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Drama since 1945 457 sense of identity, was not new. It can be traced back in poetry, through T.S. Eliot and Wilfred Owen, as far as Matthew Arnold’s Dover Beach, and in the use of ‘wasteland’ or ‘no man’s land’ as an image. Beckett’s characters inhabit these empty wastelands, and one of Pinter’s plays has the title No Man’s Land. Although accepting the ‘absurdity’ of existence and human behaviour, neither playwright can be described as entirely pessimistic. Where, in Dover Beach, the line ‘Ah, love, let us be true to one another’ offered some reassurance against the bleakness of the world, Beckett’s characters ‘always find something, eh Didi, to give us the impression we exist’. Waiting for Godot (in English, 1955), probably Beckett’s best-known play, is based on waiting, in the eternal hope that ‘tomorrow everything will be better’. The two tramps Vladimir and Estragon spend their time in the same place, day after day, filling in time, waiting for things to happen. The audience might feel, with Estragon, that ‘Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes, it’s awful!’ But the spirit of Beckett is highly comic even in the face of bleakness and sameness. It is the same spirit informing the absurd situations presented in the silent films of the early twentieth century. Beckett’s characters have much in common with those played by the stars of silent films like Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, in that their ‘routines’ (both verbal and physical), their very appearance, all deliberately recall these ‘Everyman’ figures of the century. VLADIMIR You must be happy, too, deep down, if you only knew it. ESTRAGON Happy about what? VLADIMIR To be back with me again. ESTRAGON Would you say so? VLADIMIR Say you are, even if it’s not true. ESTRAGON What am I to say? VLADIMIR Say, I am happy. ESTRAGON I am happy. VLADIMIR So am I. ESTRAGON So am I. VLADIMIR We are happy. ESTRAGON We are happy. [Silence.] What do we do now, now that we are happy? VLADIMIR Wait for Godot. [ESTRAGON groans. Silence.]
458 The twentieth century: 1945 to the present Things have changed since yesterday. ESTRAGON And if he doesn’t come? VLADIMIR [after a moment of bewilderment] We’ll see when the time comes. In his later plays, Beckett reduces his theatre to its essentials: from two acts in Waiting for Godot and Happy Days (1961), to one, starting with Endgame (1957); from five characters to four, then two, then one, and finally – in Breath (1970), which lasts only about thirty seconds – there are no characters at all. This move towards minimalism is a reductio ad absurdum, which can perhaps allow the term ‘absurd’ to be reclaimed in a theatrical context. The setting is a ‘stage littered with miscellaneous rubbish’, and the sounds of birth, breath and death are heard. This is the ultimate image of the wastelands of twentieth-century literature, where ‘we are born astride of a grave’, and ‘the light gleams an instant, then it’s night once more’, as Vladimir says in Waiting for Godot. Beckett takes drama to new extremes, and pushes his characters to the limits of solitude, non-communication and hopelessness. Yet they all survive, and any thoughts of suicide are dispelled. Hamlet’s ageold question, ‘To be or not to be’, is answered in the affirmative, even though Beckett takes his characters closer to the extremes of despair and hopelessness of King Lear than any other writer since Shakespeare. Critics have tended to see close parallels between King Lear, in particular, and the plays of Beckett – citing this as proof of Shakespeare’s modernity. Equally, it might be evidence for Beckett’s universality in the face of seemingly tragic situations. Yet in Beckett there is no tragic climax; continuing the struggle to remain alive is offered as the unavoidable and necessary conclusion. His novel The Unnamable (1958) sums up the paradox of the ‘absurd’ life humankind leads in the words, ‘Where I am, I don’t know, I’ll never know, in the silence you don’t know, you must go on. I can’t go on, I’ll go on.’ Harold Pinter’s plays have many superficial resemblances to Beckett’s drama. The two men were friends, and Beckett is certainly a major influence on Pinter, as he is on many writers of the late twentieth century. All the same, Pinter is more concerned with the dangers inherent in the silences between characters, the menace in the meaning
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The Routledge History of Literature
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First published 1997 by Routledge 1
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Contents List of illustrations Fore
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Contents ix The Gothic and the subl
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Contents xi THE TWENTIETH CENTURY:
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Illustrations Figure 1 Linguistic b
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xvi Foreword The Routledge History
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xviii Foreword and burlesque and sa
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From the earliest stages, Malcolm B
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Beowulf, the Dane, dear king of his
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6 Old and Middle English 600-1485 T
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8 Old and Middle English 600-1485 t
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10 Old and Middle English 600-1485
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22 Figure 2 The greatest extent of
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The Renaissance 1485-1660
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58 The Renaissance 1485-1660 centur
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60 The Renaissance 1485-1660 would
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62 The Renaissance 1485-1660 were n
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64 The Renaissance 1485-1660 ‘To
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66 The Renaissance 1485-1660 I find
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68 The Renaissance 1485-1660 Mid-su
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70 The Renaissance 1485-1660 and a
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72 The Renaissance 1485-1660 I had
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74 The Renaissance 1485-1660 Faustu
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76 The Renaissance 1485-1660 perfor
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78 The Renaissance 1485-1660 Greek
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80 The Renaissance 1485-1660 47); a
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82 The Renaissance 1485-1660 the Re
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84 The Renaissance 1485-1660 years
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86 The Renaissance 1485-1660 Renais
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88 The Renaissance 1485-1660 terms
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90 The Renaissance 1485-1660 Shakes
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92 The Renaissance 1485-1660 1601 2
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94 The Renaissance 1485-1660 The pu
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96 The Renaissance 1485-1660 Shakes
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98 The Renaissance 1485-1660 most o
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100 The Renaissance 1485-1660 And s
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102 The Renaissance 1485-1660 I all
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104 The Renaissance 1485-1660 In mu
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106 The Renaissance 1485-1660 my he
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108 The Renaissance 1485-1660 Thou
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110 The Renaissance 1485-1660 Trahe
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112 The Renaissance 1485-1660 Old T
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114 The Renaissance 1485-1660 misun
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116 The Renaissance 1485-1660 from
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118 The Renaissance 1485-1660 The t
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120 The Renaissance 1485-1660 Middl
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122 The Renaissance 1485-1660 GIOVA
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124 The Renaissance 1485-1660 SIR B
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126 The Renaissance 1485-1660 The s
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Thy wars brought nothing about; Thy
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Contexts and conditions 131 Sea; no
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Early Milton 133 Revolution was the
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Early Milton 135 good and evil as t
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Early Milton 137 the hero from the
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Restoration drama 139 many lives as
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Restoration drama 141 Revenge! PIER
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Restoration drama 143 One of the fi
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Restoration drama 145 prohibiting
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Restoration drama 147 LOVELESS No,
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Restoration drama 149 PRIM Do they
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Rochester 151 The Theatres Licensin
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Dryden 153 what it saw as the highe
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Dryden 155 his best, and his transl
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Pope 157 POPE True wit is nature to
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Journalism 159 And, spite of pride,
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Scottish Enlightenment, diarists an
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The novel 167 and the social awaren
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The novel 169 Each serial volume of
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The novel 171 paraphrase Pope: what
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The novel 173 polemic comes when he
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The novel 175 That kingdom he hath
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The novel 177 opportunity to set fo
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The novel 179 sentence of death. He
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Criticism 181 to do with that work.
