Samuel Beckett, Repetition and Modern Music

Music abounds in twentieth-century Irish literature. Whether it be the ’thought-tormented’ music of Joyce’s ’The Dead’, or the four-part threnody in Beckett’s Watt, it is clear that the influence of music on the written word in Ireland is deeply significant. Samuel Beckett arguably went further than any other in the incorporation of musical ideas into his work. John McGrath discusses the ways in which Beckett utilized extreme repetition to create texts that operate and are received more like music. An investigation into how this Beckettian ’musicalized fiction’ has been retranslated into contemporary music forms the second half of the book.