141-636: Hull Truck Theatre is a theatre in Kingston upon Hull , England, which presents drama productions, and also tours. In March 2022, the theatre's original premises on Coltman Street, Hull, was recognised by a blue plaque to coincide with the theatre's 50-year anniversary. The Hull Truck Theatre Company was founded in 1971 by actor musician Mike Bradwell when he could not find work. He placed an advertisement in Time Out magazine which read, "Half-formed theatre company seeks other half". Its first production, Children of
282-450: A non-metropolitan district of the newly created shire county of Humberside. Humberside (and its county council ) was abolished on 1 April 1996 and Hull was made a unitary authority area . The single-tier local authority of the city is now Hull City Council (officially Kingston upon Hull City Council), headquartered in the Guildhall in the city centre. The council was designated as
423-808: A port city and unitary authority area in the East Riding of Yorkshire , England. It lies upon the River Hull at its confluence with the Humber Estuary, 25 miles (40 km) inland from the North Sea and 37 miles (60 km) south-east of York , the historic county town . With a population of 268,852 (2022), it is the fourth-largest city in the Yorkshire and the Humber region after Leeds , Sheffield and Bradford . Hull has more than 800 years of seafaring history and
564-421: A "trilogy", though this is against the author's own explicit wishes—the prose becomes increasingly bare and stripped down. Molloy , for instance, still retains many of the characteristics of a conventional novel (time, place, movement, and plot) and it makes use of the structure of a detective novel . In Malone Dies , movement and plot are largely dispensed with, though there is still some indication of place and
705-671: A UK tour of DNA by Dennis Kelly , starring James Alexandrou Mike Bradwell, who had gone on to be Artistic Director at the Bush Theatre (1996–2007), returned to Hull Truck in March 2012 to perform excerpts from the early Hull Truck shows in celebration the 40th anniversary of the company's formation. He was joined by fellow performers from those days – the original Truckers – John Lee, Steve Halliwell , Dave Greaves, Alan Williams , Cass Patton, Rachel Bell , Mary East, Pete Nicholson, David Ambrose, Steve Marshall and David Hatton. Later that year
846-544: A career in theatre for its author. Beckett went on to write successful full-length plays, including Fin de partie ( Endgame ) (1957), Krapp's Last Tape (1958, written in English), Happy Days (1961, also written in English), and Play (1963). In 1961, Beckett received the International Publishers' Formentor Prize in recognition of his work, which he shared that year with Jorge Luis Borges . The 1960s were
987-532: A deep dive into Germany's galleries and underground collections. This lasting engagement with the visual arts seeped into his creative process, often shaping his literary output and incentivising him to collaborate with artists such as Joan Mitchell and Geneviève Asse . After the German occupation of France in 1940, Beckett joined the French Resistance , in which he worked as a courier. On several occasions over
1128-500: A left-handed batsman and a left-arm medium-pace bowler . Later, he played for Dublin University and played two first-class games against Northamptonshire . As a result, he became the only Nobel literature laureate to have played first-class cricket. Beckett studied French, Italian, and English at Trinity College Dublin from 1923 to 1927 (one of his tutors – not a teaching role in TCD –
1269-522: A moment of stillness in the present. They also deal with the theme of the self-confined and observed, with a voice that either comes from outside into the protagonist's head (as in Eh Joe ) or else another character comments on the protagonist silently, by means of gesture (as in Not I ). Beckett's most politically charged play, Catastrophe (1982), which was dedicated to Václav Havel , deals relatively explicitly with
1410-460: A much-quoted article, the critic Vivian Mercier wrote that Beckett "has achieved a theoretical impossibility—a play in which nothing happens, that yet keeps audiences glued to their seats. What's more, since the second act is a subtly different reprise of the first, he has written a play in which nothing happens, twice." The play was published in 1952 and premièred in 1953 in Paris; an English translation
1551-458: A musical frame (taking excerpts from Beethoven and Schubert , respectively) to structure his text and borrows well-known images from art history to create evocative stills that suggest themes of longing, ambiguity, hope, and suffering. Such experimentation with genre, music, and the visual arts, characterises Beckett's work during the 1970s and '80s. Beckett's prose pieces during the late period were not as prolific as his theatre, as suggested by
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#17328594416331692-401: A new flood defence scheme to protect homes and businesses, stretching 4 miles (6.4 km) from St Andrews Quay Retail Park to Victoria Dock , linking to other defences at Paull and Hessle . Started in 2016, it was completed in early 2021. The scheme was officially opened on 3 March 2022, by Rebecca Pow . At around 00:56 GMT on 27 February 2008, Hull was 30 miles (48 km) north of
1833-518: A nurse. His parents were both 35 when he was born, and had married in 1901. Beckett had one older brother named Frank Edward (1902–1954). At the age of five, he attended a local playschool in Dublin, where he started to learn music, and then moved to Earlsfort House School near Harcourt Street in Dublin. The Becketts were members of the Church of Ireland ; raised as an Anglican , Beckett later became agnostic ,
1974-521: A performance from the band All What Jazz (named after Philip Larkin 's 1985 book) and provided the setting for the annual Philip Larkin Society Distinguished Guest Lecture, given that year by actor and dramatist Barrie Rutter . The following month, following a review of Hull Truck's management structure, Paul Marshall became operations director and Andrew Smaje was appointed to fill the newly created role of chief executive to develop
2115-828: A perspective which informed his writing. Beckett's family home, Cooldrinagh, was a large house and garden complete with a tennis court built in 1903 by Beckett's father. The house and garden, its surrounding countryside where he often went walking with his father, the nearby Leopardstown Racecourse , the Foxrock railway station, and Harcourt Street station would all feature in his prose and plays. Around 1919 or 1920, he went to Portora Royal School in Enniskillen , which Oscar Wilde had also attended. He left in 1923 and entered Trinity College Dublin , where he studied modern literature and Romance languages, and received his bachelor's degree in 1927. A natural athlete, he excelled at cricket as
2256-447: A pivotal moment in his entire career". Beckett fictionalised the experience in his play Krapp's Last Tape (1958). While listening to a tape he made earlier in his life, Krapp hears his younger self say "clear to me at last that the dark I have always struggled to keep under is in reality my most...", at which point Krapp fast-forwards the tape (before the audience can hear the complete revelation). Beckett later explained to Knowlson that
2397-435: A poet and close confidant of Beckett who also worked there. This meeting had a profound effect on the young man. Beckett assisted Joyce in various ways, one of which was research towards the book that became Finnegans Wake . In 1929, Beckett published his first work, a critical essay titled "Dante... Bruno. Vico.. Joyce". The essay defends Joyce's work and method, chiefly from allegations of wanton obscurity and dimness, and
