THE CRITICAL RESPONSE TO SAMUEL BECKETT
Edited by CATHLEEN CULOTTA ANDONIAN
Critical Responses in Arts and Letters, Number 30 Cameron Northouse, Series Adviser
GREENWOOD PRESS Westport, Connecticut • London Contents
Series Foreword by Cameron Northouse xvii
Acknowledgments xix
Introduction 1
1. Early Prose and Poetry
Symbolism To-day Bonamy Dobree 13
Dubliners Arthur Calder-Marshall 14
Samuel Beckett and His Whoroscope Clas Zilliacus 15
Savage Humor
Vivian Mercier 17
2. The Novel: Murphy, Watt, and The Trilogy
Fiction Kate O'Brien 21 A Master Stylist B. S.Johnson 22 xii Contents
Nought into Zero A. J. Leventhal 23
Under the Jar John Coleman 26
Samuel Beckett's World of Fiction Charles I. Glicksberg 27
Samuel Beckett and the Death of the God-Narrator Brian Wicker 39
Not Going Places Enoch Brater 51
L'Innommable and the Hermeneutic Paradigm Brian T. Fitch 54
Naming the M/inotaur: Beckett's Trilogy and the Failure of Narrative Roch C. Smith 62
Beckett and the Comedy of Decomposition Morton Gurewitch 70
Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust
Robert Sandarg 79
3. Early Theatrical Works
Theatre (Review of Waiting for Godot) Anthony Hartley 91 Theatre (Review of Waiting for Godot) Harold Clurman 93
The Uneventful Event Vivian Mercier 95
En attendant Godot: Tragedy or Comedy? Ramona Cormier and Janis L. Pallister 96 Contents xiii
Samuel Beckett and the Postmodern: Language Games, Play, and Waiting for Godot Jeffrey Nealon 106
How to Read Endgame Vivian Mercier 114
Theatre (Review of Endgame) Harold Clurman 118
In the Ruins of the Past: Reading Beckett Intertextually Per Nykrog 120
Rebuke to Nihilism Tom F. Driver 143
Krapp's Last Tape: The Evolution of a Play, 1958-75
James Knowlson 146
4. Return to Prose: How It Is
Beckett Country Frank Kermode 161 Farewell to Incompetence: Beckett's How It Is and Imagination Dead Imagine H. Porter Abbott 166
Beckett's Sociability
Leo Bersani and Ulysse Dutoit 176
5. Interviews and Personal Reminiscences
Samuel Beckett: An Interview Patrick Starnes 191 Conversations with Samuel Beckett Jay A. Levy 195 xiv Contents
6. Radio and Film
It's Tragic, Mysterious and Wildly Funny: That's What You Get When the B.B.C. Asks Samuel Beckett to Write a Play Roy Walker 207
Beckett Country Julia Strachey 209
From Characters to Discrete Events: The Evolving Concept of Dramatis Personae in Beckett's Radio Plays Germaine Baril 211
"To Be Is to Be Perceived" ... Time and Point of View in Beckett's Film William F. Van Wert 219
7. Beckett is Awarded the Nobel Prize
Godot Arrives
Iain Hamilton 227
Nobel Prize: Kyrie Eleison Without God 229
. 8. Late Theatrical Works
Theatre (Review of Happy Days) Harold Clurman 233 The Stage: Beckett's Happy Days Richard Gilman 235
The Paradox of Silence: Samuel Beckett's Plays Ren6e Riese Hubert 237
The New Beckett Barbara Bray 245
Samuel Beckett: about him and about A. J. Leventhal 247 Contents xv
On the Route of a Walking Shadow: Samuel Beckett's Come and Go Rosangela Barone 262
Bare Bones: As a lady slips her moorings, Beckett sounds a hopeful note Jay Carr 273
Review: The World Premiere of Ohio Impromptu, Directed by Alan Schneider at Columbus, Ohio S. E. Gontarski 275
Impact and Parable in Beckett: A First Encounter with Not I Alec Reid 278
Recontextualizing the Self: The Voice as Subject in Beckett's Not I Mary Catanzaro . 287
9. Poetry, Short Stories and Prose Texts
A Rereading of the Traces Mary Ann Caws 303
Samuel Beckett: "Imagination Dead Imagine" Michael Parsons 309
"Silence Within": A Study of the Residua of Samuel Beckett John J. Mood 310
The Impossibility of Saying the Same Old Thing the Same Old Way—Samuel Beckett's Fiction Since Comment c'est Raymond Federman 326
Beckett's Deconstruction of the Machine in The Lost Ones David Porush 347
Conceptions of Inner Landscapes: The Beckettian Narrator of the Sixties and Seventies Cathleen Culotta-Andonian 357 xvi Contents
The Weaving of Penelope's Tapestry: Genre in the Works of Samuel Beckett J. E. Dearlove 367
Samuel Beckett's For to End Yet Again: A Conflict between "Syntax of Energy" and "Syntax of Weakness" Tseng Li-Ling 373
Sublime Supplements: Beckett and the "Fizzling Out" of Meaning Nicoletta Pireddu 391
10. Final Tribute
Who's Afraid of Samuel Beckett? Martin Esslin 403
An Intimate Look at Beckett the Man Mel Gussow 414
Giving Birth "Astride of a Grave," Samuel Beckett: 1906-1989
William A. Henry in 416
Selected Bibliography 419
Index 423