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Fougères in Brittany, where he worked on his novel

Le Dernier chouan, ou la Bretagne en 1800 (1829), a

historical work that he eventually published under

his own name. Finally, with this work, Balzac began

to gain some recognition and popularity, although

not enough to release him from debt.

In 1833, Balzac developed the idea of collecting

all of his previously written novels under one

name and linking them together as a series of

works which, when taken as a whole, would en-

compass all the customs, atmosphere, and habits of

French society. This idea eventually led to the col-

lection of more than 2,000 characters appearing

in 90 novels and novellas. The works were eventu-

ally collected under the title La Comédie humaine,

or The Human Comedy, a name Balzac borrowed

from Dante’s The Divine Comedy.

Critical Analysis

Included in La Comédie humaine were well-known

works such as Le Père Goriot (Father Goriot,

1834–35), Les Paysans (The Peasants, 1844), and

Illusions perdues (Lost Illusions, 1837–43). The set-

tings for these works include all levels of society in

Paris and the provinces. The characters include a

mix of old aristocracy and new money, set along-

side middle-class tradespeople and professionals,

servants, young intellectuals, and criminals. Some

of the characters, such as Eugène de Rastignac, the

poor provincial man who comes to Paris with big

dreams and makes good on them through gam-

bling, affairs, and connections with the nobility,

recur throughout the works. Balzac inserted him-

self in his works as well, alluding to incidents and

adventures in which he participated side by side

with his characters who grew to exist not only on

paper but in his imagination outside of his novels

as if they were actual acquaintances. It is said that

Balzac once interrupted a conversation in which a

friend of his was telling him about his sister’s ill

health by saying, “That’s all very well, but let’s get

back to reality: to whom are we going to marry Eu-

génie Grandet?”

During the height of his productivity, Balzac

was known to spend anywhere from 14 to 16

hours a day writing. He would eat a large meal

each evening, sleep for a few hours, and then

wake at midnight to continue writing. There are

reports that once he consumed 100 oysters and 12

lamb chops in a single meal. His few free hours

were spent having amorous affairs and pursuing

the joy of life. One of his affairs was with Eveline

Hanska, a wealthy Polish woman who had been

among his friends for 15 years. He based several

of his female characters on her, such as Mme.

Hulot in La Cousine Bette (Cousin Bette, 1846).

She was married throughout most of their

acquaintance, but after her husband passed away

in 1841, Balzac spent increasing amounts of time

in her company. Already in poor health, he

eventually married her and brought her back to

Paris in the spring of 1850, only five months

before his death in August, when his excesses got

the better of him and he died, reportedly of

caffeine poisoning.

Other Works by Honoré de Balzac

The Girl with the Golden Eyes. Translated by Carol

Cosman. New York: Carroll and Graf, 1998.

The Unknown Masterpiece; and, Gambara. Translated

by Richard Howard. New York: New York Review

of Books, 2001.

Works about Honoré de Balzac

Graham, Robb. Balzac: A Biography. New York:

Norton, 1994.

Kanes, Martin. Pere Goriot: Anatomy of a Troubled

World. Boston: Twayne, 1993.

Kanes, Martin, ed. Critical Essays on Honoré de Balzac.

Boston: G. K. Hall, 1990.

Barbey d’Aurevilly, Jules-Amédée

(1808–1889) novelist

Jules-Amédée Barbey d’Aurevilly was born in

Saint-Sauveur-le-Vicomte on November 2 into an

aristocratic family, was well educated, and was ac-

customed to privilege. In 1833, he moved to Paris,

where he had numerous love affairs and led the

unprincipled life of a “dandy,” supporting his

38 Barbey d’Aurevilly, Jules-Amédée

activities through journalism. In 1841, he con-

verted to strict Catholicism and eventually be-

came, as would be apparent in his novels, a strong

Christian moralist.

Barbey d’Aurevilly wrote numerous works of

criticism and articles, but it was his novels that

brought him acclaim. He was influenced by BALZAC

and greatly admired BAUDELAIRE. As well as harshly

criticizing NATURALISM, his novels and stories are

notable for their highly moralistic but sadistic por-

trayals of the struggles and tragedies associated

with life in the provinces of France.

