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85-527: The festival started in 1980 as a small independent festival over a weekend and expanded into a sixteen-day festival, annually held in September and focuses on new and emerging artists. The Dublin Fringe has live entertainment as well as performances in dance, theatre, live art, visual art, and music. The Dublin fringe festival was initially founded in 1980 during a recession and held at various times throughout

170-421: A "trilogy", though this is against the author's own explicit wishes—the prose becomes increasingly bare and stripped down. Molloy , for instance, still retains many of the characteristics of a conventional novel (time, place, movement, and plot) and it makes use of the structure of a detective novel . In Malone Dies , movement and plot are largely dispensed with, though there is still some indication of place and

255-559: A career in theatre for its author. Beckett went on to write successful full-length plays, including Fin de partie ( Endgame ) (1957), Krapp's Last Tape (1958, written in English), Happy Days (1961, also written in English), and Play (1963). In 1961, Beckett received the International Publishers' Formentor Prize in recognition of his work, which he shared that year with Jorge Luis Borges . The 1960s were

340-544: A deep dive into Germany's galleries and underground collections. This lasting engagement with the visual arts seeped into his creative process, often shaping his literary output and incentivising him to collaborate with artists such as Joan Mitchell and Geneviève Asse . After the German occupation of France in 1940, Beckett joined the French Resistance , in which he worked as a courier. On several occasions over

425-509: A left-handed batsman and a left-arm medium-pace bowler . Later, he played for Dublin University and played two first-class games against Northamptonshire . As a result, he became the only Nobel literature laureate to have played first-class cricket. Beckett studied French, Italian, and English at Trinity College Dublin from 1923 to 1927 (one of his tutors – not a teaching role in TCD –

510-529: A moment of stillness in the present. They also deal with the theme of the self-confined and observed, with a voice that either comes from outside into the protagonist's head (as in Eh Joe ) or else another character comments on the protagonist silently, by means of gesture (as in Not I ). Beckett's most politically charged play, Catastrophe (1982), which was dedicated to Václav Havel , deals relatively explicitly with

595-464: A much-quoted article, the critic Vivian Mercier wrote that Beckett "has achieved a theoretical impossibility—a play in which nothing happens, that yet keeps audiences glued to their seats. What's more, since the second act is a subtly different reprise of the first, he has written a play in which nothing happens, twice." The play was published in 1952 and premièred in 1953 in Paris; an English translation

680-458: A musical frame (taking excerpts from Beethoven and Schubert , respectively) to structure his text and borrows well-known images from art history to create evocative stills that suggest themes of longing, ambiguity, hope, and suffering. Such experimentation with genre, music, and the visual arts, characterises Beckett's work during the 1970s and '80s. Beckett's prose pieces during the late period were not as prolific as his theatre, as suggested by

765-526: A nurse. His parents were both 35 when he was born, and had married in 1901. Beckett had one older brother named Frank Edward (1902–1954). At the age of five, he attended a local playschool in Dublin, where he started to learn music, and then moved to Earlsfort House School near Harcourt Street in Dublin. The Becketts were members of the Church of Ireland ; raised as an Anglican , Beckett later became agnostic ,

850-839: A perspective which informed his writing. Beckett's family home, Cooldrinagh, was a large house and garden complete with a tennis court built in 1903 by Beckett's father. The house and garden, its surrounding countryside where he often went walking with his father, the nearby Leopardstown Racecourse , the Foxrock railway station, and Harcourt Street station would all feature in his prose and plays. Around 1919 or 1920, he went to Portora Royal School in Enniskillen , which Oscar Wilde had also attended. He left in 1923 and entered Trinity College Dublin , where he studied modern literature and Romance languages, and received his bachelor's degree in 1927. A natural athlete, he excelled at cricket as

935-447: A pivotal moment in his entire career". Beckett fictionalised the experience in his play Krapp's Last Tape (1958). While listening to a tape he made earlier in his life, Krapp hears his younger self say "clear to me at last that the dark I have always struggled to keep under is in reality my most...", at which point Krapp fast-forwards the tape (before the audience can hear the complete revelation). Beckett later explained to Knowlson that

