Samuel Beckett and the Theatre of the Absurd

To understand Beckett and the Theatre of the Absurd we must first go back to Beckett's roots in Irish theatre. It was Martin Esslin who coined the phrase 'The Theatre of the Absurd.' Esslin attributed this form of drama to the moment when 'the certitudes and unshakeable assumptions of former ages have been swept away, that they have been found wanting... The Theatre of the Absurd has renounced arguing about the absurdity of the …

…Tape - taken from An Approach to the Plays of Samuel Beckett. New York Grove Press, Published in 1968. Esslin, Martin. The Theatre of the Absurd. Published by Methuen Publishing Limited, 1961. Harrington, John P. Samuel Beckett and the Countertradition- taken from Twentieth Century Irish Drama, Edited by Shaun Richard. Published by Cambridge University Press, 2004. Bibliography: Gordon, Luis. Reading Godot. Published Vail-Ballou Press, 2002. Graver, Lawrence, and Raymond Federman. Samuel Beckett: The Critical Heritage. Published by Kegan Paul, 1979.