Author Description

This Is The First Full-length Study Of The Relevance Of The Marquis De Sade (1740-1814) To The Works Of Samuel Beckett (1906-1989). This Book Identifies Sadean Intertext And Motifs In Becketts Writing, And Provides Novel Ways To Understand His Interest In Sade, In Whose Works He Found A World Of Discourses Nourished By And Revolting Against Key Intellectual Traditions That Had Shaped The Enlightenment And From Which Modernism Would Later Emerge. The Study's Broad Chronological Structure Isolates Salient Themes Within Each Period Of Beckett's Writing While Addressing The Evolution Of His Style And Aesthetics Over Time. Chapter One (1920s-1940s) Traces Beckett's First Encounters With Sade (through Such Authors As Guillaume Apollinaire, Mario Praz, Marcel Proust) And Their Resonances With His Intellectual And Artistic Preoccupations, Particularly His Satirical Reception Of Enlightenment Rationalism And His Aesthetic Interest In Sexuality And Disgust. Chapter Two (1940s-1950s) Explores Beckett's Reception Of Psychoanalytic Theory As A Terrain Of Interaction With Sade, Drawing On Freud's Theories On 'anal-sadism' As Recorded By Beckett In His Unpublished Notes. Chapter Three Provides A Comparative Study Of Beckett's Comment Cest (1961) And Sades Les 120 Journees De Sodome (written In 1785), Arguing For A Sadean Impact On The Form, Themes, And Aesthetics Of Beckett's Text. Chapter Four Examines Sades Continued Relevance To Beckett Throughout The Evolution Of His Style And Aesthetics After 1961. It Discusses The Recurrent Theme Of Ritualised Torture And Its Linguistic And Philosophical Implications In Becketts Torture Pieces And Also Draws Parallels With Noir Aesthetics And Other Modernists Such As Franz Kafka-- Provided By Publisher.