Beckett and the new artistic trends of the 1960s

What is it about?

In this article, I look into Beckett's shortest piece - Breath (1969) - and shows that it was informed and influenced by certain artistic trends and aesthetic impulses of the time, most significantly the French Nouveau Réalisme art movement .

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Why is it important?

While Breath (1969) seems to exemplify Beckett's dramatic reduction to a minimum, and hence the most suitable case for a modernist reading of his work (from within) as self-contained, I choose to move the focus from internal meaning to exterior responsiveness and to read it in its historical context and in view of the contemporaneous artistic trends.