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1020-435: A poet and close confidant of Beckett who also worked there. This meeting had a profound effect on the young man. Beckett assisted Joyce in various ways, one of which was research towards the book that became Finnegans Wake . In 1929, Beckett published his first work, a critical essay titled "Dante... Bruno. Vico.. Joyce". The essay defends Joyce's work and method, chiefly from allegations of wanton obscurity and dimness, and

1105-524: A preliminary hearing, Beckett asked his attacker for the motive behind the stabbing. Prudent replied: "Je ne sais pas, Monsieur. Je m'excuse" ["I do not know, sir. I apologise"]. Beckett eventually dropped the charges against his attacker – partially to avoid further formalities, partly because he found Prudent likeable and well-mannered. After his own near-fatal stabbing in 2022, author Salman Rushdie referenced Beckett's example when talking about his reasons for not interviewing his attacker. For Beckett,

1190-696: A relationship that was to last, in parallel with that with Suzanne, for the rest of his life." Bray died in Edinburgh on 25 February 2010. In 1969 the avant-garde filmmaker Rosa von Praunheim shot an experimental short film portrait about Beckett, which he named after the writer. In October 1969 while on holiday in Tunis with Suzanne, Beckett heard that he had won the 1969 Nobel Prize in Literature . Anticipating that her intensely private husband would be saddled with fame from that moment on, Suzanne called

1275-462: A theme echoing Beckett's earlier work, though possibly amplified by the sickness he experienced late in life. Jack MacGowran was the first actor to perform a one-man show based on the works of Beckett. He debuted End of Day in Dublin in 1962, revising it as Beginning To End (1965). The show went through further revisions before Beckett directed it in Paris in 1970; MacGowran won the 1970–1971 Obie for Best Performance By an Actor when he performed

1360-456: A time of change for Beckett, both on a personal level and as a writer. In 1961, he married Suzanne in a secret civil ceremony in England (its secrecy due to reasons relating to French inheritance law). The success of his plays led to invitations to attend rehearsals and productions around the world, leading eventually to a new career as a theatre director. In 1957, he had his first commission from

1445-556: A venue which is deemed most suitable to the show. This can range from a number of cafes and theatres, as well as less traditional venues such as the Liffey Boardwalk or on a Dublin bus. For a number of years until 2009, The Spiegeltent was a major part of the festival. This tent was erected in several sites including at Georges Dock . The Dublin Fringe Festival and Spiegeltent have attracted numerous shows, including

1530-399: A will, in the beginning. But it's always the same thing. Yes, it's like the funny story we have heard too often, we still find it funny, but we don't laugh any more." Beckett's outstanding achievements in prose during the period were the three novels Molloy (1951), Malone meurt (1951; Malone Dies ) and L'innommable (1953: The Unnamable ). In these novels—sometimes referred to as

1615-477: A writer can be roughly divided into three periods: his early works, up until the end of World War II in 1945; his middle period, stretching from 1945 until the early 1960s, during which he wrote what are probably his best-known works; and his late period, from the early 1960s until Beckett's death in 1989, during which his works tended to become shorter and his style more minimalist . Beckett's earliest works are generally considered to have been strongly influenced by

1700-427: Is a favourite: it is not only performed frequently but has globally inspired playwrights to emulate it. This is the sole play the manuscript of which Beckett never sold, donated or gave away. He refused to allow the play to be translated into film but did allow it to be played on television. During this time in the 1950s, Beckett became one of several adults who sometimes drove local children to school; one such child

1785-750: Is considered one of the last modernist writers, and a key figure in what Martin Esslin called the Theatre of the Absurd . A resident of Paris for most of his adult life, Beckett wrote in both French and English. During the Second World War , Beckett was a member of the French Resistance group Gloria SMH ( Réseau Gloria ) and was awarded the Croix de Guerre in 1949. He received the 1969 Nobel Prize in Literature "for his writing, which—in new forms for

