Article: 'The Existence I Ascribe': Memory, Invention, and Autobiography in Beckett's Fiction.(Samuel Beckett)

Beckett, modernism, and aesthetic autobiography

This essay takes as its starting point what I suggest is a seminal moment in Beckett's fiction. In his 1946 novella, First Love, the narrator draws attention for the first time to an opposition between two categories of thingness which persists as a foundational structural distinction for the remaining four decades of Beckett's prose writing career. Talking of the objects, people, and places that form the subject matter of his stories, the narrator claims: 'I have always spoken, no doubt always shall, of things that never existed, or that existed, if you insist, no doubt always will, but not with the existence I ...

Related newspaper, magazine, and journal articles:

 
 
Newsweek Harper's Magazine The Washington Post Chicago Tribune Crain's Chicago Business PRNewswire Pediatric News The Nation Advertising Age The Economist (US) A FREE trial gives you access to over 80 million articles! Access over 6,500 publications with a FREE trial!