2538-524: A preliminary hearing, Beckett asked his attacker for the motive behind the stabbing. Prudent replied: "Je ne sais pas, Monsieur. Je m'excuse" ["I do not know, sir. I apologise"]. Beckett eventually dropped the charges against his attacker – partially to avoid further formalities, partly because he found Prudent likeable and well-mannered. After his own near-fatal stabbing in 2022, author Salman Rushdie referenced Beckett's example when talking about his reasons for not interviewing his attacker. For Beckett,
2679-565: A prominent part in the abolition of the slave trade in Britain. More than 95% of the city was damaged or destroyed in the blitz and suffered a period of post-industrial decline (social deprivation, education and policing). The destroyed areas of the city were rebuilt in the post–Second World War period. In the early 21st century spending boom before the late 2000s recession the city saw large amounts of new retail, commercial, housing and public service construction spending. The city offers
2820-681: A relationship that was to last, in parallel with that with Suzanne, for the rest of his life." Bray died in Edinburgh on 25 February 2010. In 1969 the avant-garde filmmaker Rosa von Praunheim shot an experimental short film portrait about Beckett, which he named after the writer. In October 1969 while on holiday in Tunis with Suzanne, Beckett heard that he had won the 1969 Nobel Prize in Literature . Anticipating that her intensely private husband would be saddled with fame from that moment on, Suzanne called
2961-462: A theme echoing Beckett's earlier work, though possibly amplified by the sickness he experienced late in life. Jack MacGowran was the first actor to perform a one-man show based on the works of Beckett. He debuted End of Day in Dublin in 1962, revising it as Beginning To End (1965). The show went through further revisions before Beckett directed it in Paris in 1970; MacGowran won the 1970–1971 Obie for Best Performance By an Actor when he performed
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#17328594416333102-451: A time of change for Beckett, both on a personal level and as a writer. In 1961, he married Suzanne in a secret civil ceremony in England (its secrecy due to reasons relating to French inheritance law). The success of his plays led to invitations to attend rehearsals and productions around the world, leading eventually to a new career as a theatre director. In 1957, he had his first commission from
3243-635: A variety of museums, art galleries, stunning architecture, and a thriving arts scene. Due to Hull's growing appeal as an outdoor film location, particularly for period dramas using the Old Town's historic streets and buildings, plans for a purpose-built film studio complex have been approved by Hull City Council. The £3m complex could open by the end of 2025. The city has earned the nickname "Hullywood" in recent years, after productions including The Crown , Enola Holmes 2 , The Personal History of David Copperfield , Victoria and Blitz have been filmed in
3384-453: A waste gasification process. Commissioning of the plant was undertaken in 2019 with full operation expected to be late 2019. Hull Marina was developed on land formerly occupied by the railway docks in the centre of the city. It was repurposed and opened in 1983, it has 270 berths for yachts and small sailing craft. Samuel Beckett Samuel Barclay Beckett ( / ˈ b ɛ k ɪ t / ; 13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989)
3525-399: A will, in the beginning. But it's always the same thing. Yes, it's like the funny story we have heard too often, we still find it funny, but we don't laugh any more." Beckett's outstanding achievements in prose during the period were the three novels Molloy (1951), Malone meurt (1951; Malone Dies ) and L'innommable (1953: The Unnamable ). In these novels—sometimes referred to as
3666-477: A writer can be roughly divided into three periods: his early works, up until the end of World War II in 1945; his middle period, stretching from 1945 until the early 1960s, during which he wrote what are probably his best-known works; and his late period, from the early 1960s until Beckett's death in 1989, during which his works tended to become shorter and his style more minimalist . Beckett's earliest works are generally considered to have been strongly influenced by
3807-462: Is 36.9 °C (98.4 °F), set in July 2022. Typically, the warmest day should reach 28.8 °C (83.8 °F), though slightly over 10 days should achieve a temperature of 25.1 °C (77.2 °F) or more in an "average" year. All averages refer to the 1991–2020 period. The absolute minimum temperature is −11.1 °C (12.0 °F), recorded during January 1982. Winters are generally mild for
3948-698: Is Godber's Bouncers . This celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2007 and was the final play to be performed before moving to a new venue. In 2006 work had begun on a new 440-seat theatre in Ferensway, Hull, as part of the St Stephen's development. Specially built for the Hull Truck Company, funded by the Arts Council , Hull City Council and the European Regional Development Fund , the theatre
4089-427: Is a favourite: it is not only performed frequently but has globally inspired playwrights to emulate it. This is the sole play the manuscript of which Beckett never sold, donated or gave away. He refused to allow the play to be translated into film but did allow it to be played on television. During this time in the 1950s, Beckett became one of several adults who sometimes drove local children to school; one such child
4230-725: Is considered one of the last modernist writers, and a key figure in what Martin Esslin called the Theatre of the Absurd . A resident of Paris for most of his adult life, Beckett wrote in both French and English. During the Second World War , Beckett was a member of the French Resistance group Gloria SMH ( Réseau Gloria ) and was awarded the Croix de Guerre in 1949. He received the 1969 Nobel Prize in Literature "for his writing, which—in new forms for
4371-477: Is expected to be at increasing levels of risk from flooding due to global warming. Historically, Hull has been affected by tidal and storm flooding from the Humber; the last serious floods were in the 1950s, in 1953, 1954 and the winter of 1959. Many areas of Hull were flooded during the June 2007 United Kingdom floods , with 8,600 homes and 1,300 businesses affected. Further flooding occurred in 2013, resulting in
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4512-542: Is known as Yorkshire's maritime city. The town of Wyke on Hull was founded late in the 12th century by the monks of Meaux Abbey as a port from which to export their wool. Renamed Kings-town upon Hull in 1299, Hull had been a market town , military supply port, trading centre, fishing and whaling centre and industrial metropolis. Hull was an early theatre of battle in the English Civil Wars . Its 18th-century Member of Parliament, William Wilberforce , took
4653-424: Is often falsely labelled as an existentialist (this is based on the assumption that Camus was an existentialist, though he in fact broke off from the existentialist movement and founded his own philosophy ). Though many of the themes are similar, Beckett had little affinity for existentialism as a whole. Broadly speaking, the plays deal with the subject of despair and the will to survive in spite of that despair, in
4794-562: Is part of the Humber Enterprise Zone . Although the fishing industry, including oilseed production, declined in the 1970s due to the Cod Wars , the city remains a busy port, handling 13 million tonnes of cargo per year. The port operations run by Associated British Ports and other companies in the port employ 5,000 people. A further 18,000 are employed as a direct result of the port's activities. The port freight railway line,