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1870-424: Is often falsely labelled as an existentialist (this is based on the assumption that Camus was an existentialist, though he in fact broke off from the existentialist movement and founded his own philosophy ). Though many of the themes are similar, Beckett had little affinity for existentialism as a whole. Broadly speaking, the plays deal with the subject of despair and the will to survive in spite of that despair, in

1955-399: Is one of a number of key post-World War II events established to foster tolerance and cultural understanding between nations. Over the past five decades, the festival has become a crucial part of Ireland's cultural landscape. It has played a dual role as a window to world theatre, having presented almost every great theatre artist of the late 20th century, and as a champion of Irish writing on

2040-558: Is regarded as the oldest established specialist theatre festival in Europe. Unlike Edinburgh, opera, music and dance do not form a major element of the programme. Brendan Smith continued as Director until 1983 when he was succeeded by Lewis Clohessy (1984–89), Tony Ó Dálaigh (1990–99), Fergus Linehan (2000–04) and Don Shipley (2005–06). Loughlin Deegan (2007–2011) ran the festival for five years. The Irish Times ' Fintan O'Toole described

2125-666: The Archbishop of Dublin John Charles McQuaid refused to give his blessing (it has been assumed because works of both James Joyce and O'Casey were in the Festival). After Joyce's play was quietly dropped, there was massive changes required for The Drums of Father Ned , a devious way to get O'Casey to drop. After this, Samuel Beckett withdrew his mime piece in protest. Since then, the Festival has thrived and

2210-600: The BBC Third Programme for a radio play, All That Fall . He continued writing sporadically for radio and extended his scope to include cinema and television. He began to write in English again, although he also wrote in French until the end of his life. He bought some land in 1953 near a hamlet about 60 kilometres (40 mi) northeast of Paris and built a cottage for himself with the help of some locals. From

2295-483: The Nazi savagery that was overtaking the country. Returning to Ireland briefly in 1937, he oversaw the publication of Murphy (1938), which he translated into French the following year. He fell out with his mother, which contributed to his decision to settle permanently in Paris. Beckett remained in Paris following the outbreak of World War II in 1939, preferring, in his own words, "France at war to Ireland at peace". His

2380-510: The Toulouse poet Jean du Chas, founder of a movement called le Concentrisme . It was a literary parody, for Beckett had in fact invented the poet and his movement that claimed to be "at odds with all that is clear and distinct in Descartes ". Beckett later insisted that he had not intended to fool his audience. When Beckett resigned from Trinity at the end of 1931, his brief academic career

2465-413: The poioumenon "trilogy" of novels: Molloy (1951); Malone meurt (1951), Malone Dies (1958); L'innommable (1953), The Unnamable (1960). Despite being a native English speaker, Beckett wrote in French because, as he himself claimed, it was easier for him thus to write "without style". Waiting for Godot , like most of his works after 1947, was first written in French. Beckett worked on

2550-628: The "revelation" experienced in his mother's room in Dublin—in which he realised that his art must be subjective and drawn wholly from his own inner world—that would result in the works for which Beckett is best remembered today. During the 15 years following the war, Beckett produced four major full-length stage plays: En attendant Godot (written 1948–1949; Waiting for Godot ), Fin de partie (1955–1957; Endgame ), Krapp's Last Tape (1958), and Happy Days (1961). These plays—which are often considered, rightly or wrongly, to have been instrumental in

2635-592: The 1930s was a decade of artistic exploration. He started to take a serious interest in art history, frequenting Ireland's National Gallery , studying a range of painters and movements (specifically the Dutch Golden Age ), and even visiting private collections. In 1933 Beckett applied for the position of assistant curator at London's National Gallery . Later, in the winter of 1936–37, having sailed from Cobh in East Cork to Hamburg on 26 September 1936, he took

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2720-432: The 1960s and into the 1970s, Beckett's works exhibited an increasing tendency—already evident in much of his work of the 1950s—towards compactness. This has led to his work sometimes being described as minimalist . The extreme example of this, among his dramatic works, is the 1969 piece Breath , which lasts for only 35 seconds and has no characters (though it was likely intended to offer ironic comment on Oh! Calcutta! ,

