The Citational Principle in Samuel Beckett’s Early Work An Abstractor of “Surrealessence”?

This paper aims to demonstrate that the designation of Beckett as an “abstracteur” is valid in one specific way, which is an interrogation about literary forms, how they emerge and how they are transformed throughout Beckett’s productions. To this purpose, some traces of surrealism in early Beckett’s documents, mainly his first narrative fiction, the correspondence of the Irish writer and the only academic paper that Beckett ever wrote (“Le Concentrisme”), will be put forward.