4935-549: Is the largest. The city is surrounded by the rural East Riding of Yorkshire. Some areas of Hull lie on reclaimed land at or below sea level. The Hull Tidal Surge Barrier is at the point where the River Hull joins the Humber Estuary and is lowered at times when unusually high tides are expected. It is used between 8 and 12 times per year and protects the homes of approximately 10,000 people from flooding. Due to its low level, Hull
5076-429: Is west of the River Hull and close to the Humber. The city is built upon alluvial and glacial deposits which overlie chalk rocks but the underlying chalk has no influence on the topography. The land within the city is generally very flat and is only 2 to 4 metres (6.5 to 13 ft) above sea level . Because of the relative flatness of the site there are few physical constraints upon building and many open areas are
5217-554: The Time Out list of the 15 best places to visit in the UK in 2024, with the guide commenting that the city has got "The Deep, an enormous aquarium with 3,000 species, a picturesque old town which survived the city's relentless WWII bombings, and lots of up and coming indie art galleries like Ground and Artlink. Don't sleep on Hull". In 2016, it was named as one of the top 10 cities in the world to visit by Rough Guides alongside cities such as Seoul, Vancouver, Amsterdam and Reykjavik. In 2017,
5358-493: The 2007 local elections , ending several years in which no single party had a majority. They retained control in the 2008 local elections by an increased majority and in the 2010 local elections . Following the UK's local elections of 2011 , the Labour Party gained control of the council, increasing their majority in the 2012 and retained this following the 2014 local elections . They increased their majority by one in
5499-399: The 2015 local elections , but lost it in the 2016 local elections . In the 2018 local elections all of the council was up for election following boundary changes that reduced the number of seats by 2. Labour retained control of the council but with a much reduced majority, while in the 2019 local elections there was no change to the make-up of the council. In the 2021 local elections
5640-582: The BBC Third Programme for a radio play, All That Fall . He continued writing sporadically for radio and extended his scope to include cinema and television. He began to write in English again, although he also wrote in French until the end of his life. He bought some land in 1953 near a hamlet about 60 kilometres (40 mi) northeast of Paris and built a cottage for himself with the help of some locals. From
5781-629: The Bush Theatre taking an interest and staging the production. In April 1983 the Hull Truck Company made the Spring Street Theatre its home. Originally converted from St Stephen's church hall (the church itself had been bombed in the Second World War ), this tiny 150-seat theatre space was known as The Hull Arts Centre where Hull playwright Alan Plater co-founded the Humberside Theatre in 1970. The theatre had closed in 1981. From 1983 it
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5922-540: The House of Commons and at the last general election, in 2019 , elected three Labour MPs: Emma Hardy , Diana Johnson and Karl Turner . William Wilberforce is the most celebrated of Hull's former MPs. He was a native of the city and the member for Hull from 1780 to 1784 when he was elected as an Independent member for Yorkshire . Kingston upon Hull is on the northern bank of the Humber Estuary . The city centre
6063-483: The Hull Docks Branch , operates 22 trains per day. In January 2011 Siemens Wind Power and Associated British Ports signed a memorandum of understanding concerning the construction of a wind turbine blade manufacturing plant at Alexander Dock. The plan would require some modification of the dock to allow the ships, used for transporting the wind turbine blades, to dock and be loaded. Planning applications for
6204-679: The Liberal Democrats gained a couple of seats but Labour retained control by just three seats. On 3 March 2022, Labour councillor Julia Conner defected to the Liberal Democrats, reducing the Labour majority to one. The Liberal Democrats won overall control of the City Council in the 2022 local elections to end ten years of Labour rule, increasing their majority in the 2023 local elections . The city returned three members of parliament to
6345-479: The Nazi savagery that was overtaking the country. Returning to Ireland briefly in 1937, he oversaw the publication of Murphy (1938), which he translated into French the following year. He fell out with his mother, which contributed to his decision to settle permanently in Paris. Beckett remained in Paris following the outbreak of World War II in 1939, preferring, in his own words, "France at war to Ireland at peace". His
6486-500: The Toulouse poet Jean du Chas, founder of a movement called le Concentrisme . It was a literary parody, for Beckett had in fact invented the poet and his movement that claimed to be "at odds with all that is clear and distinct in Descartes ". Beckett later insisted that he had not intended to fool his audience. When Beckett resigned from Trinity at the end of 1931, his brief academic career
6627-544: The Welcome to Yorkshire White Rose Awards' Arts and Culture award for their contribution to the planning of Hull UK City of Culture 2017 . In November 2017, Hull Truck Theatre won the Welcome to Yorkshire White Rose Awards' Arts and Culture award for the second time. In November 2019, Hull Truck Theatre won the Welcome to Yorkshire White Rose Awards' Arts and Culture award for the third time. In 2019 Hull Truck Theatre also took home
6768-508: The ancient parishes of Hessle and North Ferriby , but was remote from either parish church. A chapel of ease dedicated to Holy Trinity was built to serve the part of the borough in Hessle parish; that church subsequently became Hull Minster . St Mary's Church similarly began as a chapel of ease for the part of the borough in North Ferriby parish. In 1440, a further charter incorporated
6909-543: The epicentre of an earthquake measuring 5.3 on the Richter Scale which lasted for nearly 10 seconds. This was an unusually large earthquake for this part of the world. Another notable quake occurred early in the morning of 10 June 2018. Located in Northern England , Hull has a temperate maritime climate which is dominated by the passage of mid-latitude depressions. The weather is very changeable from day to day and
7050-467: The old town (including its museum quarter) and the marina . Hull University was founded in 1927 and had over 16,000 students in 2022. Rugby league football teams include clubs Hull F.C. and Hull Kingston Rovers . The city's association football club is Hull City ( EFL Championship ). Hull RUFC and Hull Ionians both play in the National League 2 North of rugby union. The city came 2nd in
7191-413: The poioumenon "trilogy" of novels: Molloy (1951); Malone meurt (1951), Malone Dies (1958); L'innommable (1953), The Unnamable (1960). Despite being a native English speaker, Beckett wrote in French because, as he himself claimed, it was easier for him thus to write "without style". Waiting for Godot , like most of his works after 1947, was first written in French. Beckett worked on
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#17328594416337332-628: The "revelation" experienced in his mother's room in Dublin—in which he realised that his art must be subjective and drawn wholly from his own inner world—that would result in the works for which Beckett is best remembered today. During the 15 years following the war, Beckett produced four major full-length stage plays: En attendant Godot (written 1948–1949; Waiting for Godot ), Fin de partie (1955–1957; Endgame ), Krapp's Last Tape (1958), and Happy Days (1961). These plays—which are often considered, rightly or wrongly, to have been instrumental in