2805-648: The 1980s without significant media attention or funding. In 1995, Bedrock Productions, with some support from the established Dublin Theatre Festival and Arts office of Dublin City Council, created a revived Dublin Fringe Festival, to "promote and showcase the work of small and vibrant theatre companies and theatre makers". In the first year, Conor McPherson 's This Lime Tree Bower premiered, and in 1996 Enda Walsh 's Disco Pigs took off from The International Bar. Directors who have presented works at

2890-504: The 2011 festival as "the most significant in 30 years.". Willie White took over as festival director in September 2011. In 2020, the festival produced a re-imagined programme, after being forced to cancel most of the performances due to the Irish government's ban on theatre performances to protect against the spread of Covid-19. Theatre companies Dead Centre and Anu Productions created live-streamed work, and for audiences to watch at home, and

2975-734: The Abbey Theatre created an outdoor promenade performance. Ulster Bank became the title sponsor of the festival in 2007 initially as part of a three-year deal, extended to five years, concluding in 2011 with the end of the festival's 54th season. The festival is grant aided by The Arts Council , the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht , Dublin City Council , Fáilte Ireland and Tourism Ireland . Samuel Beckett Samuel Barclay Beckett ( / ˈ b ɛ k ɪ t / ; 13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989)

3060-682: The Dublin literary periodical Envoy . After the war, he returned to France in 1946 where he worked as a stores manager at the Irish Red Cross Hospital based in Saint-Lô . Beckett described his experiences in an untransmitted radio script, " The Capital of the Ruins ". In 1945, Beckett returned to Dublin for a brief visit. During his stay, he had a revelation in his mother's room: his entire future direction in literature appeared to him. Beckett had felt that he would remain forever in

3145-463: The actor Jack MacGowran , is animated by a camera that steadily closes into a tight focus upon the face of the title character. The play Not I (1972) consists almost solely of, in Beckett's words, "a moving mouth with the rest of the stage in darkness". Following from Krapp's Last Tape , many of these later plays explore memory, often in the form of a forced recollection of haunting past events in

3230-639: The award a "catastrophe". While Beckett did not devote much time to interviews, he sometimes met the artists, scholars, and admirers who sought him out in the anonymous lobby of the Hotel PLM Saint-Jacques in Paris – where he arranged his appointments and often had lunch – near his Montparnasse home. Although Beckett was an intensely private man, a review of the second volume of his letters by Roy Foster on 15 December 2011 issue of The New Republic reveals Beckett to be not only unexpectedly amiable but frequently prepared to talk about his work and

3315-548: The cabaret/variety show La Clique . Past sponsors include Absolut vodka who sponsored the events between 2009 and 2012, as part of a four-year deal. Dublin Theatre Festival The Dublin Theatre Festival is Europe's oldest specialised theatre festival. It was founded by theatre impresario Brendan Smith in 1957 and has, with the exception of two years, produced a season of international and Irish theatre each autumn. It

3400-452: The confined and observed self, as well as with the positioning of bodies in space, as the opening phrases of Company make clear: "A voice comes to one in the dark. Imagine." "To one on his back in the dark. This he can tell by the pressure on his hind parts and by how the dark changes when he shuts his eyes and again when he opens them again. Only a small part of what is said can be verified. As for example when he hears, You are on your back in

3485-421: The dark" Following this work, it was almost another decade before Beckett produced a work of non-dramatic prose. How It Is is generally considered to mark the end of his middle period as a writer. time she stopped sitting at her window quiet at her window only window facing other windows other only windows all eyes all sides high and low time she stopped From Rockaby (1980) Throughout

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3570-497: The dark. Then he must acknowledge the truth of what is said." Themes of aloneness and the doomed desire to successfully connect with other human beings are expressed in several late pieces, including Company and Rockaby . In the hospital and nursing home where he spent his final days, Beckett wrote his last work, the 1988 poem "What is the Word" ("Comment dire"). The poem grapples with an inability to find words to express oneself,