Barbey d’Aurevilly is perhaps best known for

his work Les Diaboliques (1874; The Diabolic Ones,

1925), a collection of six stories, all having some

basis in fact and all carrying a similar satanic

motif. This shocking work achieved great success

both critically and popularly. He died in Paris, 15

years after its publication, at the age of 81.

Another Work by Jules Barbey d’Aurevilly

Dandyism. Translated by Douglas Ainsley. New York:

PAJ Publications, 1988.

Works about Jules Barbey d’Aurevilly

Chartier, Armand B. Barbey d’Aurevilly. Boston:

Twayne, 1977.

Eisenberg, Davina L. The Figure of the Dandy in Bar-

bey D’Aurevilly’s “Le Bonheur Dans Le Crime”.

New York: Peter Lang, 1996.

Baroja y Nessi, Pío (1872–1956) novelist

Pío Baroja y Nessi was born in San Sebastian,

Spain. His father was a mining engineer, and the

family moved frequently during his childhood, re-

locating from town to town, following his father’s

professional career. Baroja y Nessi studied to be a

doctor, and when he graduated from school, he

began a medical practice in the town of Cestona

in northern Spain. The medical profession did not

suit him. His practice was a disaster; after a short

time, he gave it up and moved to Madrid, a cos-

mopolitan city, where he ran a bakery that was

owned by his aunt.

It was at this time that he began to publish his

novels. He was successful as an author and quickly

gave up the management of the bakery to write full

time.

Baroja y Nessi was a member of the

GENERATION

1898

. He shared with the other writers of the

Generation of ’98 a strong sense of Spanish na-

tionalism and a need to reform society. However,

Baroja y Nessi was particularly individualistic. As

a youth, he had briefly been an anarchist but found

even this ideology too constraining. Because of an

aversion to any societal structure that limited his

freedom, he never married. This individualism was

the main theme of his novels.

In his trilogy The Struggle for Life (1903–04),

Baroja y Nessi depicts the slums of Madrid and a

collection of characters who, by living outside the

norms of society, manage to achieve personal free-

dom. Though the books are distinctly melancholy

and terse, written in what critics call Baroja y

Nessi’s gray style, they are optimistic in that some

of the characters do achieve a degree of freedom by

opposing society. In later novels, such as The Tree

of Knowledge (1911), Baroja y Nessi depicts the

same scenario but in a more pessimistic manner.

At the end, the protagonist is unable to realize his

goal of personal freedom and is crushed by society.

Baroja y Nessi was a formal innovator. He did

not believe in the “closed” novel, the standard

model of the 19th century, because he felt its care-

fully planned plot, structure, and resolution of

every conflict did not accurately reflect reality. In-

stead he wrote in a style of apparent aimlessness.

For example, he creates scenes in which suspense is

carefully built but never resolved. His stark tone

and innovative structure had a great effect on

many 20th-century writers, most notably Ernest

Hemingway.

Baroja y Nessi is one of the greatest Spanish

novelists of the early 20th century. His work, along

with that of the other members of the Generation

of ’98, revitalized Spanish literature. His influence

on later Spanish writers is widespread, but it can be

particularly seen in the works of Camilo José

CELA.

His innovative style, as well as his theme of the

Baroja y Nessi, Pío 39

struggle of the individual in modern society, has

secured his place among other great writers of

world literature.

Another Work by Pío Baroja y Nessi

The Restlessness of Shanti Andia and Other Writings.

Translated by Anthony Corrigan. Ann Arbor: Uni-

versity of Michigan Press, 1959.

A Work about Pío Baroja y Nessi

Patt, Beatrice P. Pío Baroja y Nessi. Boston: Twayne,

1971.

Bastida, Gustavo Adolfo Dominguez

See BÉQUER, GUSTAVO ADOLFO.

Bataille, Georges (1897–1962) novelist,

essayist

Often called the “metaphysician of evil” because

of his interests in sex, death, and the obscene,

Georges Bataille was born in Billon, Puy-de-Dôme,

France. His childhood was difficult because his

mother repeatedly attempted suicide, and his fa-

ther, whom Bataille dearly loved, became both

blind and paralyzed as a result of syphilis before he

died.

