No More Learning

I
tried to get Peggy to do something for him. She arranged a day to
go to his studio and said she would probably take a picture, but
at the last moment she sidestepped me. In the meantime she
accumulates Braques, Gris, Brancusis, Dalis and other painters
in want. I expect to hear any day that she has acquired a Kisling
2
It's not my business. Bram is reforme, Geer
3
or a Van Dongen.
not, but I don't think he will be called on.
I never had a reply to the application I made in September. I have offered myselfnow to drive an ambulance. Ifthey take me
4
At Swim Two Birds & Murphy for the Mercure, in the place of the one projected by the late Maurice Denhof. He was also going to revise my translation for submission to Paulhan with
679
they will take me soon.
I have been working a lot. Rivoallan was doing an article on
21 May 1940, George and Gwynedd Reavey
recommendation from Adrienne Monnier. All that is down the
drain for the moment. 5 I did a sketch for Paris Mondial that was
cancelled because of recent events. And I wrote half of a first
6
week to see the Joyces, who are still there. 7 McCalmon [for
McAlmon] tells me he had a letter recently from Brian who is
living somewhere outside Dublin with Bridget & Babe, reading
8th century pseudo-sceptics. I have no news of Tom. He had an
article in the Irish Times on the poems of one Milne, published
8
9
act of Johnson. At Easter I went into the Bourbonnais for a
attheGayfieldpress. Duncanwasupforacoupleofdays. Your successor in the Bureau payed me a visit some months ago. He
was very upset that he hadn't been able to find Slonim.
An American friend of mine, Maurice English, poet and journalist, has just gone to Madrid from Paris. He is at the Palace Hotel and would very much like to make your acquiant­ ance [sic]. He is an extremely nice fellow and I think you would get on well together. Look him up. I think it is the Chicago Tribune he works for. If by any chance he has left that hotel you could get him at the American Embassy. 10 I perceive an
involuntary metathesis in acquaintance. I shall not correct it. And how are you getting on yourselves? Write soon.
Love
s/ Sam
I have had several visits from Peron, on leave. form. But now. . . ?
TIS and APS in top margin; 1 leaf, 1 side; TxU.
11
He was in good
1 The Battle of France began on 10 May 1940, marking the start of the German advance that culminated with surrender and the Occupation.
George Reavey moved to Madrid in January 1940, where he was working with the British Council. Geer van Velde was still in Cagnes-sur-Mer.
Geer's brother Bram van Velde (ne Abraham Gerardus van Velde 1895-1981), also a painter, had moved to Montrouge, a Paris suburb. He had been living in Majorca, but after
680
21 May 1940, George and Gwynedd Reavey
the death of his wife, the German painter Sophie Caroline Kliiker (known as Lilly, 1896-1936), Bram came to Paris; while staying with his brother Geer, Bram met Marthe Arnaud (nee Kunst, 1887-1959), a former Protestant missionary in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia), who became his companion from 1936 until her death (Stoullig and Schoeller, eds. , Bram van Velde, 146, 155-157; Rainer Michael Mason, ed. , Bram van Velde, 1895-1981: Retrospective du Centenaire [Geneva: Musee Rath (Musees d'Art et d'Histoire, 1996)] 305-307).
SB purchased Sans titre (Untitled, 1937, Musee National d'Art Modeme, Centre Georges Pompidou, AM 1982-244).
2 With a view to establishing a museum of contemporary art, Guggenheim pur­ chased works by Constantin Brancusi and Catalan painter Salvador Dali (1904-1989) (see Guggenheim, Out of This Century: Confessions of an Art Addict, 210-218; Anton Gill, Art Lover: A Biography ofPeggJ Guggenheim [New York: HarperCollins, 2002] 220). Her collec­ tion included works by French artist Georges Braque (1882-1963) and Spanish painter Juan Gris (1887-1927). She did not own work by Polish-born painter Moise Kisling (1891-1953) or Dutch-born painter Kees van Dongen (1877-1968). (For images and details of the collection see www. guggenheim-venice. it).
3 "Reforme"ijudgedunfitformilitaryservice).
4 SB'sapplication:6December1939,n. 2;alsoKnowlson,DamnedtoFame,275).
5 Mercure de France ceased publication following its 1 June 1940 issue and did not resume until 1 December 1946; Anatole Rivoallan did not publish an article in Mercure de France on Murphy and At Swim Two Birds by Fiann O'Brien (pseud. of Brian O'Nolan, who also wrote as Myles na gCopaleen, 1911-1966).
