LITERATURE - Samuel Beckett | The School of Life

Dictation 2020.07.11

The association between the great Irish writer Samuel Beckett and the game of cricket deserves to be more widely known. He
was a fine player when (as) a student at Trinity College of Dublin, and merit To mention in at Wisden, The Cricketer's
Bible, the only Nobel Prize winner to be so lauded. On one occasion in the mid 1960s, Beckett traveled from Paris to London
to watch the test match between England and Australia. 

It was a beautiful sunny summer afternoon -- blue skys, lauds cricket ground, green and glorious. One of his friends remarked: "
What a wonderful day, this is the sort of that would've make you glad to be alive." To which Beckett responded drily, "I 
wouldn't go as far as that."

The story nicely encampasses two aspects of Samuel Beckett -- his famously bleak view of life, and his mordant sense of
humor. If as Horris Woolper remarked, "The world is a comedy to those who think, and a tragedy to those who feel." It is
fitting that Beckett's Waiting For Godot is subtitled a tragicomedy.

In his theatrical images and prose-writings, Beckett achieved a spare beauty -- an articulation of human suffering shot 
through with dark comedy and humor. It seems almost too coincidental that this most famous dramatist of desolation, whose
work teams with biblical illusion would be born on the day of the crucifixtion, yet Samuel Barkley Beckett was born on 
Good Friday, 13th April, 1906 in the affluent village of Foxrock, eight miles south of Dublin. Beckett was educated at 
Portora Royal School Enniskillen, now in Northern Ireland, the Alma Mater of another great Irish playwriter Oscar Wilde, 
where he excelled academically and at sports. 

He graduated from Trinity College of Dublin in 1927, first in his class, and awarded the college's gold medal. He seemed
destined for a glittering academic career. And in October 1928, he headed to Paris for a two-year exchange fewllowship at
the distinguished École Normale Supérieure. His immersion in the Parisian literary scene had a profound impact on the young
Irishmen.  He became attached to the circle of another great Irish wirter, James Joyce, the revered author of Ulysses, 
published in 1922, and in 1929, published his first critical essay on Joyce's work-in-progress, which would become Finnegans
Wake. 

On his return to Dublin, Beckett was unhappy lecturing at Trinity College, and resigned after a little more than a year.
He often said that he gave up his job because he could not bear teaching to others what he did not know himself. At this
point, Samuel Beckett determined to be a writer, and a man of letters. In 1931, he published a short critical book Proust,
on the great French writer, which brilliantly identified that Proust was a philosopher and his long novel was in essense
A Search For the Meaning of Life, which rests Proust's thought, and Beckett agreed, on the making and appreciation of art.

Despite the brilliance of his essay, Beckett would have many setbacks and rejections in his attempts to establish himself
in the literary world, and echo of the themes of failure that would so dominate his work. He failed to get his first series
of attempt at novel Dream Of Fair To Middling Women published, though much of it was reworked into a short story collection,
More Pricks Than Kicks, which came out in 1934. The next year he published a slim volume of poetry, Echo's Bones and Other
Precipitates, marked like much work of this period with dense erudition and pessimism. 

Beckett's London novel Murphy was completed in 1936. This comic novel of ideas is probably his most accessible, least
experimental full length of work, though this didn't stop it from going through 42 rejections, before finally being published
by Routledge in 1938. 

Beckett had long suffered from panic attacks, anxiety, and depression, often with terrible physical manifestations. He
went to London in the early 1930s to undertake psychoanalysis, with a famous British analyst Wilfred Bion. The interest
he developed in psychology and psychiatry showed constantly in the asylum scenes in Murphy, and in his next novel Watt,
written while hidding out in rural France during the World War II. His personal experience with psychotherapy emerges too
in his later work, much of which is in the form of a monologue, where a speaker gabbles in a kind of delirium to a faceless
listener. Much as one might at moments in analysis.

Though Beckett's works are highly non-specific, and tend not to refer explicitly to the World War II, or other historical
events, there's little doubt that the traumas of history deeply scoured his imagination. Appalled by the treatment of
his Jewish friends under Nazi occupation, Beckett became actively involved in the resistence in Paris, principally as an 
information handler. Beckett's experience for the war and the devastation he witnessed in France afterwards seems to have
contributed to a radical change of direction.

