Beckettian
- noun
- /bɛkˈɛtiən/
- Literature
- A true Beckettian often finds humor in bleak situations, reflecting the complex nature of human existence.
- Beckettian laughter
- Beckettian text
- Beckettian laugh
Examples
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By contrast, it is often difficult to pin down the source of the Beckettian character's laughter or to join in with it.
Academic text (2017) -
Our analysis of how the Beckettian laugh functions as a self-defensive gesture.
Academic text (2017) -
Other Beckettian texts are replete with instances of characters laughing at the sight or thought of suffering.
Academic text (2017) -
Beckettian laughter complicates the way we define the nature and limits of the human.
Academic text (2017) -
Unexpected laughter is a crucial means by which both Gothic and Beckettian texts render certain figures simultaneously.
Academic text (2017) -
The laughing Beckettian subject offers gradations of the human rather than a strict binary division between the human and the non-human.
Academic text (2017) -
In connection with Beckett, Ihab Hassan emphasizes that the Beckettian ideas are finally metaphors of the human condition.
Academic text (1999) -
Secondly, Beckettian laughter disconcerts by triggering the reader's or spectator's laughter at unexpected or inappropriate moments.
Academic text (2017) -
Yet imposing too rosy an interpretation on this new identity disregards the distinctly disconcerting effect of the laughing Beckettian creature.
Academic text (2017) -
The Beckettian laugher is frequently both monstrous and human, replicating Baudelaire's idea of laughter as simultaneously human and Satanic.
Academic text (2017)
Surface Forms
Morphology
Beckettian = Beckett (semi-transparent) = Beckett + ian
Derivation from the proper name plus '-ian' clearly yields 'a person related to Beckett', but knowing what that implies stylistically requires familiarity with Beckett.
Etymology
Beckettian as a noun comes from the name Samuel Beckett plus the ending -ian, which can mean 'a person like or belonging to'. So a Beckettian is someone who writes or directs in his spare, lonely, darkly funny style.