Abstract
Samuel Beckett’s first published short story, “Assumption” (1929), is usually described as an apprentice work, “a piece of marginally interesting juvenilia” (Pattie 2000: 52), a beginner’s attempt toward a modernist short story in which the influence of James Joyce is clear. Indeed, it has been claimed that Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is the model underlying Beckett’s early foray into creative fiction. The current paper seeks to reassess the established critical appreciation of “Assumption”, that of being a parody of Joyce’s novel by a playful disciple; instead, I will argue that Beckett was in fact questioning the very principles of his master’s art. If Portrait is the epitome of the Künstlerroman, Beckett in his short piece debunked the myth of the young artist by consciously downgrading the aesthetic concerns of his protagonist and by disrupting the revered categories of modernist fiction.[1]
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© 2019 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Frontmatter
- Articles
- Victorian Mages: Robert Browning’s “Pietro of Abano” as a Critical Corollary to Alfred Tennyson’s Merlin
- Of ‘Household Gods’ and Devils: Fetishism in The Old Curiosity Shop
- More than an Artist in the Making: Samuel Beckett’s “Assumption” Revisited
- John Barth and David Foster Wallace: An Abortive Patricide
- False Generosity of the State: Parasitic Subjectivity in J. M. Coetzee’s Life and Times of Michael K
- Reviews
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- Brandon W. Hawk. 2018. Preaching Apocrypha in Anglo-Saxon England. Toronto Anglo-Saxon Series 30. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, xvii + 271 pp., 7 figures, $ 65.00.
- Thorlac Turville-Petre. 2018. Description and Narrative in Middle English Alliterative Poetry. Exeter Medieval Texts and Studies. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, viii + 222 pp., £ 85.00.
- Susanna Fein (ed.). 2016. The Auchinleck Manuscript: New Perspectives. Manuscript Culture in the British Isles. York: York Medieval Press/Woodbridge: Boydell, xi + 253 pp., 6 figures, £ 60.00 (hb)/£ 25.00 (pb).
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- Martina Bross. 2017. Versions of Hamlet: Poetic Economy on Page and Stage. Beiträge zur Englischen und Amerikanischen Literatur 35. Paderborn: Schöningh, 354 pp., € 59.00.
- Kathrin Tordasi. 2018. Women by the Waterfront: Modernist (Re)Visions of Gender, Self and Littoral Space. Epistemata: Würzburger Wissenschaftliche Studien – Reihe Literaturwissenschaft 890. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 348 pp., 7 illustr., € 48.00.
- John Kinsella and Russell West-Pavlov. 2018. Temporariness: On the Imperatives of Place. Tübingen: Narr Francke Attempto, 372 pp., 37 illustr., € 69.90.
- Colin Wells. 2018. Poetry Wars: Verse and Politics in the American Revolution and Early Republic. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 342 pp, $ 55.00/£ 44.00.
- Christoph Lanzen. 2018. Physicians of Culture: Healing Catharsis in the Fiction of Toni Morrison and the Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. Heidelberg: Winter, 172 pp., € 35.00.
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Frontmatter
- Articles
- Victorian Mages: Robert Browning’s “Pietro of Abano” as a Critical Corollary to Alfred Tennyson’s Merlin
- Of ‘Household Gods’ and Devils: Fetishism in The Old Curiosity Shop
- More than an Artist in the Making: Samuel Beckett’s “Assumption” Revisited
- John Barth and David Foster Wallace: An Abortive Patricide
- False Generosity of the State: Parasitic Subjectivity in J. M. Coetzee’s Life and Times of Michael K
- Reviews
- Matti Peikola, Aleksi Mäkilähde, Hanna Salmi, Mari-Liisa Varila and Janne Skaffari (eds.). 2017. Verbal and Visual Communication in Early English Texts. Utrecht Studies in Medieval Literacy 37. Turnhout: Brepols, xii+280 pp., 30 illustr., 11 graphs, 9 tables, € 80.00.
- Brandon W. Hawk. 2018. Preaching Apocrypha in Anglo-Saxon England. Toronto Anglo-Saxon Series 30. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, xvii + 271 pp., 7 figures, $ 65.00.
- Thorlac Turville-Petre. 2018. Description and Narrative in Middle English Alliterative Poetry. Exeter Medieval Texts and Studies. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, viii + 222 pp., £ 85.00.
- Susanna Fein (ed.). 2016. The Auchinleck Manuscript: New Perspectives. Manuscript Culture in the British Isles. York: York Medieval Press/Woodbridge: Boydell, xi + 253 pp., 6 figures, £ 60.00 (hb)/£ 25.00 (pb).
- Omar Khalaf (ed.). 2017. Alexander and Dindimus. Edited from Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 264. Middle English Texts 55. Heidelberg: Winter, liv + 80 pp., 8 plates, 2 tables, € 44.00.
- Traugott Lawler. 2018. The Penn Commentary on Piers Plowman. Volume 4: C Passūs 15–19; B Passūs 13–17. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, xv + 499 pp., $ 89.95/£ 69.00.
- Martina Bross. 2017. Versions of Hamlet: Poetic Economy on Page and Stage. Beiträge zur Englischen und Amerikanischen Literatur 35. Paderborn: Schöningh, 354 pp., € 59.00.
- Kathrin Tordasi. 2018. Women by the Waterfront: Modernist (Re)Visions of Gender, Self and Littoral Space. Epistemata: Würzburger Wissenschaftliche Studien – Reihe Literaturwissenschaft 890. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 348 pp., 7 illustr., € 48.00.
- John Kinsella and Russell West-Pavlov. 2018. Temporariness: On the Imperatives of Place. Tübingen: Narr Francke Attempto, 372 pp., 37 illustr., € 69.90.
- Colin Wells. 2018. Poetry Wars: Verse and Politics in the American Revolution and Early Republic. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 342 pp, $ 55.00/£ 44.00.
- Christoph Lanzen. 2018. Physicians of Culture: Healing Catharsis in the Fiction of Toni Morrison and the Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. Heidelberg: Winter, 172 pp., € 35.00.