Beckett, Samuel, 1906-1989

Samuel Barclay Beckett was born April 13, 1906, at his family's home in Foxrock, south of Dublin. He was educated at Miss Ida Elsner's Academy in Stillorgan, the Earlsfort House School in Dublin, and the Portora Royal School in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland (1919-23). He began his law studies at Trinity College in order to become an accountant in his family's architectural surveyance firm, but in his third year he started studying modern languages, particularly French. His studies improved so markedly that he won a scholarship to pass the summer in France before his senior year, and he graduated first in his class in modern languages in 1927.

Following his graduation, Beckett taught at Campbell College in Belfast (1927-1928) and the École Normale Supérieure in Paris (1928-1930). During his stay in Paris, he established relationships with many important literary figures of his day, including Thomas MacGreevy, Richard Aldington, Brian Coffey, Denis Devlin, George Reavey, Samuel Putnam, Nancy Cunard, Sylvia Beach, and, most significantly for Beckett, James Joyce.

Beckett's early writings such as Whoroscope (1930), Proust (1931), More Pricks than Kicks (1934), Echo's Bones and Other Precipitates (1935), and Murphy (1938) won him neither fame nor money. Despite his love for Paris and his periodic stays in Germany, France, and London, Beckett's financial straits repeatedly constrained him to return to live with his disapproving family in Dublin, where he became subject to mental breakdowns and frequent, severe bouts of depression.

Throughout the 1930s and early 1940s, Beckett worked as a reviewer and translator for various magazines and projects, including Nancy Cunard's Negro Anthology (1934). He became increasingly interested in modern drama as he observed productions of the Dramiks, a Dublin troupe, and contemplated writing his own plays. In October 1940, he became a member of the French Resistance, and he and Suzanne Deschevaux-Dumesnil (who he married in 1961) were forced to flee to unoccupied France in August 1942. The French rewarded his courage in 1945 with the Croix de Guerre and the Médaille de la Résistance.

During the late 1940s, Beckett began to write many of his works in French, including Molloy (1951), Malone meurt (1951), and the play that finally won him international fame, En attendant Godot (1952). Other works that helped to establish Beckett's reputation include L'Innomable (1953), Watt (1953), Fin de partie (1957), and Krapp's Last Tape (1960). After 1960, Beckett's works became increasingly brief, but he remained prolific until his death on December 22, 1989. Beckett was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1969.

From the guide to the Samuel Beckett Collection TXRC00-A1., 1930-1990, (Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin)

Samuel Barclay Beckett was born April 13, 1906, at his family's home in Foxrock, south of Dublin. He was educated at Miss Ida Elsner's Academy in Stillorgan, the Earlsfort House School in Dublin, and the Portora Royal School in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland (1919-23). He began his law studies at Trinity College in order to become an accountant in his family's architectural surveyance firm, but in his third year he started studying modern languages, particularly French. His studies improved so markedly that he won a scholarship to pass the summer in France before his senior year, and he graduated first in his class in modern languages in 1927.

Following his graduation, Beckett taught at Campbell College in Belfast (1927-1928) and the École Normale Supérieure in Paris (1928-1930). During his stay in Paris, he established relationships with many important literary figures of his day, including Thomas MacGreevy, Richard Aldington, Brian Coffey, Denis Devlin, George Reavey, Samuel Putnam, Nancy Cunard, Sylvia Beach, and, most significantly for Beckett, James Joyce.

Beckett's early writings such as Whoroscope (1930), Proust (1931), More Pricks than Kicks (1934), Echo's Bones and Other Precipitates (1935), and Murphy (1938) won him neither fame nor money. Despite his love for Paris and his periodic stays in Germany, France, and London, Beckett's financial straits repeatedly constrained him to return to live with his disapproving family in Dublin, where he became subject to mental breakdowns and frequent, severe bouts of depression.

Throughout the 1930s and early 1940s, Beckett worked as a reviewer and translator for various magazines and projects, including Nancy Cunard's Negro Anthology (1934). He became increasingly interested in modern drama as he observed productions of the Dramiks, a Dublin troupe, and contemplated writing his own dramas. In October 1940, he became a member of the French Resistance, and he and Suzanne Deschevaux-Dumesnil (whom he married in 1961) were forced to flee to unoccupied France in August 1942. The French rewarded his resistance in 1945 with the Croix de Guerre and the Médaille de la Résistance.

During the late 1940s, Beckett began to write many of his works in French, including Molloy (1951), Malone meurt (1951), and the play that finally won him international fame, En attendant Godot (1952). Other works that helped to establish Beckett's reputation include L'Innomable (1953), Watt (1953), Fin de partie (1957), and Krapp's Last Tape (1960). After 1960, Beckett's works became increasingly brief, but he remained prolific until his death on December 22, 1989. Beckett was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1969.

The two Beckett scholars John Fletcher and Raymond Federman spent a decade compiling the first large-scale bibliography of their subject, Samuel Beckett: his works and his critics; an essay in bibliography (1970), with Beckett's personal assistance.

From the guide to the Carlton Lake Collection of Samuel Beckett Papers TXRC00-A2., 1947-2000, (The University of Texas at Austin, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center)

Biography

(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.

From the guide to the Samuel Beckett Papers, ca. 1959-1973, (University of California, Santa Barbara. Library. Department of Special Collections)

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.

From the description of Samuel Beckett Papers, [ca. 1959-1973]. (University of California, Santa Barbara). WorldCat record id: 62149010

Irish playwright and novelist.

From the description of Samuel Beckett Collection, 1930-1990. (Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center (HRC); University of Texas at Austin). WorldCat record id: 122545926

Samuel Beckett was born in Foxrock, County Dublin on Good Friday, 13 April 1906. Although throughout his life he had the reputation of being sombre, mysterious and reclusive, this popular myth hid a very private, yet immensely generous, gracious and caring person.

On entering Trinity College, Dublin, Beckett developed his interest in art, music and literature. He was a gifted linguist who also enjoyed vaudeville theatre and the films of Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and the Marx Brothers. An academic career seemed to be the obvious option on graduating but, after spells teaching in Paris and Dublin, Beckett realised he was more suited to the artistic lifestyle he had encountered in Paris in the company of James Joyce. Having witnessed the intolerance of the Nazi regime towards writers and artists in Germany in 1936, Beckett famously decided that he preferred France at war to Ireland in peace, opting to live in France for the rest of his life. However, this bold decision was more than a mere gesture. Beckett was forced to spend much of the war on the run from the Nazis in the South of France working with the French Resistance, for which he was later awarded the Croix de Guerre.

The end of the war marked a burst of literary activity for Beckett, who began writing, in French, a dense prose trilogy comprising Molloy, Malone Dies and The Unnamable . As a relaxation from this project, between October 1948 and January 1949, Beckett worked on a play entitled En attendant Godot - the work which brought him international fame and recognition and which redefined modern theatre. Further literary success ensued, culminating in him being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969.

As the years progressed, Beckett's prose and drama decreased in length, as he found increasingly successful ways to express the inexpressible. Yet throughout his career, he remained a bilingual author, creating French and English versions of almost all his work. During the 1970s Beckett directed his major stage plays in Berlin in German, exhibiting another side of his character. His success in this field led him to direct his own plays created specifically for television - a medium which seemed perfect for the stark, imposing images of these later, minimalist pieces.

Samuel Beckett died on 22 December 1989 and was buried in a private ceremony in the Cimetire de Montparnasse in Paris.

From the guide to the Samuel Beckett Collection, 1929 - [ongoing], (Reading University: Special Collections Services)