Samuel Beckett and the Politics of Aftermath ISBN-13: 9780198822547

ISBN-13: 9780198822547

Binding: Hardcover

Author: McNaughton, James

Details: Samuel Beckett and the Politics of Aftermath explores Becketts literary responses to the political maelstroms of his formative and middle years: the Irish civil war and the crisis of commitment in 1930s Europe, the rise of fascism and the atrocities of World War II. Archive yields a Beckett who monitored propaganda in speeches and newspapers, and whose creative work engages with specific political strategies, rhetoric, and events. Finally, Becketts political aesthetic sharpens into focus.

Deep within form, Beckett models ominous historical developments as surely as he satirizes artistic and philosophical interpretations that overlook them. He burdens aesthetic production with guilt: imagination and language, theater and narrative, all parallel political techniques. Beckett comically embodies conservative religious and political doctrines; he plays Irish colonial history against contemporary European horrors; he examines aesthetic complicity in effecting atrocity and covering it up. This book offers insightful, original, and vivid readings of Becketts work up to Three Novels and Endgame.

Release Date: 16-10-2018

Package Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.3 x 0.7 inches

Languages: English

Part Number: 9780198822547

Number Of Pages: 240