Les Essif is Associate Professor of Modern Languages and Literatures at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

• Preliminary Table of Contents:AcknowledgmentsIntroduction1. Emptiness: Ontological, Theatrical, Theatro-psychic2. Surrealist Inner Space: Theatre of the (Empty) Mind3. Beckett's Pursuit of Emptiness: The Concentrated (Empty) Image Behind the Fragmented Story In the Late Plays4. Avatars of the Hypersubjective Dramatic Character5. The Hypersubject Avatar Manqué6. TheHypersubjective Marionette-like Legacy of Pierrot: From the Social Space of the Commedia to the Empty Space of Nouveau ThéâtreConclusionWorks Cited

"Essif (Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville) presents a sophisticated analysis of theatrical and psychic space, particularly of Beckett's empty figure on an empty stage. With special regard for the later plays, particularly Rockaby and Not I, the author identifies the techniques that focus the spectator's attention on the human body—the hypersubjective dramatic character—that connects the empty outer space of the stage and the empty inner space of the mind. Such a study necessitates an analysis not only of the ontological and metaphorical but also of the development of modern drama. Essif links Beckett with other playwrights (many French) in the nouveau théâtre (theatre) and offers a parenthetical chapter on the work of others—Pinter, Stoppard, Handke, Shepard—by way of contrast, an approach that succeeds admirably in situating Beckett. And in a final, illuminating chapter, he extends his reach to the figures of the harlequin of commedia and Pierrot, a modern mutant, distinguishing between them and connecting Beckett with the more meditative, socially isolated Pierrot. This is an intelligent, evocative study that, in its modest way, does more than most others in conceptualizing and articulating Beckett's fascination with emptiness and silence. Upper-division undergraduates and above.November 2001"—J. Schlueter, Lafayette College