Samuel Beckett Documentary: Books, Plays, Quotes, Biography, Characters, Education, Famous Works

Samuel Barclay Beckett (13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish novelist, dramatist, short story writer, theatre director, poet, and literary translator. 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 is considered one of the last modernist writers, and one of the key figures 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.[2] He was awarded the 1969 Nobel Prize in Literature "for his writing, which—in new forms for the novel and drama—in the destitution of modern man acquires its elevation".[3] 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.

Of all the English-language modernists, Beckett's work represents the most sustained attack on the realist tradition. He opened up the possibility of theatre and fiction that dispense with conventional plot and the unities of time and place to focus on essential components of the human condition. Václav Havel, John Banville, Aidan Higgins, Tom Stoppard, Harold Pinter and Jon Fosse have publicly stated their indebtedness to Beckett's example. He has had a wider influence on experimental writing since the 1950s, from the Beat generation to the happenings of the 1960s and after.[66] In an Irish context, he has exerted great influence on poets such as Derek Mahon and Thomas Kinsella, as well as writers like Trevor Joyce and Catherine Walsh who proclaim their adherence to the modernist tradition as an alternative to the dominant realist mainstream.

Many major 20th-century composers including Luciano Berio, György Kurtág, Morton Feldman, Pascal Dusapin, Philip Glass, Roman Haubenstock-Ramati and Heinz Holliger have created musical works based on Beckett's texts. His work has also influenced numerous international writers, artists and filmmakers including Edward Albee, Avigdor Arikha, Paul Auster, J. M. Coetzee,[67] Richard Kalich, Douglas Gordon, Bruce Nauman, Anthony Minghella,[68] Damian Pettigrew,[69] Charlie Kaufman[70] and Brian Patrick Butler.[71][72]

Beckett is one of the most widely discussed and highly prized of 20th-century authors, inspiring a critical industry to rival that which has sprung up around James Joyce. He has divided critical opinion. Some early philosophical critics, such as Sartre and Theodor Adorno, praised him, one for his revelation of absurdity, the other for his works' critical refusal of simplicities; others such as Georg Lukács condemned him for 'decadent' lack of realism.[73]

Since Beckett's death, all rights for performance of his plays are handled by the Beckett estate, currently managed by Edward Beckett (the author's nephew). The estate has a controversial reputation for maintaining firm control over how Beckett's plays are performed and does not grant licences to productions that do not adhere to the writer's stage directions.

Historians interested in tracing Beckett's blood line were, in 2004, granted access to confirmed trace samples of his DNA to conduct molecular genealogical studies to facilitate precise lineage determination.

Some of the best-known pictures of Beckett were taken by photographer John Minihan, who photographed him between 1980 and 1985 and developed such a good relationship with the writer that he became, in effect, his official photographer. Some consider one of these to be among the top three photographs of the 20th century.[74] It was the theatre photographer John Haynes, however, who took possibly the most widely reproduced image of Beckett: it is used on the cover of the Knowlson biography, for instance. This portrait was taken during rehearsals of the San Quentin Drama Workshop at the Royal Court Theatre in London, where Haynes photographed many productions of Beckett's work.[75] An Post, the Irish postal service, issued a commemorative stamp of Beckett in 1994. The Central Bank of Ireland launched two Samuel Beckett Centenary commemorative coins on 26 April 2006: €10 Silver Coin and €20 Gold Coin.

Samuel Beckett's prolific career is spread across archives around the world. Significant collections include those at the Harry Ransom Center,[85][86][87] Washington University in St. Louis,[88] the University of Reading,[89] Trinity College Dublin,[90] and Houghton Library.[91] Given the scattered nature of these collections, an effort has been made to create a digital repository through the University of Antwerp.[92]