7473-579: The 1930s was a decade of artistic exploration. He started to take a serious interest in art history, frequenting Ireland's National Gallery , studying a range of painters and movements (specifically the Dutch Golden Age ), and even visiting private collections. In 1933 Beckett applied for the position of assistant curator at London's National Gallery . Later, in the winter of 1936–37, having sailed from Cobh in East Cork to Hamburg on 26 September 1936, he took
7614-432: The 1960s and into the 1970s, Beckett's works exhibited an increasing tendency—already evident in much of his work of the 1950s—towards compactness. This has led to his work sometimes being described as minimalist . The extreme example of this, among his dramatic works, is the 1969 piece Breath , which lasts for only 35 seconds and has no characters (though it was likely intended to offer ironic comment on Oh! Calcutta! ,
7755-451: The 1991 UK census, and has been officially estimated as 256,200 in July 2006. In 2001, approximately 53,000 people were aged under 16, 174,000 were aged 16–74, and 17,000 aged 75 and over. Of the total population 97.7% were white and the largest minority ethnic group was of 749 people who considered themselves to be ethnically Chinese. There were 3% of people living in Hull who were born outside
7896-634: The Achievement in Marketing/Audience Development award at the UK Theatre Awards. In May 2018, the company hit the headlines when a local affiliated artist cancelled their production of Ununited Kingdom . The play dealt with far-right issues. The staging of the play in London was cancelled in its entirety. Kingston upon Hull Kingston upon Hull , usually shortened to Hull , is
8037-511: The Baltic and the Low Countries were all key trading areas for Hull's merchants. In addition, there was trade with France, Spain and Portugal. Sir William de la Pole was the town's first mayor. A prosperous merchant, de la Pole founded a family that became prominent in government. Another successful son of a Hull trading family was bishop John Alcock , who founded Jesus College, Cambridge and
8178-623: The Boom, in Hull. After the decline of the whaling industry post the Second World War, emphasis shifted to deep-sea trawling until the Anglo-Icelandic Cod War of 1975–1976. The conditions set at the end of this dispute started Hull's economic decline. In 2017 Hull was awarded the title of 'City of Culture' by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. Within the city there
8319-663: The Dublin literary periodical Envoy . After the war, he returned to France in 1946 where he worked as a stores manager at the Irish Red Cross Hospital based in Saint-Lô . Beckett described his experiences in an untransmitted radio script, " The Capital of the Ruins ". In 1945, Beckett returned to Dublin for a brief visit. During his stay, he had a revelation in his mother's room: his entire future direction in literature appeared to him. Beckett had felt that he would remain forever in
8460-575: The Lost Planet played to meagre audiences, as did the next, Last of the Great Love Goddesses . The company began to devise plays for children. Initially touring out of its Coltman Street base in Hull, where company members lived and rehearsed, Hull Truck started to receive acclaim for its children's work. It was at the same time devising shows that were being performed in working men's clubs and as late-night cabaret. Bradwell, who insisted that all
8601-594: The Manchester Theatre Awards for DNA by Dennis Kelly. In April 2013 Mike Bradwell returned to direct for the company for the first time in over 30 years, directing the world premiere of Queen of the Nile by Tim Fountain. In May 2013 Mark Babych was appointed artistic director of the company. In April 2014, it was reported that the theatre had received £400,000 in grants from Arts Council England and Hull City Council . In November 2015, Hull Truck Theatre won
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#17328594416338742-575: The New World, with thousands of emigrants sailing to Hull and stopping for administrative purposes before travelling on to Liverpool and then North America. Parallel to this growth in passenger shipping was the emergence of the Wilson Line of Hull (which had been founded in 1825 by Thomas Wilson ). By the early 20th century, the company had grown – largely through its monopolisation of North Sea passenger routes and later mergers and acquisitions – to be
8883-817: The Silver Award for Accessible and Inclusive Tourism at the White Rose Awards. Hull Truck Theatre delivered its 'Year of Exceptional Drama programme' for Hull UK City of Culture 2017 , working with partners including the Royal Shakespeare Company , Northern Broadsides and the Market Theatre of Johannesburg. In June 2017, Hull Truck Theatre were shortlisted for the Welcome to Yorkshire White Rose Awards' Arts and Culture award for their Year of Exceptional Drama programme for Hull UK City of Culture 2017. In September 2017, Hull Truck Theatre were nominated for
9024-400: The UK's worst performing authority in both 2004 and 2005, but in 2006 was rated as a two star 'improving adequate' council and in 2007 it retained its two stars with an 'improving well' status. In the 2008 corporate performance assessment the city retained its "improving well" status but was upgraded to a three star rating. The Liberal Democrats won overall control of the City Council in
9165-476: The United Kingdom. In 2006, the largest minority ethnic grouping was Iraqi Kurds who were estimated at 3,000. Most of these people were placed in the city by the Home Office while their applications for asylum were being processed. In 2001, the city was 71.7% Christian. A further 18% of the population indicated they were of no religion while 8.4% did not specify any religious affiliation. Historically, minorities of many faiths and nationalities have lived around
9306-408: The actor Jack MacGowran , is animated by a camera that steadily closes into a tight focus upon the face of the title character. The play Not I (1972) consists almost solely of, in Beckett's words, "a moving mouth with the rest of the stage in darkness". Following from Krapp's Last Tape , many of these later plays explore memory, often in the form of a forced recollection of haunting past events in
9447-425: The actors play musical instruments, described the approach as "provocative and challenging, but above all, entertaining.” Music was at the heart of their work, along with an underlying sense of anarchy. In 1974 the company devised The Knowledge and, although over half the audience walked out at the play's premiere at the Forum Theatre in Manchester, the critical praise of The Guardian reviewer Robin Thornber led to
9588-417: The advantageous situation of this hitherto neglected and obscure corner. He foresaw it might become subservient both to render the kingdom more secure against foreign invasion, and at the same time greatly to enforce its commerce". Pursuant to these thoughts, Craggs continues, Edward purchased the land from the Abbot of Meaux, had a manor hall built for himself, issued proclamations encouraging development within
9729-442: The area of the present city. The area was attractive to people because it gave access to a prosperous hinterland and navigable rivers but the site was poor, being remote, low-lying and with no fresh water. It was originally an outlying part of the hamlet of Myton, named Wyke. The name is thought to originate either from a Scandinavian word Vik meaning inlet or from the Saxon Wic meaning dwelling place or refuge. The River Hull
9870-563: The award a "catastrophe". While Beckett did not devote much time to interviews, he sometimes met the artists, scholars, and admirers who sought him out in the anonymous lobby of the Hotel PLM Saint-Jacques in Paris – where he arranged his appointments and often had lunch – near his Montparnasse home. Although Beckett was an intensely private man, a review of the second volume of his letters by Roy Foster on 15 December 2011 issue of The New Republic reveals Beckett to be not only unexpectedly amiable but frequently prepared to talk about his work and
