Published in association with the seminar series of the same name held by the University of Oxford, "Samuel Beckett: Debts and Legacies" presents the best new scholarship addressing the sources, development and ongoing influence of Samuel Beckett's work. Edited by convenors Dr Peter Fifield and Dr David Addyman, the volume presents ten research essays by leading international scholars ranging across Beckett's work, opening up new avenues of enquiry and association for scholars, students and readers of Beckett's work.Among the subjects covered the volume includes studies of: -Beckett and the influence of new media 1956-1960-the influence of silent film on Beckett's work-death, loss and Ireland in Beckett's drama - tracing Irish references in Beckett's plays from the 1950s and 1960s, including" Endgame," "All That Fall," " Krapp's Last Tape" and "Eh Joe"-a consideration of Beckett's theatrical notebooks and annotated copies of his plays which provide a unique insight into his attitude toward the staging of his plays, the ways he himself interpreted his texts and approached theatrical practice.-the French text of the novel "Mercier et Camier," which both biographically and aesthetically appeared at a very significant moment in Beckett's career and indicates a crucial development in his writing-the matter of tone in Beckett's drama, offering a new reading of the ways in which this elusive property emerges and can be read in the relationship between published text, canon and performance

T. S. Eliot memorably said that separation of the man who suffers from the mind that creates is the root of good poetry. This book argues that this is wrong. Beginning from Virginia Woolf's 'On Being Ill', it demonstrates that modernism is, on the contrary, invested in physical illness as a subject, method, and stylizing force. Experience of physical ailments, from the fleeting to the fatal, the familiar to the unusual, structures the writing of the modernists, both as sufferers and onlookers. Illness reorients the relation to, and appearance of, the world, making it appear newly strange; it determines the character of human interactions and models of behaviour. As a topic, illness requires new ways of writing and thinking, altered ideas of the subject, and a re-examination of the roles of invalids and carers. This book reads the work five authors, who are also known for their illness, hypochondria, or medical work: D. H. Lawrence, Virginia Woolf, T. S. Eliot, Dorothy Richardson, and Winifred Holtby. It overturns the assumption that illness is a simple obstacle to creativity and instead argues that it is a subject of careful thought and cultural significance.

"I wish we could live forever," I said, staring out at the silver moon in the black water beneath us. It shivered, uncertain, more of my own reflection than of that still silver face. You squeezed my hand, and we turned to look at each other, but the affection in your green eyes was unbearable, so I shut mine and kissed you on the mouth, slowly and sweetly, like the verses trickling from the stars above us. For in that moment, I wasn't afraid of dying. I wasn't afraid of anything, except of losing you and love - the only fear, it occurred to me, that an immortal man would have.

-Past Memories- She was pregnant. We were sitting in my car when she told me, parked in front of her house. The radio was on. She started crying before she even got the words out, and that's how I knew it was serious. David Bowie was the worst possible soundtrack for the moment but I'll remember that song for as long as I live. I tried to comfort her but the gearstick and the handbrake and the force of lives collapsing got in the way. I think I started crying too. We couldn't even get out and go inside because her parents were home. I didn't say are you sure? or, is it mine? I just wound down the window because it was getting hard to breathe. She had an abortion but didn't tell me until after....

Come Home to Me. I have taken down the bleeding crimson curtains in the windows by the hall in favor of colors more reminiscent of the icy winters you're used to, and more resembling the baby blue tulips I have just placed in the box on the ledge of your window. Your room still overlooks the hills, rolling green interrupted only by brush strokes of yellow and indigo weeds. I take it back. They are not all undesirable. I used to know you by a different name. A name with softer consonants and gentler syllables. If you write to me and tell me that is your name no longer, you will never again hear it from my lips; but if you leave me to myself, I will not find the will or want to cease etching its old characters into my love poems. This is not a love poem. This is about the house you belong in. And if you asked your mother she'd tell you she saw me weeping in the back corner of the church two Sundays ago, and that things are rough now, and I could use a friend. And your sister would tell you I fish for news of you and your adventures like I am desperate for anything to bring home and place on my table tonight. The one we built together backwards and then had to start again, giggling into our third glasses of white wine; trust and knowing and love stacked on top of each other into a series of sideways smirks and glances. Come home to me. I want to be your best friend again.