon to him. She shewed him in the first place where he was at fault, then she put up her own explanation. She had it from God, therefore he could rely on its being accurate in every particular. [19]

The passage is rife with references to Dante Alighieri's Commedia, which can serve to confuse readers not familiar with that work. The Divine Comedy At the same time, however, there are many portents of Beckett's later work: the physical inactivity of the character Belacqua; the character's immersion in his own head and thoughts; the somewhat irreverent comedy of the final sentence.

Similar elements are present in Beckett's first published novel, Murphy (1938), which also to some extent explores the themes of insanity and chess, both of which would be recurrent elements in Beckett's later works. Traditionally insanity or madness is the behaviour whereby a person flouts societal norms and may become a danger to himself and others Chess is a recreational and competitive Game played between two players. The novel's opening sentence also hints at the somewhat pessimistic undertones and black humour that animate many of Beckett's works: 'The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new'. [20] Watt, written while Beckett was in hiding in Roussillon during World War II, is similar in terms of themes, but less exuberant in its style. This novel also, at certain points, explores human movement as if it were a mathematical permutation, presaging Beckett's later preoccupation—in both his novels and dramatic works—with precise movement. In several fields of Mathematics the term permutation is used with different but closely related meanings

It was also during this early period that Beckett first began to write creatively in the French language. In the late 1930s, he wrote a number of short poems in that language, and these poems' spareness—in contrast to the density of his English poems of roughly the same period, collected in Echo's Bones and Other Precipitates (1935)—seems to show that Beckett, albeit through the medium of another language, was in process of simplifying his style somewhat, a change also evidenced in Watt.

Middle period

After World War II, Beckett turned definitively to the French language as a vehicle. It was this, together with the aforementioned "revelation" experienced in his mother's room in Dublin—in which, basically, he realized that his art must be subjective and drawn wholly from his own inner world—that would result in the works for which Beckett is probably best remembered today.

During the 15 years subsequent to the war, Beckett produced four major full-length stage plays: En attendant Godot (written 1948–1949; Waiting for Godot), Fin de partie (1955–1957; Endgame), Krapp's Last Tape (1958), and Happy Days (1960). Waiting for Godot is a play by Samuel Beckett, in which two characters wait for someone named Godot who never arrives Endgame by Samuel Beckett, is a one-act play with four characters Krapp's Last Tape is a one-act play, written in English by Samuel Beckett. Happy Days is a play in two acts written in English, by Samuel Beckett. These plays—which are often considered, rightly or wrongly, to have been instrumental in the so-called "Theatre of the Absurd"—deal in a very blackly humorous way with themes similar to those of the roughly contemporary existentialist thinkers, though Beckett himself cannot be pigeonholed as an existentialist. The Theatre of the Absurd ( French: Théâtre de l'Absurde) is a designation for particular plays written by a number of primarily European Playwrights Black comedy, also known as black humor or dark comedy, is a sub-genre of Comedy and Satire where topics and events that are usually regarded Existentialism is a philosophical doctrine which posits that individuals create the meaning and essence of their lives and that this essence follows from their existence The term "Theatre of the Absurd" was coined by Martin Esslin in a book of the same name; Beckett and Godot were centerpieces of the book. Esslin claimed these plays were the fulfillment of Albert Camus's concept of "the absurd";[21] this is one reason Beckett is often falsely labeled as an existentialist. Albert Camus ( (7 November 1913 – 4 January 1960 was an Algerian born French Author, philosopher, and journalist who won the Nobel prize Though many of the themes are similar, Beckett had little affinity for existentialism as a whole. [22]

Broadly speaking, the plays deal with the subject of despair and the will to survive in spite of that despair, in the face of an uncomprehending and, indeed, incomprehensible world. The words of Nell—one of the two characters in Endgame who are trapped in ashbins, from which they occasionally peek their heads to speak—can best summarize the themes of the plays of Beckett's middle period:

Nothing is funnier than unhappiness, I grant you that. . . . Yes, yes, it's the most comical thing in the world. And we laugh, we laugh, with a will, in the beginning. But it's always the same thing. Yes, it's like the funny story we have heard too often, we still find it funny, but we don't laugh any more. [23]

