Drawing on the diverse critical debates of the `Beckett and Europe conference held in Reading, UK, in 215, this volume brings together a selection of essays to offer an international response to the central question of what `Europe might mean for our understandings of the work of Samuel Beckett. Ranging from historical and archival work to the close interrogation of language and form, from the influences of various national literary traditions on Becketts writing to his influence on the work of other writers and thinkers, this book examines the question of Europe from multiple vantage points so as to reflect the ways in which Becketts oeuvre both challenges and enlivens his status as a `European writer. With a full introductory chapter examining the challenging implications of the term `Europe in the contemporary period, this volume treats Europe as a recognition of the multiple ways that Becketts poetry, criticism, prose and drama invite new understandings of the role of history, culture and tradition in one of the most significant bodies of writing of the twentieth century.

About the Author

Michela Bariselli is a doctoral researcher in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Reading, UK, working on the use of humour in Samuel Becketts prose. Her main interests sit at the intersection between philosophy and literature and the way in which those can inform each other in a fruitful way.Niamh M. Bowe is a final-year AHRC-funded PhD student at the University of Reading, UK. Her current research project focusses on the problem of empathy in Becketts later dramatic works, with wider research interests including Irish studies, performance studies and history of sympathy in European literature. Recently, she has taught British contemporary theatre at the University of Reading, as well as working on theatre productions in Britain and Ireland.William Davies is a doctoral researcher and sessional lecturer at the University of Reading, UK. His current project examines the impacts and traces of the Second World War in Samuel Becketts work. He co-organised the Beckett and Europe (2015) and the Beckett and Politics (2016) conferences at the University of Reading. He has written for the Beckett Circle and his forthcoming publications include a chapter on Samuel Beckett and T. S. Eliot in the essay volume Beckett and Modernism (2017) and an essay in the Journal of Beckett Studies on the textual and contextual details of Becketts The Capital of the Ruins. In 2017, he was awarded the University of Readings Heritage and Creativity Researcher of the Year prize.