Chapter Three. Elizabeth Bowen and Samuel Beckett Waiting in the Middle

2019 ◽  
pp. 136-179
2019 ◽  
pp. 79-95
Author(s):  
Ulrika Maude

This chapter compares Bowen’s depictions of habit to contemporary psychological discourses and its presentation in other works (by, for example, Samuel Beckett), The significance of objects, places and habits in Bowen’s work, she argues, reveals how the narratives present objects and places as so integral to the self that they acquire near sentience, with the capacity to console, pierce or wound. Although Bowen’s ‘characters fasten their fears and desires’ onto objects (Inglesby 312-13), it shows that the objects also have a hold over these emotions, as if they have scarred her characters, leaving their own inscriptions on the nerves and the senses. Bowen’s writing seems to suggest that we bury our intentions in objects, which, although they exist externally, exist for us only to the extent to which they arouse in us volitions, thoughts or emotions.


2016 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 225-242
Author(s):  
Cal Revely-Calder

Critics have recently begun to pay attention to the influence Jean Racine's plays had on the work of Samuel Beckett, noting his 1930–31 lectures at Trinity College Dublin, and echoes of Racine in early texts such as Murphy (1938). This essay suggests that as well as the Trinity lectures, Beckett's later re-reading of Racine (in 1956) can be seen as fundamentally influential on his drama. There are moments of direct allusion to Racine's work, as in Oh les beaux jours (1963), where the echoes are easily discernible; but I suggest that soon, in particular with Come and Go (1965), the characteristics of a distinctly Racinian stagecraft become more subtly apparent, in what Danièle de Ruyter has called ‘choix plus spécifiquement théâtraux’: pared-down lighting, carefully-crafted entries and exits, and visual tableaux made increasingly difficult to read. Through an account of Racine's dramaturgy, and the ways in which he structures bodily motion and theatrical talk, I suggest that Beckett's post-1956 drama can be better understood, as stage-spectacles, in the light of Racine's plays; both writers give us, in Myriam Jeantroux's phrase, the complicated spectacle of ‘un lieu à la fois désert et clôturé’. As spectators to Beckett's drama, by keeping Racine in mind we can come to understand better the limitations of that spectatorship, and how the later plays trouble our ability to see – and interpret – the figures that move before us.


1993 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-72
Author(s):  
Phil Baker

2015 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 223-241
Author(s):  
José Francisco Fernández

This study takes the form of a chronicle of the life-long friendship between Samuel Beckett and Spanish playwright Fernando Arrabal. First, the circumstances in which they became acquainted will be explored. Then, that streak of irreverent humour shared by both writers will be discussed, especially in relation to their interest in Surrealism. Following this, the Spaniard's opinions on Beckett's partner, Suzanne Deschevaux-Dumesnil, will be considered. Finally, Arrabal's trial for blasphemy in 1967 is examined in detail, including Beckett's letter in his defence.


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