10011-417: The city centre was destroyed. Hull had 95% of its houses damaged or destroyed, making it the most severely bombed British city or town in terms of number of damaged or destroyed buildings, apart from London, during the Second World War. More than 1,200 people died in air raids on the city and some 3,000 others were injured. The worst of the bombing occurred in 1941. Little was known about this destruction by
10152-471: The city cooler than inland areas during summer. It is also one of the most northerly areas where the July average maximum temperature exceeds 21.5 °C (70.7 °F), although this appears to be very localised around the city. Flooding in June 2007 caused significant damage to areas of the city. Droughts and heatwaves also occur such as in 2003, 2006 and recently in 2018. The absolute maximum temperature recorded
10293-495: The city had a high proportion, at 6.2%, of people of working age who were unemployed, ranking 354th out of 376 local and unitary authorities within England and Wales . The distance travelled to work was less than 3 miles (4.8 km) for 64,578 out of 95,957 employed people. A further 18,031 travelled between 3.1 and 6.2 miles (5 and 10 km) to their place of employment. The number of people using public transport to get to work
10434-484: The city was featured in The Sunday Times Best Places to Live Guide and in 2024 was named as one of the UK's most "up and coming" places to move to. Kingston upon Hull stands on the north bank of the Humber Estuary at the mouth of its tributary, the River Hull . The valley of the River Hull has been inhabited since the early Neolithic period but there is little evidence of a substantial settlement in
10575-631: The city. A senior council official has said that interest from the film industry was almost non-stop at the moment. In 2017, it was the UK City of Culture and hosted the Turner Prize at the city's Ferens Art Gallery . Other notable landmarks in the city are the Minster , the tidal surge barrier , the Paragon Interchange and The Deep Hull's award-winning aquarium. Areas of the town centre include
10716-676: The company received a TMA nomination for The Renee Stepham Award for Best Presentation of Touring Theatre. Touring productions that year included The Lady in the Van by Alan Bennett, DNA by Dennis Kelly and The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde adapted by Nick Lane. In October 2012 Hull city centre was awarded Purple Flag status for the quality of the city's nightlife. The Association of Town Centre Management praised Hull Truck Theatre in particular "for its outstanding contribution" to entertainment for city centre users. In January 2013 Hull Truck Theatre were nominated for Best Visiting Production at
10857-452: The confined and observed self, as well as with the positioning of bodies in space, as the opening phrases of Company make clear: "A voice comes to one in the dark. Imagine." "To one on his back in the dark. This he can tell by the pressure on his hind parts and by how the dark changes when he shuts his eyes and again when he opens them again. Only a small part of what is said can be verified. As for example when he hears, You are on your back in
10998-421: The dark" Following this work, it was almost another decade before Beckett produced a work of non-dramatic prose. How It Is is generally considered to mark the end of his middle period as a writer. time she stopped sitting at her window quiet at her window only window facing other windows other only windows all eyes all sides high and low time she stopped From Rockaby (1980) Throughout
11139-493: The dark. Then he must acknowledge the truth of what is said." Themes of aloneness and the doomed desire to successfully connect with other human beings are expressed in several late pieces, including Company and Rockaby . In the hospital and nursing home where he spent his final days, Beckett wrote his last work, the 1988 poem "What is the Word" ("Comment dire"). The poem grapples with an inability to find words to express oneself,
11280-596: The docks, Old Town and City Centre, coming in from European ports like Hamburg, aided by continental railways and steam-ships from the mid-1800s. Over 2 million passed through Hull between 1850 and 1914, on the way to a new life in America and elsewhere, but some planned or decided to stay. Dutch, Jews , Germans, Scandinavians and others were sometimes prominently involved in the life of the port city. They found opportunity but endured discrimination at times, such that these communities have now largely dispersed. Also in 2001,
11421-459: The face of an uncomprehending and incomprehensible world. The words of Nell—one of the two characters in Endgame who are trapped in ashbins, from which they occasionally peek their heads to speak—can best summarise the themes of the plays of Beckett's middle period: "Nothing is funnier than unhappiness, I grant you that. ... Yes, yes, it's the most comical thing in the world. And we laugh, we laugh, with
11562-623: The form of several well-maintained buildings from the period, including Wilberforce House , now a museum documenting the life of William Wilberforce . During the English Civil War , Hull became strategically important because of the large arsenal located there. Very early in the war, on 11 January 1642, the king named the Earl of Newcastle governor of Hull while Parliament nominated Sir John Hotham and asked his son, Captain John Hotham, to secure
11703-426: The idea of dictatorship. After a long period of inactivity, Beckett's poetry experienced a revival during this period in the ultra-terse French poems of mirlitonnades , with some as short as six words. These defied Beckett's usual scrupulous concern to translate his work from its original into the other of his two languages; several writers, including Derek Mahon , have attempted translations, but no complete version of
11844-523: The largest privately owned shipping company in the world, with over 100 ships sailing to different parts of the globe. The Wilson Line was sold to the Ellerman Lines – which itself was owned by Hull-born magnate (and the richest man in Britain at the time) Sir John Ellerman . Hull's prosperity peaked in the decades just before the First World War ; it was during this time, in 1897, that city status
11985-444: The late 1950s until his death, Beckett had a relationship with Barbara Bray , a widow who worked as a script editor for the BBC . Knowlson wrote of them: "She was small and attractive, but, above all, keenly intelligent and well-read. Beckett seems to have been immediately attracted by her and she to him. Their encounter was highly significant for them both, for it represented the beginning of
12126-470: The late 1950s, however, he created one of his most radical prose works, Comment c'est (1961; How It Is ). An early variant version of Comment c'est , L'Image , was published in the British arts review, X: A Quarterly Review (1959), and is the first appearance of the novel in any form. This work relates the adventures of an unnamed narrator crawling through the mud while dragging a sack of canned food. It
12267-467: The latitude with snow only occurring a couple of times a year on average and mostly only staying for a day or two before melting. It is frequently cloudy and the North Sea winds make it feel colder than it actually is. An average of 32.5 nights should report an air frost. Heavy snowfalls do occasionally occur such as in 2010. On 23 November 1981, during the record-breaking nationwide tornado outbreak , Hull
12408-465: The medium of another language, was in process of simplifying his style, a change also evidenced in Watt . who may tell the tale of the old man? weigh absence in a scale? mete want with a span? the sum assess of the world's woes? nothingness in words enclose? From Watt (1953) After World War II, Beckett turned definitively to the French language as a vehicle. It was this, together with
