No More Learning

Cecil Salkeld.
It may have been Douglas ffrench-Mullen (1893-1943) who was boarding with Cissie Beckett in Mayne Road, Rathgar; Mt. Venus, near Woodtown, Co. Dublin, is a cromlech.
12 NeithertheletterfromCharlesPrenticenorSB'sreplyhasbeenfound.
13 RobinaSheilaPage(neeRoe,knownasSheila,andbySBasEli,1905-1993)and Donald Temple Page (1901-1989) were visiting Cooldrinagh. In the Train, adapted by Hugh Hunt from a short story by Frank O'Connor, had opened at the Abbey Theatre on 31 May 1937.
14 Gerald Beckett, younger brother of William Beckett, lived at Drummany (Burnaby Estate), Portland Road, Greystones, Co. Wicklow.
Tomas de Torquemada: to May [1934], n. 1.
Telepathy, the apparently direct transfer of impressions from one mind to another, runs counter to the cause-effect relationship described by the "inverse-square" law of physics.
15 McGreevy'stranslationswereMaillart'sForbiddenJourney;FromPekingtoKashmir for Heinemann (see 22 December 1936, n. 1), and Young Girls (London: George Routledge, 1937), the first volume of Henry de Montherlant's Les Jeunes filles (4 vols. , 1936-1939; Pityfor Women).
506
JOSEPH HONE
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND
July 3rd 1937
Dolphin Hotel Essex Street, (Parliament Street) Dublin
dear Joe
The passage I think you want is the following:
"One's prejudices guide one's judgments, & I confess that
I like to think that my father went to the House ofCommons like Empedocles to Etna, & flung himself over the edge because he wished to know what the interior ofa crater was like. I am afraid that this explanation of my father's reasons for going to the House of Commons will appear whimsical to those who, like my brother, take a normal view ofour national assembly; all the same my brother does not seem to have escaped altogether the prevalent belief that the House of Commons is an anachronism like the House of Lords. He does not chronicle the debates with the same untiring industry as Lord Morley & Mr. Winston Churchill. He is impressed by the importance of the division bell, but not to the same extent that they are, & he would have been still less impressed ifhe were acquainted with their works - excellent works, full of information, thoughtfulness & literary quality, lacking little, perfect works one would say were they not unreadable. " 1
I trust this is neither too little nor too much - -
507
3July 1937, Hone
3 July 1937, Hone
I was delighted to have your letter. Arland (on se fait a tout) sent me your Lausanne address & I was meaning to write to you, but the days pass over me & I do nothing. 2
To-morrow morning I leave with Kahn [for Kahan] for
Cappagh in the old car. Wasn't it about this time last year that
you & I went down? I look forward to Beverl[e]y not being there.
Jack Yeats describes his voice at its most dulcet (i. e. cajoling
young ladies in the club) as a sack of coal being delivered. The
3
I was offered a job as agent to an estate (Lord Rathdowne's? )
near Carlow. £300 per. an. & a free house. I passed it on to Percy
but he turned it down, on the ground that Beverley would whip
in a young wife the moment his back was turned. I thought it
4
Italian at Cape Town University, & perhaps I shall. 5 He says the fruit makes np for the Kaffirs. I should have reversed this prop­ osition myself.
I heard from Nancy Cunard. She is collecting the opinions of writers on the Spanish business. I replied "Uptherepublic". Then
6
selection ofJoachim Ringelnatz & translate it for a Faber & Faber
(page missing]7
Still there is a mass of marginalia that would be useful, e. g.
in the Annals his recollection of the first time that the
---
Heaven-Hell dichotomy was brought to his notice, when he was in bed with his mother aged 18 months. Heaven she
508
clack of a mill hopper occurs to me rather. It is Nash or Greene. Which alas is the difference, part of the difference.
would have suited him exactly.
Rudmose-Brown wants me to apply for a lectureship in
she wrote again, to demand amplifications.
A firm of Berlin publishers wrote asking me to make a
described as the happy place where some people went, Hell as
the sad place where the lost went. She does not seem to have
been at all High Church. The following morning, so that he
might impress the information on his mind, she required
him to repeat it to Thomas Jackson, their serving man. But he
8
i. e. the fear of his death, when he was being reproached by
his clerical friend Taylor for holding the opinion that an eternity
of torment was preferable to annihilation. He must have had
the notion ofpositive annihilation. Ofhow many can as much be
9
ing the surviving attention with Schopenhauer on women.
