Beckett And French Theory

Samuel Beckett's works have spawned a great variety of critical - sometimes contradictory - interpretations, most recently ones stemming from postmodern theories of literature. In keeping with this trend, this book probes the relationship between Beckett's fiction and the work of a number of contemporary French thinkers, such as Maurice Blanchot and Gilles Deleuze, which demonstrates how concepts such as «the thought of the outside» and «the simulacrum» also generate Beckett's transgressive narrative. Beckett and French Theory provides valuable new knowledge and understanding to teachers and students of both Beckett's fiction and recent French critical theory.

Bringing together seminal writings on Beckett from the 1950s and 1960s with critical readings from the 1980s and 1990s, this collection is inspired by a wide variety of literary-theoretical approaches and covers the whole range of Beckett's creative work. Following an up-to-date review and analysis of Beckett criticism, fifteen extracts of Beckett criticism are introduced and set in context by editors' headnotes. The book aims to make easily accessible to students and scholars stimulating and innovative writing on the work of Samuel Beckett, representing the wide range of new perspectives opened up by contemporary critical theory: philosophical, political and psychoanalytic criticism, feminist and gender studies, semiotics, and reception theory.

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.

In Beckett and Poststructuralism, Anthony Uhlmann offers a reading of Beckett in relation to French philosophy, particularly the work of Foucault, Deleuze and Guattari, Levinas, and Derrida. Uhlmann offers a work of literary criticism that is also a piece of intellectual history, emphasizing how Beckett develops a kind of critical thinking which differs from yet is just as powerful as that of philosophers who, along with Beckett, found themselves faced with sets of ethical problems which were thrown into sharp relief in post-war France. Uhlmann explores the links between ethics and physical existence in Beckett, Foucault and Deleuze and Guattari, and between ethics and language in Beckett, Derrida and Levinas, showing how post-war French philosophy was powerfully affected by Beckett's work. Literature is not reduced to philosophy or vice versa; rather Uhlmann considers how they interrelate and overlap, informing and deforming one another, and how both encounter history.

Repetition, Difference, and Knowledge dialogues with novels, theatre, philosophy, and literary theory in order to explore how three thinkers - Samuel Beckett, Jacques Derrida, and Gilles Deleuze - employ repetition as a means with which to radically unsettle some of the most fundamental notions of the human experience (among them, time, presence, originality, and being). Due to its interdisciplinary scope and its focus on repetition as an epistemological concept, this book will attract a broad audience of academic specialists across the humanities from the fields of literary criticism, philosophy, French studies, and poststructural studies. Its simplicity of style, deliberate avoidance of complex jargon, and clarity of argument - particularly when dealing with complicated theoretical ideas and texts - also makes it an invaluable tool for use in both graduate- and undergraduate-level literature and philosophy courses. Repetition, Difference, and Knowledge provides experienced and beginning scholars alike with greater insight into the works of Beckett, Derrida, and Deleuze and into the role that repetition has played and continues to play in determining how we read our world and come to meaning.

With original and informative intertextual reading of Beckett's work, detecting previously unknown quotations, allusions to and parodies of Dante, Daniela Caselli presents a study of the relationship between Beckett and Dante.

Beckett and Philosophy examines and interrogates the relationships between Samuel Beckett's works and contemporary French and German thought. There are two wide-ranging overview chapters by Richard Begam (Beckett and Postfoundationalism) and Robert Eaglestone (Beckett via Literary and Philosophical Theories), and individual chapters on Beckett, Derrida, Foucault, Deleuze, Badiou, Merleau-Ponty, Adorno, Habermas, Heidegger and Nietzsche. The collection takes a fresh look as issues such as postmodern and poststructuralist thought in relation to Beckett studies, providing useful overview chapters and original essays.

An indispensable guide to the oeuvre of Samuel Beckett, spanning sixty years