12549-440: The missing words on the tape are "precious ally". In 1946, Jean-Paul Sartre 's magazine Les Temps modernes published the first part of Beckett's short story " Suite " (later to be called " La Fin ", or "The End"), not realising that Beckett had only submitted the first half of the story; co-editor Simone de Beauvoir refused to publish the second part. Beckett also began to write his fourth novel, Mercier et Camier , which
12690-771: The next two years he was nearly caught by the Gestapo . In August 1942, his unit was betrayed and he and Suzanne fled south on foot to the safety of the small village of Roussillon , in the Vaucluse département in Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur . During the two years that Beckett stayed in Roussillon he indirectly helped the Maquis sabotage the German army in the Vaucluse mountains, though he rarely spoke about his wartime work in later life. He
12831-472: The novel and drama—in the destitution of modern man acquires its elevation". In 1961 he shared the inaugural Prix International with Jorge Luis Borges . He was the first person to be elected Saoi of Aosdána in 1984. Samuel Barclay Beckett was born in the Dublin suburb of Foxrock on 13 April 1906, the son of William Frank Beckett (1871–1933), a quantity surveyor of Huguenot descent, and Maria Jones Roe,
12972-399: The novels of this period, is essentially pessimistic, the will to live seems to win out in the end; witness, for instance, the famous final phrase of The Unnamable : "you must go on, I can't go on, I'll go on". After these three novels, Beckett struggled for many years to produce a sustained work of prose, a struggle evidenced by the brief "stories" later collected as Texts for Nothing . In
13113-479: The passage of time; the "action" of the book takes the form of an interior monologue . Finally, in The Unnamable , almost all sense of place and time are abolished, and the essential theme seems to be the conflict between the voice's drive to continue speaking so as to continue existing, and its almost equally strong urge towards silence and oblivion. Despite the widely held view that Beckett's work, as exemplified by
13254-455: The physical inactivity of the character Belacqua; the character's immersion in his own head and thoughts; the somewhat irreverent comedy of the final sentence. Similar elements are present in Beckett's first published novel, Murphy (1938), which also explores the themes of insanity and chess (both of which would be recurrent elements in Beckett's later works). The novel's opening sentence hints at
13395-561: The plant were submitted in December 2011, and affirmed in 2014, concerning 75-metre (246 ft) blades for the 6 MW offshore model. A 12.5-acre (5.1 ha) site waste-to-energy centre costing in the region of £150 million is also planned to be built by the Spencer Group. Announced in mid-2011, and named 'Energy Works', the proposed plant would process up to 200,000 tonnes of organic material per year, with energy produced via
13536-423: The play between October 1948 and January 1949. His partner, Suzanne Dechevaux-Dumesnil , was integral to its success. Dechevaux-Dumesnil became his agent and sent the manuscript to multiple producers until they met Roger Blin , the soon-to-be director of the play. Blin's knowledge of French theatre and vision, alongside Beckett's knowing what he wanted the play to represent, contributed greatly to its success. In
13677-405: The process behind it. Suzanne died on 17 July 1989. Confined to a nursing home and suffering from emphysema and possibly Parkinson's disease , Beckett died on 22 December 1989. The two were interred together in the cimetière du Montparnasse in Paris and share a simple granite gravestone that follows Beckett's directive that it should be "any colour, so long as it's grey". Beckett's career as
13818-415: The rest of the country at the time, since most of the radio and newspaper reports did not reveal Hull by name but referred to it as "a North-East town" or "a northern coastal town". Most of the city centre was rebuilt in the years following the war. As recently as 2006 researchers found documents in the local archives that suggested a non-exploded wartime bomb might be buried beneath a major new redevelopment,
13959-462: The sequence has been published in English. Beckett's late style saw him experiment with technology to create increasingly transdisciplinary works. This sampling of a range of artistic mediums and styles – classical music, painting, sculpture, television, and literature – to create a new and original form, or genre, is evident in his television plays. In works like Ghost Trio (broadcast in 1977) and Nacht und Träume (broadcast in 1983) Beckett uses
14100-425: The shadow of Joyce, certain to never beat him at his own game. His revelation prompted him to change direction and acknowledge both his own stupidity and his interest in ignorance and impotence: "I realised that Joyce had gone as far as one could in the direction of knowing more, [being] in control of one's material. He was always adding to it; you only have to look at his proofs to see that. I realised that my own way
14241-414: The so-called " Theatre of the Absurd "—deal in a darkly humorous way with themes similar to those of the roughly contemporary existentialist thinkers . The term "Theatre of the Absurd" was coined by Martin Esslin in a book of the same name; Beckett and Godot were centrepieces of the book. Esslin argued these plays were the fulfilment of Albert Camus 's concept of "the absurd"; this is one reason Beckett
14382-504: The somewhat pessimistic undertones and black humour that animate many of Beckett's works: "The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new". Watt , written while Beckett was in hiding in Roussillon during World War II, is similar in terms of themes but less exuberant in its style. It explores human movement as if it were a mathematical permutation , presaging Beckett's later preoccupation—in both his novels and dramatic works—with precise movement. Beckett's 1930 essay Proust
14523-400: The south and east the advancing suburbs had already reached it. The four villages were, nevertheless, distinct communities, of a largely rural character, until their absorption in the borough—Drypool and Sculcoates in 1837, Marfleet in 1882, and Sutton in 1929. The current boundaries of the city are tightly drawn and exclude many of the metropolitan area 's nearby villages, of which Cottingham
14664-401: The subject of pressures to build. The parishes of Drypool , Marfleet , Sculcoates , and most of Sutton parish, were absorbed within the borough of Hull in the 19th and 20th centuries. Much of their area has been built over, and socially and economically they have long been inseparable from the city. Only Sutton retained a recognisable village centre in the late 20th century, but on
14805-551: The theatre's programme and to entice new audiences. Smaje took up his role that October, moving on from a decade at the Theatre Royal, Bath . In 2012, Hull Truck Theatre celebrated its 40th birthday. This year's production included a revival of the play Once Upon a Time in Wigan starring Craige Els , the premiere of Matt Hartley's Sixty Five Miles with Ian Bleasdale , a new production of Krapp's Last Tape by Samuel Beckett and
14946-406: The theatrical revue for which it served as an introductory piece). In his theatre of the late period, Beckett's characters—already few in number in the earlier plays—are whittled down to essential elements. The ironically titled Play (1962), for instance, consists of three characters immersed up to their necks in large funeral urns. The television drama Eh Joe (1963), which was written for