Bataille converted to Catholicism just prior to

World War I and served in the army from 1916 to

1917. Troubled by poor health throughout his life

as well as by recurring periods of depression, he

was discharged from the army as a result of tuber-

culosis. He joined a seminary, thinking of becom-

ing a priest, and spent time with a Benedictine

congregation, but he soon experienced a profound

loss of faith. He continued his education at the

École des Chartres, writing his thesis in 1922 on

13th-century verse.

Bataille aligned himself early on with surreal-

ism, but he considered himself to be the “enemy

from within.”André

BRETON officially excommuni-

cated Bataille from the movement. After a period

of psychoanalysis, Bataille began to write. He

founded several journals and was the first to

publish innovative thinkers such as Barthes, Fou-

cault, and Derrida.

Bataille rejected the traditional, believing that all

artistic and intellectual pursuits should ultimately

focus on the violent annihilation of the rational in-

dividual. His work was greatly influenced by both

Friedrich

NIETZSCHE and Gilles de Rais, a 15th-cen-

tury serial killer. All of Bataille’s writings deal with

violence and sexuality. His best known erotic works

are The Story of the Eye (1928), Blue of Noon (1945),

and The Abbot C. (1950). Bataille believed pornog-

raphy was a means of understanding the relation

between life and death. The Story of the Eye, which

he wrote under the pseudonym Lord Auch, for ex-

ample, is the story of a young couple who test the

boundaries of sexual taboos, escalating to extreme

playing out of sexual fantasies. The novel quickly

gained and still maintains a cult status decades after

Bataille’s death in Paris on July 8.

Other Works by Georges Bataille

Eroticism: Death and Sensuality. Translated by Mary

Dalwood. San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1991.

The Unfinished System of Nonknowledge. Translated

by Michelle Kendall and Stuart Kendall. Min-

neapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001.

Works about Georges Bataille

Champagne, Roland A. Georges Bataille. Boston:

Twayne, 1998.

Surya, Michel. Georges Bataille: An Intellectual Biogra-

phy. Translated by Krysztof Kijalkowski and

Michael Richardson. New York: Verso, 2002.

Baudelaire, Charles (1821–1867) poet,

critic

Considered one of the greatest 19th-century

French poets, Charles-Pierre Baudelaire was born

on April 9. He was the son of Joseph-François

Baudelaire and Caroline Archimbaut Dufays. His

father had been an ordained priest who left the

ministry during the French Revolution to work as

a tutor for the duc of Choiseul-Praslin’s children.

During this time, he met a number of influential

40 Bastida, Gustavo Adolfo Dominguez

people and amassed a small financial fortune. A

modestly talented poet and painter, he taught his

son an early appreciation for art.

Considered by many to be a revolutionary

even in his own time, Baudelaire was often given

to depression and cynicism. His father died when

Baudelaire was only six years old. For a short

time, he received a great deal of attention from

both his mother and his nurse, Mariette, until his

mother’s remarriage, this time to a man much

closer to her own age, Major Jacques Aupick.

Aupick was an intelligent and self-disciplined

man who served as a military general, an ambas-

sador, and ultimately as a senator. Baudelaire’s re-

lationship with his stepfather was not a good one,

although he did not reveal his dislike of the man

until later in life, at which point he attributed

much of his depression and dual personalities to

his mother’s remarriage.

In 1833, the family moved to Lyons, and Aupick

enrolled Baudelaire in a strict military boarding

school. The influence of the education and disci-

pline he received there had a great impact on his

outlook on life; it also increased his dislike for his

stepfather. He continued his education at Louis-le-

Grand, a respected French high school in Paris. His

growing behavior problems led to his expulsion in

1839. It was at this point that he announced his de-

cision to become a writer. To appease his family, he

also agreed to study law at the École de Droit, but

his attention was never focused on his studies. He

led a bohemian life, going deeply into debt and be-

coming an increasingly radical thinker. During

these years, he also made his first contacts in the

literary world and discovered the use of hashish

and opium.

In 1841, hoping to encourage him to change his

way of life, Baudelaire’s parents sent him by boat

on a trip to India. Throughout the voyage, he re-

mained depressed and sullen; therefore, when the

ship was forced to stop for repairs after a terrible

storm, he decided to return to France. Although he

did not enjoy the journey, it did have a strong in-

fluence on his writing by giving him a unique per-

spective on the world that few other writers of his

time could claim. On his return, he collected a

large inheritance that allowed him to immerse

himself in art and literature, paying particular at-

tention to the satanic-based and horror literature

that was popular at the time. However, in only two

years, he had spent almost half of his money. He

was placed by his family under a legal guardianship

and was forced to live on a controlled income for

the duration of his life.

