Product Description

This study presents a comprehensive and original argument about the fundamental literary value and the underlying psychological meaning of Beckett's work. John Keller explores Beckett's work, not only for its importance on a personal, human level for many readers, but its place in elaborating the origins of human emotional life, and of creative fiction. He explores the central place of the emotional world in Beckett's writing, which he argues is primarily about love. Keller believes that Beckettian texts embody a struggle to remain in contact with a primal sense of internal goodness founded on early experience with the mother. He suggests that Beckett's greatest achievement as an artist was to document a universal struggle that allows for the birth of mind, and to connect this struggle to the origin, and possibility of the creative act.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #919356 in Books
• Published on: 2002-12-12
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

Review
"John Keller has written a book that threw more light onto the Beckettian murk...for this reader...than has been available before. The readings...are highly convincing and in places quite stunning. Beckett Studies...will never be quite the same again." -- Lance Butler, Universite de Pau
"Keller utterly convinces the reader of his basic, fundamental premise that Beckett's work is 'primarily about love'. This is an astounding conclusion which will change the nature of Beckett Studies. [This book] is a significant intervention and a work of true originality." -- Shane Murphy, Co-ordinator, Irish and Scottish Studies Programme, University of Aberdeen