1.

Record Nr.

UNISA996209567903316

Autore

Keller John Robert

Titolo

Samuel Beckett and the primacy of love / / John Robert Keller

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Manchester University Press, 2002

Manchester ; ; New York : , : Manchester University Press, , 2002

©2002

ISBN

1-78170-029-X

1-280-73429-9

9786610734290

1-84779-054-2

1-4175-9055-6

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (x, 226 pages) : digital, PDF file(s)

Disciplina

848/.91409

Soggetti

Love in literature

Psychoanalysis and literature - France

Psychoanalysis and literature - Ireland

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

First published: 2002.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. [219]-224) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Acknowledgements --Foreword --Introduction --1. Preliminaries and Proust --2. No Endon sight: Murphy's misrecognition of love --3. This emptied heart: Watt's unwelcome home --4. A strange situation: self-entrapment in Waiting for Godot --5. The dispeopled kingdom: the hidden self in Beckett's short fiction --Epilogue --References --Index.

Sommario/riassunto

This study considers the fundamental literary value and the underlying psychological meaning of Beckett's work. John Keller explores the central place of the emotional world in Beckett's writing, believing the texts embody a struggle to remain in contact with a primal sense of internal goodness.

This study is about the central place of the emotional world in Beckett's writing. Stating that Beckett is 'primarily about love', Dr. Keller makes a radical re-assessment of his influence and immense popularity. The book examines numerous Beckettian texts, arguing that they embody a



struggle to remain in contact with a primal sense of internal goodness, one founded on early experience with the mother. Writing itself becomes an internal dialogue, in which the reader is engaged, between a 'narrative-self' and a mother. Keller suggests that this is Beckett's greatest accomplishment as an artist: to document a universal struggle that allows for the birth of the mind, and to connect this struggle to the origin, and possibility of the creative act. This study integrates highly readable discussions of psychoanalytic theory, as well as clinical examples. It will be of value to scholars and readers of Beckett, and anyone interested in his place in literature and culture.