Ten Ways of Thinking About Samuel Beckett: The Falsetto of Reason

by Enoch Brater

Overview

Beckett is acknowledged as one of the greatest playwrights and most innovative fiction writers of the twentieth century with an international appeal that bridges both general and more specialist readers. This collection of essays by renowned Beckett scholar Enoch Brater offers a delightfully original, playful and intriguing series of approaches to Beckett's drama, fiction and poetry.


Beginning with a chapter entitled 'Things to Ponder While Waiting for Godot', each essay deftly illuminates aspects of Beckett's thinking and craft, making astute and often surprising discoveries along the way. In a series of beguiling discussions such as 'From Dada to Didi: Beckett and the Art of His Century', 'Beckett's Devious Interventions, or Fun with Cube Roots' and 'The Seated Figure on Beckett's Stage', Brater proves the perfect companion and commentator on Beckett's work, helping readers to approach it with fresh eyes and a renewed sense of the author's unique aesthetic.

'An eloquent, witty and erudite collection of essays that illuminates Beckett's drama and prose fiction from a number of complementary perspectives. Brater's precise explication of the interwoven tropes of language and mise-en-scène is combined with a fine grasp of the overarching structure of work ... to create a rich and suggestive series of reflections on Beckett's aesthetics.' - Robert Gordon, Professor of Drama, Goldsmiths, University of London

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781408137222
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	03/01/2012
Series:	Diaries, Letters and Essays
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.70(h) x 0.30(d)

About the Author

Enoch Brater is the Kenneth T. Rowe Collegiate Professor of Dramatic Literature; Professor of English and Theater, University of Michigan and the series editor of Methuen Drama's Miller scholarly editions. He has written extensively on the work of Samuel Beckett and Arthur Miller.

Table of Contents

Preface Beckett and a Way of Thinking
1. Things to Ponder while Waiting for Godot
2. From Dada to Didi: Beckett and the Art of His Century
3. Beckett's Landscape: What There Is to Recognize
4. Beckett's Shades of the Color Gray
5. The Seated Figure on Beckett's Stage
6. Beckett's Devious Interventions, or Fun with Cube Roots
7. Beckett's-What?-Romanticism
8. Beckett's Beckett: So Many Words for Silence
9. "Traces blurs signs": Where Beckett Meets Ibsen
10. Suitcases, Sand and Dry Goods
Addendum To What?: The No-Thing that Knows No Name and the Empty Envelope Blissfully Reconsidered

Editorial Reviews

Both witty and approachable...There is a great deal of intelligent analysis here to enlighten anyone working on Beckett, and none if it is too abstruse.” —The Stage

“Those who are still intimidated by Beckett's reputation should read Enoch Brater's witty, stimulating, brilliantly discursive reflections on his work. They'll end up finding both the writer and the critic far more entertaining than they dared suspect.” —Benedict Nightingale

“An eloquent, witty and erudite collection of essays that illuminates Beckett's drama and prose fiction from a number of complementary perspectives. Brater's precise explication of the interwoven tropes of language and mise-en-scène is combined with a fine grasp of the overarching structure of work … to create a rich and suggestive series of reflections on Beckett's aesthetics.” —Robert Gordon, Professor of Drama, Goldsmiths, University of London

From the Publisher

An eloquent, witty and erudite collection of essays that illuminates Beckett's drama and prose fiction from a number of complementary perspectives. Brater's precise explication of the interwoven tropes of language and mise-en-scène is combined with a fine grasp of the overarching structure of work … to create a rich and suggestive series of reflections on Beckett's aesthetics.

Robert Gordon

Those who are still intimidated by Beckett's reputation should read Enoch Brater's witty, stimulating, brilliantly discursive reflections on his work. They'll end up finding both the writer and the critic far more entertaining than they dared suspect.

Benedict Nightingale

Both witty and approachable...There is a great deal of intelligent analysis here to enlighten anyone working on Beckett, and none if it is too abstruse.

The Stage