Samuel Beckett

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Beckett, Samuel

 

Born Apr. 13, 1906, in Dublin. Poet, dramatist, novelist, and a representative of modernism. Irish by descent. Writes in English and French. Graduated from Trinity College in Dublin.

Beckett was secretary to the writer J. Joyce. Since 1937 he has lived in France. He published the collection of stories More Pricks Than Kicks in 1934, the collection of poems Echo’s Bones in 1935, and the novel Murphy in 1938. The heroes of the surrealistic plays Waiting For Godot (1952; Russian translation, 1966), Endgame (1957), and Krapp’s Last Tape (1959) are physical and spiritual cripples, possessed by a terror of life. The texts of Beckett’s novels Molloy (1951), Malone Dies (1951), Watt (1953), and How It Is (1961) are alogical and disjointed. He has written essays on M. Proust (1931) and J. Joyce (1936). Beckett received the Nobel Prize in 1969.

WORKS

L’innommable. Paris, 1953.
Malone meurt. Paris, 1963.

REFERENCES

Istoriia angliiskoi literatury, vol. 3. Moscow, 1958.
Leklerk, G. “Sud’by avangardistskogo teatra vo Frantsii.” Teatr, 1959, no. 9.
Kopelev, L. “Ostorozhno—trupnyi iad!” In his book Serdtse vsegda sleva. Moscow, 1960. Elistratova, A. “Tragikomediia Bekketa ’V ozhidanii Godo.’ ” Inostrannaia literatura, 1966, no. 10.
Samuel Beckett: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, N. J. [1965].
Fletcher, J. S. Beckett’s Art. London, 1967. Beckett at 60: A Festschrift. London [1967].
Hayman, R. S. Beckett. London [1968].

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.