What is it about?
The minor character of Belacqua from Dante’s Purgatorio recurs often in Beckett’s early work. This article emphasizes the comic in its critical reading of Molloy, by studying how Beckett both adapted and parodied the language of the Commedia. Such an approach reveals the complex tension created by Beckett’s simultaneously parodic yet reverential appropriation of Dante’s language. This rhetorical strategy also points to a larger theme in the novel: subversive laughter aimed at theological, philosophical and literary authority.
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Why is it important?
This article reveals the complex tension created by Beckett’s simultaneously parodic yet reverential appropriation of Dante’s language.
Perspectives
The minor character of Belacqua from Dante’s Purgatorio recurs often in Beckett’s early work. This article emphasizes the comic in its critical reading of Molloy, by studying how Beckett both adapted and parodied the language of the Commedia. Such an approach reveals the complex tension created by Beckett’s simultaneously parodic yet reverential appropriation of Dante’s language. This rhetorical strategy also points to a larger theme in the novel: subversive laughter aimed at theological, philosophical and literary authority.
Ayten Tartici
Yale University
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This page is a summary of: Ludic Limbos, Samuel Beckett Today / Aujourd’hui, September 2018, Brill, DOI: 10.1163/18757405-03002014.
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