My brother has got himself engaged to be married. So has
11
12
Picture to review. I passed it on to Mrs. Salkeld.
Come back soon. I miss you. Remember me to Vera Sally
ALS; 3 leaves. 6 sides; letterhead; TxU.
1 The citation is from the preface to Maurice George Moore. An Irish Gentleman, George Henry Moore: His Travel, His Racing, His Politics(London: T. W. Laurie, 1913) xv-xvi. Joseph Hone writes in his memoir of SB: "I had asked him to look up for me a passage in George Moore's preface to his(Moore's) biography of their father, George Hay [for Henry] Moore. the Irish politician"("A Note on my Acquaintance with Sam Beckett"; TxU, J. M. Hone/ Works).
John Morley, 1st Viscount Morley of Blackburn (1838-1923); Winston Churchill (1874-1965).
509
wouldnot. Allthiswouldcomeinquitenaturallyinthelastact,
3July 1937, Hone
said.
I have been insulting myselfwith Belloc on Milton & divert­
10
Devlin's poems come out shortly in the same series as mine did. I recommend them to you. My book
my agent George Reavey.
is with Allen & Unwin.
Seumas gave me McNeice's [for MacNeice's] Out of the
13
14
David.
Yrs ever
Sam
3 July 1937, Hone
2 Ussher's given names were Percival Arland; although he was previously called "Percy," he now preferred "Arland. " "On se fait a tout" (one can get used to anything).
3 SB called Robert Kahan, who was with the Board of Works, "another frustrated intellectual" (SB to McGreevy, 7 July 1937, TCD, MS 10402/128); Kahan pursued the interests of a scholar, linguist, and literary critic and was the Irish correspondent of the Jewish Chronicle (Alrland] Ulssher], "Mr. Robert Kahan: An Appreciation," The Irish Times 12 December 1951: 5). Cappagh, the Ussher family home in Co. Waterford, was owned by Arland Ussher's father, Beverley.
SB refers to English dramatist and satirist Thomas Nash (1567-1601) and English poet, playwright, and novelist Robert Greene (1558-1592); a specific allusion has not been found. At the end of SB's "Whoroscope" Notebook (BIF, UoR, MS 3000) are twelve pages headed 'For Interpolation' that include citations from Robert Greene's Menaphon (1589), in Groatsworth ofwitte, bought with a million ofrepentance; The repentance ofRobert Greene, 1592, ed. G. B. Harrison (London: Bodley Head, 1923), and Plays and Poems of Robert Greene, ed. J. Churton Collins, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1905) (Pilling, "'For Interpolation': Beckett and English Literature," 218-219).
4 SBisnotcertainoftheowneroftheestate. TheRathdowneestatewasinCounty Dublin. It belonged to Godfrey John Boyle Chetwynd (1863-1936), Viscount Chetwynd, who was also Baron of Rathdowne; he was succeeded by his son Adam Duncan Chetwynd (1904-1965). The Rathdonnell estate in Country Carlow comes closer to the description SB gives. Thomas Leopold McClintock-Bunbury, Lord Rathdonnell (1880-1937), resided in England. His estate, Lisnavagh, had the same manager from 1930 to 1951, but it is possible that a smaller family property nearby, Oak Park, "could have required a manager in 1937" (Lord Rathdonnell lb. 1938], 30 November 1992; records of this estate are not extant).
SB described the position to Arland Ussher in his letter ! before 15 June 1937]: "Most of your truck would be with the auditors and proprietor (who seems to spend most of his time in England and is somewhere over here at present, fishing. Alas I do not know his name") (TxU). SB wrote to McGreevy, 7 July 1937, that he had encouraged both Arland Ussher and Joe Hone to apply:
I pushed Ussher for the job, but he would not go up for it, being apparently convinced that immediately he left the house at Cappagh his father would marry again & jeopardise the succession. I had mentioned all this writing to Joe Hone, now in Lausanne, & had a wire from him when in Cappagh entreating me to get the job for him! I wish I could, but fear it is now too late. (TCD, MS 10402/128)
5 SBwrotetoArlandUssheron15June1937:"NowthatIhaveassembledtestimo­ nials for the Cape Town Gehenna I am in a position to abstain from applying. "
6 Neither Cunard's letters nor SB's replies have been found, but SB wrote to McGreevy on 7 July 1937: "Nancy Cunard circularised me for my opinion of the Spanish business. I replied Up the republic. She wrote again, for amplifications . .