A series of amorous affairs provided much of

the impetus for Baudelaire’s erotic poetry. The

Martinican Jeanne Duval, whom Baudelaire met in

1842, held perhaps the greatest influence. Her ex-

otic black hair provided the erotic imagery for his

poem “La Chevelure” (“The Head of Hair”). A

dark-haired, dark-skinned beauty, she was referred

to quite derogatorily by Baudelaire’s mother as the

“Black Venus.” Marie Daubrun, an actress and his

mistress from 1855 to 1860, as well as Apollonie

Sabatier, who presided over a salon for artists

and writers, were also the objects of Baudelaire’s

poetic and as well as romantic attentions.

In 1845, Baudelaire’s depression caused him to

unsuccessfully attempt suicide. Soon after, he pub-

lished La Fanfarlo (1847), an autobiographical

novella that anticipated his experimentation with

prose poetry. In 1848, French workers against so-

cial injustice minimally involved him in the revo-

lution: He fired a few shots through the barricades

and worked on radical political publications.

Baudelaire turned to literary and art criticism,

for which he became well respected. His admira-

tion for Delacroix and Constantin Guys influenced

his own modern aesthetics. He translated Edgar

Allan Poe’s works into French, publishing five vol-

umes of these translations from 1856 to 1865. He

became greatly influenced by the dark melancholic

brooding nature of Poe’s works and began to in-

corporate the ideas into his own writing. He was

particularly interested in the transformation of life

in the modern city.

Critical Analysis

The first edition of Baudelaire’s collected poems,

Les Fleurs du mal (Flowers of Evil) was published in

Baudelaire, Charles 41

1857. Focusing on erotic, satanic and often lesbian

themes, the work was not well received by the pub-

lic. Scathing reviews of the work published in liter-

ary journals had a profoundly negative effect on

Baudelaire’s writing career, and both he and the

publisher were ultimately prosecuted and heavily

fined for offending public morality. Six poems from

the collection were expressly banned as too radical

for public consumption.

Baudelaire became more depressed as a result of

this seeming failure and, after the death of his step-

father, he returned in 1859 to live once again with

his mother. He wrote 35 new poems for the sec-

ond edition of Les Fleurs du mal (1861), including

one of his best-known poems, “Le Voyage,” first

published in 1857. He also published a book of es-

says on the use of drugs, Les Paradis artificiels (Ar-

tificial Paradises, 1860). He had often used opium

and hashish as a means of inspiring creativity. He

began to become convinced, however, of the dan-

gers inherent in this habit.

Baudelaire’s life, however, was plagued by

tragedies. He was financially unable to assist his

publisher, who had been jailed for debt from the

first edition of Baudelaire’s poems, and he learned

that his mistress Jeanne Duval had been living with

another man. He also began to experience severe

headaches and suffered from nightmares, most

probably as a result of syphilis, which caused him

to think he was becoming insane. He moved to

Brussels in 1863, hoping to find a new publisher,

but his health steadily declined until a series of

strokes left him partially paralyzed. He returned

once again to Paris, where he died in his mother’s

arms on August 31.

Baudelaire’s works, including his critical essays

Curiositiés esthétiques (Aesthetic Curiosities, 1868)

and his collections of prose poems Les Petits

poèmes en prose (Little Prose Poems, 1868) and l’Art

romantique (Romantic Art, 1869) were major

influences on the symbolist and modernist

movements (see

MODERNISM). Through his use of

irony and his depiction of the scenes of modern

life, he transformed poetic language, and his criti-

cism founded an aesthetics of modernism.

Another Work by Charles Baudelaire

Baudelaire: Poems. Translated by Laurence Lerner.

London: J. M. Dent, 1999.

Works about Charles Baudelaire

Benjamin, Walter. Charles Baudelaire: A Lyric Poet in

the Era of High Capitalism. Translated by Harry

Zohn. London: New Left Books, 1973.

Hyslop, Lois Boe. Charles Baudelaire Revisited. New

York: Twayne Publishers, 1992.

