Reading Godot / Lois Gordon.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gordon, Lois G.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Beckett, Samuel, 1906-1989. En attendant Godot.

Beckett, Samuel.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (1 online resource ([ix], 214 p.) ) ill.

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

New Haven, Conn. : Yale University Press, c2002.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Waiting for Godot has been acclaimed as the greatest play of the twentieth century. It is also the most elusive: two lifelong friends sing, dance, laugh, weep, and question their fate on a road that descends from and goes nowhere. Throughout, they repeat their intention "Let's go," but this is inevitably followed by the direction "(They do not move.)." This is Beckett's poetic construct of the human condition. Lois Gordon, author of The World of Samuel Beckett, has written a fascinating and illuminating introduction to Beckett's great work for general readers, students, and specialists. Critically sophisticated and historically informed, it approaches the play scene by scene, exploring the text linguistically, philosophically, critically, and biographically. Gordon argues that the play portrays more than the rational mind's search for self and worldly definition. It also dramatizes Beckett's insights into human nature, into the emotional life that frequently invades rationality and liberates, victimizes, or paralyzes the individual. Gordon shows that Beckett portrays humanity in conflict with mysterious forces both within and outside the self, that he is an artist of the psychic distress born of relativism.

Contents:

Front matter

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

INTRODUCTION

ONE. The First Forty Years, 1906-46: Origins of a Vision and Form

TWO. Waiting for Godot: The Existential Dimension

THREE. The Dream as a Manifestation of Unconscious Language and Emotion: The Conglomerative Effect

FOUR. The Conglomerative Voice: Cain and Abel

FIVE. The Language of Dreams: The Anatomy of the Conglomerative Effect

SIX. ''The key word . . . is 'perhaps' ''

SEVEN. Staging the Conglomerative Effect

EIGHT. Crystallization of a Vision and Form

NOTES

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references (p. 199-207) and index.

ISBN:

9786611731120

9781281731128

1281731129

9780300132021

0300132026

OCLC:

1024014848