Dear Colin,
I'm fascinated by your project. My research area is in
literature, particularly women's writing (and women's
suffrage-related writing). Virginia Woolf was also
interested in 18th C. literature. I just wondered whether
a point of investigation would be to consider a general
post/modernist interest in the 18th C. if more evidence can
be found? Just a passing thought, and apologies if it's an
obvious one,
best wishes,
Katharine Cockin
On Fri, 27 Aug 1999 14:40:17 GMT0BST Colin Winborn
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> Many thanks for picking up this thread. A few other desultory
> observations which come to mind as I'm writing: in *Malone Dies*,
> there is a character called Lemuel, and references to Swift abound in
> the Trilogy. It could be argued, indeed (but I think this is taking
> it too far) that *Molloy* is to some extent a reworking
> of *Gulliver's Travels*. Both Molloy and Moran are (like
> Gulliver) obsessively concerned, on their respectives odyssies, with
> ratiocination, and with the absurdly precise measurement of a world
> which ever eludes domestic comprehension.
>
> As far as Johnson goes. Beckett began but never completed a play
> about his hero, entitled *Dr Johnson and Mrs Thrale*. But, being
> Beckett, he obliterated it. And, according to academic legend,
> the only item he had on his desk when writing (beside the
> compulsory Gauloises, ash-tray and double-strength espresso) was an
> edition of Johnson's dictionnary.
>
> Any more thoughts on Austen's connection with Beckett? That is
> certainly the most puzzling one. i have a few thoughts on it.
>
> Colin Winborn
> University of Leeds
>
>
>
> Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 03:09:23 -0700
> Reply-to: 18th Century Interdisciplinary Discussion <[log in to unmask]>
> From: Guillermo Raffo <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: Beckett and the Eighteenth-Century
> To: [log in to unmask]
>
> >How, frankly, could one be a modern Irish writer and NOT be indebted (even
> >in rebellion) to the 18th century?
>
> I agree. Besides, rebellious or not, Beckett did his homework like few
> 20th Century writers. It must have been frightening to talk with him
> about almost any aspect of Western culture.
>
> >From Jame Knowlson's "Damned to Fame":
>
> "Now (early 30's) [Beckett] picked up his earlier reading of
> eighteenth-century literature: the poets Pope and Gay --and, with
> self-improvement in mind, above all the novelists: Fielding, Smollet and
> Swift. He read Fielding's Amelia, having earlier spent some time reading
> Tom Jones and admiring Joseph Andrews"
>
> I strongly recommend this biography, btw.
>
----------------------
K.M.Cockin
Lecturer
English Dept. University of Hull
HULL. HU6 7RX
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