BECKETT

English Literature Since Romanticism

Spring 2024
MODERN DRAMA

TO SHOCK THE AUDIENCE

TO ALIENATE THE AUDIENCE

Brecht uses alienation effect
(Verfremdungseffekt) to break the illusion of
reality and show that the play is artificial
(Norton 27)

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 • Influenced by symbolism, Marxism, and
surrealism
MODERN • Linear plot replaced by fractured scenes
DRAMA and circular action
(NORTON 27) • Transparent conversation replaced by
misunderstanding and verbal opacity
• Predictable and knowable universe
unsettled by eruptions of the irrational
and the absurd

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 ROYAL COURT
THEATRE

The epicenter of the new

developments in British
drama (Norton 27)

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Credit: TripAdvisor
 PRECURSOR OF
POSTMODERNISM
TRANSLATED HIS
OWN WORK INTO
ENGLISH
WROTE IN FRENCH
AFTER 1940
WORKED AS JAMES
JOYCE’S SECRETARY
AND TRANSLATOR

SAMUEL BECKETT 5
 MINIMALISM
• Little characterization
• Dialogues/monologues that go no
where
• Little plot
• No progression, development, or
resolution
• Characters persist in habitual
activities and exist minimally
• Bleak landscape 6
 PLAY (1963)
THREE STOCK CHARACTERS IN URNS

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 NOT I (1973)
RESTRICTING THE ACTING SPACE TO JUST A
MOUTH

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C.F. JAMES JOYCE’S
MAXIMALISM

“I realized my own way was in

impoverishment, in lack of
knowledge and in taking away, in
subtracting rather than adding”
--Beckett (Norton 751)

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 HOW BECKETT TRANSFORMED THE
TWENTIETH-CENTURY THEATRE

RADICALLY
DIMINISHED CLOWNISH
SETTING CHARACTERS CIRCULAR PLOT

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 CIRCULAR PLOT
Waiting for Godot is “a play in which
everything happens, twice”
-- Vivian Mercier (Norton 751)
 TRAGICOMEDY (NORTON
751)

BLEAK PATHOS

MEANINGLESS WORLD

CLOWNISH, INCOMPETENT CHARACTERS

HORSEPLAY, BANTER, PRANKS, CRUDE PUNS

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 Disrupts the conventions of realist
drama (Norton 751)

Draws attention to its fictionality

(751)

ABSURDIST Suggests existential darkness

without redemption (27)
DRAMA

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 CHARACTERS

Estragon (Gogo) and Pozzo

Vladimir (Didi)
Master
Aging friends

A boy Lucky
Slave

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 THEMES IN WAITING FOR GODOT

Master-slave relation, Sense of purpose and

power and dependency resolution

The mind and the body Existence and nonexistence

Time and repetition Meaning and absurdity

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 FINAL EXAM ON 6/11
Written part (70%): open-book and covers weeks 10-16

Take-home creative part (30%): Create a profile for a

character from one of the assigned readings from weeks
10-16. Due 6/19 at 11:59pm on Tronclass

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 GRADING CRITERIA FOR
THE PROJECT

10% 10% 10%

CHARACTER’S NAME (1%) BASED ON THE QUOTES, WRITE CREATE A PICTURE

THREE QUOTES ABOUT THE DOWN THE CHARACTER’S FOR THE CHARACTER
CHARACTER’S BASIC DETAILS GENDER, NATIONALITY, BASED ON THE
FROM THE READING (9%) TEMPORAL AND SPATIAL TEXTUAL CLUES
SETTINGS, JOB, PERSONALITY, LISTED ABOVE
ETC. 17