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Johnson 183 (1712). Swift took the
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Johnson 185 There are some hostile
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Sterne, Smollett and Scottish voice
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Drama after 1737 195 MISS HARDCASTL
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Poetry after Pope 197 Thomas Gray
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Poetry after Pope 199 Nor rural sig
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Poetry after Pope 201 but by no mea
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Melancholy, madness and nature 203
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The Gothic and the sublime 209 Burk
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The Gothic and the sublime 211 conc
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The Gothic and the sublime 213 all
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Bliss was it in that dawn to be ali
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Contexts and conditions 219 and mor
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Contexts and conditions 221 economi
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Contexts and conditions 223 past, p
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Blake, Wordsworth and Coleridge 225
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Keats 235 and completing the poetic
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Keats 237 beauty but at the same ti
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Shelley 239 Keats also gives us occ
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Shelley 241 or sail around Venice.
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Byron 243 Each like a corpse within
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Byron 245 What I have done is done;
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Byron 247 Though the night was made
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Romantic prose 249 Bright yellow is
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Romantic prose 251 one of the Immor
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The novel in the Romantic period 25
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Jane Austen 255 the remotest antiqu
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Jane Austen 257 she wrote in her le
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Jane Austen 259 LANGUAGE NOTE Jane
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Scott 261 and scarcely even picture
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Scott 263 She coloured highly, and
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From Gothic to Frankenstein 265 flu
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The Scottish regional novel 267 (18
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The nineteenth century
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272 The nineteenth century of Queen
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274 The nineteenth century Smollett
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276 The nineteenth century Hard Tim
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278 The nineteenth century Podsnap
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280 The nineteenth century income a
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282 The nineteenth century cover su
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284 The nineteenth century in some
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286 The nineteenth century earlier
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288 The nineteenth century the end.
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290 The nineteenth century Charlott
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292 The nineteenth century by Dicke
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294 The nineteenth century the ‘v
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296 The nineteenth century LATE VIC
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298 The nineteenth century fathers
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300 The nineteenth century In his l
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302 The nineteenth century An old w
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304 The nineteenth century is a cla
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306 The nineteenth century there ca
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308 The nineteenth century Renaissa
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310 The nineteenth century of Doria
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312 The nineteenth century Most of
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314 The nineteenth century embellis
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316 The nineteenth century Irish; F
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318 The nineteenth century justifie
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320 The nineteenth century However,
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322 The nineteenth century mode of
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324 The nineteenth century the firs
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326 The nineteenth century Its titl
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328 The nineteenth century also saw
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330 The nineteenth century aware so
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332 The nineteenth century Stitch!
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334 The nineteenth century Her robe
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336 The nineteenth century year as
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338 The nineteenth century twentiet
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340 The nineteenth century But if y
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342 The nineteenth century we can r
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The twentieth century 1900-45
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348 The twentieth century: 1900-45
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508 The twentieth century: 1945 to
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544 Timelines 802 Egbert of Wessex
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546 Timelines 1189 Accession of Kin
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548 Timelines became King Henry VI
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550 Timelines 1513 Niccolo Machiave
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552 Timelines 1578 Opening of The T
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554 Timelines 1685 Death of Charles
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556 Timelines 1811-12 The campaign
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558 Timelines the USA expanded towa
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560 Timelines USA, which demanded t
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562 Timelines conceded. The phrase
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564 Timelines policy, with enormous
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Acknowledgements W.H. AUDEN, Their
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568 Acknowledgements D.H. LAWRENCE,
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Select bibliography The following b
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572 Select bibliography Dollimore,
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574 Select bibliography Miner, Earl
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576 Select bibliography Burrow, J.W
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578 Select bibliography Sinfield, A
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580 Index Ballantyne, R(obert) M(ic
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582 Index Cockburn, Alison (c.1712-
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584 Index Gaskell, (Mrs) Elizabeth
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586 Index Keats, John (1795-1821) 1
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588 Index Morris, William (1834-96)
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590 Index Seneca, Lucius Annaeus (c
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592 Index Waugh, Evelyn (1903-66) 3
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