Beckett, Samuel (Vol. 4) - Beckett, Samuel 1906–

Beckett, Samuel 1906–

Beckett, born in Ireland, has lived in Paris, writing almost exclusively in French, since 1937. He is a novelist, short story writer, poet, translator, and essayist. But as a playwright, he is one of the major and most controversial literary figures of our time. His first play, Waiting for Godot, which has been called "not a play at all but an abstruse metaphysical disquisition," continues to perplex and infuriate, amuse and profoundly move its audiences. (See also Contemporary Authors, Vols. 5-8, rev. ed.)

The only puzzling thing about Godot now is not the play, but the way we take it: why on earth has it ever accumulated such a reputation for determinism?

Part of the trouble is perhaps the way Beckett has been bracketed with Ionesco. Ionesco's characters often do talk like ticker tapes, and they are indeed pushed around helplessly by the circumstances of the world, by goods and chattels and...

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