SOURCE: “Beckett and Bernhard: A Comparison,” in Modern Austrian Literature, Vol. 18, No. 2, 1985, pp. 67–78.

In the following essay, Esslin presents several parallels between the lives and works of Samuel Beckett and Thomas Bernhard.

It occasionally happens that I am asked to name some of the more important continental playwrights. And occasionally, if I mention among them the name of Thomas Bernhard and am asked what kind of writer he is, I am tempted to sum it all up by saying: “A kind of Austrian Beckett.” Like all such attempts at a snap judgment, this is, of course, highly superficial. But there is also a grain of truth in it. That is why it may be worthwhile to go into the matter at a little greater depth and attempt something like a comparison.

Certainly the parallel has been noticed more than once. In 1972 the German magazine Der Spiegel summed it...