I replied again, that I could not make myself any clearer, unless she insisted that I should. Since when nothing" (TCD, MS 10402/128).
The Cunard collection at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center holds documents related to Cunard's project, including some original letters in reply to the questionnaire sent from Paris in June 1937; "These replies are the only survivors
510
3July 1937, Hone
of the 150 to 200 received by Cunard. The remainder 'disappeared during World War II, in my house at Reanville in Normandy'" (Lake, No Symbols Where None Intended, 36). Nancy Cunard initiated the project in June 1937 from Paris, with "The Question" addressed to "Writers and Poets ofEngland, Scotland, Ireland and Wales: . . . Are you for, or against, the legal Government and the People of Republican Spain? Are you for, or against, France and Fascism? " SB's response ("iUPTHEREPUBLIC! ") was pub­ lished in Nancy Cunard, ed. , Authors Take Sides on the Spanish War (London: Left Review, [1937)) [6]. Writers were asked to limit their contributions to six lines: SB's was the
briefest.
7 TheproposedEnglishtranslationofaselectionofpoemsbyRingelnatz:5June 1936 [for 1937], n. 4. SB wrote to Arland Ussher on 15June 1937: "I shall also back out of the Ringelnatz translation. " SB's letter to McGreevy of7 July 1937 offers greater detail: "The people in Berlin sent me three volumes of Ringelnatz. He is even worse than I thought and I do not think of undertaking the job of translating a selection from him. I had a letter from them again the other day asking for specimen translations to submit to T. S. E. ! ! ! " (TCD, MS 10402/128).
At this point a page is missing from the letter; as Hone describes in his memoir of SB: "The attached letter, ofwhich unfortunately a page is missing was written to me while I was in Switzerland in the summer of1937" ("A Note on my Acquaintance with Sam Beckett"; TxU, J. M. Hone / Works). The letter continues with SB's discussion of his preparations for writing a play on Samuel Johnson.
8 SB refers to Samuel Johnson's entry in his Annals during Lent 1712 (Diaries, Prayers, and Annals, 10; BIF, UoR, MS 3461/3, f. lR).
9 SBreferstoJohnTaylor'sALettertoSamuelJohnson,L. L. D. ontheSubjectofaFuture State [With some letters ofDr. Johnson and possibly in part written by him] (London: T. Cadell, 1787; BIF, UoR, MS 3461/2, f. 101V).
In a conversation with Anna Seward (1742-1809) who claimed that fear ofannihila­ tion "was groundless," Johnson reportedly said: "'Mere existence is so much better than nothing, that one would rather exist even in pain"' (Bate, SamuelJohnson, 452 ). In response to this conversation, SB notes: "Much as he dreaded the next world he dreaded annihilation still more" (BIF, UoR, MS 3461/2, f. 81R).
10 HilaireBelloc,Milton(London:Cassell,1935).
Arthur Schopenhauer, "Essay on Women," in Essays and Aphorisms, 80-88.
11 FrankBeckettwasengagedtoJeanWright;SBwrotetoMcGreevyon7July1937: "Frank hopes to get married about the middle of August. Another gone. From me I mean of course. He is house hunting. Do write & congratulate him" (TCD, MS 10402/128).
George Reavey was engaged to Clodine Gwynedd Cade. SB wrote to McGreevy on 7 July 1937: "I sent George a Meissen wine cup before I left [for Cappagh] but have had no acknowledgment. I suppose he knows what he is doing, but it is hard not to feel sorry for him. I don't think he'll write much more poetry" (TCD, MS 10402/128); a certificate of authentication dated 1 July 1937 from Harris & Sinclair, Dublin, is in Reavey's papers (TxU; Reavey collection, miscellaneous).
12 Denis Devlin, Intercessions, Europa Poets (London: Europa Press, 1937). SB's col­ lection of poems Echo's Bones was the third in this series.
Murphy was being read by London publisher Allen and Unwin.
511
3 July 1937, Hone
13 SeumasO'SullivanaskedSBtoreviewOutofthePicture(1937)byLouisMacNeice (ne Frederick Louis MacNeice 1907-1963); it was reviewed by Blanaid Salkeld in Dublin Magazine 12. 4 (October-December 1937) 67-68.