3655-464: The face of an uncomprehending and incomprehensible world. The words of Nell—one of the two characters in Endgame who are trapped in ashbins, from which they occasionally peek their heads to speak—can best summarise the themes of the plays of Beckett's middle period: "Nothing is funnier than unhappiness, I grant you that. ... Yes, yes, it's the most comical thing in the world. And we laugh, we laugh, with

3740-532: The festival have included Jimmy Fay (1995–1996), Ali Curran (1997–2000), Vallejo Gantner (2001 -2005), Wolfgang Hoffmann (2006–2007), Roise Goan (2008–2013), and Kris Nelson (since 2014). Successful works from past Fringe Festivals have included early plays by Conor McPherson, Enda Walsh, Owen McCafferty, Shane O’Reilly, Corn Exchange, Loose Canon, Pan Pan Theatre Company, WillFredd Theatre, Dead Centre, One Two One Two, Semper Fi, Anu Productions ,, Danielle Galligan and Eva O'Connor . Each performance takes place in

3825-426: The idea of dictatorship. After a long period of inactivity, Beckett's poetry experienced a revival during this period in the ultra-terse French poems of mirlitonnades , with some as short as six words. These defied Beckett's usual scrupulous concern to translate his work from its original into the other of his two languages; several writers, including Derek Mahon , have attempted translations, but no complete version of

3910-447: The late 1950s until his death, Beckett had a relationship with Barbara Bray , a widow who worked as a script editor for the BBC . Knowlson wrote of them: "She was small and attractive, but, above all, keenly intelligent and well-read. Beckett seems to have been immediately attracted by her and she to him. Their encounter was highly significant for them both, for it represented the beginning of

3995-475: The late 1950s, however, he created one of his most radical prose works, Comment c'est (1961; How It Is ). An early variant version of Comment c'est , L'Image , was published in the British arts review, X: A Quarterly Review (1959), and is the first appearance of the novel in any form. This work relates the adventures of an unnamed narrator crawling through the mud while dragging a sack of canned food. It

4080-469: The medium of another language, was in process of simplifying his style, a change also evidenced in Watt . who may tell the tale of the old man? weigh absence in a scale? mete want with a span? the sum assess of the world's woes? nothingness in words enclose? From Watt (1953) After World War II, Beckett turned definitively to the French language as a vehicle. It was this, together with

4165-440: The missing words on the tape are "precious ally". In 1946, Jean-Paul Sartre 's magazine Les Temps modernes published the first part of Beckett's short story " Suite " (later to be called " La Fin ", or "The End"), not realising that Beckett had only submitted the first half of the story; co-editor Simone de Beauvoir refused to publish the second part. Beckett also began to write his fourth novel, Mercier et Camier , which

4250-805: The next two years he was nearly caught by the Gestapo . In August 1942, his unit was betrayed and he and Suzanne fled south on foot to the safety of the small village of Roussillon , in the Vaucluse département in Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur . During the two years that Beckett stayed in Roussillon he indirectly helped the Maquis sabotage the German army in the Vaucluse mountains, though he rarely spoke about his wartime work in later life. He

4335-476: The novel and drama—in the destitution of modern man acquires its elevation". In 1961 he shared the inaugural Prix International with Jorge Luis Borges . He was the first person to be elected Saoi of Aosdána in 1984. Samuel Barclay Beckett was born in the Dublin suburb of Foxrock on 13 April 1906, the son of William Frank Beckett (1871–1933), a quantity surveyor of Huguenot descent, and Maria Jones Roe,

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4420-399: The novels of this period, is essentially pessimistic, the will to live seems to win out in the end; witness, for instance, the famous final phrase of The Unnamable : "you must go on, I can't go on, I'll go on". After these three novels, Beckett struggled for many years to produce a sustained work of prose, a struggle evidenced by the brief "stories" later collected as Texts for Nothing . In

4505-486: The passage of time; the "action" of the book takes the form of an interior monologue . Finally, in The Unnamable , almost all sense of place and time are abolished, and the essential theme seems to be the conflict between the voice's drive to continue speaking so as to continue existing, and its almost equally strong urge towards silence and oblivion. Despite the widely held view that Beckett's work, as exemplified by