During a return visit to Dublin in 1946, Beckett had a vision, or revelation of literary purpose, which marks the divide
between his 1930s work third terson, erudite, emnithianed, and the dwindled, bewildered First person story-telling of his
mature prose. Unlike some of his early writing, which shows the influence of Joyce's in his wordplay and heavy illusion to
other literary works, the post-war work carries its learning more lightly, making ignorance, impotence, and failure its
key preoccupations. 

This change in direction was accompanied by the decision to write in French. They are followed between 1946 and 1950, a
frenzy of writing, which included much of work for which Samuel Beckett is now famous, namely Waiting For Godot, and his
great trilogy of novels: Molloy, Malone Dies, and The Unnamable. 

On En Attendant Godot (Waiting For Gadot), was writting between Octobber 1948 and January 1949, as a diversion from the
"more taxing", as Beckett saw it, business of prose composition. It was eventually staged in a small Avant-Garde Parisian
theater in January of 1953. The play's immense success generated international controversy and wide interest. 

Set on a bare stage, apart from a lone tree and one rock, with two characters exchanging inconsequential dialog while 
waiting at a side of road for a character who never comes. Beckett's play provoked confusion and hostility. When an English
version, transferred to London in 1955, it was greeted with whistles and jeers of derision. However, Waiting For Godot 
became Successdal Scandal(?) and is arguably the most influential play of the whole of the 20th century. 

Godot presents a dark vision of human life, mixed with plenty of vaudeville antics and slapstick comedy. The play's action
or inaction seems at points suggestive of universal or an existential condition. "But at this place, and at this moment
in time, all mankind is us whether we like it or not," declares one character. Did the non-arrival of Godot, critics pondered,
suggest the absence of God in the modern world? Or did the play rather dramatize the yearning and sense of incompleteness
in which we live most of our lives? Most people after all, exists in a state of anticipation of future-orientedness: once
I get the right job, or the right house, or my beloved said "yes", or I retire, then I will be happy. 

But once desire or ambition was realized, we start to want something else. The ultimate satisfaction, the Godot who will
give us final fulfillment never arrives... Yet for all these philosophical interpretations, nothing is certain in Beckett's
work. He once remarked that key word in my plays is "perhaps". It may be that Beckett's greatest achievement is his brave
depictions, not of a pessimistic outlook, but of a bewildered one. If we leave his plays perplexed, then this is an appro-
-priate response. We too are waiting for something that never arrives: the reassurance of the clarity of meaning of certainty,
even the certainty of darkness.

Beckett was, almost instinctively a master of the stage. His next great play, EndGame in 1959 gives us the enduring image
of human-beings in dust bins. Outside the room in which the action takes place all seems dead, gray, and corpse, in some
sort of post-apocalyptic devastation that speaks urgently to our own era of environmental crisis. Though a black humor en-
-dures, even human values and meanings seem to be draining away. One character remarks as if an answer to those who would
turn Beckett's work into mere philosophy, "mean something, you and I mean something. Huh... That's a good one."

As his career progressed, Beckett's plays and prose generally became ever more condensed and minimal. The plays were often
focused on a single intense image: A Woman Buried up to her Waist in the sand -- Happy Days; A man and two women fixed in some sort
of purgatorial urns, babbling out story of their adulterous triangle -- Play; A single illuminated mouth telling stories
in the third person, terrified of using the word "I" -- Not I.

Beckett gives us work of art that offer an experience, not just an idea or a takeaway message. He takes us into the per-
-plexity of the modern condition in which the traditional consolations, belief in a providential plan, or hope for civil-
-izational progress, have been shatterred by the barbarism of war and holocaust, yet Beckett's work presents us with human
extremity. There are moments of fellow feeling, of compassion, and exquisite black humor. Moreoever, his writings is marked
with scrupulous exactitude and precision. 

There is a shape to his chaos, one which emerges with a sort of wintry serenity, a calm balatic structure to his plays.
It is this formal artistic achievement that allows us to cherish in Beckett's work -- a fragile, necessary grace. 