Other than its mention in SB's letter to Joyce on 13 January 1940, there is no documentation of Rivoallan's willingness to revise SB's translation of Murphy for submission to Jean Paulhan, presumably for publication by the Nouvelle Revue Franraise. Nor is there documentation of Adrienne Monnier's intention to write a covering recommendation.
Publication of the Nouvelle Revue Franraise was suspended in July 1940, but the German ambassador Otto Abetz (1903-1958) was determined to use the review to promote Franco-German collaboration. He approached writer and Nazi-sympathizer Pierre Drieu la Rochelle (1893-1945) to take over its direction, to which the publisher Gaston Gallimard (1881-1975) agreed in October 1940. The first issue under Drieu's editorship appeared in December 1940, "without its Jews" - Julien Benda (1867-1956) most notably. Paulhan refused to collaborate in the review's publication, preferring to lend his talents to the literary resistance as co-founder ofLes Lettres Franraises (Frederic Badre, Paulhan lejuste [Paris: Grasset, 1996] 175-195).
Maurice Denhof (d. ? 1939) did not publish a review of Murphy. On 28 March 1940, Joyce wrote from St. Gerand-le-Puy asking Adrienne Monnier to see if a review of Murphy by Denhof had been published in Mercure de France after 1 October 1939. He continued: "Quelques semaines avant sa mort Maurice Denhof m'ecrivit qu'il etait en train de preparer I'article en question - qui devait faire suite a deux autres articles publies par Jui dans la meme revue" (Several weeks before his death, Maurice Denhof wrote to me that he was in the process ofpreparing the article in question, which was to be a follow-up to two other articles published by him in the same review) Uames Joyce [to Adrienne Monnier], "James Joyce," Mercure de France 326, "Le Souvenir d'Adrienne Monnier," Special issue Uanuary 1956] 123).
681
21 May 1940, George and Gwynedd Reavey
6 NopublicationbearingthenameParisMandia! atthistimehasbeendiscovered.
SB refers to that portion of his projected play on Samuel Johnson later published as "Human Wishes" in Disjeeta, 155-166.
7 SBandtheJoyces:1April1940.
8 Brian Coffey's letter toRobert McAlmon prior to 21 May 1940 has not been found; however, Coffey wrote to him on 9 February 1941, saying only that he, Bridget, and their son John had moved from 2 MulgraveTerrace to 5 MulgraveTerrace, Dun Laoghaire, Co. Dublin (CtY, MSS Survey Za McAlmon). Alan Duncan.
McGreevy reviewed Letterfrom Ireland (Dublin: Gayfield Press, 1940) byEwart Milne (1903-1987) ("New Poetry: 'Letter from Ireland,"' The Irish Times 6 April 1940: 5).
9 GeorgeReavey sold the European Literary Bureau toRichardReginald March (n. d. ), who later became involved in the Nicholson and Watson publishing house (GeorgeReavey to Deirdre Bair, 24 October 1974).
GeorgeReavey and Marc Slonim edited and translated Soviet Literature: An Anthology (1933).
10 Americanpoet,journalist,translator,andpublisherMauriceEnglish•(1909-1983) was Foreign Correspondent for the Chicago Tn1nme until 1941.
11 AlfredPeronwasstillonactiveservice.
MARTHE ARNAUD, c/o BRAM VANVELDE MONTROUGE, FRANCE
lundi [10-6-40] 6 Rue des Favorites Paris XV
chere Marthe
Je vous ecris chez Bram, n'ayant pas votre adresse.
Les diables sont comme les anges. Priez le votre de rester et
1
il partira.
Nous ne sommes pas libres vendredi soir, ni l'un ni l'autre.
Mais je pourrais faire un billard avec Bram a 4 heures, Cafe des Sports, puis passer un petit moment chez vous entre 5 et 6 arranger votre prise. Done sauf contre-avis de Bram je serai ven­ dredi au Cafe des Sports a 4 heures. Pourquoi ne venez-vous pas assister au match? 2
Tout �a a condition qu'on reste a Paris. Suzanne a l'air de vouloir partir. Moi non. Ou aller et avec quoi? 3
682
Monday {10 June 1940}, Arnaud
Sous la vitre bleue le tableau de Bram flambe sombrement. Hier soir j'y voyais Neary au restaurant chinois, "accroupi dans la touffe de ses soucis comme un hibou dans du Lierre"[. ]4 Aujourd'hui ce sera autre chose. On croit choisir une chose, et c'est toujours soi qu'on choisit, un soi qu'on ne connaissait pas si on a de la chance. A mains d'etre marchand.
