Guide to further reading
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
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- The Cambridge Introduction to Samuel Beckett , pp. 132 - 136Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2007
References
. Why Beckett. London: Thames and Hudson, 1989. A brief introductory literary biography with extensive illustrations.Google Scholar
. Samuel Beckett: The Last Modernist. London: HarperCollins, 1996. Eloquently written and informative. Especially strong on Beckett's Irish background.Google Scholar
. The World of Samuel Beckett 1906–1946. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996. Emphasises the historical context of Beckett's artistic genesis.Google Scholar
(ed.). No Author Better Served: The Correspondence of Samuel Beckett and Alan Schneider. Cambridge, MA, and London: Harvard University Press, 1998. Beckett's correspondence with his American director. The first full-book publication of Beckett's letters. Excludes any material not directly related to the work.Google Scholar
. Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett. London: Bloomsbury, 1996. The authorised biography. Comprehensive and indispensable.Google Scholar
and . Samuel Beckett: His Works and His Critics. Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 1970. A pioneering survey of the first generation of Beckett criticism.Google Scholar
et. al. Critique of Beckett Criticism: A Guide to Research in English, French and German. Columbia, SC: Camden House, 1994. Formidable and comprehensive. Gives an evaluative history of Beckett criticism. Includes a year-by-year bibliography.Google Scholar
(ed.). Palgrave Advances in Samuel Beckett Studies. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. A collection of thematic essays by leading Beckettians summarising and evaluating various critical trends.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
. Beckett Writing Beckett: The Author in the Autograph. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996. Elaborates a theory of ‘autography’, a mode of writing which generates selfhood between autobiography and fiction.Google Scholar
and (eds.). Beckett's Later Fiction and Drama: Texts for Company. London: Macmillan, 1987. Useful collection of essays on the later works.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Samuel Beckett. London: Fontana, 1973. Part of the Fontana Modern Masters series. Well-written introduction.Google Scholar
. Samuel Beckett and the Mythology of Psychoanalysis. London: Macmillan, 1997. Historically locates the psychoanalytical influences on Beckett.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
. God, the Quest, the Hero: Thematic Structures in Beckett's Fiction. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988. Traces the ‘God-idea’ as thematic and structural influence. Especially notable on Gnostic and Manichaean dimensions.Google Scholar
. Samuel Beckett and the End of Modernity. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996. Historically situates the debate about Beckett's position in modernity and postmodernity.Google Scholar
. Beckett: ‘Waiting for Godot’. Plays in Production. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Part of an innovative series looking at the history of production of key plays.Google Scholar
. Beyond Minimalism: Beckett's Late Style in the Theatre. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.Google Scholar
The Drama in the Text: Beckett's Late Fiction. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. Both key studies of the later works.Google Scholar
. Women in Samuel Beckett's Fiction and Drama: Her Own Other. London: Macmillan, 1993. Theoretical investigation of representations of women in Beckett.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Samuel Beckett and the Idea of God. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1998. A judicious assessment of religious overtones and their significance.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
. A Beckett Canon. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001. An indispensable and learned overview of the entire Beckett corpus, across all genres, drawing on a lifetime's scholarship. Cohn has published vastly on Beckett for over forty years.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(ed.). Samuel Beckett: Repetition, Theory and Text. Oxford: Blackwell, 1992. An important contribution to Beckett and post-structuralism, focusing on the function of repetition in Beckett's work.Google Scholar
‘Waiting for Godot’ and ‘Endgame’. New Casebooks. New York: St Martin's Press, 1992. Brings together eleven theoretically informed essays.Google Scholar
. Beckett and Myth: An Archetypal Approach. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1988. A Jungian reading strongly informed by postmodern theory.Google Scholar
(ed.). Samuel Beckett: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1965. A highly influential early collection of critical essays.Google Scholar
. Samuel Beckett: Waiting for Godot, Krapp's Last Tape and Endgame. London: Faber and Faber, 2000. A useful annotated commentary on these three major plays.Google Scholar
