Samuel Beckett: Waiting for Godot/Endgame: A reader's guide to essential criticism

by Peter Boxall (Editor)

In this Readers' Guide, Peter Boxall traces critical responses to Waiting for Godot and Endgame from the 1950s to the present day. The guide presents the major debates that surround these works as they develop, from Martin Esslin's early appropriation of the plays as examples of the Theatre of the Absurd, to recent poststructuralist and postcolonial readings by critics such as Steven Connor, Mary Bryden and Declan Kiberd. Throughout, Boxall clarifies and contextualizes critical responses to the plays, and considers the difficult relationship between Beckett and his critics.

Genres: Plays, Fiction, Drama

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

Reviews

[Erin Geismar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Both great plays but Waiting for Godot is much better. If you don't like or aren't used to Absurdist Theater, it may take a couple of times to really appreciate that. But Beckett does a really great job of exposing the audience to the meaninglessness of life - which for me, inspires me to work against that.

[Roberta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beckett does a stunning job describing and creating the atmosphere of the post-modern world's boredom, motionlessness and lack of (clear) direction. Both plays contain a similar bleak picture of the past-less and future-less present.

[Ana · Rating 5 out of 5]

it was a comical way of letting people know how we all need to have hope, but, on the same hand, how hope can sometimes lead us to a meaningless life.

[Erica · Rating 4 out of 5]

*This is not a review* I read this book in the English class where I met my husband.

[Erin · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm pretty sure I missed something, but I really really didn't like this play. Maybe I'm just not deep enough.

[L · Rating 4 out of 5]

'Bout time I read this, wasn't it?