Votre
Sam Beckett
ALS; 1 leaf. 2 sides; to Monsieur Bram Van Velde. 777 Avenue Aristide Briand. Montrouge, pm 10-6-40, Paris; Collection Putman. Previously published (facsimile): Bram Van Velde (Paris: Editions du Centre Pompidou, 1989) 160; (facsimile) Objet: Beckett (Paris: Centre Pompidou, IMEC Editeur, 2007) illus. 86-87. Dating: from pm; 10 June 1940 was a Monday.
Monday [10 June 1940] 6 Rue des Favorites Paris XV
Dear Marthe,
Not having your address, I am writing to you at Bram's. Devils are like angels. Beg yours to stay and he will go away. We are not free on Friday evening, either ofus. But I could
have a game ofbilliards with Bram at 4, at the Cafe des Sports, and then spend some time at your place between 5 and 6 to make the arrangements for your photo. So, unless I hear from Bram to the contrary, I shall be at the Cafe des Sports on Friday at 4. Why don't you come and watch the game? 2
All this provided that we are staying on in Paris. Suzanne seems to want to get away. I don't. Where would we go, and with what? 3
Under the blue glass Bram's painting gives off a dark flame. Yesterday evening I could see in it Neary at the Chinese
683
1
Monday {10 June 1940}, Arnaud
restaurant, "huddled in the tod of his troubles like an owl in
4
ivy".
choosing something, and it is always yourself that you choose; a self that you did not know, if you are lucky. Unless you are a dealer.
Your
Sam Beckett
Today it will be something different. You think you are
1 Bramlivedat777AvenueAristideBriand,Montrouge.
2 SB responds to an invitation to himself and Suzanne; this is the first letter in which SB signals that they are a couple.
There was a Cafe des Sports at the comer of Avenue de la Grande-Armee and Avenue Malakoff (Porte Maillot) at that time Uean Favier, "Le Cafe des Sports par M. Aug. Prunier," La Construction Modeme 51. 45 [23 August 1936] 929-936).
The photo arrangements may have concerned SB's painting by Bram van Velde (see 21 May 1940, n. 1).
3 On the day of the proposed meeting, 14 June 1940, Paris was occupied by the Germans. SB and Suzanne left Paris for Vichy on 12 June, where they were given assistance by Valery Larbaud. They continued, first to Toulouse and then in the direction of Bordeaux as far as Cahors; finally, they were able to find a way to Arcachon on the Atlantic, where they were assisted by Mary Reynolds (nee Hubacheck, 1891-1950) and Marcel Duchamp, staying there during the rest of sum­ mer 1940 at Villa St. George, 135 Boulevard de la Plage (see Knowlson, Damned to Fame, 274-276, 677 n. 8 and n. 9; P. J. 0 Byrne, Irish Legation in Spain, to George Reavey, 19 August 1940, TxU).
4 Incompliancewithblackoutrules,windowswerecoatedwithasolutionofblue powder, water, and oil, creating "blue glass. " As Simone de Beauvoir describes in her letter to Jean-Paul Sartre on 11 September 1939: "Nos fenetres sont merveilleusement bleues; nous allons au Dome a travers de forrnidables tenebres, on bute sur ! es bords des trottoirs" ("Our windows are a wonderful shade of blue. We go through the thick blackout to the Dome, stumbling against the curb all the way" (La Force de l'dge [Paris: Gallimard, 1960) 401; The Prime ofLife, tr. Peter Green [Cleveland, OH: World Publishing Co. , 1962] 310).
SB cites a passage from Murphy, 115-116.
684
APPENDIX
PROFILES
Giinter Albrecht (1916-1941) was an apprentice in the bookshop of Kurt Saucke in Hamburg when SB met him in September 1936. During SB's stay in Hamburg, the two struck up a friendship, and SB was introduced to Albrecht's family and friends. Albrecht encouraged SB to meet his friend Axel Kaun in Berlin. As soon as Albrecht had finished his bookdealer's examination in spring 1937, he had to meet his Reichsarbeitsdienst (national service) obligation; immediately after­ ward, he was conscripted for two years. He had just completed this term and taken a position with the Reclam Verlag in Leipzig when the War broke out and his military service was automatically extended in the Reserves, where he trained as an officer. He was killed in action in the Soviet Union in July 1941.
