Beckett and the Mythology of Psychoanalysis - Tapa dura

'Baker's work bears the hallmark of a rewritten doctoral thesis, a brilliant one, in its density and detail...but it also benefits from freshness and enthusiasm.' - Dan Gunn, Times Literary Supplement
 
'Psychoanalytic approaches... have long found rich pickings in Beckett's works. [...] Phil Baker's important book Beckett and the Mythology of Psychoanalysis (1997) was a breakthrough in this field because it merged a psychoanalytical approach with a consciousness of historical location...'
- Ronan McDonald, The Cambridge Introduction to Samuel Beckett (Cambridge University Press, 2006)

This is the first full length study to consider Beckett's informed but deeply ambivalent engagement with the terrain of psychoanalysis. Taking psychoanalysis as a historically-specific construct, not as a privileged source of truth, Phil Baker shows the extent to which psychoanalytic ideas are present in Beckett's work at a fully literary and aesthetic level. The focus is mainly on the prose, including lesser known early work. There are notable new readings within Molloy and Ill Seen Ill Said, and the fullest reading to date of the Four Novellas. It is also a significant contribution to understanding the gendered nature of Beckett's writing.