Beckett's outstanding achievements in prose during the period were the three novels Molloy (1951), Malone meurt (1951; Malone Dies) and L'innommable (1953; The Unnamable). In these novels—sometimes referred to as a "trilogy", though this is against the author's own explicit wishes[24]—the reader can trace the development of Beckett's mature style and themes, as the novels become more and more stripped down, barer and barer. Molloy, for instance, still retains many of the characteristics of a conventional novel—time, place, movement and plot—and is indeed, on one level, a detective novel. In Malone Dies, however, movement and plot are largely dispensed with, though 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 are done away with, and 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, as exemplified by the novels of this period, is essentially pessimistic, the will to live seems to win out in the end; witness, for instance, the famous final phrase of The Unnamable: 'I can't go on, I'll go on'. [25]

Subsequent to these three novels, Beckett struggled for many years to produce a sustained work of prose, a struggle evidenced by the brief "stories" later collected as Texts for Nothing. In the late 1950s, however, he managed to create one of his most radical prose works, Comment c'est (1961; How It Is). This work relates the adventures of an unnamed narrator crawling through the mud whilst dragging a sack of canned food, and was written as a sequence of unpunctuated paragraphs in a style approaching telegraphese:

you are there somewhere alive somewhere vast stretch of time then it's over you are there no more alive no more then again you are there again alive again it wasn't over an error you begin again all over more or less in the same place or in another as when another image above in the light you come to in hospital in the dark[26]

Following this work, it would be almost another decade before Beckett produced a work of non-dramatic prose, and indeed How It Is is generally considered to mark the end of his middle period as a writer. Telegraphese is a linguistic term for an elliptical style of writing such as that used to write newspaper headlines or article titles

Late works

Throughout the 1960s and into the 1970s, Beckett's works exhibited an increasing tendency—already evident in much of his work of the 1950s—towards compactness that has led to his work sometimes being described as minimalist. Minimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design especially Visual art and music, where the work is stripped down to its most fundamental features The extreme example of this, among his dramatic works, is the 1969 piece Breath, which lasts for only 35 seconds and has no characters (though it was likely intended to offer ironic comment on Oh! Calcutta!, the theatrical revue for which it served as an introductory piece[27]). Breath is a notably short stage work by Samuel Beckett. An altered version was first included in Kenneth Tynan 's Revue Oh! Calcutta! was a long-running Avant-garde theatrical Revue, created by British drama critic Kenneth Tynan. A revue is a type of multi-act popular theatrical Entertainment that combines Music, dance and sketches.

In the dramas of the late period, Beckett's characters—already few in number in the earlier plays—are whittled down to essential elements. The ironically titled 1962 Play, for instance, consists of three characters stuck to their necks in large funeral urns, while the 1963 television drama Eh Joe—written for the actor Jack MacGowran—is animated by a camera that steadily closes in to a tight focus upon the face of the title character, and the 1972 play Not I consists almost solely of, in Beckett's words, 'a moving mouth with the rest of the stage in darkness'. John Joseph "Jack" MacGowran ( October 13 1918 – January 31 1973) was an Irish character actor [28] Many of these late plays, taking a cue from Krapp's Last Tape, were concerned to a great extent with memory, or more particularly, with the often forced recollection of haunting past events in a moment of stillness in the present. Moreover, as often as not these late plays dealt with the theme of the self confined and observed insofar as a voice either comes from outside into the protagonist's head, as in Eh Joe, or else the protagonist is silently commented upon by another character, as in Not I. Such themes also led to Beckett's most politically charged play, 1982's Catastrophe, dedicated to Václav Havel, which dealt relatively explicitly with the idea of dictatorship. Catastrophe is a short play by Samuel Beckett, written in French in 1982 at the invistation of A Václav Havel, GCB, CC, ( (born October 5, 1936) is a Czech Playwright Writer and Politician A dictatorship is usually defined as an autocratic Form of government in which the Government is ruled by a Dictator. After a long period of inactivity, Beckett's poetry experienced a revival during this period in the ultra-terse French poems of mirlitonnades, some as short as six words long. These defied Beckett's usual scrupulous concern to translate his work from its original into the other of his two languages; several writers, including Derek Mahon, have attempted translations, but no complete version of the sequence has been published in English. Derek Mahon (born 23 November 1941) is a Northern Irish poet He was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Though Beckett's writing of prose during the late period was not so prolific as his writing of drama—as hinted at by the title of the 1976 collection of short prose texts entitled Fizzles, which was illustrated by American artist Jasper Johns—he did experience something of a renaissance in this regard beginning with the 1979 novella Company, and continuing on through 1982's Ill Seen Ill Said and 1984's Worstward Ho, later collected in Nohow On. Short prose is a generic term for various kinds of very short Fictional Prose; short prose may or may not be Narrative. Jasper Johns Jr (born May 15, 1930 in Augusta Georgia) is a contemporary American artist who primarily works in painting and Printmaking A novella is a written, Fictional Prose Narrative longer than a Novelette but shorter than a Novel. Company is a short novel by Samuel Beckett, published in 1979. Ill Seen Ill Said is a short novel by Samuel Beckett. It was first published in French as Mal vu mal dit in 1981, and was then translated in Worstward Ho is a prose piece by Samuel Beckett. Written in 1983 it is the penultimate piece of prose by Beckett Nohow on is a collection of three prose pieces by Samuel Beckett, comprising Company, Ill Seen Ill Said, and In the prose medium of these three so-called '"closed space" stories',[29] Beckett continued his preoccupation with memory and its effect on the confined and observed self, as well as with the positioning of bodies in space, as the opening phrases of Company make clear:

