Gathers the Nobel Prize winning poet and dramatist's short prose into one volume that affords the reader a view of Beckett's development as an artist.

Nobel Prize winner Samuel Beckett was one of the most profoundly original writers of the 20th century. He gave expression to the anguish and isolation of the individual consciousness with a purity and minimalism that have altered the shape of world literature. A tremendously influential poet and dramatist, Beckett spoke of his prose fiction as the "important writing," the medium in which he distilled his ideas most powerfully. Here, for the first time, his short prose is gathered in a definitive, complete volume by leading Beckett scholar S. E. Gontarski.

Explores the hidden political and ethical dimensions of the work of Samuel Beckett, an author who might otherwise be considered indifferent to such considerations.

In this rich and perceptive study of some of the most haunting fiction written in the late twentieth century, Beckett critic Enoch Brater continues his investigation of the tension between text and script, silence and associational sound. Brater argues with great learning that Beckett's fiction, like his radio plays, demands to be read aloud, since much of the emotional meaning lodges in its tonality. Here the rhythm of Beckett's "labouring heart" finds its performative voice as the reader, now turned listener, collaborates in the creation of a musical composition that must elucidate the stillness of the universe. The Drama in the Text is a book about reciting and recounting, about how we know and what we know when we read a lyrical "text" crafted in prose but sounding like something else instead. Brater ranges across all of Beckett's work, quoting from it liberally, and makes connections mainly with other writers, but also with details drawn from the whole Western cultural heritage. The only book that deals thoroughly with Beckett's complete late fiction, Brater's study opens to a wide literary audience the difficult and elliptical nature of Beckett's mature prose style. For those readers who find Beckett's late fiction "impossible to follow let alone describe", this book will be an authoritative and persuasive guide, providing recognition, insight, and accessibility.

'You are what you eat' is an adage taken seriously as this book uncovers connections between the alimentary and ontological.

The Metaphysical Vision: Arthur Schopenhauer's Philosophy of Art and Life and Samuel Beckett's Own Way to Make Use of It expands upon the ideas and theories set forth in the author's Die eigentlich metaphysische Tätigkeit: Über Schopenhauers Ästhetik und ihre Anwendung durch Samuel Beckett, published (in German) in 1982 and hailed by Catharina Wulf in her book The Imperative of Narration (1997) as an «excellent study» and «the most thorough enquiry into Beckett and Schopenhauer.» In the last years of the twentieth century, new documents regarding Samuel Beckett's reading and thinking, especially important notebooks and letters, have become accessible to scholars. These documents show much more clearly than could ever be demonstrated previously that Beckett had a strong, lifelong interest in Schopenhauer's philosophy. There is no other philosopher to whom Beckett refers more often in his personal comments throughout the years of his writing up to his seventies; no other philosopher whose view of life and the world comes closer to the image of human existence we find in Samuel Beckett's literary work. The striking similarity in matters of world view and human life, and especially the evidence obtained from Beckett's previously unknown notebooks and letters, call for a close systematic study of the Beckett-Schopenhauer relationship. Due to its comprehensiveness and in-depth approach, The Metaphysical Vision is, and will be for many years to come, what its forerunner was for more than two decades: the most thorough enquiry into Beckett and Schopenhauer.

From the contents: Beckett and the quest for meaning (Martin Esslin). - Beckett's tonic laughter (Manfred Pfister). - The magic triangle: James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, Arno Schmidt (Friedhelm Rathjen). - Beckett performed in Italy (Annamaria Cascetta). - Beckett and synaesthesia (Yoshiki Tajiri). - Beckett versus the reader (Michael Guest).

Theatre on Trial is the first full-length analysis of Samuel Beckett's later drama in the context of contemporary theatre. Audrey McMullan employs a close, textual examination of the later plays as a springboard for exploring ideas around authority, voyeurism, gender and the ideology of stage and TV space. Her application of deconstruction and psychoanalytic feminism to Beckett's work will break new and exciting ground.

This volume is the first full-length account of the British prose poem, its history, and status as a genre. This book not only aims to place British prose poetry within the larger literary framework, but also contributes to the discussion of what constitutes the genre, while posing the question: is there a discernible British style? Extending from the Romantic period to the twentieth century, Such Rare Citings offers analyses of prose poems by writers from Coleridge to Samuel Beckett.

Morrissey is arguably the greatest disturbance popular music has ever known. Even more than the choreographed carelessness of punk and the hyperbolic gestures of glam rock and the New Romantics, Morrissey's early bookish ineptitude, his celebration of the ordinary, and his subversive endorsement of celibacy, abstinence and rock 'n' roll revolutionized the world of British pop. As a solo artist, too, he consistently adopts the outsider's perspective and dares us to confront uncomfortable subjects. In his brilliant book, Gavin Hopps examines the work of this compelling performer, whose intelligence, humour, suffering and awkwardness have fascinated audiences around the world for the last 25 years. Hopps traces the trajectory of Morrissey's career and outlines the contours and contradictions of the singer's elusive persona. The book illuminates Morrissey's coyness (how can he remain a mystery when he tells us too much?), his dramatized melancholy (surely more of a radical existential protest than the gimmick some believe it to be), and his complex attitudes towards loneliness and alienation, as well as his intriguing sense of the religious.