Samuel Beckett, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, had a career that spanned nearly the entirety of the twentieth century. That career saw Beckett move between novels, stage plays, radio plays, television, poetry, and short fiction, writing in French and English with equal success. Today, his work remains iconic; recent high-profile stagings of his plays have included actors such as Daniel Radcliffe, Alan Cumming, Maxine Peake, Ian McKellen, and Patrick Stewart.
This course will examine a representative selection of Beckett’s writing, paying particular attention to the political and cultural contexts that shaped his literary works: from his early life and education in Dublin, to his self-imposed exile in France, including his work for the French Resistance during the Second World War, through to his fame late in life and his continual efforts to subvert what the public knew of or could expect from his work.