Samuel Beckett: References

Seamus Deane, gen. ed., The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing (Derry: Field Day Co. 1991), Vol. 2: Declan Kiberd, editorial remarks: [Beckett’s] cult of elegant desperation, as well as his assertion that it is the shape of a sentence that counts, may be traced to his doomed precursor at Portora and TCD [i.e., Wilde]. (p.372). Further, W. J. McCormack; ed.: '[Beckett] encountered the war as a challenge to a host of untested assumptions about identity national and personal; about responsibility in its moral and aesthetic forms (Ibid., p.853). Also, Augustine Martin; ed., calls him a second-generation Irish exponent of revolution in prose fiction (p.Ibid., 1027). [For further bibliographical remarks, see biblio-quandary in “Notes”, infra.]

Seamus Deane, gen. ed., The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing (Derry: Field Day Company 1991): Vol 3 selects “Dante and the Lobster”, from More Pricks than Kicks [238-44]; “Recent Irish Poetry” (Bookman 1934) [244-48]; from Collected Poems, “Gnome”, Echo”s Bones”, “Dieppe”, “Saint-Lô”, “I would like my love to die” [248-250]; from Murphy [250-56]; “Letter to Axel Kraun” [256-59]; from Endgame, Embers (1959), Enough (1967), Ping (1967), Come and Go (1968), Lessness (London: Calder & Boyars 1970) [written as Sans in French; given BBC reading], Not I (1972), That Time (1976), Company (1980) [256-311]; and see bibl. notes infra passim. Editorial essay by J. C. C. Mays, ‘Samuel Beckett: 1907-1989 ’ (pp233-238); BIOG [311-13]. Editorial remarks on Beckett: ‘linguistic performer ’, with other Anglo-Irish writers; ed. [2]; Yeats and Beckett almost completely ignored in Ireland, c.1930 [90]; in biog. of MacGreevy, Paris acquaintance [169]; Godot first performed in Dublin 1955 [175-76]; Lennox Robinson, friend of [444n]; experimental tradition distinct from Yeatsian inheritance; ed. Deane [611; see also, remarks on Synge ’s sweet-tongued vagrants as memorable Irish versions of the Baudelairean ‘poéte maudit - healthier, folksier, but estranged in a similar way]; rejected myths of Literary Revival, Kearney, ed. [630]; politics regarded as threat to artistic integrity, ibid. [631]; reads Joyce and Beckett in the light of Derrida and the structuralists, ibid [633]; David Lloyd, ‘Writing in the Shit, Beckett. &c. ’ (see supra), dealing with ‘questions of exile and translation in their relation to the formation of the subject ’, in Irish Review, Spring 1988 [634-35]; Kiberd, Beckett ’s translation to French, a language in which it ‘plus facile d ’écrire sans style ’, betokens a critique of Irish wit and wordplay ’, in ‘Anglo-Irish Attitudes ’, Field Day pamphlet 1984 [639]; name only, in Sean Golden, Crane Bag polemic, 1979 [675]; exile-at-home, ed. Deane [684]; gives lie to theory about exclusive dominance of Irish short tradition; J. W. Foster, ed. [937]; left and prospered artistically; ibid. [939]; particularly Irish modernism in recycling of Irish modes and materials; ibid. [942]; Absentee, Beckett ’s play at Pike, 1955; D. E. S. Maxwell, ed. [1137]; emigrated to continent with bleak assertion that he preferred France at war to Ireland at peace; Kiberd ed. [1309]; Derek Mahon, ‘An Image from Beckett ’ [1382]. J. C. C. Mays ’s “Bibliographical & Introductory Notes” cite “Gnome”, written Jan. 1932; printed Dublin Magazine, July-Sept 1934; “Dieppe”, written in French, 1937; English trans. in Irish Times, 9 June 1945; collected with French original in Poems in English (1961); revised for Collected Poems (1977); “Saint-Lô” [commemorating time spent in devastated Normandy town with Red Cross], printed Irish Times, 24 June 1946; revised for Poems in English ([London: Calder & Boyars] 1961); ‘I would like my love to die ’, first appeared in transition 48 in French; revised in French but unrevised English form collected in Poems in English (1961), finally revised for Collected Poems. [Cont.]