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Samuel Beckett
萨缪尔·贝克特（Samuel Beckett，1906年4月13日－1989年11月10日），20世纪爱尔兰、法国作家，创作的领域包括戏剧、小说和诗歌，尤以戏剧成就最高。他是
荒诞派戏剧的重要代表人物。1969年，他因“以一种新的小说与戏剧的形式，以崇高的艺术表现人类的苦恼”而获得诺贝尔文学奖。

merit
英[ˈmerɪt]美[ˈmerɪt]
释义
n.
价值，优点; [宗教]（行善得到的）功德; 功绩，功勋; 荣誉;
vt.
值得，应获得; [宗教]（因行善而）应得（善报）;
vi.
值得，应得; [宗教]积德;

Wisden
Wisden Cricketers' Almanack, or simply Wisden, colloquially the Bible of Cricket, is a cricket reference book published annually in the United Kingdom.[1] The description "bible of cricket" was first used in the 1930s by Alec Waugh in a review for the London Mercury.[2] In October 2013, an all-time Test World XI was announced to mark the 150th anniversary of Wisden Cricketers' Almanack.[3][4][5]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisden_Cricketers'_Almanack

mordant
英[ˈmɔ:dnt]美[ˈmɔrdnt]
释义
adj.
（指讽刺等）刻薄的; 尖锐的; 刺痛的; 腐蚀的;

Horace Walpole
第四代奥福德伯爵霍勒斯·沃波尔（英语：Horace Walpole）（1717年9月24日 - 1797年3月2日），是英国艺术史学家，文学家，辉格党政治家[1]。
他以伦敦西南部特威克纳姆草莓山庄（Strawberry Hill House）闻名于世，他以这栋建筑作为哥特小说《奥特兰托堡》背景。

spare
多余的，剩下的（钱等），空闲的（时间等）; 预备的，备用的，替换用的; 多余的，瘦的，少量的; 薄弱的，简陋的，粗陋的;

desolation
英[ˌdesəˈleɪʃn]美[ˌdɛsəˈleʃən, ˌdɛz-]
释义
n.
遗弃; 荒凉; 破坏; 凄凉;

Foxrock
Foxrock (Irish: Carraig an tSionnaigh)[1] is a suburb of Dublin, Ireland. It is within the county of Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown, in the postal district of Dublin 18 and in the Roman Catholic parish of Foxrock.

Portora Royal School
Portora Royal School located in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland, was one of the 'Public Schools' founded by the Royal Charter in 1608, by James I, making it one of the oldest schools in Ireland at the time of its closure.[1][2][self-published source][3] Originally called Enniskillen Royal School, the school was established some ten years after the Royal Decree, in 1618, 15 miles outside Enniskillen at Ballybalfour, before moving to Enniskillen in 1661. It was not until 1778 that the school moved to its final location on Portora Hill, Enniskillen, where the nucleus of the later all boys school was built.[4] The school admitted a mixture of boarders and day pupils for much of its history, but became a day school in the 1990s.
On 28 June 2016, Portora Royal School closed. Portora Royal School amalgamated with Enniskillen Collegiate Grammar School which launched the mixed Enniskillen Royal Grammar School on 1 September 2016, which is partially based on the original site of Portora Hill and the site of Enniskillen Collegiate Grammar School.

Enniskillen
Enniskillen (/ˌɛnɪsˈkɪlən/, from Irish: Inis Ceithleann[2] [ˈɪnʲɪʃ ˈcɛlʲən̪ˠ], 'Ceithlenn's island') is a town and civil parish in County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland. It is located almost exactly in the centre of the county, between the Upper and Lower sections of Lough Erne. It had a population of 13,823 at the 2011 Census.[3] It was the seat of local government for the former Fermanagh District Council, and is the county town of Fermanagh as well as its largest town.

Alma mater
Alma mater (Latin: alma mater, lit. 'nourishing mother'; pl. [rarely used] almae matres) is an allegorical Latin phrase for a university, school, or college that one formerly attended.[1] In US usage, it can also mean the school from which one graduated.[2] The phrase is variously translated as "nourishing mother", "nursing mother", or "fostering mother", suggesting that a school provides intellectual nourishment to its students.[3]

Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 1854 – 30 November 1900) was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, the early 1890s saw him become one of the most popular playwrights in London. He is best remembered for his epigrams and plays, his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, and the circumstances of his criminal conviction for gross indecency for consensual homosexual acts, imprisonment, and early death at age 46.