4590-405: The physical inactivity of the character Belacqua; the character's immersion in his own head and thoughts; the somewhat irreverent comedy of the final sentence. Similar elements are present in Beckett's first published novel, Murphy (1938), which also explores the themes of insanity and chess (both of which would be recurrent elements in Beckett's later works). The novel's opening sentence hints at

4675-423: The play between October 1948 and January 1949. His partner, Suzanne Dechevaux-Dumesnil , was integral to its success. Dechevaux-Dumesnil became his agent and sent the manuscript to multiple producers until they met Roger Blin , the soon-to-be director of the play. Blin's knowledge of French theatre and vision, alongside Beckett's knowing what he wanted the play to represent, contributed greatly to its success. In

4760-405: The process behind it. Suzanne died on 17 July 1989. Confined to a nursing home and suffering from emphysema and possibly Parkinson's disease , Beckett died on 22 December 1989. The two were interred together in the cimetière du Montparnasse in Paris and share a simple granite gravestone that follows Beckett's directive that it should be "any colour, so long as it's grey". Beckett's career as

4845-462: The sequence has been published in English. Beckett's late style saw him experiment with technology to create increasingly transdisciplinary works. This sampling of a range of artistic mediums and styles – classical music, painting, sculpture, television, and literature – to create a new and original form, or genre, is evident in his television plays. In works like Ghost Trio (broadcast in 1977) and Nacht und Träume (broadcast in 1983) Beckett uses

4930-425: The shadow of Joyce, certain to never beat him at his own game. His revelation prompted him to change direction and acknowledge both his own stupidity and his interest in ignorance and impotence: "I realised that Joyce had gone as far as one could in the direction of knowing more, [being] in control of one's material. He was always adding to it; you only have to look at his proofs to see that. I realised that my own way

5015-414: The so-called " Theatre of the Absurd "—deal in a darkly humorous way with themes similar to those of the roughly contemporary existentialist thinkers . The term "Theatre of the Absurd" was coined by Martin Esslin in a book of the same name; Beckett and Godot were centrepieces of the book. Esslin argued these plays were the fulfilment of Albert Camus 's concept of "the absurd"; this is one reason Beckett

5100-504: The somewhat pessimistic undertones and black humour that animate many of Beckett's works: "The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new". Watt , written while Beckett was in hiding in Roussillon during World War II, is similar in terms of themes but less exuberant in its style. It explores human movement as if it were a mathematical permutation , presaging Beckett's later preoccupation—in both his novels and dramatic works—with precise movement. Beckett's 1930 essay Proust

5185-406: The theatrical revue for which it served as an introductory piece). In his theatre of the late period, Beckett's characters—already few in number in the earlier plays—are whittled down to essential elements. The ironically titled Play (1962), for instance, consists of three characters immersed up to their necks in large funeral urns. The television drama Eh Joe (1963), which was written for

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5270-536: The title of the 1976 collection of short prose texts Fizzles (which the American artist Jasper Johns illustrated). Beckett experienced something of a renaissance with the novella Company (1980), which continued with Ill Seen Ill Said (1982) and Worstward Ho (1983), later collected in Nohow On . In these three " 'closed space' stories," Beckett continued his pre-occupation with memory and its effect on

5355-455: The very first year when, after some complaints, the Director of Tennessee Williams' The Rose Tattoo at the tiny Pike Theatre was charged with presenting "a lewd entertainment". The run of the play was not interrupted and after a year of legal argument the judge threw out the case. Seán O'Casey 's play The Drums of Father Ned was supposed to go up at the 1958 Dublin Theatre Festival, but

5440-557: The work of MacGreevy, Brian Coffey , Denis Devlin and Blanaid Salkeld , despite their slender achievements at the time, comparing them favourably with their Celtic Revival contemporaries and invoking Ezra Pound , T. S. Eliot , and the French symbolists as their precursors. In describing these poets as forming "the nucleus of a living poetic in Ireland", Beckett was tracing the outlines of an Irish poetic modernist canon. In 1935 –

