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This study argues that Samuel Beckett's works in English and French reveal the organising energy of a "bilingual consciousness". Bilingualism is no personal eccentricity but the foundation for Beckett's mature art, without which it could not have developed. He has never been a unilingual writer; at every stage of his career his two languages have enriched, challenged and opposed each other. Bilingual art has allowed Beckett to move between linguistic circles, claiming as his own a transitional space that has protected his need for imaginative solitude. Gradually abandoning the cultural specificity of his early works in favour of archetypal settings that "translate" successfully to other contexts, he has focussed directly on what unites rather than divides human communities. Yet his writing retains an evident alertness to, and love of, the linguistic and cultural resources of English and French. His alternations between languages and his frequent activities as translator and self- translator contribute to a detachment from generic conventions that encourages innovation. Thus the often-criticised marginality of the bilingual has become for Beckett a source of strength. This analysis draws on a close reading of certain key texts, crossing languages freely to follow Beckett's own development. The prose has central place, because it spans his entire career, and because his most radical innovations have occurred in prose to be, subsequently, transferred in new forms to the drama. Chapter I presents Beckett's dual language-use in a wider context, exploring the early exposure afcd later suppression of "bilingual awareness, the implications of bilingualism for his artistic outlook, and the bilingual aesthetic he has developed. The remaining chapters draw on a new chronology of his writing and translating activities to show the development of his dual language-use and how it has interacted distinctively at each period with his artistic goals and practice.

Critical essay. Soon after the end of the Second World War, Samuel Beckett began producing French and English versions of each of his works. This raises interesting questions concerning the relationship between two languages and two texts within one literary work. Bilingualism is an essential dimension of Beckett's "oeuvre" which pushes the very limits of literature and explores essential aspects of language, identity and creation. / Creative writing. I was born in Montreal of a French mother and a father from Texas. My work in creative writing consists of six short stories set between the three geographical poles of my existence: Quebec, the United States and France. I also wrote a French and English version of my short story entitled The Ghost of Old Man Beck. These stories explore, on a more personal and creative level, the questions of bilingualism, identity and creativity raised in my critical essay.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Department of Comparative Literature, December 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 204-218). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Michigan, 1977. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 170-177).

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