Waiting for godot and Beckett’s cultural impact

Abstract

Capturing ‘cultural impact’ is only partly served by empirical methods. The expanding ripples created by Waiting for Godot, and Becket’s other works, go in many directions and are not always visible. We can confidently declare that this is the play which catapulted Samuel Beckett from relative obscurity to international notoriety and, onwards, to his current position as an icon of twentieth-century literature and theatre. It is clear that, after Beckett, world drama changes. He revealed possibilities for the medium that had not hitherto been reckoned with, in particular the dramatic power of inaction, silence, and waiting. Many leading playwrights, including Harold Pinter, Tom Stoppard, and ..