5525-453: The work of his friend James Joyce . They are erudite and seem to display the author's learning merely for its own sake, resulting in several obscure passages. The opening phrases of the short-story collection More Pricks than Kicks (1934) afford a representative sample of this style: It was morning and Belacqua was stuck in the first of the canti in the moon. He was so bogged that he could move neither backward nor forward. Blissful Beatrice

5610-621: The world stage. The Festival is unique in its ability to stage major international theatre of scale, and has hosted productions by the world's most highly regarded artists, while also premiering work by Ireland's leading playwrights . The Dublin Theatre Festival was founded by Brendan Smith, who also ran the Olympia Theatre and the Brendan Smith Academy of Acting. In the 1950s, the Irish Tourist Board

5695-534: The year that he successfully published a book of his poetry, Echo's Bones and Other Precipitates – Beckett worked on his novel Murphy . In May, he wrote to MacGreevy that he had been reading about film and wished to go to Moscow to study with Sergei Eisenstein at the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography . In mid-1936 he wrote to Eisenstein and Vsevolod Pudovkin to offer himself as their apprentice. Nothing came of this, however, as Beckett's letter

5780-510: Was André Roussimoff, who would later become a famous professional wrestler under the name André the Giant . They had a surprising amount of common ground and bonded over their love of cricket, with Roussimoff later recalling that the two rarely talked about anything else. Beckett translated all of his works into English himself, with the exception of Molloy , for which he collaborated with Patrick Bowles. The success of Waiting for Godot opened up

5865-471: Was Beckett's contribution to Our Exagmination Round His Factification for Incamination of Work in Progress (a book of essays on Joyce which also included contributions by Eugene Jolas , Robert McAlmon , and William Carlos Williams ). Beckett's close relationship with Joyce and his family cooled, however, when he rejected the advances of Joyce's daughter Lucia . Beckett's first short story, "Assumption",

5950-439: Was an Irish-born existentialist writer of novels, plays, short stories and poems. His literary and theatrical work features bleak, impersonal, and tragicomic experiences of life, often coupled with black comedy and nonsense . His work became increasingly minimalist as his career progressed, involving more aesthetic and linguistic experimentation, with techniques of stream of consciousness repetition and self-reference . He

6035-1025: Was at an end. He commemorated it with the poem "Gnome", which was inspired by his reading of Johann Wolfgang Goethe 's Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship and eventually published in The Dublin Magazine in 1934: Spend the years of learning squandering Courage for the years of wandering Through a world politely turning From the loutishness of learning Beckett travelled throughout Europe. He spent some time in London, where in 1931 he published Proust , his critical study of French author Marcel Proust . Two years later, following his father's death, he began two years' treatment with Tavistock Clinic psychoanalyst Dr. Wilfred Bion . Aspects of it became evident in Beckett's later works, such as Watt and Waiting for Godot . In 1932, he wrote his first novel, Dream of Fair to Middling Women , but after many rejections from publishers decided to abandon it (it

6120-593: Was awarded the Croix de guerre and the Resistance Medal by the French government for his efforts in fighting the German occupation; to the end of his life, however, Beckett would refer to his work with the French Resistance as "boy scout stuff". While in hiding in Roussillon, Beckett continued work on the novel Watt . He started the novel in 1941 and completed it in 1945, but it was not published until 1953; however, an extract had appeared in

6205-563: Was eventually published in 1992). Despite his inability to get it published, however, the novel served as a source for many of Beckett's early poems, as well as for his first full-length book, the 1933 short-story collection More Pricks Than Kicks . Beckett published essays and reviews, including "Recent Irish Poetry" (in The Bookman , August 1934) and "Humanistic Quietism", a review of his friend Thomas MacGreevy's Poems (in The Dublin Magazine , July–September 1934). They focused on

6290-495: Was in impoverishment, in lack of knowledge and in taking away, in subtracting rather than in adding." Knowlson argues that "Beckett was rejecting the Joycean principle that knowing more was a way of creatively understanding the world and controlling it ... In future, his work would focus on poverty, failure, exile and loss – as he put it, on man as a 'non-knower' and as a 'non-can-er. ' " The revelation "has rightly been regarded as