14 JoeHone'swifeVera,andtheirchildrenSally(m. Cooke-Smith,1914-2003)and David (b. 1928).
AXEL KAUN BERLIN
[SB's Letter to Axel Kaun below exists only as a draft, corrected by various hands over time; it is presented here without editorial corrections. ]
9/7/37
6 Clare Street Dublin
IFS
Lieber Axel Kaun!
Besten Dank fur Ihren Brief. Ich war gerade im Begriff,
Ihnen zu schreiben, als er kam. Dann habe ich verreisen mus­ sen, wie Ringelnatz' mannlicher Briefmark, obgleich unter
1
Ringelnatz ist meiner Ansicht nach nicht der Muhe wert. Sie werden sicherlich nicht mehr enttauscht sein, dies von mir zu horen, als ich es gewesen bin, es feststellen zu miissen.
Ich habe die 3 Bande durchgelesen, 23 Gedichte ausge­
2
was sie notwendigerweise dabei verloren haben, ist naturlich
nur im Verhaltnis mit dem zu schatzen, was sie eigentlich
3
Daraus ist gar nicht zu schliessen, dass ein iibersetzter Ringelnatz weder Interesse noch Erfolg beim englischen
512
weniger leidenschaftlichen Umstanden.
Das Beste ist, ich sage Ihnen sofort und ohne Umschweife,
wahltund2vondiesenalsProbestuckeubersetzt. Daswenige,
zu verlieren haben, und ich muss [_]en, dass ich diesen Verschlecterungskoeffizient, auch da, wo er am meisten Dichter ist, und am wenigsten Reimkuli, ganz gering gefunden habe.
Publikum finden wi. irde. In dieser Beziehung aber bin ich voll­ kommen unfahig, ein Urteil zu fallen, da mir die Reaktionen des kleinen wie des grossen Publikums immer ratselhafter werden, und, was noch schlimmer ist, unbedeutender. Denn ich komme vom naiven Gegensatz nicht las, zumindesten was die Literatur betrifft, dass eine Sache sich lohnt oder sich nicht lohnt. Und wenn wir unbedingt Geld verdienen miissen, machen wir es anderswo.
Ich zweifle nicht, dass Ringelnatz als Mensch van ganz aus­
serordentlichem Interesse war. Als Dichter aber scheint er
Goethes Meinung gewesen zu sein: Lieber NICHfS zu schreiben,
als nicht zu schreiben. Dem Uebersetzer aber hatte der Geheimrat
selbst vielleicht gegonnt, sich dieses hohen Kakoethes unwi. irdig
4
Verswut Ringelnatz' genauer zu erklaren, wenn Sie Lust haben, ihn zu verstehen. Vorlaufig aber will ich Sie schonen. Vielleicht mogen Sie die Leichenrede ebensowenig wie ich.
Gleicherweise konnte ich Ihnen eventuell die ausgewahlten Gedichte anzeigen und die Probeiibersetzungen schicken.
Es freut mich immer, einen Briefvon Ihnen zu bekommen. Schreiben Sie also moglichst haufig und ausfuhrlich. Wollen Sie unbedingt, dass ich Ihnen auf englisch das gleiche tue? Werden Sie beim Lesen meiner deutschen Briefe ebenso gelangweilt, wie ich beim Verfassen eines englischen? Es tate mir Leid, wenn Sie das Gefi. ihl hatten, es handele sich etwa um einen Kontrakt, dem ich nicht nachkomme. Um Antwort wird gebeten.
Es wird mir tatsachlich immer schwieriger, ja sinnloser, ein offizielles Englisch zu schreiben. Und immer mehr wie ein Schleier kommt mir meine Sprache var, den man zerreissen
513
9July 1937, Kaun
zu fuhlen.
lch wi. irde mich freuen, Ihnen meinen Abscheu var der
9 July 1937, Kaun
muss, um an die hinterliegenden Dinge (oder das hinterliegende Nichts) zu kommen. Grammatik und Stil! Mir scheinen sie ebenso hinfallig geworden zu sein wie ein Biedermeier Badeanzug oder die Unerschi. ittlichkeit eines Gentlemans. 5 Eine Larve. Hoffentlich kommt die Zeit, sie ist ja Gott sei Dank in gewissen Kreisen schon da, wo die Sprache da am besten gebraucht wird, wo sie am ti. ichtigsten missgebraucht wird. Da wir sie so mit einem Male nicht ausschalten konnen, wollen wir wenigstens nichts versau­ men, was zu deren Verruf beitragen mag. Ein Loch nach dem andern in ihr zu bohren, bis das Dahinterkauernde, sei es etwas oder nichts, durchzusickern anfangt - ich kann mir fur den heu­ tigen Schriftsteller kein hoheres Ziel vorstellen.