15087-526: The title of the 1976 collection of short prose texts Fizzles (which the American artist Jasper Johns illustrated). Beckett experienced something of a renaissance with the novella Company (1980), which continued with Ill Seen Ill Said (1982) and Worstward Ho (1983), later collected in Nohow On . In these three " 'closed space' stories," Beckett continued his pre-occupation with memory and its effect on
15228-481: The town and instituted local government consisting of a mayor, a sheriff and twelve aldermen . In his Guide to Hull (1817) , J. C. Craggs provides a colourful background to Edward's acquisition and naming of the town. He writes that the King and a hunting party started a hare which "led them along the delightful banks of the River Hull to the hamlet of Wyke ... [Edward], charmed with the scene before him, viewed with delight
15369-561: The town at once. Sir John Hotham and Hull corporation declared support for Parliament and denied Charles I entry into the town. Charles I responded to these events by besieging the town . This siege helped precipitate open conflict between the forces of Parliament and those of the Royalists . After the Civil War, docks were built along the route of the town walls , which were demolished. The first dock (1778, renamed Queen's Dock in 1854)
15510-677: The town, and bestowed upon it the royal appellation, King's Town . The port served as a base for Edward I during the First War of Scottish Independence and later developed into the foremost port on the east coast of England. It prospered by exporting wool and woollen cloth, and importing wine and timber. Hull also established a flourishing commerce with the Baltic ports of the Hanseatic League . From its medieval beginnings, Hull's main trading links were with Scotland and northern Europe. Scandinavia,
15651-596: The warming influence of the Gulf Stream makes the region mild for its latitude. Locally, the area is sunnier than most areas this far north in the British Isles, and also considerably drier, due to the rain shadowing effect of the Pennines. It is somewhat warmer than west coast areas at a similar latitude such as Liverpool in summer due to stronger shielding from maritime air but also colder in winter and North Sea breezes keep
15792-548: The work of MacGreevy, Brian Coffey , Denis Devlin and Blanaid Salkeld , despite their slender achievements at the time, comparing them favourably with their Celtic Revival contemporaries and invoking Ezra Pound , T. S. Eliot , and the French symbolists as their precursors. In describing these poets as forming "the nucleus of a living poetic in Ireland", Beckett was tracing the outlines of an Irish poetic modernist canon. In 1935 –
15933-453: The work of his friend James Joyce . They are erudite and seem to display the author's learning merely for its own sake, resulting in several obscure passages. The opening phrases of the short-story collection More Pricks than Kicks (1934) afford a representative sample of this style: It was morning and Belacqua was stuck in the first of the canti in the moon. He was so bogged that he could move neither backward nor forward. Blissful Beatrice
16074-565: The world. Docks were opened to serve the frozen meat trade of Australia, New Zealand and South America. Hull was also the centre of a thriving inland and coastal trading network, serving the whole of the United Kingdom. Throughout the second half of the 19th century and leading up to the First World War, the Port of Hull played a major role in the emigration of Northern European settlers to
16215-525: The year that he successfully published a book of his poetry, Echo's Bones and Other Precipitates – Beckett worked on his novel Murphy . In May, he wrote to MacGreevy that he had been reading about film and wished to go to Moscow to study with Sergei Eisenstein at the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography . In mid-1936 he wrote to Eisenstein and Vsevolod Pudovkin to offer himself as their apprentice. Nothing came of this, however, as Beckett's letter
16356-418: Was 12,915 while the number travelling by car was 53,443. Men in the University ward had the fourth lowest life expectancy at birth, 69.4 years, of any ward in England and Wales in 2016. The traditional industries of Hull are seafaring (whaling and later seafishing) and later heavy industry which both have since declined in the city. Companies BP and Reckitt Benckiser , have facilities in Hull. The city
16497-506: Was André Roussimoff, who would later become a famous professional wrestler under the name André the Giant . They had a surprising amount of common ground and bonded over their love of cricket, with Roussimoff later recalling that the two rarely talked about anything else. Beckett translated all of his works into English himself, with the exception of Molloy , for which he collaborated with Patrick Bowles. The success of Waiting for Godot opened up
16638-466: Was Beckett's contribution to Our Exagmination Round His Factification for Incamination of Work in Progress (a book of essays on Joyce which also included contributions by Eugene Jolas , Robert McAlmon , and William Carlos Williams ). Beckett's close relationship with Joyce and his family cooled, however, when he rejected the advances of Joyce's daughter Lucia . Beckett's first short story, "Assumption",
16779-411: Was a good haven for shipping, whose trade included the export of wool from Meaux Abbey , which owned Myton. In 1293, the town of Wyke was acquired from the abbey by King Edward I, who, on 1 April 1299, granted it a royal charter that renamed the settlement King's town upon Hull or Kingston upon Hull. The charter is preserved in the archives of the Guildhall . When first created, the borough straddled
16920-503: Was a patron of the grammar school in Hull. The increase in trade after the discovery of the Americas and the town's maritime connections are thought to have played a part in the introduction of a virulent strain of syphilis through Hull and on into Europe from the New World . The town prospered during the 16th and early 17th centuries, and Hull's affluence at this time is preserved in
17061-543: Was a series of festivals in public spaces to promote the city and its newly given title. At the start of the year there was a huge firework display attracting a crowd of 25,000. Following the Local Government Act 1888 , Hull became a county borough , a local government district independent of the East Riding of Yorkshire. This district was dissolved under the Local Government Act 1972 , on 1 April 1974 when it became
17202-439: Was an Irish-born existentialist writer of novels, plays, short stories and poems. His literary and theatrical work features bleak, impersonal, and tragicomic experiences of life, often coupled with black comedy and nonsense . His work became increasingly minimalist as his career progressed, involving more aesthetic and linguistic experimentation, with techniques of stream of consciousness repetition and self-reference . He
17343-963: Was at an end. He commemorated it with the poem "Gnome", which was inspired by his reading of Johann Wolfgang Goethe 's Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship and eventually published in The Dublin Magazine in 1934: Spend the years of learning squandering Courage for the years of wandering Through a world politely turning From the loutishness of learning Beckett travelled throughout Europe. He spent some time in London, where in 1931 he published Proust , his critical study of French author Marcel Proust . Two years later, following his father's death, he began two years' treatment with Tavistock Clinic psychoanalyst Dr. Wilfred Bion . Aspects of it became evident in Beckett's later works, such as Watt and Waiting for Godot . In 1932, he wrote his first novel, Dream of Fair to Middling Women , but after many rejections from publishers decided to abandon it (it
