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Biography of Samuel BeckettName: Samuel BeckettBirth Date: April 13, 1906 Death Date: December 22, 1989 Place of Birth: Dublin, Ireland Nationality: Irish Gender: Male Occupations: novelist, playwright, poet Samuel Beckett Samuel Beckett (1906-1989), the Irish novelist, playwright, and poet who became French by adoption, was one of the most original and important writers of the century. He won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1969.Samuel Beckett stood apart from the literary coteries of his time, even though he shared many of their preoccupations. He wrestled with the problems of "being" and "nothingness," but he was not an existentialist in the manner of the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre. Although Beckett was suspicious of conventional literature and of conventional theater, his aim was not to write anti-novels or anti-plays as some authors did. His work shows affinities with James Joyce, especially in the use of language; with Franz Kafka in the portrayal of terror; and with Fyodor Dostoevsky in the probing of the darker recesses of the human spirit. Beckett was inspired, rather than influenced, by literary figures as different as the Italian …showed first 150 words…
…showed last 150 words…in a small, quiet ceremony. Associated Works Watt Further Reading Near the end of his life, Beckett authorized a biography by James Knowlson, Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett (1996). Another good source of biographical material on Beckett is Richard Ellmann, James Joyce (1959). Of the tremendous volume of critical studies, the two most penetrating are Hugh Kenner, Samuel Beckett: A Critical Study (1962; 2d ed. 1968), and Richard N. Coe, Samuel Beckett (1964). Ruby Cohn, Samuel Beckett: The Comic Gamut (1962), and the chapter on Beckett in Martin Esslin, The Theatre of the Absurd (1961; rev. ed. 1969), are also recommended. Various critical approaches to the many aspects of Beckett's work can be found in Martin Esslin, ed., Samuel Beckett: A Collection of Critical Essays (1965). Recommended for background are Claude Mauriac, The New Literature (1959); John Cruickshank, ed., The Novelist as Philosopher: Studies in French Fiction, 1935-1960 (1962); and Jacques Guicharnaud, Modern French Theatre: From Giraudoux to Genet (1967). |