A voice comes to one in the dark. Imagine.

To one on his back in the dark. This he can tell by the pressure on his hind parts and by how the dark changes when he shuts his eyes and again when he opens them again. Only a small part of what is said can be verified. As for example when he hears, You are on your back in the dark. Then he must acknowledge the truth of what is said. [30]

Beckett's final work, the 1988 poem "What is the Word", was written in bed in the nursing home where he spent the last days of his life, and also exists in a French version, comment dire.

Legacy

Samuel Beckett depicted on an Irish commemorative coin celebrating the 100th Anniversary of his birth.
Samuel Beckett depicted on an Irish commemorative coin celebrating the 100th Anniversary of his birth. This article covers euro Gold and Silver commemorative coins issued by the Central Bank and Financial Services Authority of Ireland.

Of all the English-language modernists, Beckett's work represents the most sustained attack on the realist tradition. Modernism describes an array of Cultural movements rooted in the changes in Western society in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century He, more than anyone else, opened up the possibility of drama and fiction that dispense with conventional plot and the unities of place and time in order to focus on essential components of the human condition. Writers like Václav Havel, John Banville, Aidan Higgins and Harold Pinter [31] have publicly stated their indebtedness to Beckett's example, but he has had a much wider influence on experimental writing since the 1950s, from the Beat generation to the happenings of the 1960s and beyond. Václav Havel, GCB, CC, ( (born October 5, 1936) is a Czech Playwright Writer and Politician John Banville (born 1945 is an Irish Novelist and Journalist. Aidan Higgins (born March 3, 1927) is an Irish writer His upbringing in a landed Catholic family in Celbridge, County Kildare Experimental literature refers to written works - often Novels or Magazines - that place great emphasis on Innovations regarding technique and In an Irish context, he has exerted great influence on poets such as John Banville, Derek Mahon, Thomas Kinsella, as well as writers like Trevor Joyce and Catherine Walsh who proclaim their adherence to the modernist tradition as an alternative to the dominant realist mainstream. John Banville (born 1945 is an Irish Novelist and Journalist. Derek Mahon (born 23 November 1941) is a Northern Irish poet He was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Thomas Kinsella (born May 4, 1928) is an Irish poet, Translator, editor and publisher Trevor Joyce (born 26 October 1947) is an Irish Poet, born in Dublin.

Many major 20th-century composers, including Luciano Berio, György Kurtág, Morton Feldman, Pascal Dusapin, Philip Glass and Heinz Holliger, have created musical works based on his texts. Luciano Berio, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI ( October 24, 1925 &ndash May 27, 2003) was an Italian Composer. György Kurtág (ˈɟørɟ ˈkurtaːɡ born February 19, 1926) is a Hungarian composer of Contemporary music. Morton Feldman (January 12 1926 – September 3 1987 was an American Composer, born in New York City. Pascal Dusapin ( 29 May, 1955) is a French composer born in Nancy. WikipediaWikiProject Composers#Lead section --> Philip Glass (born January 31 Heinz Holliger (born) is a Swiss oboist, Composer and conductor. Beckett's work was also an influence on many visual artists, including Bruce Nauman, Alexander Arotin, and Avigdor Arikha; Arikha, in addition to being inspired by Beckett's literary world, also drew a number of portraits of Beckett and illustrated several of his works. Bruce Nauman (born December 6, 1941, in Fort Wayne, Indiana Alexander Arotin (born 20 April 1970 in Vienna) is an Austrian visual artist, director and Designer currently Avigdor Arikha (born April 28, 1929) is an Israeli and French painter Printmaker, and art historian