Richardson, Joanna. Baudelaire. New York: St. Mar-

tin’s Press, 1994.

Beauchamp, Katherine Mansfield

See MANSFIELD, KATHERINE.

Beauvoir, Simone de (Simone Lucie-

Ernestine-Marie-Bertrand de Beauvoir)

(1908–1986) novelist, essayist

Simone de Beauvoir was born in Paris, France, on

January 9. A leading feminist and existentialist (see

EXISTENTIALISM), her works bear a clear resemblance

to those of her lifelong friend, mentor, colleague,

and lover Jean Paul SARTRE. Best known for her

two-volume work The Second Sex (1949), a work in

which de Beauvoir calls for the abolition of the

myth of the “eternal feminine,” she is considered by

many scholars working in the field of cultural

studies to be the primary voice for early feminist

studies. This work quickly became a classic among

feminist theorists and scholars and is considered to

be the founding text of gender studies.

De Beauvoir’s life history is well known, largely

as a result of the publication of numerous autobi-

ographical works such as Memoirs of a Dutiful

Daughter (1958), The Prime of Life (1960), Force of

Circumstance (1963), and All Said and Done

(1972). In these texts, she also documents the life

of Sartre, Albert CAMUS, and other influential

philosophers, novelists, and intellectuals from the

1930s to the 1970s.

Educated first at private schools and then at the

Sorbonne, where she received a degree in philoso-

42 Beauchamp, Katherine Mansfield

phy and first became acquainted with Sartre, de

Beauvoir pursued a career as a teacher after receiv-

ing her degree. She left this occupation to become a

full-time writer in 1943, the same year that she pub-

lished her first novel, She Came to Stay (1943),

which explores existential themes by examining the

ways in which a relationship between two people is

destroyed as a result of a guest, a young girl, who

stays for an extended period of time in a young cou-

ple’s home. Although purportedly fictional, this

work was based largely on de Beauvoir’s own rela-

tionship with Sartre and Olga Kosakiewicz, a former

student, who came to stay with them in occupied

Paris during the war. Her presence created many

difficulties for Sartre and de Beauvoir within their

own relationship, but it gave de Beauvoir much in-

spiration in her work.

Critical Analysis

Although intellectual and existential issues are a

concern of all de Beauvoir’s works, she is best known

for her application of existentialism to an under-

standing of the oppression of women. In The Second

Sex she makes known her firm belief that an indi-

vidual’s choices must be made on the basis of equal-

ity between the male and female, not on the basis of

any essential differentiation between the sexes. The

importance of choice—free will—is also a preva-

lent theme in many of de Beauvoir’s other works.

Her Ethics of Ambiguity (1947) is devoted largely to

the study of individual choices and the resultant

anxieties associated with the ramifications of those

choices, an underlying theme of existentialism.

In addition to feminist issues and free will, de

Beauvoir was also interested in the theme of aging.

She first covers this topic in A Very Easy Death

(1964), in which she addresses the issue of her own

mother’s death. She returns to this theme again in

Old Age (1970), a work that details the indiffer-

ence and lack of respect that the elderly receive

from society.

Political activism is another theme in de Beau-

voir’s writings, particularly those works written

after World War II when she and Sartre both

worked on a leftist journal. She published two nov-

els, The Blood of Others (1945), exploring the life of

members of the wartime resistance to the Nazi oc-

cupation, as well as The Mandarins (1954), which

describes the struggles faced by middle-class intel-

lectuals as they attempt to enter into the sphere of

political activism. Her political views tended in-

creasingly toward the left, and by the 1950s, she was

defending communism and criticizing U.S. and

Western European capitalism regularly in her

works. This attitude becomes even clearer after de

Beauvoir visited the United States and, on return-

ing to France, published her observations. Her

America Day by Day (1948) is a critique of the so-

cial problems caused by capitalism in the United

States. While there, she also fell in love with fellow

writer Nelson Algren, complicating her existing

love affair with Sartre. Elements of The Mandarins

reflect this new development in her life.

De Beauvoir’s final years were marked by

Sartre’s death and her attempts to write about the

nature of their relationship, the end result of which

she eventually published in Adieux: A Farewell to

Sartre (1981). It was her desire to remain as hon-

est and true as possible in her examination of their

life together. To the critics and to members of

Sartre’s family, however, it seemed as if she was at-

tacking the late philosopher.

