Collection context
Summary
- Creators:
- Beckett, Samuel, 1906-
- Extent:
- 0.4 linear feet (1 document box)
- Language:
- English.
Background
- Scope and content:
-
The collection contains photocopies of what were three unpublished works by Samuel Beckett and correspondence with Beckett and UCSB Library staff regarding permission to supply photocopies to researchers.
The Department of Special Collectons has an extensive collection of Beckett's published works including the three titles in this collection and a number of other first editions.
- Biographical / historical:
-
(The following is drawn from online sources including those of the University of New Mexico and the Moonstruck Drama Bookstore.)
One of the most unique and powerful voices of the Twentieth Century, Samuel Beckett was born in Foxrock, Ireland, in 1906, and suffered, as he claimed, an eventless childhood. He attended Trinity College in Dublin, and left for Paris when he was twenty-two (he would later call this city home). In Paris he fell in with a group of avant-garde artists, including James Joyce, who was to become a life-long friend. Although he continued to write in both English and French throughout his life, most of his major works were written in French between 1946 and 1950.Beckett was awarded the Nobel prize for literature in 1969. He died in Paris in 1989.
Beckett's bizarre world is explored in novels, short stories, poetry, and scripts for radio, television, and film. But he is best known for his work in the theatre. Samuel Beckett's first play, Eleuthéria, mirrors his own search for freedom, revolving around a young man's efforts to cut himself loose from his family and social obligations. His first real triumph, however, came on January 5, 1953, when Waiting for Godot premiered at the Théâtre de Babylone. In spite of some expectations to the contrary, the strange little play in which "nothing happens" became an instant success, running for four hundred performances at the Théâtre de Babylone and enjoying the critical praise of dramatists as diverse as Tennessee Williams, Jean Anouilh, Thornton Wilder, and William Saroyan . The strange atmosphere of Godot, in which two tramps wait on what appears to be a desolate road for a man who never arrives, conditioned audiences to following works like Endgame, Happy Days, and Krapp's Last Tape.
Beckett's drama is most closely associated with the Theatre of the Absurd. He employs a minimalistic approach, stripping the stage of unnecessary spectacle and characters. Tragedy and comedy collide in a bleak illustration of the human condition and the absurdity of existence. In this way, each work, from the lengthy productions (Godot, Endgame) to the very brief (Ohio Impromptu, Catastrophe) to the despairing mologues (Rockaby, A Piece of Monologue), serves as a metaphor for existence and an entertaining philosophical discussion. Although Beckett dissociated himself from the post World War II French existentialists, his works cover much of the same ground and ask similar questions.
- Acquisition information:
- Undetermined, ca. 1959.
- Physical location:
- Vault
Access and use
- Location of this collection:
-
UC Santa Barbara LibrarySanta Barbara, CA 93106-9010, US
- Contact:
- (805) 893-3062