Beckett's Dedalus : dialogical engagements with Joyce in Beckett's fiction / P.J. Murphy.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Murphy, P. J. (Peter John), 1946-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Beckett, Samuel, 1906-1989--Criticism and interpretation.

Beckett, Samuel.

Beckett, Samuel, 1906-1989--Fictional works.

Joyce, James, 1882-1941--Influence.

Joyce, James.

Joyce, James, 1882-1941. Portrait of the artist as a young man.

Joyce, James, 1882-1941.

Beckett, Samuel, 1906-1989.

Criticism and interpretation.

Physical Description:

xiv, 268 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Toronto : University of Toronto Press, [2009]

Summary:

Mercier et Camier (completed in 1946) and the sequence of Nouvelles (Stories) that preceded and followed it are still greatly undervalued in terms of their role as decisive transitional works between the evacuation of meaning in Watt and Beckett's imaginative breakthroughs in the Trilogy and his emergence as a major contemporary writer. Behind these developments reside Beckett's statements about his own 'revelation': the sudden realization that the 'dark' which he had previously tried to suppress was in fact his real subject matter and that somehow or other he had now to find ways to accommodate its expression. Neither Beckett's biographers nor his critics have made much of this experience, which Beckett has persistently maintained was the turning point in his career. I will argue that Beckett's 'dark' revelation is nothing less than his own version of Joyce's epiphany and that Beckett's artistic vision is in many ways complementary to Joyce's rather than being diametrically opposed to it.

Contents:

Prolegomenon to Any Future Beckett Criticism 3

1 Portraits of the Artist as a Young Critic: Beckett's 'Dante ... Bruno. Vico .. Joyce' and the Rewriting of Joyce in 'Assumption' 20

2 Dreams of a Fair to Middling Critic-Artist: The Nature of Symbol in Proust and the Role of Portrait as 'Structural Convenience' in Beckett's First Novel 44

3 Re-Joyce-ing Murphy 91

4 What's What in Watt 122

5 The Pseudocouple Dante-Joyce: The Nature of the 'Revelation' in Mercier and Camier and Stories 151

6 A Not So 'Distant Music': Joycean Counterpoint in the Trilogy 177

7 Critical Beckett: Incorporating Joyce in the Post-Trilogy Works 201.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780802097965

0802097960

OCLC:

236185759