Irish writer, poet and playwright Beckett Samuel: biography, features of creativity and interesting facts

Irishman Beckett Samuel presents among the Nobel laureates the so-called literature of the absurd. Acquaintance with his work, in which he uses English and French, in Russian translation began with the play "Waiting for Godot." It was she who brought the first success to Beckett (in the season of 1952 - 1953). Nowadays Samuel Beckett is a well-known dramatist. Plays of different years, created by him, are put in many theaters of the world.

Features of the play "Waiting for Godot"

The first analogue for which you try to grab when reading Beckett is the symbolic theater of Maeterlinck. Here, like Maeterlinck, an understanding of the meaning of what is happening is possible only if one does not try to start from the categories of real life situations. Only with the translation of the action into the language of symbols do you begin to grasp the thought of the author in scenes from Godot. However, the rules of such a translation are in themselves so diverse and obscured that simple keys can not be found. Beckett himself demonstratively refused to explain the hidden meaning of the tragicomedy.

How did Beckett evaluate his work

In an interview, Samuel, referring to the essence of his work, said that the material he works with is ignorance, impotence. He said that he is conducting reconnaissance in a zone that artists prefer to keep aside as something incompatible with art. Another time, Beckett said that he is not a philosopher and never reads the writings of philosophers, since he does not understand anything of what they write about. He said that he was not interested in ideas, but only in the form in which they are expressed. Not interested in Beckett and the system. The artist's task, in his opinion, is to find a form adequate to that confusion and porridge that we call being. It is on the problems of form that the decision of the Swedish Academy is stressed.

Beckett's Origin

What are the roots of Beckett's views, what led him to such an extreme position? Can the writer's inner world clarify his brief biography? Samuel Beckett, I must say, was an uneasy person. The facts of Samuel's life, according to researchers of his work, do not shed too much light on the sources of the writer's worldview.

Samuel Beckett was born in Dublin, in a family of devout and well-to-do Protestants. The ancestors of the writer, the French Huguenots, as far back as the 17th century, moved to Ireland, hoping for a comfortable life and religious freedom. However, Samuel from the very beginning did not accept the centuries-old religious foundation of the family worldview. "My parents," he recalled, "nothing gave their faith."

Period of study, teaching activity

After studying at an elite school, and then at the same Jesuit Trinity College in Dublin, where Swift once studied, and then Wilde, Beckett spent two years teaching in Belfast, then moved to Paris and worked as an intern-teacher of English in Higher Normal School, and then at the Sorbonne. The young man read a lot, his favorite authors were Dante and Shakespeare, Socrates and Descartes. But knowledge did not bring peace to the restless soul. He recalled his youthful years: "I was unhappy, I felt it with my whole being and resigned myself to it." Beckett admitted that he was getting more and more alienated from people, he did not take part in anything. And then it was time for Becket's complete dissension both with himself and with others.

The causes of the disorder in the world

What are the roots of the irreconcilable position that Samuel Beckett held? His biography does not very clear this point. You can refer to the sanctimonious atmosphere in the family, the Jesuit dictate in college: "Ireland is a country of theocrats and censors, I could not live there." However, in Paris, bubbling subversive and rebellious in art, Beckett did not escape from the feeling of insuperable loneliness. He met Paul Valéry, Ezra Pound and Richard Aldington, but none of these talents became a spiritual authority for him. Only becoming the literary secretary of James Joyce, Beckett found in the chef "moral ideal" and later spoke of Joyce, that he helped him understand what the purpose of the artist. However, their paths diverged - and not only because of everyday circumstances (the unrequited love of Joyce's daughter to Beckett made it impossible to visit the Joyce's house more, and he went to Ireland), but also in art.

This was followed by useless strife with his mother, attempts to cut himself off from the outside world (he did not leave the house for days, hiding from bothersome relatives and friends in a densely curtained office), meaningless trips to the cities of Europe, treatment in the clinic for depression ...

