Beckett at 100: Revolving it All

by Linda Ben-Zvi, Angela Moorjani

Overview

The year 2006 marked the centenary of the birth of Nobel-Prize winning playwright and novelist Samuel Beckett. To commemorate the occasion, this collection brings together twenty-three leading international Beckett scholars from ten countries, who take on the centenary challenge of "revolving it all": that is, going "back to Beckett"-the title of an earlier study by critic Ruby Cohn, to whom the book is dedicated-in order to rethink traditional readings and theories; provide new contexts and associations; and reassess his impact on the modern imagination and legacy to future generations.

These original essays, most first presented by the Samuel Beckett Working Group at the Dublin centenary celebration, are divided into three sections: (1) Thinking through Beckett, (2) Shifting Perspectives, and (3) Echoing Beckett. As repeatedly in his canon, images precede words. The book opens with stills from films of experimental filmmaker Peter Gidal and unpublished excerpts from Beckett's 1936-37 German Travel Diaries, presented by Beckett biographer James Knowlson, with permission from the Beckett estate.

Renowned director and theatre theoretician Herbert Blau follows with his personal Beckett "thinking through." Others in Part I explore Beckett and philosophy (Abbott), the influences of Bergson (Gontarski) and Leibniz (Mori), Beckett and autobiography (Locatelli), and Agamben on post-Holocaust testimony (Jones). Essays in Part II recontextualize Beckett's works in relation to iconography (Moorjani), film theoretician Rudolf Arnheim (Engelberts), Marshall McLuhan (Ben-Zvi), exilic writing (McMullan), Pierre Bourdieu's literary field (Siess), romanticism (Brater), social theorists Adorno and Horkheimer (Degani-Raz), and performance issues (Rodríguez-Gago). Part III relates Beckett's writing to that of Yeats (Okamuro), Paul Auster (Campbell), Caryl Churchill (Diamond), William Saroyan (Bryden), Minoru Betsuyaku and Harold Pinter (Tanaka) and Morton Feldman and Jasper Johns (Laws). Finally, Beckett himself becomes a character in other playwrights' works (Zeifman). Taken together these essays make a clear case for the challenges and rewards of thinking through Beckett in his second century.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780195325485
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	01/08/2008
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	9.10(w) x 6.10(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Linda Ben-Zvi is Professor of Theatre Studies, Tel Aviv University and Professor emerita, English and Theatre, Colorado State University. Among her many books are Susan Glaspell: Her Life and Times (Oxford UP, 2005). She is a recipient of the George Freedley Special Jury Prize, Theatre Library Association, and was a John Stern Distinguished Professor at Colorado, Fellow at the Library of Congress, the National Endowment for the Humanities, Lady Davis Professor at Hebrew University, and twice elected President of the International Samuel Beckett Society.

Angela Moorjani is emerita professor of modern languages and linguistics (French) at the University of Maryland-UMBC. Her many studies of Samuel Beckett and the aesthetic and ethical effects of melancholy in literature and the arts include the postructural Abysmal Games in the Novels of Samuel Beckett (1982), The Aesthetics of Loss and Lessness (1992) and Beyond Fetishism (2000).

Table of Contents

Images: For Ruby CohnStill for Ruby, Peter GidalBeckett the Tourist: Bamberg and Wurzburg, James KnowlsonPart I. Thinking through BeckettApnea and True Illusion: Breath(less) in Beckett, Herbert BlauFrom Contumacy to Shame: Reading Beckett's Testimonies with Agamben, David Houston JonesProjections: Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape and Not I as Autobiographies, Carla Locatelli"I am Not a Philosopher", H. Porter AbbottRecovering Beckett's Bergsonism, S. E. GontarskiNo Body Is at Rest: The Legacy of Leibniz's Force in Beckett's Oeuvre, Naoya MoriPart II. Shifting PerspectivesBounded Boundlessness: Reflecting on Counterpoint and Iconography in Beckett's Play, Angela MoorjaniBeckett's Romanticism, Enoch BraterFilm and Film: Beckett and Early Film Theory, Matthijs EngelbertsBeckett's Theatre: Embodying Alterity, Anna McMullanBeckett's Posture in the French Literary Field, Jurgen SiessThe Spear of Telephus in Krapp's Last Tape, Irit Degani-RazRefiguring the Stage Body through the Mechanical Re-Production of Memory, Antonia Rodríguez-GagoPart III. Echoing BeckettiWords and Music,...but the clouds.../i, and Yeats's "The Tower", Minako OkamuroBeckett—Feldman—Johns, Catherine LawsOntological Fear and Anxiety in the Theatre of Beckett, Betsuyaku, and Pinter, Mariko Hori TanakaThe Mid-Century iGodot/i: Beckett and Saroyan, Mary BrydenBeckett, McLuhan, and Television: The Medium, the Message, and "the Mess", Linda Ben-ZviBeckett and Caryl Churchill along the Moebius Strip, Elin DiamondBeckett and Paul Auster: Fathers and Sons and the Creativity of Misreading, Julie CampbellStaging Sam: Beckett as Dramatic Character, Hersh ZeifmanContributorsIndex

Editorial Reviews

"A compendium of treats! From significant biographical revelations drawn from the writer's unpublished German diaries to astute investigations of his work viewed on its own and in relation to that of other verbal and visual artists, Beckett at 100 offers fresh insights into one of the twentieth century's most creative minds. In its breadth of vision, it's a fitting gift for the doyenne of Beckett criticism; in its wealth of new material, it's a generous gift for us all."—Louis Oppenheim, Montclair State University

"This book succeeds in bringing Beckett's work into dialogue with a wide range of writers, thinkers, and artists." David Bradby, Royal Holloway, University of London

"The essays...succeed in getting into the depth of Beckett's work...Recommended."—Choice

"A brilliant and unique organization that alone (apart from the well-written and very smart essays of the collection) deserves to be considered."—Kritikon Litterarum

"A splendid omnium gatherum...Will certainly give scholars of the Irish writer reason to celebrate." —Contemporary Literature

From the Publisher