Oder soll die Literatur auf jenem alten faulen von Musik und Malerei ! angst verlassenen Wege allein hinterbleiben? Steckt etwas lahmend heiliges in der Unnatur des Wortes, was zu den Elementen der anderen Ki. inste nicht gehort? Gibt es irgendeinen Grund, warum jene furchterlich willki. irliche Materialitat der Wortflache nicht aufgelost werden sollte, wie z. B. die von grossen schwarzen Pausen gefressene Tonflache in der siebten Symphonie von Beethoven, so dass wir sie ganze Seiten durch nicht anders wahmehmen konnen als etwa einen schwindelnden unergri. indliche Schli. inde von Stillschweigen verkni. ipfenden Pfad von Lauten? 6 Um Antwort wird gebeten.
lch weiss, es gibt Leute, empfindsame und intelligente Leute, fur die es an Stillschweigen gar nicht fehlt. lch kann nicht umhin, anzunehmen, dass sie schwerhorig sind. Denn im Walde der Symbole, die keine sind, schweigen die Vogelein der Deutung, die keine ist, nie.
Selbstverstandlich muss man sich vorlaufig mit Wenigem begni. igen. Zuerst kann es nur darauf ankommen, irgenwie eine Methode zu erfinden, um diese hohnische Haltung dem
514
9 July 1937, Kaun
Worte gegeniiber wortlich darzustellen. In dieser Dissonanz von Mitteln und Gebrauch wird man schon vielleicht ein Gefliister der Endmusik oder des Allem zu Grunde liegenden Schweigens spiiren k6nnen.
Mit einem solchen Programme hat meiner Ansicht nach die
7
Vielleicht liegen die Logographen von Gertrude Stein dem
naher, was ich im Sinne habe. Das Sprachgewebe ist wenigstens
por6s geworden, wenn nur leider ganz zufalligerweise, und
zwar als Folge eines etwa der Technik von Feininger ahnlichen
8
Zweifel immer noch in ihr Vehikel verliebt, wenn freilich nur
wie in seine Ziffem ein Mathematiker, fur den die L6sung des
Problems von ganz sekundarem Interesse ist, ja ihm als Tod der
Ziffem direkt schrecklich vorschweben muss. Diese Methode
mit der von Joyce in Zusammenhang zu bringen, wie es die
Mode ist, kommt mir genau so sinnlos vor wie der mir noch
nicht bekannte Versuch den Nominalismus (im Sinne der
9
allerletzte Arbeit von Joyce gar nichts zu tun.
sich vielmehr um eine Apotheose des Wortes zu handeln. Es sei denn, Himmelfahrt und H6llensturz sind eins und dasselbe. Wie sch6n es ware, glauben zu k6nnen, es sei in der Tat so! Wir wollen uns aber vorlaufing auf die Absicht beschranken.
Dort scheint es
Vorfahrens. DieungliicklicheDame(lebtsienoch? )istjaohne
Scholastiker) mit dem Realismus zu vergleichen. Auf dem Wege nach dieser fur mich sehr wiinschenswerten Literatur des Unworts hin, kann freilich irgendeine Form der nominalis­ tischen Ironie ein notwendiges Stadium sein. Es geniigt aber nicht, wenn das Spiel etwas von seinem heiligen Ernst verliert. Aufh6ren soll es. Machen wir also wie jener verriickte (? ) Mathematiker, der auf jeder einzelnen Stufe des Kalkuls ein neues Messprinzip anzuwenden pflegte. Eine W6rterstiirmerei im Namen der Sch6nheit.