6375-417: Was interested in helping to finance events on what was termed "shoulder months" of the tourist season – May, June, September and October. Brendan successfully sought a grant and the Festival began operating on May 13, 1957. The policy was – and remains – to bring the best available international theatre to Dublin and to balance the programme with Irish productions, especially new plays. There was controversy in

6460-631: Was lost owing to Eisenstein's quarantine during the smallpox outbreak, as well as his focus on a script re-write of his postponed film production. In 1936, a friend had suggested he look up the works of Arnold Geulincx , which Beckett did and he took many notes. The philosopher's name is mentioned in Murphy and the reading apparently left a strong impression. Murphy was finished in 1936 and Beckett departed for extensive travel around Germany, during which time he filled several notebooks with lists of noteworthy artwork that he had seen and noted his distaste for

6545-429: Was not published until 1970. The novel preceded his most famous work, the play En attendant Godot ( Waiting for Godot ) , which was written not long afterwards. More importantly, Mercier and Camier was Beckett's first long work written in French, the language of most of his subsequent works which were strongly supported by Jérôme Lindon, director of his Parisian publishing house Les Éditions de Minuit , including

6630-568: Was performed two years later. The play was a critical, popular, and controversial success in Paris. It opened in London in 1955 to mainly negative reviews, but the tide turned with positive reactions from Harold Hobson in The Sunday Times and, later, Kenneth Tynan . After the showing in Miami, the play became extremely popular, with highly successful performances in the US and Germany. The play

6715-542: Was published in Jolas's periodical transition . The next year he won a small literary prize for his hastily composed poem "Whoroscope", which draws on a biography of René Descartes that Beckett happened to be reading when he was encouraged to submit. In 1930, Beckett returned to Trinity College as a lecturer. In November 1930, he presented a paper in French to the Modern Languages Society of Trinity on

6800-481: Was soon a known face in and around Left Bank cafés, where he strengthened his allegiance with Joyce and forged new ones with artists Alberto Giacometti and Marcel Duchamp , with whom he regularly played chess . Sometime around December 1937, Beckett had a brief affair with Peggy Guggenheim , who nicknamed him "Oblomov" (after the character in Ivan Goncharov 's novel ). In January 1938 in Paris, Beckett

6885-413: Was stabbed in the chest and nearly killed when he refused the solicitations of a notorious pimp (who went by the name of Prudent). Joyce arranged a private room for Beckett at the hospital. The publicity surrounding the stabbing attracted the attention of Suzanne Dechevaux-Dumesnil , who knew Beckett slightly from his first stay in Paris. This time, however, the two would begin a lifelong companionship. At

6970-493: Was strongly influenced by Schopenhauer 's pessimism and laudatory descriptions of saintly asceticism. At this time Beckett began to write creatively in the French language. In the late 1930s, he wrote a number of short poems in that language and their sparseness—in contrast to the density of his English poems of roughly the same period, collected in Echo's Bones and Other Precipitates (1935)—seems to show that Beckett, albeit through

7055-624: Was the Berkeley scholar A. A. Luce , who introduced him to the work of Henri Bergson ). He was elected a Scholar in Modern Languages in 1926. Beckett graduated with a BA and, after teaching briefly at Campbell College in Belfast , took up the post of lecteur d'anglais at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris from November 1928 to 1930. While there, he was introduced to renowned Irish author James Joyce by Thomas MacGreevy ,

7140-426: Was there, Dante also, and she explained the spots on the moon to him. She shewed him in the first place where he was at fault, then she put up her own explanation. She had it from God, therefore he could rely on its being accurate in every particular. The passage makes reference to Dante 's Commedia , which can serve to confuse readers not familiar with that work. It also anticipates aspects of Beckett's later work:

7225-409: Was written as a sequence of unpunctuated paragraphs in a style approaching telegraphese : "You are there somewhere alive somewhere vast stretch of time then it's over you are there no more alive no more than again you are there again alive again it wasn't over an error you begin again all over more or less in the same place or in another as when another image above in the light you come to in hospital in

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