Richard Aldington (1892-1962), English novelist and poet, lived in France and Italy in the 1930s; he knew SB through his close friendships with James Joyce, Nancy Cunard, Thomas McGreevy, and Charles Prentice. Aldington was Literary Editor of The Egoist when it published A Portrait ofthe Artist as a Young Man serially (1914). With Cunard, Aldington provided the prize for the best poem on the subject of time; SB's poem "Whoroscope" won. Aldington suggested that SB add annotations to the poem when it was published by Cunard's Hours Press (1930). Aldington's publisher was Chatto and Windus, whose Editor was Charles Prentice; Aldington put up financial guarantees for their Dolphin Books series. At McGreevy's suggestion, SB wrote Proust (1931) which was published in this series. During travels with Frank Beckett in the south of France in 1931, SB visited McGreevy who was staying with Aldington at Le Lavandou. With Prentice, Aldington provided the encouragement and means for McGreevy to concentrate on his writing during 1931-1933. Aldington's kindness was also appreciated by SB: "My first two
687
Profiles
publications, by Hours Press and Chatto and Windus, I owe in part to his good offices. I think ofhim with affection and gratitude. "1
Sylvia Beach (nee Nancy Woodbridge Beach, 1887-1962), American bookseller and publisher in Paris, founded Shakespeare and Company in 1919; the Anglo-American bookshop, lending library, and publishing house became a center for both French and expatriate writers during the 1920s and 1930s. In 1922, Shakespeare and Company published the first complete edition ofJames Joyce's Ulysses; Beach continued to act on behalf of Joyce, publishing his Pomes Penyeach and Our Exagmination Round His Factification for Incamination of Work in Progress. For the latter, SB wrote the essay "Dante. . . Bruno. Vico. . Joyce. " During the Nazi occupation of Paris, Beach closed the bookshop and was interned (1942-1943). Following the war, she continued to representauthors and sell books from her apartment; when Barney Rosset considered adding SB to his list at Grove Press, he consulted Beach. Her memoirs were published as Shakespeare and Company (1959). In 1962, SB agreed to contribute to an "Hommage a Sylvia Beach " in Mercure de France (August-September 1963), but he later wrote to Maurice Saillet: "Les mots ne sont plus tenables - et avec �a elle m'echappe completement" (Words elude me - and with that she disappears from me altogether). 2
Jean Beaufret (1907-1982), called Bowsprit by SB and McGreevy, was a student of Philosophy at the Ecole Normale Superieure when SB met him in 1930; Beaufret continued his studies on Fichte, Hegel, Marx, and Heidegger in Germany. From a letter sent by Beaufret, SB made note of his "beautiful phrase: 'le diamant du pessimisme. "'3 Following his 1933 agregation, Beaufret taught at the Lycee de Montlu�on; later he taught in the khagne, the preparatory class for the entrance examination of the ENS, at the Lycee Louis-le-Grand in Paris. He engaged Heidegger in dialogue about French existentialism and Greek philosophy, publishing Dialogue avec Heidegger (in four volumes, 1974-1985) and other studies. In 1982 Beaufret was made Professeur honoraire de philosophie en premiere superieure at the Lycee Condorcet in Paris.
1 Alister Kershaw and Frederic-Jacques Temple, eds. , Richard Aldington: An Intimate Portrait (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1965) 3.
2 Samuel Beckett to Maurice Saillet, 2 May 1963, TxU Saillet.
3 Samuel Beckett to Thomas McGreevy, 11 March 1931, TCD, MS 10402/18.
688
Frank Edward Beckett (1902-1954), elder brother of SB, was educated at Portora Royal School in Northern Ireland and Trinity College Dublin, where he studied Engineering. He worked with his father's firm, Beckett and Medcalf, before joining the Indian Civil Service (1927-1930). SB and Frank traveled together in France during the sum­ mer of 1931, and later in the 1930s SB accompanied Frank on business travels to the west and south of Ireland. Following the death of their father in 1933, Frank managed Beckett and Medcalf. He married Jean Violet Wright in 1937, and the couple settled in their home, Shottery, overlooking Killiney Bay, where his children Caroline (b. 1938) and Edward (b. 1943) were raised. SB spent several months there with Frank and his family prior to Frank's death in September 1954.
