“That sound you hear is the sea”: Embers and the radio play in Samuel Beckett’s work

Authors

  • Carla Lento Faria Universidade de São Paulo. Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas. Departamento de Teoria Literária e Literatura Comparada

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.2448-1769.mag.2020.189763

Keywords:

Samuel Beckett, Radio play, Voices, Ambiguity, Embers

Abstract

This article aims to analyze Samuel Beckett’s second radio play, Embers, broadcasted by the BBC in 1959. In his final work, Beckett had the opportunity to work with different types of media, such as the cinema, the television and the radio. The work medias in the texts that he wrote to each of them. Regarding Embers, Beckett used the disembodiment of the voices on the radio transmission to produce ambiguities in relation to the situations experienced by the narrator/character Henry. Thus, we intend to observe how Beckett discusses the relationships between form and content of the radio media at the same time as he develops the narrative of Embers.

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Author Biography

  • Carla Lento Faria, Universidade de São Paulo. Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas. Departamento de Teoria Literária e Literatura Comparada

    Desenvolve trabalho de doutorado sobre Entre os atos e a concepção de romance na obra de Virginia Woolf, no Programa de Teoria Literária e Literatura Comparada da USP. Contato: carlalfaria@usp.br

References

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Andrade, Fábio de Souza. “In terra samuelis”. In: Samuel Beckett: o silêncio possível. Cotia: Ateliê Editorial, 2001.

Beckett, Samuel. Embers. 1959. (44m38s). Disponível na internet.

Beckett, Samuel. “Embers”. In: The complete dramatic works. London: Faber and Faber, 1986.

Esslin, Martin. “Samuel Beckett and the art of radio”. In: On Beckett: essays and criticism. Ed. Gontarski, S. E. London: Anthem Press, 2014.

Frost, Everett C. “The sound is enough: Beckett’s radio plays”. In: Gontarski, S. E. (ed.). Edinburgh companion to Samuel Beckett and the arts. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2014.

Gontarski, S. E. (intro). “The conjuring of something out of nothing: Samuel Beckett’s ‘closed space’ novels. In: Beckett, Samuel. Nohow on: Company, Ill seen Ill said, Worstward Ho. New York: Grove, 1996.

Kalb, Jonathan. “The mediated Quixote: the radio and television plays, and Film”. In: Pilling, John (ed.). The Cambridge Companion to Samuel Beckett. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.

Perloff, Marjorie. “The silence is not silence: acoustic art in Samuel Beckett’s Embers.” In: Samuel Beckett and the arts: music, visual arts, and non-print media. New York and London: Garland, 1999.

Watt, Ian. The rise of the novel. California: University of California Press, 1957.

Published

2020-11-11

Issue

Section

Ensaios de Curso

How to Cite

Faria, C. L. (2020). “That sound you hear is the sea”: Embers and the radio play in Samuel Beckett’s work. Magma, 27(16). https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.2448-1769.mag.2020.189763