515
9 July 1937, Kaun
Inzwischen mache ich gar nichts. Nur von Zeit zu Zeit habe
ich wie jetzt den Trost, mich so gegen eine fremde Sprache unwill­
kiirlich vergehen zu diirfen, wie ich es mit Wissen und Willen
10
1L; 2 leaves. 2 sides; ink and pencil AN, possibly AH or several; Lawrence Harvey collection. Dartmouth. MS 661; previous publication: Beckett, "German Letter of 1937," Disjecta, tr. Martin Esslin; German text, 51-54; English text, 170-173; rpt. in Oliver Sturm, Der letzte Satz der letzten Seite ein letztes Mal: Der alte Beckett (Hamburg: Europaische Verlagsanstalt, 1994) 210-213; rpt. in Dutch, "Duitse briefuit 1937" (German letter of1937), tr. Translators Collective of the Historische Uitgeverij Groningen, Bulletin: Literair Magazine 21. 193 (February 1992) 35-36; rpt. in Spanish as "Samuel Beckett: carta alemana de 1937," tr. Ana Maria Carolano, Beckettiana: Cuadernos del Seminario de Beckett 5 (February 1997) 89-91.
The text presented here is a draft; that SB probably did send the letter is indicated by the fact that he sent a copy of a portion of it to Arland Ussher on 11 July 1937: "My affection for you leaves me with no alternative but to let you have the benefit of the enclosed, which is an extract from a letter addressed to the Ringelnatz League in Berlin"; this letter closes with: "Your thoughts on Logoclasm, will you please put them in order and bestow them on me" (TxU).
This text is based on a ribbon copy, not a carbon copy, and it may represent SB's typed draft, with ink corrections made by SB at the time the letter was written. This document was given by SB to Lawrence Harvey between 1960 and 1966; Philip N. Cronenwett, formerly Curator of Manuscripts, Dartmouth College Library, concurs with the editors that the pencil corrections and notations may have been made at that time by SB and/or by Lawrence Harvey.
Martin Esslin's transcription of this letter incorporates a wide variety of silent corrections (Beckett, Disjecta, 51-54).
gegen meine eigene machen mochte und - Deo juvante - werde. Mit herzlichem Gruss
1hr
Soll ich Ihnen die Ringelnatz Bande zuriickschicken? Gibt es eine englische Uebersetzung von Trakl? 11
9/7/37
6 Clare Street Dublin
IFS
Dear Axel Kaun,
Many thanks for your letter. I was just about to write to
you when it came. Then I had to go travelling rather like
516
9 July 1937, Kaun Ringelnatz's male postage stamp, although under less passion­
1
my opinion Ringelnatz is not worth the effort. You probably will not be more disappointed to hear this from me than I was in having to determine it.
I read through the 3 volumes, chose 23 poems and trans­
2
From this it is not to be assumed at all that a translated Ringelnatz would not find interest or success with the English public. In this respect, however, I am totally unable to make a judgement since responses of small as well as large audiences are becoming more and more mysterious to me and, what is worse, less significant. For I cannot get away from the naive antithesis that, at least where literature is concerned, a thing is either worth it or not worth it. And if we absolutely must earn money, we do it elsewhere.
I do not doubt that Ringelnatz as a person was of rather
exceptional interest. As poet, however, he seemed to have
been of Goethe's opinion: better to write NOTHING than not to
write. However, perhaps even the Geheimrat might have
allowed the translator to feel himself unworthy of such high
4
for Ringelnatz's verse-obsession if you feel like going into it. However, for the time being I will spare you. Perhaps you like funeral orations as little as I do.
517
ate circumstances.
It is best I tell you right away and without further ado that in
lated2oftheseassamples. Thelittlethatofnecessitytheylost in the process is of course only to be evaluated in relation to what they have to lose in the first place, and I must say3 that I found this co-efficient of deterioration quite insignificant even where he is most poet and least rhymester.
kakoethes.
I would be happy to explain to you in more detail my disdain
9 July 1937, Kaun
Likewise, I could perhaps indicate to you the chosen poems
and send you the sample translations.
I am always delighted to receive a letter from you. Therefore do write as often and as extensively as possible. Do you abso­ lutely want me to do the same for you in English? Do you get as bored reading my German letters as I composing one in English? I would be sorry if you had the feeling that perhaps this was a matter of a contract which I am not fulfilling. An answer is requested.
It is indeed getting more and more difficult, even pointless, for me to write in formal English. And more and more my language appears to me like a veil which one has to tear apart in order to get to those things (or the nothingness) lying behind it. Grammar and style! To me they seem to have become as irrelevant as a Biedermeier bathing suit or the imperturbability of a gentleman. 5 A mask. It is to be hoped the time will come, thank God, in some circles it already has, when language is best used where it is most efficiently abused. Since we cannot dismiss it all at once, at least we do not want to leave anything undone that may contribute to its disrepute. To drill one hole after another into it until that which lurks behind, be it something or nothing, starts seeping through - I cannot imagine a higher goal for today's writer.