De Beauvoir passed away on April 14. After her

death, several additional works were published, in-

cluding Letters to Sartre (1990), Journal of a Resis-

tance Fighter (1990), and, in 1997, her passionate

Letters to Algren. Most important, The Second Sex is

still considered a primary text for feminist studies.

Other Works by Simone de Beauvoir

All Men Are Mortal. Translated by Euan Cameron.

London: Virago, 1995.

When Things of the Spirit Come First: Five Early Tales.

Translated by Patrick O’Brian. New York: Pan-

theon Books, 1982.

Works about Simone de Beauvoir

Bauer, Nancy. Simone de Beauvoir, Philosophy and

Feminism. New York: Columbia University Press,

2001.

Beauvoir, Simone de 43

Pilardi, Jo-Ann. Simone de Beauvoir Writing the Self:

Philosophy Becomes Autobiography. Westport,

Conn.: Praeger, 1999.

Scholz, Sally. On de Beauvoir. Belmont, Calif.:

Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2000.

Simons, Margaret A. Beauvoir and “The Second Sex”:

Feminism, Race and the Origins of Existentialism.

Boston: Lanham, Rowman and Littlefield Publish-

ers, 1999.

Becher, Johannes Robert (1891–1958)

poet, novelist

Johannes Robert Becher was born into an upper-

middle-class Catholic family in Munich, Germany.

His father was a high-ranking Bavarian judge. Al-

though Becher studied philosophy and medicine,

he favored poetry as the creative outlet for his po-

litical views. His early poems were radical and

rooted in EXPRESSIONISM. He published his first col-

lection of verse in 1914. During World War I,

Becher refused to join the German military and

became a pacifist. He joined the left-wing Sparta-

cus League in 1918 and the German Communist

Party in 1919.

Becher emerged as a leader among German

communists and radical writers in the 1920s. The

literary historian Adolf D. Klarmann noted that,

at this time, Becher wrote revolutionary poetry

that “literally bursts and scatters the traditional

shackles of sentence, logic, and grammatical struc-

ture.” Becher served as a deputy to the Reichstag

(German legislature) in 1925 and became head of

the League of Proletarian–Revolutionary Writers

in 1928. His book of poetry Der Leichnam auf dem

Thron (The Corpse on the Throne, 1925) and his

novel Levisite oder der einzig gerechte Krieg (The

Only Just War, 1926) led to accusations of treason

against the German government. The rise of the

Nazis to power in 1933 made Germany too dan-

gerous for left-wing writers like Becher. He fled the

country and eventually settled in Moscow.

After the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945,

Becher moved to Communist East Berlin. He soon

became president of the East German Academy of

Arts. He won several awards for his works, includ-

ing the Lenin Peace Prize in 1952. Becher’s poem

“Auferstanden aus Ruinen” (“Risen from the

Ruins”, 1949) was used as the text for his country’s

national anthem. In 1954, Becher was appointed

cultural minister of East Germany. His support for

modernist authors, such as Bertolt

BRECHT, created

tension with his government, which officially fa-

vored SOCIALIST REALISM. Becher’s efforts to pro-

mote cooperation with noncommunist German

intellectuals earned him a reprimand from his

party. He had already lost much of his political

power when he died in 1958.

Another Work by Johannes Robert Becher

Farewell. Translated by Joan Becker. Berlin: Seven

Seas Publishers, 1970.

A Work about Johannes Robert Becher

Haase, Horst. Johannes R. Becher, Leben and Werk.

West Berlin: Das Europäische buch, 1981.

Beckett, Samuel (1906–1989) playwright,

novelist, poet

Samuel Beckett was born on April 13 in Dublin,

Ireland. He was educated at Earlsfort House in

Dublin and later in Enniskillen at Portora Royal

School, the alma mater of writer Oscar Wilde. Al-

though Beckett came from an Anglo-Irish Protes-

tant family, he wrote most of his work in French.

He received a degree from Trinity College in

Dublin in Romance languages. During this time,

he also began to enjoy the vibrant theater scene

that was emerging in a postindependence Ireland.

He was particularly influenced by the plays of J.

M. Synge, the arrival of American silent movies,

and the vaudeville antics of performers such as

Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, which he

would later incorporate in his plays.

