Bücher der Reihe Clarendon Lectures in English

This critical study of Samuel Beckett's writing explores his deep convictions concerning life and death. It argues that throughout his writing, Beckett longed for oblivion and harboured the ancient belief that it is better to be dead than alive.

This text argues for an expansion of the boundaries of "English" and the importance of psychoanalysis in understanding literary and historical lives. It also explores the place of Israel/Palestine and South Africa in the English literary and cultural imagination.

Traces the emergence of a national tradition in Irish writing from the era of Edmund Burke's counter-revolutionary writings. The book claims Irish writing is dominated by inherited issues and the activities of Irish print culture take place within the limits imposed by this complex inheritance.