Or is literature alone to be left behind on that old, foul road long ago abandoned by music and painting? Is there something paralysingly sacred contained within the unnature of the word that does not belong to the elements of the other arts? Is there any reason why that terrifyingly arbitrary materiality of the word surface should not be dissolved, as for example the sound surface of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony is devoured
518
9 July 1937, Kaun
by huge black pauses, so that for pages on end we cannot per­ ceive it as other than a dizzying path of sounds connecting unfathomable chasms of silence? 6 An answer is requested.
I know there are people, sensitive and intelligent people, for whom there is no lack of silence. I cannot help but assume that they are hard of hearing. For in the forest of symbols that are no symbols, the birds of interpretation, that is no interpre­ tation, are never silent.
Of course, for the time being, one makes do with little. At first, it can only be a matter of somehow inventing a method of verbally demonstrating this scornful attitude vis-a-vis the word. In this dissonance of instrument and usage perhaps one will already be able to sense a whispering of the end-music or of the silence underlying all.
In my opinion, the most recent work ofJoyce had nothing at
7
Perhaps, Gertrude Stein's Logographs come closer to what I
mean. The fabric of the language has at least become porous, if
regrettably only quite by accident and, as it were, as a conse­
quence of a procedure somewhat akin to the technique of
8
alltodowithsuchaprogramme. Thereitseemsmuchmorea matter of an apotheosis of the word. Unless Ascent into Heaven and Descent into Hell are one and the same. How nice it would be to be able to believe that in fact it were so. For the moment, however, we will limit ourselves to the intention.
Feininger. Theunhappylady(isshestillalive? )isundoubtedly still in love with her vehicle, if only, however, as a mathemati­ cian is with his numbers; for him the solution of the problem is of very secondary interest, yes, as the death of numbers, it must seem to him indeed dreadful. To connect this method with that of Joyce, as is fashionable, appears to me as ludicrous as the attempt, as yet unknown to me, to compare Nominalism (in the
519
9 July 1937, Kaun
sense of the Scholastics) with Realism. On the road toward this, for me, very desirable literature of the non-word, some form ofnominalistic irony can ofcourse be a necessary phase. However, it does not suffice ifthe game loses some ofits sacred solemnity. Let it cease altogether! Let's do as that crazy math­ ematician who used to apply a new principle ofmeasurement at each individual step of the calculation. Word-storming in the name of beauty.
9
In the meantime I am doing nothing. Only from time to time do I have the consolation, as now, of being allowed to violate a foreign language as involuntarily as, with knowledge and intention, I would like to do against my own language, and - Deo juvante - shall do. 10
Cordially yours,
Shall I send you back the Ringelnatz volumes? Is there an English translation ofTrakl? 1 1
1 SBevokesRingelnatz'spoem"EinmannlicherBriefinarkerlebt"(HansBotticher and Richard J. M. Seewald, eds. , Die Schnupftabaksdose: Stumpftinn in Versen und Bildem [Munich: R. Piper, 1912] 4; see text and translation by Ernest A. Seemann, www. beilharz. com/poetas/ringelnatz/, 25 May 2006). The poem personifies a male postage stamp that experienced arousal when licked by a princess; he wished to kiss her back, but had to go traveling, thus his love was unavailing.
2 SBhadbeensentthreevolumesofthepoemsbyRingelnatz'spublisherRowohlt, for whom Kaun worked, but it is not clear which books these were, nor which two poems SB had translated. He quotes "Die Ameisen" in his letter to Arland Ussher, 15 June 1937 (TxU).
3 SBwrote"<willIhnennichtverleugnen>"andtheninserted"muss"toreplace "will" and also added "-en" (the infinitive ending in German) without adding a verb stem. In order to have a translatable sentence, we have inserted (as did Esslin) the verb stem of "to say" to render "sagen. "
4 SB cites Goethe's final sentence ofthe first chapter ofDie Wahlverwandtschaften, in Die Leiden des jungen Werthers, Die Wahlverwandtschaften, Kleine Prosa, Epen, ed. Waltraud Wietholter and Christoph Brecht, in Sdmtliche Werke, VIII, ed. Friedmar Apel, Henrik Bines, and Dieter Borchmeyer (Frankfurt: Deutscher Klassiker Verlag, 1994) 278; Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Elective Affinities, tr. David Constantine, The World's Classics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994) 9.
