Back Cover
Longman Critical Readers
General Editor: Stan Smith
Research Professor in Literary Studies, Nottingham Trent University
This important series takes full account of contemporary literary theory, providing collections of key modern readings of major authors, genres and critical approaches. Prefaced by a wide-ranging editorial introduction setting the readings in context and exploring the issues they raise, individual volumes in the series offer the student authoritative and stimulating guides to the best theoretically-informed critical work on subjects from the Middle Ages to the present.

This volume aims to make easily accessible to students and scholars stimulating and innovative writing on the work of Samuel Beckett, representing the wide range of new approaches in contemporary critical theory: philosophical, political and psychoanalytic criticism, feminist and gender studies, semiotics, and reception theory.
Jennifer Birkett and Kate Ince bring together seminal writings on Beckett from the 1950s and 1960s with contemporary critical readings covering the whole range of Beckett's creative work. Fifteen critical texts are set in context by the editors' headnotes. An editorial introduction gives an up-to-date review and analysis of writing on Beckett.
The extensive bibliography is organised to guide students through the different areas of Beckett criticism, and there is a glossary of theoretical terms as well as a helpful Index.
This book will be welcomed on undergraduate and postgraduate courses where Beckett is being taught, and on critical theory courses, and will be a valuable point of reference for Beckett scholars.
Jennifer Birkett is Professor of French Studies, and Kate Ince Lecturer in French Studies, at the University of Birmingham.

Contents Acknowledgements Editors' Note Introduction Part One : Political Criticism 1. Theodor W. Adorno Trying to Understand Endgame 2. Stephen Watt Beckett by Way of Baudrillard : Toward a Political Reading of Samuel Beckett's Drama 3. Patricia Coughlan 'The Poetry is Another Pair of Sleeves' : Beckett, Ireland and Modernist Lyric Poetry Part Two : Literature/Philosophy 4. Georges Bataille Molloy's Silence 5. Maurice Blanchot Where now? Who now? 6. Leslie Hill The Trilogy Translated Part Three : Deconstruction 7. Steven Connor Voice and Mechanical Reproduction : Krapp's Last Tape, Ohio Impromptu, Rockaby, That Time 8. Thomas Trezise Dispossession Part Four : Psychoanalytic Criticism 9. Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari Disiring - Production : The Schizo's Stroll 10. David Watson The Fictional Body ; Le Depeupleur 11. Daniel Katz 'Alone in the Accusative' : Beckett's Narcissistic Echoes Part Five : Reader Reception 12. Wolfgang Iser The Art of Failure: The Stifled Laugh in Beckett's Theater Part Six : Semiotics 13. Carla Locatelli Comic Strategies in Beckett's Narratives Part Seven : Feminism/Gender 14. Julia Kristeva The Father, Love and Banishment 15. Linda Ben-Zvi Not I : Through a Tube Starkly Glossary Notes on Authors Further Reading Index

Jennifer Birkett is Emeritus Professor of French Studies at the University of Birmingham, UK.

Kate Ince is Reader in French Film and Gender Studies at the University of Birmingham, UK.