et al. (eds.). Beckett Translating/Translating Beckett. University Park: Pennsylvania University Press, 1987. Collection of essays on the important topic of translation.Google Scholar
The Intent of Undoing in Samuel Beckett's Dramatic Texts. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985. A key scholarly work on the evolution of Beckett's dramatic manuscripts.Google Scholar
and (eds.). Samuel Beckett: The Critical Heritage. London, Henley and Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1979. A very useful anthology of contemporary reviews and criticism of Beckett's works, including reproductions of some of his rare interviews.Google Scholar
The Irish Beckett. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1991. One of the few full-length treatments of the Irish allusions especially in the early prose.Google Scholar
. Samuel Beckett: Poet and Critic. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970. A key text in Beckett criticism, not least because of the unusual cooperation given by Beckett himself. The extended treatment of Beckett's poetry especially valuable.Google Scholar
. The Shape of Chaos: An Interpretation of the Art of Samuel Beckett. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1971. An in-depth philosophical study.Google Scholar
. Beckett in Performance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. Addresses Beckett's plays from the point of view of staging and performance, drawing on personal experience as a director and several interviews with theatre professionals.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
. Samuel Beckett: A Critical Study. London: John Calder, 1962. Possibly the most influential early study, especially on the Cartesian influences on Beckett. Well written and still engaging.Google Scholar
. Light and Darkness in the Theatre of Samuel Beckett. London: Turret Books, 1972. Treats dualism and the Manichaean dimension.Google Scholar
and (ed.). Happy Days: The Production Notebook of Samuel Beckett. London and Boston: Faber and Faber, 1985. A precursor to the series of theatrical notebooks published under Knowlson's general editorship.Google Scholar
and . Frescoes of the Skull: The Later Prose and Drama of Samuel Beckett. London: John Calder, 1979. Pioneering study of the later Beckett, with some treatment of earlier, then unpublished works like Eleutheria.Google Scholar
and (eds.). The Theatrical Notebooks of Samuel Beckett, vol. I: Waiting for Godot. London: Faber and Faber, 1994. Part of a valuable series publishing and annotating the various production notebooks Beckett kept while directing his plays. See also vol. III on Krapp's Last Tape, 1992. S. E. Gontarski edited vol. II: Endgame, 1992 and vol. IV: The Shorter Plays, 1999.Google Scholar
. Unwording the Word: Samuel Beckett's Prose Works after the Nobel Prize. Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press, 1990. Challenging analysis of semiotics and representation in Beckett, influenced by deconstruction.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
and . Beckett in the Theatre, vol. I: The Author as Practical Playwright and Director. London: John Calder, 1988. Rigorous account of Beckett's practice in the theatre.Google Scholar
. Theatre on Trial: Samuel Beckett's Later Drama. London: Routledge, 1993. Very useful study of Beckett's later drama informed by various critical theories.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reconstructing Beckett: Language for Being in Samuel Beckett's Fiction. Toronto: Toronto University Press, 1990. Challenges orthodox critical understanding by positing a complex ‘realism’ and moral seriousness in Beckett's prose. Detailed and enlightening on post-trilogy prose.Google Scholar
. The Beckett Country: Samuel Beckett's Ireland. Dublin: Black Cat Press, 1992. A collection of photographs of the Irish landscape that inspired many of Beckett's works. Introduction by James Knowlson.Google Scholar
. The Painted Word: Beckett's Dialogue With Art. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000. Deals with Beckett's relationship with visual arts and his general intellectual context.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(ed.). Samuel Beckett and the Arts: Music, Visual Arts and Non-Print Media. New York: Garland, 1998. A pioneering collection of essays in this important field.Google Scholar
. Samuel Beckett. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1976. Especially good on the cultural and intellectual contexts.Google Scholar
Beckett Before Godot: The Formative Years, 1929–1946. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Authoritative and learned treatment of Beckett's early work and influences.Google Scholar
(ed.). The Cambridge Companion to Samuel Beckett. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. A useful collection of essays on various aspects of Beckett's work. Treats the whole oeuvre.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pountney, Rosemary. Theatre of Shadows: Samuel Beckett's Drama 1956–76 (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe; Totowa, New Jersey: Barnes and Noble, 1988). A judicious, scholarly and thorough investigation of the drama of this period with rich use of manuscript material.
