Major Author Study Samuel Beckett

One of the most important twentieth century writers, Samuel Beckett?s prose, plays and poems continue to influence writers, readers and audiences all over the world. Although he is well known for the play Waiting for Godot, most of his works remain cryptic to the uninitiated. This module is for those who would like to dive deeper into the Beckettian world. In it, you will discover a poetics of failure, an ethics of non-relation, and perhaps most importantly what it could mean to be at the limit of the human.

In this course, we will close read Beckett?s selected novels, plays, short prose and poems. We will chronologically trace Beckett?s development as a writer. By the end of the course, our focus on issues of form and content, reality and virtuality, as well as humanity and animality, should enable you to think critically about how his works continue to provoke readers and audiences to reconsider assumptions of lived reality.