Maria Jones Beckett (nee Roe, known as May, 1871-1950), SB's mother, was raised near Leixlip, Co. Kildare, and educated at the Moravian Mission School in Ballymena. At the age of fifteen, following the death of her father, Samuel Robinson Roe, she became a nurse. She met William Beckett when he was a patient at the Adelaide Hospital in Dublin. They married in 1901 and lived in Cooldrinagh, the home that William Beckett had built in Foxrock, Co. Dublin, where their two sons were born. After their mother's death in 1913, the three children of her brother Edward Roe (Molly, Sheila, and Jack) lived with the Beckett family during their school holidays. A devout Protestant, May regularly attended Tullow Parish Church.
After May Beckett's sudden widowhood in 1933, SB made efforts to accommodate her grieving, including her desire to move house. She paid for SB's psychotherapy with W. R. Bion in London. They traveled together on holiday in England in 1935. SB's definitive break from his mother came in late 1937 and, with it, his move to Paris. When SB was stabbed in January 1938, May, Frank, and Jean Beckett flew to Paris to be with him. From that time, SB traveled to Dublin to visit her for several weeks a year, with the exception of the War years, until her death. SB began Molloy in his mother's room in New Place, a bungalow she had had built near Cooldrinagh in Foxrock. SB was with her in Dublin when she died from complications of Parkinson's disease in 1950.
Suzanne Georgette Anna Deschevaux-Dumesnil Beckett (1900- 1989) was born in Troyes (Aube). She studied music at the Ecole Normale
689
Pro. files
Profiles
de Musique in Paris. She first met SB at a tennis party in Paris in the
mid-1930s. When he was recovering from the knife attack ofJanuary
1938, she visited him in the hospital. In April 1939 SB wrote to
4
After the War, Suzanne Deschevaux-Dumesnil did the rounds of Paris publishers with SB's manuscripts. When finally Les Editions de Minuit took on SB's work, she managed some of his business corre­ spondence with them, as well as attending on his behalf premieres in France and abroad when, as was nearly always the case, he was reluctant to go. SB appreciated her efforts on behalfofhis work. 5
Protective of SB's need for the privacy, rest, and isolation that would allow him to write with the least possible interruption, she arranged retreats from Paris: a period in the Forest of Dreux, near Abondant (Eure-et-Loir), a rental cottage in the Val de Marne, and finally their own cottage in Ussy-sur-Marne (Seine-et-Mame). In later years, she also arranged their holidays in Austria, Italy, Portugal, and Morocco. They married privately in Folkestone, England, on 25 March 1961. Mirroring SB's reaction to the announcement that Beckett had been awarded the Nobel Prize in 1969, she said that it was a "catastrophe. "6
SB and Suzanne shared enjoyment of music and writing, but differed in their social activities. Whereas SB enjoyed the camaraderie oflate evenings with friends and solitary walks after midnight, his wife preferred more regular hours and attended concerts and theatre with her friends. They arranged their Paris apartment with separate en­ trances that allowed them both independence. Suzanne Beckett died in July 1989, Beckett died the following December.
William Beckett (1871-1933), SB's father, was born to William Frank and Frances Crothers Beckett. He left school at fifteen and worked for
4 SB to Thomas McGreevy, 18 April 1939, TCD, MS 10402/168.
5 Knowlson, Damned to Fame, 340. 6 Knowlson, Damned to Fame, 505.
690
McGreevythattherewasaFrenchgirlofwhomhewasfond. SBand Suzanne Deschevaux-Dumesnil became companions, and when the Occupation began, in June 1940, they left Paris together for Toulouse, and, later, Arcachon. When they returned to Paris that autumn, SB became involved in Resistance activities. After his reseau was discov­ ered in August 1942, they made their way to Unoccupied France, and remained in Roussillon throughout the Occupation.
Profiles
his father's successful building company in Dublin, later becoming a quantity surveyor. His firm was Beckett and Medcalf. He met Maria Jones Roe when he was a patient at the hospital where she was a nurse; they married in 1901. In 1902, in the Dublin suburb ofFoxrock the family home, Cooldrinagh, was built; thereFrank and SB were born. Affable, athletic, with a sharp sense of humor, William Beckett enjoyed reading mystery stories, playing golf, and taking long walks in the countryside (often with SB). 7 He asked Joseph Hone if SB had talent as a writer; the answer was affirmative. Although he advised SB to try for a job with the Guinness brewery, William Beckett did not waver in sup­ port of his younger son as he traveled his path as a writer.