Literary debut, first works

Beckett made his debut with the poem "The Bludoscope" (1930), then an essay appeared on Proust (1931) and Joyce (1936), a collection of short stories and a book of poems. However, these works that Samuel Beckett created were not successful. "Murphy" (review of this novel was also unflattering) - a work about a young man who came to London from Ireland. The novel was rejected by 42 publishers. Only in 1938, when in despair, suffering endless physical ailments, but even more conscious of his uselessness and material dependence on his mother, Beckett Samuel left Ireland forever and re-settled in Paris, one of the publishers accepted the "Murphy". However, this book was met with restraint. Success came later, Beckett Samuel did not immediately become famous, whose books are known and loved by many. Before that, Samuel had to survive the war time.

War time

The war caught Beckett in Paris and pulled him out of voluntary isolation. Life took other forms. Arrests and murders became a daily occurrence. The most horrible thing for Beckett was the news that many former acquaintances started working for the occupiers. For him the question of choice did not arise. Beckett Samuel became an active member of the Resistance and two years worked in the underground groups "Star" and "Glory", where he was known by the nickname Irishman. His duties included collecting information, translating it into English, microfilming. I had to visit the ports where the naval forces of the Germans concentrated. When the Gestapo discovered these groups and the arrests began, Beckett had to hide in a village in the south of France. Then he worked for several months as a Red Cross interpreter in a military hospital. After the war, he was awarded the medal "For Military Merit". In the order of General de Gaulle it was noted: "Beckett, Sam: a man of great courage ... he carried out tasks, even being in mortal danger."

Combat years, however, did not change Beckett's gloomy worldview, which determined the course of his life and the evolution of creativity. He himself once said that there is nothing worth living in the world, except creativity.

The long-awaited success

Success to Beckett came to the beginning of the 1950s. In the best theaters in Europe began to put his play "Waiting for Godot." Between 1951 and 1953 he published a prose trilogy. The first part - the novel "Molloy", the second - "Malone dies" and the third - "Nameless." This trilogy made her author one of the most famous and influential word masters of the 20th century. These novels, in the creation of which innovative approaches to prose were used, resemble the usual literary forms. They are written in French, and a little later Beckett translated them into English.

Samuel, following the success of his play "Waiting for Godot," decided to develop as a playwright. The play "About all the falling" was created in 1956. In the late 1950s - early 1960s. There were the following works: "The End of the Game," "The Last Band of Krapp" and "Happy Days." They laid the foundation of the theater of the absurd.

In 1969, Beckett was awarded the Nobel Prize. It must be said that Samuel did not bear the increased attention that always accompanies fame. He agreed to accept the Nobel Prize only on condition that he did not receive it himself, but the French publisher Beckett and his old friend Jerome Lyndon. This condition was fulfilled.

Features of Beckett's creativity

Beckett Samuel is the author of many novels and plays. They all symbolize the man's powerlessness before the power of circumstances and habits, before the all-consuming meaninglessness of life. In short, the absurd! Well, let it be absurd. Most likely, this view of human destiny is not superfluous either.

Disputes around the literature of the absurd flared up, above all, about whether such art and art is acceptable at all? But let us recall the words of another Irishman, William Yeats, who said that humanity should be understood in all possible circumstances, that there is not too bitter laughter, too sharp irony, too terrible passion ... It is easy to imagine what would become of a society in which methods And art means imposed strict restrictions. However, it is unnecessary to resort to the imagination - history, especially ours, knows such examples. These Procrustean experiments end sadly: the army, in which the actions of scouts are strictly limited to the norms created in the cabinets, loses its eyes and ears, and each new danger takes it by surprise. So there is nothing else left than to accept the validity of the methods of the literature of the absurd. As for formal mastery, even opponents of Beckett's views do not deny him high professionalism - certainly, within the framework of the method he adopted. But Henry Bell, for example, in one of the conversations said: "Beckett, I think, is more exciting than any action-packed action movie."

In 1989, at the age of 83 years, Beckett Samuel died. Poems and prose of it, presumably, will continue to be relevant for many more years.