Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism | Beckett, Samuel - Julian A. Garforth (essay date autumn 1996)

Julian A. Garforth (essay date autumn 1996)

SOURCE: Garforth, Julian A. “Translating Beckett's Translations.” Journal of Beckett Studies 6, no. 1 (autumn 1996): 49-70.

[In the following essay, Garforth analyzes the plays Beckett translated and produced for performance in Germany, finding in them variants in language, style, and meaning.]

Samuel Beckett is often described as a bilingual playwright, due to his having composed virtually his entire dramatic canon in both French and English. However, between 1967 and 1978, Beckett directed seven of his stage plays in German in Berlin, suggesting this attempt at categorisation is somewhat inadequate. Beckett claimed his productions were not intended to be definitive. Nevertheless, they have assumed a major role in the assessment of his work, both in Germany and further afield. In many cases, the German texts offer significant linguistic and stylistic variants, often including alterations...

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