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In Our Time: Culture

Samuel Beckett

In Our Time: Culture

BBC

History

4.51K Ratings

🗓️ 17 January 2019

⏱️ 50 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Samuel Beckett (1906 - 1989), who lived in Paris and wrote his plays and novels in French, not because his French was better than his English, but because it was worse. In works such as Waiting for Godot, Endgame, Molloy and Malone Dies, he wanted to show the limitations of language, what words could not do, together with the absurdity and humour of the human condition. In part he was reacting to the verbal omnipotence of James Joyce, with whom he’d worked in Paris, and in part to his experience in the French Resistance during World War 2, when he used code, writing not to reveal meaning but to conceal it.

With

Steven Connor Professor of English at the University of Cambridge

Laura Salisbury Professor of Modern Literature at the University of Exeter

And

Mark Nixon Associate Professor in Modern Literature at the University of Reading and co-director of the Beckett International Foundation

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Transcript

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0:48.8

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0:49.8

Hello Samuel Beckett 1906 to 1989 lived in Paris and wrote his plays and novels in French,

0:56.0

not because his French was better than his English, but because it was worse.

1:00.0

In works such as Waiting for Godot, Endgame, Maloy and Malone Dyes, he wanted to show the limitations

1:06.0

of language what words could not do, together with the absurdity and humour of the human condition.

1:11.7

In part, he was reacting to the verbal omnipotence of James Joyce

1:15.3

with whom he'd worked in Paris and in part his experience in the French resistance during

1:19.7

World War II when he used cold writing not to reveal meaning but to conceal it.

1:25.0

With me to discuss Samuel Beckett R.

1:27.0

Steve Connor, Professor of English at the University of Cambridge,

...

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