Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot

Paul Davies (University of Ulster at Coleraine)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.09: English Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary Britain , 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Kerry Myler (Newman University), Jenni Ramone (The Nottingham Trent University)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1953

Places

Ireland, Republic of (Eire) (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Play

Resources

Beckett called his play a “tragicomedy” on the title page, a genre which the work obeys in its concern with the need for humour when confronting an apparently unconcerned “fate”, and which it considerably revises through its radically new conception of “humanity” and its “anti-dramatic” technique: one reviewer commented that this is a play in which “nothing happens, twice”, a reference to its two acts which are in several respects repetitions of each other. Often regarded as Beckett's first play, it was in fact preceded by Eleutheria, a play equally experimental but carrying few signs that Godot would follow within four years. The earlier play failed to find a publisher or theatre producer, and Beckett w…

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932 words

Citation: Davies, Paul. "Waiting for Godot". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 08 January 2001 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=8665, accessed 27 November 2024.]

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