L. A. C. Dobrez is Head of the Department of English, Australian National University, Australia.

• AcknowledgementsIntroductionI The Beckett Irreducible1 Beckett: the Reduction2 Beckett: the philosophical tradition3 Beckett and Sartre: the Unnamable and the pour soi4 Beckett and Heidegger: being-in-the-world and the concept of angst5 Beckett and Heidegger: Existence, nothingness and Being II Ionesco and the experience of wonder6 Ionesco: claustrophobia and eurphoria 7 Ionesco and Heidegger: authenticity and the collective 8 Ionesco and Heidegger: authenticity, death and the search for being III Genet’s solitude9 Genet: solitude and the Sartrean Look10 Genet and Sartre: the murderer and the saint11 Genet and Sartre: the image and the revolutionaryIV The approach to art12 Beckett: the task of saying nothing13 Genet and the Mass: sacrament as efficacious sign14 Ionesco: the free imagination V Pinter and the problem of verification15 Pinter and phenomenology: the subjective-objective synthesis16 Pinter: psychological realism and the scientific approach17 Pinter: the lure of objectivityConclusion Source referencesIndex