Beckett's Dantes - 2nd Edition by Daniela Caselli (Paperback)

About the Book

The first study in English of the literary relationship between Beckett and Dante. It is a clear and innovative reading of Samuel Beckett and Dante's works and a critical engagement with contemporary theories of intertextuality

From the Back Cover

Beckett's Dantes: Intertextuality in the Fiction and Criticism is the first study in English on the literary relation between Beckett and Dante. It is an innovative reading of Samuel Beckett and Dante's works and a critical engagement with contemporary theories of intertextuality. It is an informative intertextual reading of Beckett's work, detecting previously unknown quotations, allusions to, and parodies of Dante in Beckett's fiction and criticism. The volume interprets Dante in the original Italian (as it appears in Beckett), translating into English all Italian quotations. It benefits from a multilingual approach based on Beckett's published works in English and French, and on manuscripts (which use English, French, German and Italian). Through a close reading of Beckett's fiction and criticism, the book will argue that Dante is both assumed as an external source of literary and cultural authority in Beckett's work, and also participates in Beckett's texts' sceptical undermining of authority. Moreover, the book demonstrates that the many references to various 'Dantes' produce 'Mr Beckett' as the figure of the author responsible for such a remarkably interconnected oeuvre. The book is aimed at the scholarly communities interested in literatures in English, literary and critical theory, comparative literature and theory, French literature and theory and Italian studies. Its jargon-free style will also attract third-year or advanced undergraduate students, and postgraduate students, as well as those readers interested in the unusual relationship between one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century and the medieval author who stands for the very idea of the Western canon.

Review Quotes

"Caselli proves her ability to summarise the established critical positions succinctly and clearly - in itself no mean feat ... Caselli's study reaches its aims to a very great extent ... [she] writes lucidly throughout. Reading her results is a pleasure, and the book is destined to become a 21st-century classic of Beckett criticism." --Merle Tonnies, "Archive"

About the Author

Daniela Caselli is Senior Lecturer in Twentieth-Century Literature and Culture in the School of Arts, Histories, and Cultures at the University of Manchester