Beckett is one of the most widely discussed and highly prized of twentieth century authors, inspiring a critical industry to rival that which has sprung up around James Joyce. He has divided critical opinion. Some early philosophical critics, such as Sartre and Theodor Adorno, praised him, one for his revelation of absurdity, the other for his works' critical refusal of simplicities; others such as Georg Lukacs condemn for 'decadent' lack of realism. Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (21 June 1905 &ndash 15 April 1980 commonly known simply as Jean-Paul Sartre (ʒɑ̃ pol saʁtʁə was a French Theodor Ludwig Wiesengrund Adorno ( September 11, 1903 &ndash August 6, 1969) was a German -born international sociologist György Lukács (pronounced in IPA dyɶrdyə ˈlukɑtʃ) ( April 13, 1885 – June 4, 1971) was a Hungarian Contemporary philosophical realism is the belief in a Reality that is completely Ontologically independent of our conceptual schemes linguistic practices beliefs [32]

Since Beckett's death, all rights for performance of his plays are handled by the Beckett estate, currently managed by Edward Beckett, the author's nephew. The estate has a controversial reputation for maintaining firm control over how Beckett's plays are performed and does not grant licences to productions that do not strictly adhere to the writer's stage directions. Historians interested in tracing Beckett's blood line were, in 2004, granted access to confirmed trace samples of his DNA to conduct molecular genealogical studies to facilitate precise lineage determination. Deoxyribonucleic acid ( DNA) is a Nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known

Some of the best known pictures of Beckett were taken by photographer John Minihan, who photographed him between 1980 and 1985 and developed such a good relationship with the writer that he became, in effect, his official photographer. John Minihan is an Irish photographer born in Dublin in 1946 and raised in Athy, County Kildare. Some consider one of these to be among the top three photographs of the 20th century. [33] However, it was the theatre photographer John Haynes[34] who took possibly the most widely reproduced image of Beckett: it is used on the cover of the Knowlson biography, for instance. This portrait was taken during rehearsals at the Royal Court Theatre in London, where Haynes photographed many productions of Beckett's work.

Christopher Guest adapted Waiting for Godot into Waiting for Guffman. Christopher Guest (born February 5 1948 is an Emmy Award-winning writer Grammy Award-winning composer/musician director and comic actor Waiting for Guffman is a musical Mockumentary starring co-written and directed by Christopher Guest that was released in 1997

