Samuel Beckett and Cultural Nationalism

Paperback / softback

Main Details

Title Samuel Beckett and Cultural Nationalism
Authors and Contributors      By (author) Shane Weller
SeriesElements in Beckett Studies
Physical Properties
Format:Paperback / softback
Pages:75
Dimensions(mm): Height 228,Width 153
Category/GenreLiterary studies - from c 1900 -
Literary studies - plays and playwrights
Literary studies - fiction, novelists and prose writers
Literary reference works
ISBN/Barcode 9781009045483
ClassificationsDewey:848.91409
Audience
Professional & Vocational
Illustrations Worked examples or Exercises

Publishing Details

Publisher Cambridge University Press
Imprint Cambridge University Press
Publication Date 24 June 2021
Publication Country United Kingdom

Description

Drawing on evidence from his published works, manuscripts, and correspondence, Samuel Beckett and Cultural Nationalism explores Beckett's engagement with the theme of cultural nationalism throughout his writing life, revealing the various ways in which he sought to challenge culturally nationalist conceptions of art and literature, while never embracing a cosmopolitan approach. The Element shows how, in his pre-Second World War writings, Beckett sought openly to mock Irish nationalist ideas of culture and language, but that, in so doing, he failed to avoid what he himself described as a 'clot of prejudices'. In his post-war works in French and English, however, following time spent in Nazi Germany in 1936-7 as well as in the French Resistance during the Second World War, Beckett began to take a new approach to ideas of national-cultural affiliation, at the heart of which was a conception of the human as a citizen of nowhere.