After graduation, Beckett spent two years, from

1928 to 1930, as an exchange lecturer in Paris.

While there, he met and became lifelong friends

with writer James Joyce. He acted as one of Joyce’s

assistants while the author was working on

44 Becher, Johannes Robert

Finnegan’s Wake and, at the same time, began his

own career as a writer. He published his first poem,

“Whoroscope,” which concerns time and the ideas

of the philosopher René Descartes, in 1930. That

same year, he returned to lecture at Trinity College

and began to work on a series of stories about the

life of a Dublin intellectual that later formed the

collection More Pricks Than Kicks (1934). After

only four terms at Trinity, Beckett left to pursue a

career as a freelance writer, traveling throughout

Europe and finally settling in Paris, which was to

be his primary home for the rest of his life. He also

began work on his first novel, Dream of Fair to

Middling Women (1932), which was highly auto-

biographical.

Beckett was seriously injured one night when, as

he was walking home, he was stabbed. It was during

his hospitalization and recuperation that he

cemented his friendship with Joyce, who became

his caretaker. He also began a long-term association

with Suzanne Deschevaux-Dusmesnil, whom he

married in 1961. In 1941, when Paris was invaded,

Deschevaux-Dusmesnil joined the resistance with

Beckett and they narrowly escaped the arrival of the

Gestapo at their apartment. Fleeing to a small town

in the south of France, Beckett worked on a farm

in exchange for living quarters and continued his

writing. After the defeat of the Germans in 1945, he

returned to Paris and, at this point, made the

decision to write all of his works in French.

Critical Analysis

Taken as a whole, Beckett’s works attempt to re-

duce basic existential problems to a minimalist

structure where only the most essential elements

are considered. His concerns are commonplace in

that they reflect the shared worries of society as a

whole, but they are never simple. He ponders such

large-scale issues as the nature of life itself, the

question of time and its relevance, the concept of

eternity, and the sense of isolation, alienation, and

loneliness of the individual self.

Beckett’s early works are composed of a series of

internal monologues: Molloy (1951; translated

1955), Malone Meurt (1951; translated as Malone

Dies, 1956), and L’Innomable (1953; translated as

The Unnameable, 1958). These pieces reflect one of

the many paradoxes Beckett explores: the dilemma

associated with the fact that the self can never truly

know itself. The act of self-observation leads to a

split in which the self becomes two individual en-

tities: the observer and the observed. The self is

only able to perceive itself through narration, a

monologue. This same theme is returned to later

in his essentially two-character play, Fin de partie

(Endgame, 1958).

Best known as a playwright, Beckett’s major

dramatic works, all considered pioneering plays in

the emerging tradition of the

THEATRE OF THE AB-

SURD,are En attendant Godot (Waiting for Godot,

1952), Endgame, Krapp’s Last Tape (1959), Happy

Days (1961), Play (1964), Not I (1973), That Time

(1976), and Footfalls (1976). Beckett also wrote a

series of radio and television dramas, as well as

adaptations of his stage works for film.

Beckett is best known for the play Waiting for

Godot, an absurdist piece that was first performed

on January 5, 1953, in Paris. Two derelict-looking

characters, Vladimir and Estragon, sit by the side

of a road throughout the two acts, waiting for the

mysterious Godot, who never appears (is he to be

identified with God? Critics do not agree), and

aimlessly discuss possible action. Each of the two

acts ends with the same words, except that the roles

are reversed. This is the end of Act II:

VLADIMIR: Well, shall we go?

ESTRAGON: Yes, let’s go.

They do not move.

The play won worldwide acclaim and was followed

by a series of critical successes of plays and novels,

some of which he had written much earlier in his

life.

Beckett’s novels and short stories, such as Mur-

phy (1938; translated 1957); Watt (1953), which

was his last novel initially written in English; and

Texts for Nothing (1955; translated 1967), also ex-

amine the self trapped and isolated in its quest for

understanding of identity. The situations are often

Beckett, Samuel 45

grotesque, and the overall tone is one of anguish

and suffering, lightened by gallows humor.

In 1969, Beckett was awarded the Nobel Prize

for literature. He continued to write and to be in-

volved in literary and dramatic projects, publish-

ing his last major work Stirrings Still in 1986.