. Beckett's Dying Words. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993. Based on his 1990 Clarendon lectures delivered at Oxford University, Ricks argues that Beckett's works are marked by a longing for death and oblivion.Google Scholar
The Shape of Paradox: An Essay on Waiting for Godot. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978. Excellent formalist reading of the play, alert to the Edenic overtones.Google Scholar
and (eds.). Engagement and Indifference: Beckett and the Political. New York: State University of New York Press, 2001. An edited collection which looks at the political and ethical dimensions to Beckett from a variety of critical approaches.Google Scholar
. Into the Breach: Samuel Beckett and the Ends of Literature. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990. Early deconstructive study refuting the phenomenological bias of earlier criticism.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
. Beckett and Poststructuralism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Draws on French philosophers including Derrida, Foucault, Deleuze and Guattari.Google Scholar
. Paradox and Desire in Samuel Beckett's Fiction. London: Macmillan, 1991. Draws on Lacanian theory and post-structuralism.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
. Samuel Beckett's Theatre: Life-Journeys. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. A highly readable, personal account of working on Beckett from a scholar who has also directed Beckett's plays in the theatre.Google Scholar
. Beckett and Broadcasting: A Study of the Works of Samuel Beckett for and in Radio and Television. Åbo Akademi, 1976. Authoritative and scholarly treatment of Beckett's work in radio and television.Google Scholar
. Why Beckett. London: Thames and Hudson, 1989. A brief introductory literary biography with extensive illustrations.Google Scholar
. Samuel Beckett: The Last Modernist. London: HarperCollins, 1996. Eloquently written and informative. Especially strong on Beckett's Irish background.Google Scholar
. The World of Samuel Beckett 1906–1946. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996. Emphasises the historical context of Beckett's artistic genesis.Google Scholar
(ed.). No Author Better Served: The Correspondence of Samuel Beckett and Alan Schneider. Cambridge, MA, and London: Harvard University Press, 1998. Beckett's correspondence with his American director. The first full-book publication of Beckett's letters. Excludes any material not directly related to the work.Google Scholar
. Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett. London: Bloomsbury, 1996. The authorised biography. Comprehensive and indispensable.Google Scholar
and . Samuel Beckett: His Works and His Critics. Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 1970. A pioneering survey of the first generation of Beckett criticism.Google Scholar
et. al. Critique of Beckett Criticism: A Guide to Research in English, French and German. Columbia, SC: Camden House, 1994. Formidable and comprehensive. Gives an evaluative history of Beckett criticism. Includes a year-by-year bibliography.Google Scholar
(ed.). Palgrave Advances in Samuel Beckett Studies. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. A collection of thematic essays by leading Beckettians summarising and evaluating various critical trends.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
. Beckett Writing Beckett: The Author in the Autograph. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996. Elaborates a theory of ‘autography’, a mode of writing which generates selfhood between autobiography and fiction.Google Scholar
and (eds.). Beckett's Later Fiction and Drama: Texts for Company. London: Macmillan, 1987. Useful collection of essays on the later works.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Samuel Beckett. London: Fontana, 1973. Part of the Fontana Modern Masters series. Well-written introduction.Google Scholar
. Samuel Beckett and the Mythology of Psychoanalysis. London: Macmillan, 1997. Historically locates the psychoanalytical influences on Beckett.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
. God, the Quest, the Hero: Thematic Structures in Beckett's Fiction. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988. Traces the ‘God-idea’ as thematic and structural influence. Especially notable on Gnostic and Manichaean dimensions.Google Scholar
. Samuel Beckett and the End of Modernity. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996. Historically situates the debate about Beckett's position in modernity and postmodernity.Google Scholar
. Beckett: ‘Waiting for Godot’. Plays in Production. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Part of an innovative series looking at the history of production of key plays.Google Scholar
. Beyond Minimalism: Beckett's Late Style in the Theatre. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.Google Scholar
The Drama in the Text: Beckett's Late Fiction. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. Both key studies of the later works.Google Scholar
. Women in Samuel Beckett's Fiction and Drama: Her Own Other. London: Macmillan, 1993. Theoretical investigation of representations of women in Beckett.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Samuel Beckett and the Idea of God. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1998. A judicious assessment of religious overtones and their significance.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
. A Beckett Canon. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001. An indispensable and learned overview of the entire Beckett corpus, across all genres, drawing on a lifetime's scholarship. Cohn has published vastly on Beckett for over forty years.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(ed.). Samuel Beckett: Repetition, Theory and Text. Oxford: Blackwell, 1992. An important contribution to Beckett and post-structuralism, focusing on the function of repetition in Beckett's work.Google Scholar
‘Waiting for Godot’ and ‘Endgame’. New Casebooks. New York: St Martin's Press, 1992. Brings together eleven theoretically informed essays.Google Scholar
. Beckett and Myth: An Archetypal Approach. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1988. A Jungian reading strongly informed by postmodern theory.Google Scholar
(ed.). Samuel Beckett: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1965. A highly influential early collection of critical essays.Google Scholar
. Samuel Beckett: Waiting for Godot, Krapp's Last Tape and Endgame. London: Faber and Faber, 2000. A useful annotated commentary on these three major plays.Google Scholar
et al. (eds.). Beckett Translating/Translating Beckett. University Park: Pennsylvania University Press, 1987. Collection of essays on the important topic of translation.Google Scholar