Trinity College of Dublin
Trinity College (Irish: Coláiste na Tríonóide), officially the College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, is the sole constituent college of the University of Dublin, a research university located in Dublin, Ireland. The college was founded in 1592 by Queen Elizabeth I as "the mother of a university" that was modeled after the collegiate universities of Oxford and Cambridge,

glittering
英[ˈglɪtərɪŋ]美[ˈɡlɪtərɪŋ]
释义
adj.
辉煌的; 闪闪发光的; 光辉灿烂的;
v.
闪烁，闪耀，闪光(glitter的现在分词);

École normale supérieure
The École normale supérieure (French pronunciation: ​[ekɔl nɔʁmal sypeʁjœʁ]; also known as Normale sup', Ulm, ENS Paris, l'École, and most often just as ENS) is one of the most selective and prestigious [6] graduate schools in Paris, France. It is one of the French grandes écoles and a constituent member of PSL University.
高等师范学院（法语：École normale supérieure），也译作高等师范学校，简称巴黎高师（ENS Paris 或 Normale sup 或 ENS Ulm），位于巴黎乌尔姆路的巴黎高等师范学校，它是世界上高等师范学校中最古老的一所。如同国家行政学院，巴黎高师也没有颁发学位的权利，学生必须透过合作大学的注册学籍，来取得该大学颁发的学位。现为巴黎文理研究大学的成员之一。

Murphy
Murphy, first published in 1938, is an avant-garde novel as well as the third work of prose fiction by the Irish author and dramatist Samuel Beckett. The book was Beckett's second published prose work after the short-story collection More Pricks than Kicks (published in 1934) and his unpublished first novel Dream of Fair to Middling Women (published posthumously in 1992). It was written in English, rather than the French of much of Beckett's later writing. After many rejections, it was published by Routledge on the recommendation of Beckett's painter friend Jack Butler Yeats.
The University of Reading bought the six notebooks which made up the manuscript for Murphy in July 2013.[1][2]

Routledge
劳特里奇（英语：Routledge，/ˈraʊtlɪdʒ/[1]）是一家英国跨国出版商，由乔治·劳特里奇正式创办于1851年，专注于学术书籍、期刊以及在线资源出版服务，主要涉及社会科学、人文学科、建成环境、教育和行为科学领域。该公司每年出版约1,800份期刊和2,000部新书，并同时再版超过35,000本著作。[2]

Wilfred Bion
Wilfred Ruprecht Bion DSO (/biːˈɒn/; 8 September 1897 – 8 November 1979) was an influential British psychoanalyst, who became president of the British Psychoanalytical Society from 1962 to 1965.[1]

Watt
Watt was Samuel Beckett's second published novel in English. It was largely written on the run in the South of France during the Second World War and was first published by Maurice Girodias's Olympia Press in 1953 (an extract had been published in the Dublin literary review Envoy, in 1950[1]). A French translation followed in 1968.

monologue
英[ˈmɒnəlɒɡ]美[ˈmɑːnəlɔːɡ]
释义
n.
（戏剧）独白; 独角戏; 长篇大论;

gabble
英[ˈɡæbl]美[ˈɡæbl]
释义
vt.& vi.
急促地说，不清地说;
n.
急促不清的话; 急促而含混不清地说;

delirium
英[dɪˈlɪriəm]美[dɪˈlɪriəm]
释义
n.
谵妄; 神志昏迷; 极度兴奋; （因酒精中毒引起的）震颤性谵妄;

scour
英[ˈskaʊə(r)]美[ˈskaʊər]
释义
v.
冲刷; 擦亮; 四处搜索; （用泻药）泻;

preoccupation
GRE/TOEFL

英[priˌɒkjuˈpeɪʃn]美[priˌɑkjuˈpeɪʃn]
释义
n.
全神贯注，入神; 当务之急; 使人全神贯注的事物; 偏见，成见;

bewildered
英[bɪ'wɪldəd]美[bɪ'wɪldəd]
释义
adj.
困惑的; 晕眩的; 混乱的; 不知所措的;
v.
使困惑;

trilogy
英[ˈtrɪlədʒi]美[ˈtrɪlədʒi]
释义
n.
（小说、戏剧、音乐等的）三部曲; 美国Trilogy全球研发中心;

Molloy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molloy_(novel)
Molloy is a novel by Samuel Beckett first written in French and published by Paris-based Les Éditions de Minuit in 1951. The English translation, published in 1955, is by Beckett and Patrick Bowles.

