Problems of Beckett’s Early Poetics

Авторы

  • José Francisco Fernández

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.37389/abei.v13i0.3629

Ключевые слова:

Samuel Beckett, Poetics, Mikhail Bakhtin.

Аннотация

Samuel Beckett’s first novel, Dream of Fair to Middling Women, has been generally defined since its publication in 1992 as Beckett’s conscious
departure from the narrative tradition in the West. Critics have pointed out the novel’s disregard for unity, the absence of a central plan, the range of unstable characters or the undermining authorial interventions. The object of this essay is to extend the argument further by examining Dream in terms of Mikhail Bakhtin’s ideas on the novel, as they were exposed in Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics. I will try to argue that Dream corresponds to the dismantling of an ideal in narrative art, defined by Bakhtin as the polyphonic novel. I will also highlight the features that make of Dream an anti-text in which the Irish writer explored the limits of the relationships he could have with his readers.

Биография автора

  • José Francisco Fernández
    José Francisco FERNANDEZ is senior lecturer in English Literature at the University of Almería, Spain, and is a member of the Executive Board of AEDEI, the Spanish Association for Irish Studies. His current research centres on the early fiction of Samuel Beckett. He has recently co-translated into Spanish Beckett’s first novel, Dream of Fair to Middling Women (Sueño con mujeres que ni fu ni fa, Tusquets 2011) and among his recent publications the following articles can be mentioned: “Samuel Beckett and Aidan Higgins: No Intrusion Involved” Global Ireland: Current Perspectives on Literature and the Visual Arts. Eds. Marisol Morales Ladrón and Juan F. Felices Agudo. Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2011. 127-138, and “Spanish Beckett.” Dreaming the Future: New Horizons/ Old Barriers in 21st Century Ireland. Irish Studies in Europe 3. Eds. María Losada Friend et al. Trier: Wissenschaft Verlag Trier, 2011. 63-74.

Опубликован

2011-11-17

Выпуск

Раздел

Fiction

Как цитировать

Fernández, J. F. (2011). Problems of Beckett’s Early Poetics. ABEI Journal, 13, 83-91. https://doi.org/10.37389/abei.v13i0.3629