Samuel Beckett Waiting for Godot-Endgame

by Boxall, Peter

• ISBN13: 9781840460827
• ISBN10: 1840460822
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-08-02
• Publisher: Red Globe Pr

Summary

In this Readers' Guide, Peter Boxall traces critical responses to Waiting for Godot and Endgame from the 1950s to the present day. The guide presents the major debates that surround these works as they develop, from Martin Esslin's early appropriation of the plays as examples of the Theatre of the Absurd, to recent poststructuralist and postcolonial readings by critics such as Steven Connor, Mary Bryden and Declan Kiberd. Throughout, Boxall clarifies and contextualizes critical responses to the plays, and considers the difficult relationship between Beckett and his critics.

Author Biography

Peter Boxall is at the University of Auckland.

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION	5	(4)
Places the plays in the context of Beckett's writing life, and introduces the critical approaches to be considered in the Guide.
CHAPTER ONE	9	(42)
First Responses to Waiting for Godot and Endgame
This chapter covers a range of initial responses to Waiting for Godot and Endgame, and is split into two sections.
1. Nothing Happens Twice: Reviews and Early Journalism
This section looks at a range of reactions to the first performances of the plays, and considers the scope and the nature of their initial impact. It Includes extracts from reviews by critics such as Kenneth Tynan, Harold Hobson, Patrick Kavanagh, Jacques Lemarchand and Vivian Merder.
2. Presence, Negativity and the Human Condition: First Essays
Moving on from early journalism and reviews, this section looks more detail at two of the first full-length essayistic responses to the plays. The section reads Martin Esslin's humanist reading of the plays as examples of the 'Theatre of the Absurd', against Adorno's Marxist reading of Endgame as a critique of post-war European culture.
CHAPTER TWO	51	(43)
Humanising the Void
This chapter traces the development of a liberal humanist reading of the plays, from the sixties to the present day, and is split into two sections.
1. New Criticism and Esslin's Three Categories
This section looks at Martin Esslin's influential introduction to his 1965 collection of essays. It discusses and lays out the three modes of critical enquiry that Esslin suggests are valid responses to Beckett's writing.
2. Kenner, Cohn and the Liberal Humanist Beckett
This section traces the development of humanist readings of the plays as they have developed from Esslin's work onwards, focusing particularly on the work of Ruby Cohn (with extracts from Samuel Beckett: The Comic Gamut) and Hugh Kenner (with extracts from A Reader's Guide to Samuel Beckett and Samuel Beckett: A Critical Study).
CHAPTER THREE	94	(43)
Beckett and the Emergence of Theory
This chapter traces the development of other theoretical approaches, as they have grown up alongside the more dominant liberal humanist paradigm discussed in chapter two, and is split into three sections.
1. Beckett, Demda and the Resistance to Theory
This section considers the relative paucity of theoretical approaches to Beckett, focusing on Derrida's discussion of his own reluctance to embark on a reading of Beckett's work.
2. Beckett, Iser and Reader Response
This section looks back to the seventies, and discusses the emergence of a 'reader response' approach to Waiting for Godot. It includes extracts from Wolfgang Iser's The Implied Reader, and from his essay entitled 'Countersensical Comedy and Audience Response in Beckett's Waiting for Godot'.
3. Beckett, Post-structuralism and Feminism
This section looks at the emergence in the late eighties of poststructuralist and deconstructive-feminist readings of Waiting for Godot and Endgame. It includes extracts from Steven Comior's essay entitled 'The Doubling of Presence in Waiting for Godot and Endgame', and from Mary Bryden's essay entitled 'Gender in Transition'.
CHAPTER FOUR	137	(31)
Political Criticism
This chapter discusses the growth of an overtly political criticism, as it has developed from Adorno's Marxist reading of Endgame. It includes extracts from Ernst Fischer's seventies Marxist work, Art Against Ideology, from Werner Huber's consideration of the relation between Beckett and Bertolt Brecht, and from Dedan Kiberd's reading of Godot and Endgame as post-colonial texts in Inventing Ireland.
NOTES	168	(10)
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY	178	(7)
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS	185	(1)
INDEX	186