La Construcción de Samuel Beckett en el Teatro del Absurdo de Martin Esslin [The Construction of Samuel Beckett in Martin Esslin’s Theatre of the Absurd]

Since the early 1960s, Martin Esslin’s landmark study The Theatre of the Absurd has wielded a powerful infleunce over the reputation of Samuel Beckett. Essential to Esslin’s theatre of the Absurd is a “sense of metaphysical anguish at the absurdity of the human condition” (2001, 23-24) and the persistence of this metaphysical interpretation of Beckett’s work – with particular emphasis on its “anguished” nature – has been tenacious. However, the logical coherence of Esslin’s original analysis is open to doubt, as his contentions are as much informed by historical, and therefore contingent, post-World War II conditions as by any of the philosophical works of the Existentialists. The paper considers the popular image of Beckett as initially constructed by Esslin and whether this version can survive close analysis of its founding text.