Anyone who writes about Waiting for Godot becomes a participant in an international critical colloquium that has been in session uninterruptedly since 1953. My specific debts are noted in the text and bibliography, but I want here to acknowledge how much my own thinking about the play has been continually shaped by the work of Ruby Cohn, Colin Duckworth, John Fletcher, Martin Esslin, Hugh Kenner, and James Knowlson.

To four readers of this essay, I owe very special thanks: my wife and colleague, Suzanne, who has always been my most devoted and discriminating critic; my daughter, Elizabeth, whose keen intelligence and fine French improved the text at many points; my friend and colleague, John Reichert, who made better sense of literature than most people; and Peter Stern, friend and editor, who encouraged this study and gave it a wonderfully attentive and helpful early reading.

For readers in England and the United States, I have provided page citations for both the Faber and Faber edition, published in London, and the Grove Press edition, published in New York (indicated in the text as F and G).