Beckett's Dantes

About this book

"Beckett's Dantes: Intertextuality in the Fiction and Criticism is the first study in English on the literary relation between Beckett and Dante. It is an innovative reading of Samuel Beckett and Dante's works and a critical engagement with contemporary theories of intertextuality." "Through a close reading of Beckett's fiction and criticism, the book will argue that Dante is both assumed as an external source of literary and cultural authority in Beckett's work, and also participates in Beckett's texts' sceptical undermining of authority. Moreover, the book demonstrates that the many references to various 'Dantes' produce 'Mr. Beckett' as the figure of the author responsible for such a remarkably interconnected oeuvre.". "The volume detects previously unknown quotations, allusions to, and parodies of Dante in Beckett's fiction and criticism, and it interprets Dante in the original Italian (as it appears in Beckett), translating all Italian quotations into English. It benefits from a multilingual approach based on Beckett's published works in English and French, and on manuscripts (which use English, French, German and Italian)."--BOOK JACKET.