520
27July 1937, Reavey "Kakoethes" (Gk. , wickedness, malignity); in SB's "Serena I": "or as they say evil
propensity" (see 8 October 1932).
5 Influenced by the French Empire style, "Biedermeier" (1815-1848) is usually applied to furnishings and fashion of the German bourgeoisie; later it took on a derogatory connotation of conventional narrow-mindedness.
6 Beethoven'sSymphonyno. 7inAmajor,op. 92.
7 Joyce'sWorkinProgress,publishedalreadyinfragments,waspublishedinfullas
Finnegans Wake in 1939.
8 "Logograph"isnotatermusedbyAmericanwriterGertrudeStein(1874-1946), although her writing emphasized sound and rhythm over sense, which SB compares to Lyonel Feininger's cubist technique, which layered prismatic planes of color.
SB wrote to Mary Manning Howe on 11 July 1937: "! am starting a Logoclast� League. [. . . [ I am the only member at present. The idea is ruptured writing, so that the void may protude, like a hernia" (TxU).
9 ThephilosophicaltraditionknownasRealismholdsthatwordssuchas"truth," "beauty," and "justice" are concepts that are general or universal, but also that they name extramental, actually existing entities. Nominalism holds that these words are merely names (Lat. , nomen) for which there are no corresponding entities. A survey of the medieval controversy is given in Frederick Copleston, A History of Philosophy, II (Westminster, MD: The Newman Press, 1955) 136-155.
10 "Deojuvante"(withGod'shelp).
11 The writing of Austrian poet Georg Trakl (1887-1914) had not yet been trans­ lated into English in 1937.
GEORGE REAVEY LONDON
27/7/37 6 Clare St Dublin
dear George
I quote from a letter from Mrs Howe: "Please let Reavey
know I've sent your MS. to Covici-Firede (? ) Inc. [for Covici­ Friede] in New York. If they tum it down it[']s to be sent to Hal Smith ofDoubleday Doran. Let the New York offices ofReavey of which there is no address that I can find be notified & they can deal with matters after that. "1
521
"Geheimrat" (Privy counselor), in reference to Goethe.
27 July 1937, Reavey
My efforts to document my Johnson fantasy have not
ceased. The evidence for it is overwhelming. It explains what
has never been explained (e. g. his grotesque attitute [for attitude]
towards his wife & Mr Thrale). It is hard to put across, he being so
old at the crisis, i. e. she could hardly have expected much from
him. 2 We will make him younger & madder even than he was. 3
4
1 MaryManningHowe·slettertoSBhasnotbeenfound. PascalCovici(1888-1964), Romanian-born Chicago publisher, joined forces with Donald Friede (1901-1965) to form Covici-Friede (1928-1937) in New York.
There was no New York office for the European Literary Bureau.
2 In1736,SamuelJohnsonmarriedthewidowElizabethPorter(neeJervis,known as Hetty, 1689-1752) when she was forty-six and he was twenty-five (Bate, Samuel Johnson, 147). Bate notes that "between December 1737 and May 1739Johnson and his wife 'began to live apart,' althoughJohnson visited her occasionally" (177-178, 187-188; Boswell, Boswell's Life ofjohnson, I, 192). Yet Boswell disputed the observation of Sir John Hawkins that Johnson's fondness for his wife "was dissembled," writing: "we find very remarkable evidence that his regard and fondness for her never ceased,
even after her death" (Boswell, Boswell's Life ofjohnson, I, 192, 96, 234).
If, as it appears, SB's text reads "towards his wife and M'Thrale," then the "grotesque attitude" that SB ascribes toJohnson bears upon his apparently incongruous admira­ tion of them. If the slightly effaced page reads "M'1'1" Thrale, then SB draws a parallel between Elizabeth Porter and Hester Thrale, who were romantically and sexually
somewhat unlikely partners with their husbands.
Johnson was seventy-one years old when Henry Thrale died.
3 SB recorded in his notebook some details of Johnson's singular behavior in spring 1764 from Boswell's Life of Johnson: Johnson's symptoms of depression, his withdrawal from society and his "sighing, groaning, talking to himself, and restlessly walking from room to room. " Boswell describes Johnson's obsessive­ compulsive behavior as "superstitious habit" (e. g. arranging his steps so that the same foot always crossed the threshold), and notesJohnson's involuntary "sounds with his mouth . . . chewing the cud, . . . giving a half whistle .