Emphysema forced his hospitalization, and,

bedridden, he wrote his last poem, “What Is the

Word.” Shortly after, his declining health kept him

from writing and forced him into a nursing home,

where he remained until his death on December

22. Death, however, was not the end of Beckett’s

publishing career. His first play, the previously un-

published Eleutheria (1947), which depicts the au-

thor’s search for freedom through the character of

a young man, was rediscovered and published in

English translation in 1995, six years after his

death. Beckett had not allowed the play to be

printed during his lifetime because he considered

it to be a failure. Its publication was the result of a

long dispute between Beckett’s American publisher

and close friend, Barney Rosset, and his family and

his French publisher. Critically, this work is of

great importance because it shows the beginnings

of the ideas that would define Beckett’s works and

predates, as well as predicts, the beginnings of the

Theater of the Absurd movement.

Other Works by Samuel Beckett

Gontarski, S. E., ed. The Theatrical Notebooks of

Samuel Beckett, Volume 4: The Shorter Plays. New

York: Grove Press, 1999.

Nohow On: Company, Ill Seen Ill Said, Worstward Ho:

Three Novels. Introduction by S. E. Gontarski.

New York: Grove Press, 1996.

Works about Samuel Beckett

Bair, Dierdre. Samuel Beckett: A Biography. New York:

Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1978.

Cronin,Anthony. Samuel Beckett: The Last Modernist.

London: HarperCollins, 1996.

Gordon, Lois. The World of Samuel Beckett. New

Haven: Yale University Press, 1996.

Knowlson, James. Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel

Beckett. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996.

Bécquer, Gustavo Adolfo (Gustavo

Adolfo Dominguez Bastida)

(1836–1870) poet, prose writer

Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer was born in Seville, Spain.

The son of José Dominguez Bécquer, a somewhat

successful painter, Bécquer was orphaned at the

age of 11. Apprenticed to be a painter, as was his

brother, he eventually gave up the art when his

uncle informed him that he had no talent and

would be better off as a writer. His brother contin-

ued to paint and, although Bécquer turned to writ-

ing, he remained deeply interested in visual art

throughout his life. One of his major literary inno-

vations was the way he used striking visual de-

scriptions.

For most of his adulthood, Bécquer lived hand-

to-mouth in Madrid, publishing his poems and

short stories in small journals and magazines. To-

ward the end of his life, he was given a government

position as a censor, which helped improve his

quality of living. By this time, he had contracted

tuberculosis.

Most of Bécquer’s work was never published in

book form during his life, only in periodicals. After

his death, his friends collected his published and

unpublished manuscripts and put out a two-vol-

ume book simply titled Works (1871). It was only

then that, for the first time, Bécquer received criti-

cal acclaim.

Bécquer’s works can be divided into three

major components. The poems or Rimas (Rhymes,

1860–61), the short stories or Leyendas (Legends,

1864), and a series of autobiographical literary es-

says, Cartas desde mi Celda (Letters from My Cell),

which he wrote while convalescing at the

monastery of Veruela in 1864.

Bécquer called his poems Rhymes to indicate his

break with earlier traditions of Spanish verse and

to show his poems’ relationship to folk ballads. His

simple but very visual language gives the impres-

sion that he is expressing true emotions and get-

ting to the essence of things. He has been

compared to the

GERMAN ROMANTIC poet HEINE,al-

though the two writers were probably not familiar

with each other’s work.

46 Bécquer, Gustavo Adolfo

His Legends are rich with magical imagery

and descriptions of nature and the supernatural.

Frequently they take the form of fables and have

morals at the end. In his Legends, Bécquer is

exploring a typical romantic tendency to bring

folklore and popular stories into the realm of

high art.

Finally, Letters From My Cell is a collection of

essays in which Bécquer explores his moral, artis-

tic, and spiritual beliefs. Written as he was ap-

proaching death, they serve as a kind of psychic

autobiography.

Bécquer, underappreciated during his life, went

on to become one of the most influential Spanish

poets of the 19th century. He was the central figure

of Spanish ROMANTICISM. The great Latin American

poet Ruben DARIO openly acknowledged Bécquer’s

powerful effect on him. Bécquer died at age 34

from tuberculosis, never knowing the lasting influ-

ence his work would have.