The Intent of Undoing in Samuel Beckett's Dramatic Texts. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985. A key scholarly work on the evolution of Beckett's dramatic manuscripts.Google Scholar
and (eds.). Samuel Beckett: The Critical Heritage. London, Henley and Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1979. A very useful anthology of contemporary reviews and criticism of Beckett's works, including reproductions of some of his rare interviews.Google Scholar
The Irish Beckett. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1991. One of the few full-length treatments of the Irish allusions especially in the early prose.Google Scholar
. Samuel Beckett: Poet and Critic. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970. A key text in Beckett criticism, not least because of the unusual cooperation given by Beckett himself. The extended treatment of Beckett's poetry especially valuable.Google Scholar
. The Shape of Chaos: An Interpretation of the Art of Samuel Beckett. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1971. An in-depth philosophical study.Google Scholar
. Beckett in Performance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. Addresses Beckett's plays from the point of view of staging and performance, drawing on personal experience as a director and several interviews with theatre professionals.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
. Samuel Beckett: A Critical Study. London: John Calder, 1962. Possibly the most influential early study, especially on the Cartesian influences on Beckett. Well written and still engaging.Google Scholar
. Light and Darkness in the Theatre of Samuel Beckett. London: Turret Books, 1972. Treats dualism and the Manichaean dimension.Google Scholar
and (ed.). Happy Days: The Production Notebook of Samuel Beckett. London and Boston: Faber and Faber, 1985. A precursor to the series of theatrical notebooks published under Knowlson's general editorship.Google Scholar
and . Frescoes of the Skull: The Later Prose and Drama of Samuel Beckett. London: John Calder, 1979. Pioneering study of the later Beckett, with some treatment of earlier, then unpublished works like Eleutheria.Google Scholar
and (eds.). The Theatrical Notebooks of Samuel Beckett, vol. I: Waiting for Godot. London: Faber and Faber, 1994. Part of a valuable series publishing and annotating the various production notebooks Beckett kept while directing his plays. See also vol. III on Krapp's Last Tape, 1992. S. E. Gontarski edited vol. II: Endgame, 1992 and vol. IV: The Shorter Plays, 1999.Google Scholar
. Unwording the Word: Samuel Beckett's Prose Works after the Nobel Prize. Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press, 1990. Challenging analysis of semiotics and representation in Beckett, influenced by deconstruction.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
and . Beckett in the Theatre, vol. I: The Author as Practical Playwright and Director. London: John Calder, 1988. Rigorous account of Beckett's practice in the theatre.Google Scholar
. Theatre on Trial: Samuel Beckett's Later Drama. London: Routledge, 1993. Very useful study of Beckett's later drama informed by various critical theories.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reconstructing Beckett: Language for Being in Samuel Beckett's Fiction. Toronto: Toronto University Press, 1990. Challenges orthodox critical understanding by positing a complex ‘realism’ and moral seriousness in Beckett's prose. Detailed and enlightening on post-trilogy prose.Google Scholar
. The Beckett Country: Samuel Beckett's Ireland. Dublin: Black Cat Press, 1992. A collection of photographs of the Irish landscape that inspired many of Beckett's works. Introduction by James Knowlson.Google Scholar
. The Painted Word: Beckett's Dialogue With Art. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000. Deals with Beckett's relationship with visual arts and his general intellectual context.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(ed.). Samuel Beckett and the Arts: Music, Visual Arts and Non-Print Media. New York: Garland, 1998. A pioneering collection of essays in this important field.Google Scholar
. Samuel Beckett. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1976. Especially good on the cultural and intellectual contexts.Google Scholar
Beckett Before Godot: The Formative Years, 1929–1946. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Authoritative and learned treatment of Beckett's early work and influences.Google Scholar
(ed.). The Cambridge Companion to Samuel Beckett. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. A useful collection of essays on various aspects of Beckett's work. Treats the whole oeuvre.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pountney, Rosemary. Theatre of Shadows: Samuel Beckett's Drama 1956–76 (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe; Totowa, New Jersey: Barnes and Noble, 1988). A judicious, scholarly and thorough investigation of the drama of this period with rich use of manuscript material.
. Beckett's Dying Words. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993. Based on his 1990 Clarendon lectures delivered at Oxford University, Ricks argues that Beckett's works are marked by a longing for death and oblivion.Google Scholar
The Shape of Paradox: An Essay on Waiting for Godot. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978. Excellent formalist reading of the play, alert to the Edenic overtones.Google Scholar
and (eds.). Engagement and Indifference: Beckett and the Political. New York: State University of New York Press, 2001. An edited collection which looks at the political and ethical dimensions to Beckett from a variety of critical approaches.Google Scholar
. Into the Breach: Samuel Beckett and the Ends of Literature. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990. Early deconstructive study refuting the phenomenological bias of earlier criticism.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
. Beckett and Poststructuralism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Draws on French philosophers including Derrida, Foucault, Deleuze and Guattari.Google Scholar
. Paradox and Desire in Samuel Beckett's Fiction. London: Macmillan, 1991. Draws on Lacanian theory and post-structuralism.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
. Samuel Beckett's Theatre: Life-Journeys. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. A highly readable, personal account of working on Beckett from a scholar who has also directed Beckett's plays in the theatre.Google Scholar
. Beckett and Broadcasting: A Study of the Works of Samuel Beckett for and in Radio and Television. Åbo Akademi, 1976. Authoritative and scholarly treatment of Beckett's work in radio and television.Google Scholar