Vivian Mercier (1919 – 4 November 1989) was an Irish

literary critic A genre of arts criticism, literary criticism or literary studies is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical analysis of literature' ...

. He was born at Clara in

County Offaly County Offaly (; ) is a Counties of Ireland, county in Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It is part of the Eastern and Midland Region and the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster. It is named after the Ancient Ireland, ancient Kingdom of Uí ...

and educated, first, at

Portora Royal School Portora Royal School located in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland, was one of the 'free schools' founded by the royal charter in 1608, by James I, making it one of the oldest schools in Ireland at the time of its closure. Origina ...

Enniskillen Enniskillen ( , from , ' Ceithlenn's island') is the largest town in County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland. It is in the middle of the county, between the Upper and Lower sections of Lough Erne. It had a population of 14,086 at the 2011 censu ...

County Fermanagh County Fermanagh ( ; ) is one of the thirty-two counties of Ireland, one of the nine counties of Ulster and one of six counties of Northern Ireland. The county covers an area of and had a population of 63,585 as of 2021. Enniskillen is the ...

, and then, at

Trinity College Dublin Trinity College Dublin (), officially titled The College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, and legally incorporated as Trinity College, the University of Dublin (TCD), is the sole constituent college of the Unive ...

. He was elected a Scholar of the college in 1938, and edited the student magazine '' T.C.D. Miscellany''. After taking his doctorate at Trinity, he taught in American universities from the 1940s to the 1980s; his last post was Professor of English at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is perhaps best known for his famous summation of the plot of

Samuel Beckett Samuel Barclay Beckett (; 13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish writer of novels, plays, short stories, and poems. Writing in both English and French, his literary and theatrical work features bleak, impersonal, and Tragicomedy, tra ...

's ''

Waiting for Godot ''Waiting for Godot'' ( or ) is a 1953 play by Irish writer and playwright Samuel Beckett, in which the two main characters, Vladimir (Waiting for Godot), Vladimir (Didi) and Estragon (Gogo), engage in a variety of discussions and encounters w ...

'': "... has achieved a theoretical impossibility—a play in which nothing happens, that yet keeps audiences glued to their seats. What's more, since the second act is a subtly different reprise of the first, he has written a play in which nothing happens, twice." (''

The Irish Times ''The Irish Times'' is an Irish daily broadsheet newspaper and online digital publication. It was launched on 29 March 1859. The editor is Ruadhán Mac Cormaic. It is published every day except Sundays. ''The Irish Times'' is Ireland's leading n ...

'', 18 February 1956, p. 6.). Despite what may sound like a somewhat disparaging criticism, Mercier was one of the foremost Beckett scholars of his day, and wrote extensively about ''Godot''. He also wrote a critically acclaimed study of Beckett's work as a whole, ''Beckett/Beckett''. Mercier died in 1989, the same year as Beckett. His last marriage (1974–1989) was to the Irish novelist and children's writer Eilís Dillon, who edited his posthumous book, ''Modern Irish Literature: Sources and Founders'' (Oxford, 1994). He is buried beside his wife in his hometown of Clara.

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Brief biography
1919 births 1989 deaths Alumni of Trinity College Dublin Irish literary critics People educated at Portora Royal School Writers from County Offaly Scholars of Trinity College Dublin University of California, Santa Barbara faculty 20th-century Irish male writers {{Ireland-writer-stub