SAMUEL BECKETT AND HIS WILD RIDE THROUGH THE LAND OF MODERN FICTIONAL WRITING

Abstract

Samuel Beckett authored novels, short stories, poetry, stage plays, and scripts—and he did each in a way that merged genre, challenged the norms of creative writing, and amazed the audience. His experiments include absurdism, genre-hybridization, and ergodicism, which led to Beckett fundamentally changing the approach to creative writing. His aesthetics have seeped down through the years and can be seen in Mark Z. Danielewski’s novel House of Leaves. By examining this writing compared to Beckett, this research paper hopes to illuminate the effects of Beckett’s experimentation in form and genre on contemporary creative writing.