Samuel Beckett

Samuel Barclay Beckett (/ˈbɛkɪt/; 13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish avant-garde novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet, who lived in Paris for most of his adult life and wrote in both English and French. He is widely regarded as among the most influential writers of the 20th century.

Beckett's work offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human existence, often coupled with black comedy and gallows humour, and became increasingly minimalist in his later career. He is considered one of the last modernist writers, and one of the key figures in what Martin Esslin called the "Theatre of the Absurd."

Beckett was awarded the 1969 Nobel Prize in Literature "for his writing, which—in new forms for the novel and drama—in the destitution of modern man acquires its elevation." He was elected Saoi of Aosdána in 1984.

Biography

Early life and education

The Becketts were members of the Anglican Church of Ireland. The family home, Cooldrinagh in the Dublin suburb of Foxrock, was a large house and garden complete with tennis court built in 1903 by Samuel's father, William. The house and garden, together with the surrounding countryside where he often went walking with his father, the nearby Leopardstown Racecourse, the Foxrock railway station and Harcourt Street station at the city terminus of the line, all feature in his prose and plays.

This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - https://wn.com/Samuel_Beckett

Latest News for: Samuel beckett

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This watered-down Brexit was always going to be our likeliest destination

London Evening Standard 14 Nov 2018

The Prime Minister says the talks over the Brexit terms are "in the endgame". She may have been whiling away long evenings waiting for the EU draft withdrawal deal reading Samuel Beckett's eponymous drama about circularity and stasis. "The end is in the beginning and yet you go on," sighs one of the despairing characters. Well, quite ... ....

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Iceage brings heat at Great American Music Hall

The Daily Californian 14 Nov 2018

Iceage brings heat at Great American Music Hall Christian Freidlander/Courtesy ... This album, taking its title from Samuel Beckett’s “Worstward Ho,” is Iceage’s most rounded and intriguing one yet, featuring lush use of brass and woodwind but still holding onto the simmering misanthropy that has been a hallmark of the band’s sound from the beginning....

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The Birth, Death, and Long Afterlife of The Gashlycrumb Tinies

Slate 14 Nov 2018

Gorey, who died in 2000 at 75, was the author and illustrator of a hundred or so little picture books whose pen-and-ink illustrations flawlessly counterfeit Victorian engravings and whose lugubriously amusing nonsense verse, equal parts Edward Lear and Samuel Beckett, spins black comedy from murder, mayhem, and existential malaise....

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The Waugh Zone Tuesday November 13, 2018

Huffington Post 13 Nov 2018

1. BEGINNING OF THE ENDGAME ... ‘Endgame’ also happens to be the title of a play by Samuel Beckett, a classic in the ‘theatre of the absurd’ genre ... Beckett would have been proud ... And once more, Beckett’s ‘Endgame’ could prove rather apt. Written by an Irishman, its original title was delivered in French ... 2 ... 3 ... 4 ... 5 ... ....

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Is Theresa May’s Brexit plan a stroke of genius? | Letters

The Guardian 13 Nov 2018

It is unclear why Matthew d’Ancona thinks an election is more likely than a people’s vote if MPs reject the miserable deal that Theresa May is concocting (Logic points to a people’s vote ... Hugo Dixon ... Pure genius ... I wonder if she is familiar with the Samuel Beckett play of the same name, which posits that life is absurd, farcical and irrational ... London....

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Who wants to live forever?

RTE 13 Nov 2018

Opinion. more and more of us are living well into old age thanks to antibiotics, sanitation, balanced diet, exercise and social ties, but is this a good thing?. By Luke O'Neill, TCD. A striking thing has happened to the human race, one of the most striking in all our history as a species ... In 1916 the average was 53 ... To paraphrase Samuel Beckett ... ....

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Japanese Theater Inspires a New Opera of Celestial Textures

Asahi News 13 Nov 2018

NEW YORK--“The Noh is unquestionably one of the great arts of the world,” poet Ezra Pound wrote in 1916, “and it is quite possibly one of the most recondite.” ... The long list of playwrights and composers looking to Noh for inspiration includes Samuel Beckett, Harry Partch, Bertolt Brecht and Benjamin Britten ... 17 and 18 ... Pound worked alongside W.B ... Nov ... ....

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‘Thom Pain (Based on Nothing)’ Theater Review: Michael C Hall Turns Nothingness Into High Art

The Wrap 12 Nov 2018

Will Eno’s one-man tour de force “Thom Pain (based on nothing),” now in a thrilling revival at Off Broadway’s Pershing Square Signature Center, reimagines Samuel Beckett as if through the filter of Jerry Seinfeld ... We meet Michael C. Hall’s Thom Pain in darkness, fittingly enough ... Also Read. 'Eve's Song' Theater Review....

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Paul O'Hern, 74, committed Buffalo character actor

The Buffalo News 11 Nov 2018

Nov. 20, 1943 — Nov. 5, 2018. Paul O'Hern never played Hamlet. He never sang the lead in "Les Miserables" or trod the boards as Willy Loman ... Mr ... And though he once appeared in a one-man show (Samuel Beckett's "Krapp's Last Tape") at Nietzsche's in 1990, he is best remembered as a reliable character actor who threw himself into the smallest of roles ... ....

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Novel: Molloy

The Patriotic Vanguard 11 Nov 2018

Molloy. By Samuel Beckett. The Sucking Stones sequence. I took advantage of being at the seaside to lay in a store of sucking-stones. They were pebbles but I call them stones. Yes, on this occasion I laid in a considerable store. I distributed them equally between my four pockets, and sucked them turn and turn about ... And so on ... Good ... Watch me closely ... ....

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The week ahead in SoCal theater, Nov. 11-18: 'The Bitter Game,' 'UnCabaret' and more

The Los Angeles Times 10 Nov 2018

11-18 ... Keith A ... (Jim Carmody). THEATER ... 25 ... Jane Kaczmarek and Kate Burton star in a reading of Diane Samuels’ historical drama about efforts to save Jewish children in Europe from the Holocaust ... Tony winner Brian Dennehy stars in a double bill of Eugene O’Neill’s two-character short play and Samuel Beckett’s solo one-act drama ... 2....

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Camille Paglia: It’s Time for a New Map of the Gender World

Quillette 10 Nov 2018

She was like a revelation. Her work was subversive but erudite ... Thirteen years later, it is an honour to be able to interview Camille Paglia for Quillette ... It is very telling that Foucault’s principal inspiration, by his own admission, was Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, which I loathed as a college student for its postwar passivity and nihilism ... ....

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Pretentious, impenetrable, hard work ... better? Why we need difficult books

The Guardian 10 Nov 2018

“Odd”, “impenetrable”, “hard work”, “challenging” and “brain-kneading” have been some of the epithets chosen. They have not been meant, I think, as compliments. The chair of the judges, Kwame Anthony Appiah, perhaps unhelpfully, humblebragged that ... Twitter ... It isn’t always easy ... Samuel Beckett, laureate as he was of existential despair, is wildly funny....