Seen and Unseen Narratives in Beckett's Cryptic Novel Murphy

The year’s work in stylistics 2020:

Samuel Beckett's long-standing friend, James Knowlson, recreates Beckett's youth in Ireland, his studies at Trinity College, Dublin in the early 1920s and from there to the Continent, where he plunged into the multicultural literary society of late-1920s Paris. The biography throws new light on Beckett's stormy relationship with his mother, the psychotherapy he received after the death of his father and his crucial relationship with James Joyce. There is also material on Beckett's six-month visit to Germany as the Nazi's tightened their grip. The book includes unpublished material on Beckett's personal life after he chose to live in France, including his own account of his work for a Resistance cell during the war, his escape from the Gestapo and his retreat into hiding. Obsessively private, Beckett was wholly committed to the work which eventually brought his public fame, beginning with the controversial success of \"Waiting for Godot\" in 1953, and culminating in the award of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969. James Knowlson is the general editor of \"The Theatrical Notebooks of Samuel Beckett\".

Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett

Samuel Beckett's long-standing friend, James Knowlson, recreates Beckett's youth in Ireland, his studies at Trinity College, Dublin in the early 1920s and from there to the Continent, where he plunged into the multicultural literary society of late-1920s Paris. The biography throws new light on Beckett's stormy relationship with his mother, the psychotherapy he received after the death of his father and his crucial relationship with James Joyce. There is also material on Beckett's six-month visit to Germany as the Nazi's tightened their grip. The book includes unpublished material on Beckett's personal life after he chose to live in France, including his own account of his work for a Resistance cell during the war, his escape from the Gestapo and his retreat into hiding. Obsessively private, Beckett was wholly committed to the work which eventually brought his public fame, beginning with the controversial success of "Waiting for Godot" in 1953, and culminating in the award of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969. James Knowlson is the general editor of "The Theatrical Notebooks of Samuel Beckett".

Hegel's phenomenology of spirit

Samuel Beckett, who wrote everything in both French and English, specialised in short enigmatic texts, implying vast visionary works of which the stories are broken pieces. Kenner's guide is designed to help readers see beyond the story in Beckett to the text as a whole and to appreciate the uniqueness of each of his works. Hugh Kenner's books include "The Poetry of Ezra Pound", "Dublin's Joyce", and "Joyce's Voices".

A reader's guide to Samuel Beckett

In this article, “Narrative Closure,” a theory of the nature of narrative closure is developed. Narrative closure is identified as the phenomenological feeling of finality that is generated when all the questions saliently posed by the narrative are answered. The article also includes a discussion of the intelligibility of attributing questions to narratives as well as a discussion of the mechanisms that achieve this. The article concludes by addressing certain recent criticisms of the view of narrative expounded by this article.

Seen and Unseen Narratives in Beckett's Cryptic Novel Murphy

Citations

The year’s work in stylistics 2020:

References

Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett

Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett

Hegel's phenomenology of spirit

A reader's guide to Samuel Beckett

Narrative closure

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