Overview
- Provides a wide-ranging survey of Beckett’s influence over American fiction
- Considers Beckett’s dissemination in the US through the author’s longtime relationship with the Evergreen Review
- Investigates Beckett’s role in the development of literary postmodernism through close textual analysis
Part of the book series: New Interpretations of Beckett in the Twenty-First Century (NIBTFC)
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Table of contents (7 chapters)
Keywords
About this book
Samuel Beckett’s Legacies in American Fiction provides an overdue investigation into Beckett’s rich influences over American writing. Through in-depth readings of postmodern authors such as Robert Coover, Donald Barthelme, Thomas Pynchon, Don DeLillo, Paul Auster and Lydia Davis, this book situates Beckett’s post-war writing of exhaustion and generation in relation to the emergence of an explosive American avant-garde. In turn, this study provides a valuable insight into the practical realities of Beckett’s dissemination in America, following the author’s long-standing relationship with the countercultural magazine Evergreen Review and its dramatic role in redrawing the possibilities of American culture in the 1960s. While Beckett would be largely removed from his American context, this book follows his vigorous, albeit sometimes awkward, reception alongside the authors and institutions central to shaping his legacies in 20th and 21st centuryAmerica.
Reviews
- Bran Nicol, Professor of English Literature, University of Surrey
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Dr James Baxter was awarded his PhD at the University of Reading in 2018, where he specialized in Beckett’s legacy on Postmodern American Literature. James has published articles in high-profile journals such as Textual Practice, and continues to contribute essays and reviews on popular film and music for a variety of outlets. Forthcoming projects include a study concerning the prevalence of populist poetics in American periodical culture in the 60s and 70s.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Samuel Beckett’s Legacies in American Fiction
Book Subtitle: Problems in Postmodernism
Authors: James Baxter
Series Title: New Interpretations of Beckett in the Twenty-First Century
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-81572-1
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media Studies, Literature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-81571-4Published: 01 December 2021
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-81574-5Published: 02 December 2022
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-81572-1Published: 30 November 2021
Series ISSN: 2945-6797
Series E-ISSN: 2945-6800
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: IX, 262
Number of Illustrations: 3 b/w illustrations, 2 illustrations in colour
Topics: Twentieth-Century Literature, Theatre and Performance Studies, Literary History, Theatre History, Drama