The complete Samuel Beckett

We will begin where, in 1953, the phenomenon that is now the worldwide Beckett industry began: with “Waiting for Godot”, his most inescapable and perhaps irreplaceable text. “Godot” stages with startling clarity the parameters of the Beckettian world, its perfect entry point and road map. From there we will set out on the long, assiduous, endlessly challenging intellectual and emotional journey Beckett undertook from “Assumption” (1929) to “Stirrings Still” and “What is the Word” (1989), examining as we go the full range of his writing in every genre, prose fiction (novels and stories), theatre plays and radio plays, mimes, poetry, critical essays, translations, letters, postcards, film. As with “Godot”, however, we will pause at every stage to take our bearings by focusing on selected works through detailed reading and discussion: “Murphy”, “Molloy”, “Happy Days”, some of the later short plays and stories, and “Nohow On”.

The questions we will be addressing include just how imaginatively or linguistically adventurous Beckett’s vision – seen by many as relentlessly austere and ‘existential’ – really is; the extent of his apparent withdrawal as a creative artist, or ‘seedy solipsism’, in face of the calamitous historical events, in Europe and elsewhere, that impacted on him personally; whether the hagiology that has grown up around him helps or hinders our estimation of the actual texts; and Beckett and gender: the widening, more inclusive gaze of the later works. Does his treatment of women challenge the stereotypes?