Selected bibliography

Dramatic works

Theatre

Radio

Television

Cinema

Prose

Novels

Novellas

Stories

Non-fiction

  • Proust (1931)
  • Three Dialogues (with Georges Duthuit and Jacques Putnam) (1958)
  • Disjecta (1983)
  • Dante. Theatre (or theater, see spelling differences) is the branch of the Performing arts defined by Bernard Beckerman as what "occurs when one Eleutheria (some times rendered "Eleuthéria" see image is a play by Samuel Beckett, written in French in 1947 Waiting for Godot is a play by Samuel Beckett, in which two characters wait for someone named Godot who never arrives Act Without Words I is a short play by Samuel Beckett. It is a Mime, Beckett's first (followed by Act Without Words II) Act Without Words II is a short mime play by Samuel Beckett, his second (after Act Without Words Endgame by Samuel Beckett, is a one-act play with four characters Krapp's Last Tape is a one-act play, written in English by Samuel Beckett. Rough for Theatre I is a one-act theatrical sketch by Samuel Beckett. Rough for Theatre II (also known simply as Theatre II) is a short play by Samuel Beckett. Happy Days is a play in two acts written in English, by Samuel Beckett. Play is a one-act play by Samuel Beckett. It was written between 1962 and 1963 and first produced in German as Come and Go is a short play (described as a dramaticule) by Samuel Beckett. Breath is a notably short stage work by Samuel Beckett. An altered version was first included in Kenneth Tynan 's Revue This article is about the play For the restriction enzyme NotI, see restriction enzyme. That Time is a one-act play by Samuel Beckett, written in English between 8 June 1974 and August 1975 Footfalls is a play by Samuel Beckett. It was written in English between 2 March and December 1975 and was first performed at the Royal Court Theatre A Piece of Monologue is a fifteen-minute play by Samuel Beckett. Rockaby is a short one woman play by Samuel Beckett. It was written in 1980 in English, at the request of Daniel Labeille who produced it on Ohio Impromptu is a “playlet” by Samuel Beckett. Written in English in 1980, it began as a favour to Stan Gontarski, Catastrophe is a short play by Samuel Beckett, written in French in 1982 at the invistation of A What Where is Samuel Beckett 's last play produced following a request for a new work for the 1983 Autumn Festival in Graz, Austria All That Fall is a one-act radio play by Samuel Beckett produced following a request from the BBC. From An Abandoned Work, a “ meditation for radio” by Samuel Beckett, was first broadcast on BBC Radio 3 ’s Third Programme Embers is a radio play by Samuel Beckett. It was written in English in 1957 and first broadcast on BBC Radio Rough for Radio I is a short radio play by Samuel Beckett, written in French in 1961 and first published in Rough for Radio II is a radio play by Samuel Beckett. It was written in French in 1961 as Samuel Beckett wrote the radio play Words and Music between November and December 1961 Cascando is a radio play by Samuel Beckett. It was written in French in December 1961 subtitled Invention radiophonique pour Eh Joe is a piece for television written in English by Samuel Beckett, his first work for the medium Ghost Trio is a television play written in English by Samuel Beckett. For other uses of the term see Quad. Samuel Beckett ’s Quad was written in 1981 and first Nacht und Träume ( Night and Dreams) is the last television play written and directed by Samuel Beckett Film is a Film written by Samuel Beckett, his only Screenplay. Dream of Fair to Middling Women is Samuel Beckett’s first novel The Novel Murphy (1938 was Samuel Beckett 's third work of Prose Fiction. Watt was Samuel Beckett 's second published novel in English, largely written on the run in the south of France during the Second World Mercier and Camier is a novel by Samuel Beckett.Written immediately before his celebrated trilogy of Molloy, Malone Dies Molloy is a novel by Samuel Beckett. The English translation is by Beckett and Patrick Bowles. Malone Dies is a novel by Samuel Beckett. It was first published in 1951 in French, as Malone Meurt, and later translated into English The Unnamable is a 1953 novel by Samuel Beckett. It is the third and final entry in Beckett's "Trilogy" of novels which begins with How It Is is a Novel by Samuel Beckett published in 1964 It consists of a Monologue by the Narrator as he crawls through apparently This article is about the Samuel Beckett work For the comic book see The Lost Ones (comic The Lost Ones is the English translation of Company is a short novel by Samuel Beckett, published in 1979. Ill Seen Ill Said is a short novel by Samuel Beckett. It was first published in French as Mal vu mal dit in 1981, and was then translated in Worstward Ho is a prose piece by Samuel Beckett. Written in 1983 it is the penultimate piece of prose by Beckett More Pricks Than Kicks is a collection of short prose by Samuel Beckett, first published in 1934 Stories and Texts for Nothing is a collection of stories by Samuel Beckett. " First Love " is a Short story by Samuel Beckett, written in 1946 and first published in 1973. Samuel Beckett used the word "fizzles" to describe eight short prose pieces written between 1973 - 1975. Stirrings Still is a prose piece by Samuel Beckett. Written 1986-9 to give his American publisher Barney Rosset something to publish Samuel Beckett 's essay Proust, from 1930 is an Aesthetic and Epistemological manifesto which is more concerned with Beckett's influences and Originally published in transition 49 in 1949 Three Dialogues represents a small part (fewer than 3000 words of a correspondence between Samuel Beckett Disjecta Miscellaneous Writings and a Dramatic Fragment is a collection of previously uncollected writings by Samuel Beckett, spanning his entire career . . Bruno. Vico. . Joyce

Poetry

  • Whoroscope (1930)
  • Echo's Bones and other Precipitates (1935)
  • Collected Poems in English (1961)
  • Collected Poems in English and French (1977)
  • What is the Word (1989)