Malone Dies
Malone Dies is a novel by Samuel Beckett. It was first published in 1951, in French, as Malone meurt, and later translated into English by the author.
Malone Dies contains the famous line, "Nothing is more real than nothing" – a metatextual echo of Democritus' "Naught is more real than nothing," which is referenced in Beckett's first published novel, Murphy (1938).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malone_Dies

The Unnamable
The Unnamable is a 1953 novel by Samuel Beckett. It is the third and final entry in Beckett's "Trilogy" of novels, which begins with Molloy followed by Malone Dies. It was originally published in French as L'Innommable and later adapted by the author into English. Grove Press published the English edition in 1958.
The Unnamable consists entirely of a disjointed monologue from the perspective of an unnamed (presumably unnamable) and immobile protagonist. There is no concrete plot or setting – and whether the other characters ("Mahood" [formerly "Basil"] and "Worm") actually exist or whether they are facets of the narrator himself is debatable. The protagonist also claims authorship of the main characters in the two previous novels of the Trilogy and Beckett's earlier novels Murphy, Mercier and Camier, and Watt. The novel is a mix of recollections and existential musings on the part of its narrator, many of which pertain specifically to the possibility that the narrator is constructed by the language he speaks.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unnamable_(novel)

avant-garde theatre
Experimental theatre (also known as avant-garde theatre) began in Western theatre in the late 19th century with Alfred Jarry and his Ubu plays as a rejection of both the age in particular and, in general, the dominant ways of writing and producing plays. The term has shifted over time as the mainstream theatre world has adopted many forms that were once considered radical.
Like other forms of the avant-garde, it was created as a response to a perceived general cultural crisis. Despite different political and formal approaches, all avant-garde theatre opposes bourgeois theatre. It tries to introduce a different use of language and the body to change the mode of perception[1] and to create a new, more active relation with the audience.

jeer
英[dʒɪə(r)]美[dʒɪr]
释义
vt.& vi.
嘲笑，戏弄;
n.
嘲讽; 讥笑的言语;

derision
英[dɪˈrɪʒn]美[dɪˈrɪʒn]
释义
n.
嘲笑，嘲弄; 笑柄;

vaudeville
英[ˈvɔ:dəvɪl]美[ˈvɔdˌvɪl, ˈvod-, ˈvɔdə-]
释义
n.
歌舞杂耍表演;

slapstick
英[ˈslæpstɪk]美[ˈslæpˌstɪk]
释义
n.
闹剧，趣剧;

Endgame
Endgame, by Samuel Beckett, is a one-act play with four characters. It was originally written in French (entitled Fin de partie); Beckett himself translated it into English. The play was first performed in a French-language production at the Royal Court Theatre in London, opening on 3 April 1957. The follow-up to Waiting for Godot, it is commonly considered to be among Beckett's best works.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endgame_(play)

urn
英[ɜːn]美[ɜːrn]
释义
n.
大茶壶; 瓮，缸; 坟墓; 骨灰瓮;

Happy Days
Happy Days is a play in two acts, written by Samuel Beckett.[1] Viewed positively by critics, it was named in The Independent as one of the 40 best plays of all time.[2]
Winnie, buried to her waist, follows her daily routine and prattles to her husband, Willie, who is largely hidden and taciturn. Her frequent refrain is "Oh this is a happy day." Later, in Act II, she is buried up to her neck, but continues to talk and remember happier days.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Days_(play)

Play
Play is a one-act play by Samuel Beckett. It was written between 1962 and 1963 and first produced in German as Spiel on 14 June 1963 at the Ulmer Theatre in Ulm-Donau, Germany, directed by Deryk Mendel, with Nancy Illig (W1), Sigfrid Pfeiffer (W2) and Gerhard Winter (M). The first performance in English was on 7 April 1964 at the Old Vic in London. It was not well-received upon its British premiere.[1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Play_(play)

Not I
Not I is a short dramatic monologue written in 1972 (20 March to 1 April) by Samuel Beckett which was premiered at the "Samuel Beckett Festival" by the Repertory Theater of Lincoln Center, New York (22 November 1972).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_I

providential
英[ˌprɒvɪˈdenʃl]美[ˌprɑvɪˈdenʃl]
释义
adj.
凑巧的，幸运的; (destined)

scrupulous
英[ˈskruːpjələs]美[ˈskruːpjələs]
释义
adj.
严谨的; 小心的; 良心不安的; 有顾忌的;

wintry
英[ˈwɪntri]美[ˈwɪntri]
释义
adj.
冬天的; 冬天似的; 寒冷的; 风雪交加的;