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Seamus Deane (The Field Day Anthology , 1991, Vol 3) - cont.: Murphy (1938), classed by Joyce with Flann O ’Brien ’s At-Swim-Two-Birds (1939) as ‘Jean qui pleure ’ and ‘Jean qui ri ’; Murphy ’s attempt intellectual ambition to attain ‘matrix of surds ’ which the narrative demonstrates, comically and tragically, he cannot attain (Murphy, Chp. 13); Murphy accepted by Routledge; ‘Amor intellectualis quo Murphy se ipsum amat ’ (epigram Chp. 6, parody of Spinoza ’s Ethics, V, 35, on God). Beckett later dismissed his letter to Axel Kaun [translator] (collected in Ruby Cohn, Disjecta) as ‘German bilge ’; reference to ‘Peintres de l ’Émpechement ’ and ‘Three Dialogues with George Duthuit ’ [French art critic], contemporary with The Unnamable, and interviews with Israel Shenker (1956) and with Tom Driver (1961), reprinted in Graver and Federman, The Critical Heritage (1979) [and prefatorily cited in extenso in McMillan and Fehsenfeld, 1988]. Lists Dramaticules, Embers (1959), Enough (1967), Ping (1967), Come and Go (1968), Lessness (1970) [written as Sans, French; given BBC reading], Not I (NY 1972; London Jan. 1973); French production of Not I in 1975 eliminated Auditor, while the 1978 production gave Auditor more prominence; That Time (1976) [written June 1974-Aug. 1975; performed in London 1976 with Patrick Magee], Company (1980) [written May 1977-Aug 1979]; later dramatic pieces include Footfall, Breath, &c. including Company (1979), Mal Vu Mal Dit (Paris 1981); Têtes Mortes (1967); No ’s Knife (1967); Collected Plays [32 plays] (London: Faber 1986) [reprints expurgated and superseded version of Godot], also called Complete Dramatic Works [FDA3 308 n.30].

Peter Fallon & Seán Golden, eds., Soft Day: A Miscellany of Contemporary Irish Writing (Notre Dame/Wolfhound 1980), ‘The Old Tune ’.

Andrew Carpenter & Peter Fallon, eds., The Writers: A Sense of Place (Dublin: O ’Brien Press 1980), incl. ‘Heard in the Dark ’ [extract from Company, ‘a novel ’] with photo-port, pp.16-18.

John Montague, ed., Faber Book of Irish Verse(London: Faber & Faber 1974) selects ‘Gnome ’, ‘Alba ’, and ‘I would like my love to die ’; also prose from Watt and Word and Music.

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Dermot Bolger, ed., Picador Contemporary Irish Fiction (London: Picador 1992), incls. extracts.

Patrick Crotty, ed., Modern Irish Poetry: An Anthology (Belfast: Blackstaff Press 1995), selects “Cascando” [62]; “my way is in the sand flowing” [63]; “what would I do without this world faceless incurious” [64]; from Words and Music [64]; “Roundelay” [65].

Thomas A. Goldwasser Rare Books (San Francisco; Cat 17 [2004]): EchO’s Bones and Other Precipitates (Paris: Europa Press 1935): rare contemporary presentation copy, inscribed to poet Lazarus Aaronson, and marked “HC” on colophon: $5,000.

Peter Harrington (Cat. 2005) incls. En Attendant Godot. Piece en deux actes (Paris: Les Editions de Minuit 1952), 1st edn., trade iss.] original white wrappers. [£2,500.] Also, original holograph MS, 2pp., lined paper, from a ring bound notebook [£17,500].

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