Translations

  • Negro: an Anthology (Nancy Cunard, editor) (1934)
  • Anna Livia Plurabelle (James Joyce, French translation by Beckett and others) (1931)
  • Anthology of Mexican Poems (Octavio Paz, editor) (1958)
  • The Old Tune (Robert Pinget) (1963)
  • What Is Surrealism?: Selected Essays (André Breton) (various short pieces in the collection)

Sources

Print

Primary sources

Secondary sources

Online

References

  1. ^ Fathoms from Anywhere - A Samuel Beckett Centenary Exhibition
  2. ^ The Nobel Prize in Literature 1969
  3. ^ Cronin, 3–4
  4. ^ Samuel Beckett - 1906-1989
  5. ^ Beckett's Athletics - paper by Steven O'Connor
  6. ^ Knowlson, 106
  7. ^ Collected Poems, 9
  8. ^ Beckett, Samuel. (1906 - 1989) - Literary Encyclopedia
  9. ^ Disjecta, 76
  10. ^ Israel Shenker, 'Moody Man of Letters', The New York Times, 5 May 1956; quoted in Cronin, 310
  11. ^ Knowlson, 261
  12. ^ Knowlson, 304–305
  13. ^ The Modern Word
  14. ^ Quoted in Knowlson, 303
  15. ^ Knowlson, 324
  16. ^ Knowlson, 342
  17. ^ Knowlson, 505
  18. ^ Happiest moment of the past half million: Beckett Biography - themodernword. Events 553 - The Second Council of Constantinople begins 1215 - Rebel Barons renounce their allegiance to King John Year 1956 ( MCMLVI) was a Leap year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. com
  19. ^ More Pricks than Kicks, 9
  20. ^ Murphy, 1
  21. ^ Esslin, Martin. The Theatre of the Absurd. Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1969.
  22. ^ Ackerley, C. J. and S. E. Gontarski, ed. The Grove Companion to Samuel Beckett. New York: Grove Press, 2004.
  23. ^ Endgame, 18–19
  24. ^ The Grove Companion to Samuel Beckett: A Reader's Guide to His Works, Life, and Thought, 586
  25. ^ Three Novels, 414
  26. ^ How It Is, 22
  27. ^ Knowlson, 501
  28. ^ Quoted in Knowlson, 522
  29. ^ Nohow On, vii
  30. ^ Nohow On, 3
  31. ^ Chequer, Brad. Beginning to End - Ending to Begin - or, Some Brilliance and Bullshit on Samuel Beckett. The Cutting Ball.
  32. ^ Adorno, Theodor W. Trying to Understand Endgame [1961], The New German Critique, no. 26, (Spring-Summer 1982) pp. 119–150. In The Adorno Reader ed. Brian O'Connor. Blackwell Publishers. 2000
  33. ^ 1998 edition of The Royal Academy Magazine, the "Image of the century"
  34. ^ Photographer John Haynes's website

See also

External links


Persondata
NAME Beckett, Samuel
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Beckett, Sam
SHORT DESCRIPTION Irish novelist, playwright and poet
DATE OF BIRTH 13 April 1906
PLACE OF BIRTH Foxrock, Dublin, Ireland
DATE OF DEATH 22 December 1989
PLACE OF DEATH Paris, France

Events 1111 - Henry V is crowned Holy Roman Emperor. 1204 - The Fourth Crusade sacks Constantinople Year 1906 ( MCMVI) was a Common year starting on Monday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common year starting Foxrock ( is a Suburb of Dublin, Ireland. It is located in Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County, in the postal district of Dublin 18 Dublin (ˈdʌblɨn/ /ˈdʊblɨn or /ˈdʊbəlɪn/, bˠalʲə aːha klʲiəh or cliə(ɸ is both the largest city and capital of Ireland. Ireland (pronounced /ˈaɾlənd/ Éire) is the third largest island in Europe, and the twentieth-largest island in the world Events 1790 - The Turkish fortress of Izmail is stormed and captured by Suvorov and his Russian armies Year 1989 ( MCMLXXXIX) was a Common year starting on Sunday (link displays 1989 Gregorian calendar) Paris (ˈpærɨs in English; in French) is the Capital of France and the country's largest city This article is about the country For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic France topics.
© 2009 citizendia.org; parts available under the terms of GNU Free Documentation License, from http://en.wikipedia.org
 Dapyx Software network: MP3 Explorer | Ebook Manager | Zenithic