The Drama in the Text: Beckett's Late Fiction - Hardcover

Brater, Enoch

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0195088921 ISBN 13: 9780195088922

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1994

Synopsis

The Drama in the Text argues that Beckett's late fiction, like his radio plays, demands to be read aloud, since much of the emotional meaning lodges in its tonality. In Beckett's haunting prose work the reader turns listener, collaborating with the sound of words to elucidate meaning from the silence of the universe. Enoch 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 entire Western cultural heritage. Brater serves as an authoritative and persuasive guide to the rich texture of such a difficult but compelling vocabulary, providing recognition, insight, and accessibility.

About this title

About the Author

Enoch Brater is Professor of English and Theater at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

From the Back Cover

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.

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 1994
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0195088921
• ISBN 13: 9780195088922
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 248