The Broken Window: Beckett's Dramatic Perspective - Hardcover

Hale, Jane Alison

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0911198822 ISBN 13: 9780911198829

Publisher: Purdue University Press, 1987

Synopsis

The author defines and analyzes the new type of theatricalperspective invented by Samuel Beckett. She begins with an overview of thechanges of the definition of twentieth century-knowledge (e.g, art, science,philosophy, and psychology) then discusses the concepts of time, space, andmovement which underlie Beckett's notion and use of perspective in the theater.The Broken Window shows how Beckett translates a number of twentieth-centuryesthetic and philosophical concerns – the impossibility of separating subjectand object, the indeterminacy of time and space, the inevitability of movementand change – into specific dramatic techniques and traces their evolutionthrough close textual analyses of six plays. Hale is the first critic to define Beckett’s theatricaltechniques in terms of the notion of perspective and to link them to similarinnovations in the plastic arts. In addition, no critic has so exhaustivelyelaborated Beckett’s premises of indeterminacy, the inevitability ofperception, and the breakdown of the subject/object relationship.

About this title

Review

"Hale derives a metaphor from the history of painting. The Renaissance invention of perspective, as she says, was applauded as scientific but took hold because it corresponded to deep assumptions about where the viewer was in relation to the viewed . . . . [The author] argues that Beckett's conception of theater has responded to a similar change; we're no longer sure of knowing where we stand with respect to everything . . . .

"[Hale] works her way through the canon with the aid of this guiding metaphor . . . . To have found a way to talk about those [late, very stark, very short pieces, like A Piece of Monologue and Rockaby] is to have accomplished something impressive."

--Hugh Kenner

"This is a valuable study for its concentration on an important theme in Beckett's work and for its lucid though relatively brief discussion of the philosophical background to Beckett's treatment of that theme."

Choice

--Choice

About the Author

Jane A. Hale is an assistant professor of French and comparative literature at Brandeis University. She received her M.A and Ph.D. degrees at Stanford University. Hale has published a number of articles in the journals of her field, including Modern Language Studies and Stanford French Review.

Edition details

• Publisher: Purdue University Press
• Publication date: 1987
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0911198822
• ISBN 13: 9780911198829
• Binding: Hardcover