17484-577: Was awarded the Croix de guerre and the Resistance Medal by the French government for his efforts in fighting the German occupation; to the end of his life, however, Beckett would refer to his work with the French Resistance as "boy scout stuff". While in hiding in Roussillon, Beckett continued work on the novel Watt . He started the novel in 1941 and completed it in 1945, but it was not published until 1953; however, an extract had appeared in
17625-457: Was built in the area occupied by Beverley and North gates, and the intermediate walls, which were demolished, a second dock ( Humber Dock , 1809) was built on the land between Hessle and Myton gates, and a third dock between the two was opened 1829 as Junction Dock (later Prince's Dock ). Whaling played a major role in the town's fortunes until the mid-19th century. As sail power gave way to steam, Hull's trading links extended throughout
17766-479: Was completed three years later at a cost of around £15 million. The first production was Godber's play Funny Turns which opened on 25 April 2009. Under the two-year tenure of artistic director Gareth Tudor Price, the Hull Truck Theatre hosted the launch of Hull's Larkin 25 Festival in June 2010, marking 25 years since the poet's death with 25 weeks of events. The launch included poetry from Mario Petrucci ,
17907-557: Was eventually published in 1992). Despite his inability to get it published, however, the novel served as a source for many of Beckett's early poems, as well as for his first full-length book, the 1933 short-story collection More Pricks Than Kicks . Beckett published essays and reviews, including "Recent Irish Poetry" (in The Bookman , August 1934) and "Humanistic Quietism", a review of his friend Thomas MacGreevy's Poems (in The Dublin Magazine , July–September 1934). They focused on
18048-407: Was granted. Many of the suburban areas on the western side of Hull were built in the 1930s, particularly Willerby Road and Anlaby Park, as well as most of Willerby itself. The city's port and industrial facilities, coupled with its proximity to mainland Europe and ease of location being on a major estuary, led to extremely widespread damage by bombing raids during the Second World War ; much of
18189-490: Was in impoverishment, in lack of knowledge and in taking away, in subtracting rather than in adding." Knowlson argues that "Beckett was rejecting the Joycean principle that knowing more was a way of creatively understanding the world and controlling it ... In future, his work would focus on poverty, failure, exile and loss – as he put it, on man as a 'non-knower' and as a 'non-can-er. ' " The revelation "has rightly been regarded as
18330-461: Was known as the Hull Truck Theatre. John Godber became artistic director in 1984 although at first he was unaware of how much the Hull Truck Theatre was struggling financially. He had been making a good living as a teacher but the idea of being able to produce some of his own works led him to accept the post. He wrote Up 'n' Under , a play about rugby league in Hull, which proved to be a success. One of Hull Truck's most performed and famous plays
18471-627: Was lost owing to Eisenstein's quarantine during the smallpox outbreak, as well as his focus on a script re-write of his postponed film production. In 1936, a friend had suggested he look up the works of Arnold Geulincx , which Beckett did and he took many notes. The philosopher's name is mentioned in Murphy and the reading apparently left a strong impression. Murphy was finished in 1936 and Beckett departed for extensive travel around Germany, during which time he filled several notebooks with lists of noteworthy artwork that he had seen and noted his distaste for
18612-429: Was not published until 1970. The novel preceded his most famous work, the play En attendant Godot ( Waiting for Godot ) , which was written not long afterwards. More importantly, Mercier and Camier was Beckett's first long work written in French, the language of most of his subsequent works which were strongly supported by Jérôme Lindon, director of his Parisian publishing house Les Éditions de Minuit , including
18753-553: Was performed two years later. The play was a critical, popular, and controversial success in Paris. It opened in London in 1955 to mainly negative reviews, but the tide turned with positive reactions from Harold Hobson in The Sunday Times and, later, Kenneth Tynan . After the showing in Miami, the play became extremely popular, with highly successful performances in the US and Germany. The play
18894-528: Was published in Jolas's periodical transition . The next year he won a small literary prize for his hastily composed poem "Whoroscope", which draws on a biography of René Descartes that Beckett happened to be reading when he was encouraged to submit. In 1930, Beckett returned to Trinity College as a lecturer. In November 1930, he presented a paper in French to the Modern Languages Society of Trinity on
19035-474: Was soon a known face in and around Left Bank cafés, where he strengthened his allegiance with Joyce and forged new ones with artists Alberto Giacometti and Marcel Duchamp , with whom he regularly played chess . Sometime around December 1937, Beckett had a brief affair with Peggy Guggenheim , who nicknamed him "Oblomov" (after the character in Ivan Goncharov 's novel ). In January 1938 in Paris, Beckett
19176-413: Was stabbed in the chest and nearly killed when he refused the solicitations of a notorious pimp (who went by the name of Prudent). Joyce arranged a private room for Beckett at the hospital. The publicity surrounding the stabbing attracted the attention of Suzanne Dechevaux-Dumesnil , who knew Beckett slightly from his first stay in Paris. This time, however, the two would begin a lifelong companionship. At
19317-489: Was strongly influenced by Schopenhauer 's pessimism and laudatory descriptions of saintly asceticism. At this time Beckett began to write creatively in the French language. In the late 1930s, he wrote a number of short poems in that language and their sparseness—in contrast to the density of his English poems of roughly the same period, collected in Echo's Bones and Other Precipitates (1935)—seems to show that Beckett, albeit through
19458-442: Was struck by two tornadoes which passed through, and caused damage to residential buildings across the north-eastern suburbs of Hull and uprooted trees. According to the 2001 UK census , Hull had a population of 243,589 living in 104,288 households. The population density was 34.1 per hectare. Of the total number of homes 47.85% were rented compared with a national figure of 31.38% rented. The population had declined by 7.5% since
19599-606: Was the Berkeley scholar A. A. Luce , who introduced him to the work of Henri Bergson ). He was elected a Scholar in Modern Languages in 1926. Beckett graduated with a BA and, after teaching briefly at Campbell College in Belfast , took up the post of lecteur d'anglais at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris from November 1928 to 1930. While there, he was introduced to renowned Irish author James Joyce by Thomas MacGreevy ,
19740-426: Was there, Dante also, and she explained the spots on the moon to him. She shewed him in the first place where he was at fault, then she put up her own explanation. She had it from God, therefore he could rely on its being accurate in every particular. The passage makes reference to Dante 's Commedia , which can serve to confuse readers not familiar with that work. It also anticipates aspects of Beckett's later work:
19881-409: Was written as a sequence of unpunctuated paragraphs in a style approaching telegraphese : "You are there somewhere alive somewhere vast stretch of time then it's over you are there no more alive no more than again you are there again alive again it wasn't over an error you begin again all over more or less in the same place or in another as when another image above in the light you come to in hospital in
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