Beckettian

comparative more Beckettian · superlative most Beckettian

1. Of or pertaining to the novelist and playwright Samuel Beckett (1906-1989) or his writings, noted for their bleak outlook and minimalism.

   The Beckettian progression appears occasionally: while Miss Counihan (static) is an omnivorous reader and Murphy (transitional) a strict non-reader, Cooper is an analphabete.

   1968, Robert Ligon Harrison, Samuel Beckett's Murphy; a critical excursion, page 57

   2 more examples

   They are shadowed by a robed chorus of Beckettian sages--Homer (Joseph Grimm), Hesiod (Gary Kelley), Herodotos (Daniel Parker) and Thucydides (Michael Rivkin)--given to Joseph Campbell-like pronouncements on the power of myth.

   1994 March 22, Jan Breslauer, “THEATER REVIEW : An Eclectic ‘Oresteia’ Opens Actors’ Gang’s New Home”, in Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles, Calif.: Los Angeles Times Communications, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 10 Nov 2025

   This uncertainty often appears in Beckettian criticism—take the Scrutonian hesitation over Beckett's 'characters (if characters they can be called)', or John Pilling's admission that, in Beckett, character can become an 'impossibly complicated matter'.

   2008, Sophie Ratcliffe, On Sympathy

plural Beckettians

1. A scholar of Samuel Beckett's writings.