Book description
Beckett remains one of the most important writers of the twentieth
century whose radical experimentations in form and content won him the
Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969. This Critical Companion encompasses
his plays for the stage, radio and television, and will be indispensable
to students of his work. Challenging and at times perplexing, Beckett's
work is represented on almost every literature, theatre and Irish
studies curriculum in universities in North America, Europe and
Australia. Katherine Weiss' admirably clear study of his work provides
the perfect companion, illuminating each play and Beckett's vision, and
investigating his experiments with the body, voice and technology. It
includes in-depth studies of the major works Waiting for Godot, Endgame
and Krapp's Last Tape, and as with other volumes in Methuen Drama's
Critical Companions series it features too a series of essays by other
scholars and practitioners offering different critical perspectives on
Beckett in performance that will inform students' own critical thinking.
Together with a series of resources including a chronology and a list of
further reading, this is ideal for all students and readers of Beckett's
work. Katherine Weiss is an Associate Professor of English and Modern
Drama at East Tennessee State University. She and Sean Kennedy are the
editors of Samuel Beckett: History, Memory, Archive published in 2009 by
Palgrave Macmillan. Additionally, she included the notes and commentary
to Methuen Drama's student edition of Tennessee Williams's Sweet Bird of
Youth (2010) and has published several articles on Samuel Beckett and
Sam Shepard, among other modern and contemporary playwrights.
