Beckett and Phenomenology

Description

Existentialism and poststructuralism have provided the two main theoretical approaches to Samuel Beckett's work. These influential philosophical movements, however, owe a great debt to the phenomenological tradition. This volume, with contributions by major international scholars, examines the phenomenal in Beckett's literary worlds, comparing and contrasting his writing with key figures including Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. It advances an analysis of hitherto unexplored phenomenological themes, such as nausea, immaturity and sleep, in Beckett's work. Through an exploration of specific thinkers and Beckett's own artistic method, it offers the first sustained and comprehensive account of Beckettian phenomenology.

Ulrika Maude is a Senior Lecturer in Beckett Studies and Modernism in the Department of English Language and Literature at the University of Reading. Matthew Feldman is Lecturer in Twentieth-Century History at the University of Northampton, UK.

"Though phenomenology and its offshoot, existentialism, were very much in the air when Beckett's creative genius first became known in Europe and abroad, to date no study has looked as comprehensively as does Beckett and Phenomenology at the interconnections between his writing and that philosophical perspective, however diverse its manifestations. All the greats are there: From Husserl to Sartre to Merleau-Ponty, Ricoeur, and beyond. And Beckett's greatness, however diverse its manifestations, is revealed in a very new light. Beckett and Phenomenology is truly a phenomenology of Beckett's world! - Professor Lois Oppenheim, Past President of The Samuel Beckett Society. "Beckett and Phenomenology offers a cogent and convincing exploration of Beckett's work in the light of phenomenological ideas and will undoubtedly be of interest to Beckett scholars. It is an accomplished study of what must now be viewed as a key aspect of contemporary Beckett studies."Review of English Studies