Wilfred Ruprecht Bion (1897-1979) was SB's psychotherapist in London from 1934 through 1935. Bion graduated from Oxford in History (1921), then studied French Language and Literature at the University of Poitiers (1921-1922). After teaching History and Literature for several years, he studied Medicine at University College London, qualifying as a medical doctor and surgeon in 1930; his inter­ ests then turned to Psychiatric Medicine. In 1932 he joined the staff of the Tavistock Clinic, where he was a trainee therapist, "analytically trained" by Dr. J. A. Hadfield. Geoffrey Thompson recommended that SB consult Bion for treatment of his anxiety. Already interested in psychoanalysis, SB read widely in the field during this time; at Bion's invitation, he attended a lecture by Carl Gustav Jung in October 1935. After the War, Bion resumed his work at the Tavistock Clinic until 1948; his later professional publications focused on the psychodynamics of groups, the nature of psychosis, epistemology, and aesthetics.
Jacob Bronowski (1908-1974), Polish-born mathematician, man of letters, and poet, edited the literary magazine Experiment with William Empson while a student at Cambridge University; in this capacity he met George Reavey. For The European Caravan, the poetry anthology edited by Samuel Putnam and others, Bronowski edited the Irish and English sections and became acquainted with SB. Bronowski dedicated his professional life to scientific inquiry, and in particular to making science accessible, as in his The Common Sense ofScience (1951) and Science
7 Samuel Beckett to Thomas McGreevy, 2 July 1933, TCD. MS 10402/52.
691
Pro. files
and Human Values (1956). He also wrote on literature, publishing The Defence ofPoetry in 1939 and William Blake, A Man Without a Mask in 1944. Bronowski later became widely known for his work on BBC radio and television, especially for the television series The Ascent ofMan (1973).
Austin Clarke (ne Augustine Joseph Clarke, 1896-1974), Irish poet, dramatist, and novelist, studied at University College Dublin, worked as a reviewer in London, and published several volumes of poetry. His first novel, The Bright Temptation (1932), was banned in Ireland for twenty-two years. Writing under the pseudonym of Andrew Belis, SB reviewed Clarke's Pilgrimage and Other Poems (1929) in "Recent Irish Poetry" (The Bookman, 1934), grouping Clarke with the "antiquarians" or "Celtic twilighters" whom he compared unfavorably with a younger, less insular generation of poets. Clarke also appears in an unflattering light as Austin Ticklepenny in SB's Murphy. Clarke was a charter mem­ ber of the Irish Academy of Letters in 1932. An author of verse drama, Clarke co-founded the Dublin Verse-Speaking Society (1941) and its theatrical counterpart, the Lyric Theatre Company (1944). From 1942 to 1955 he was a broadcaster for Radio Eireann.
Brian Coffey (1905-1995), Irish poet, critic, translator, and teacher, studied Classics as an undergraduate and earned a Master's degree in Chemistry, Physics, and Mathematics (1930) at University College Dublin, where his father Denis Coffey was a professor of Medicine and the University's first President (1908-1940). Coffey pursued postgradu­ ate studies in Paris in Physical Chemistry under Nobel laureate Jean-Baptiste Perrin (1933) and then attended the Institut Catholique de Paris (1934) to study Philosophy with Jacques Maritain; after an interval in London, he returned to Paris in 1937 as an exchange student, to write his doctoral thesis on the idea of order in the work of Thomas Aquinas. Coffey met Denis Devlin when they were both undergraduates at University College Dublin; they published their work jointly as Poems (1930). SB met Coffey and Devlin through Thomas McGreevy in Dublin during the summer of 1934; under the pseudonym Andrew Belis, SB's essay "Recent Irish Poetry" (The Bookman, 1934) mentioned them as being among the best young poets in Ireland. Coffey encouraged SB to read Geulincx for a possible monograph in a Philosophy series he envisioned. Coffey's collection of poems Third Person (1938) was
692
Profiles
published by the Europa Poets series, which included collections by SB, George Reavey, and Denis Devlin. Coffey taught in England for several years; he received his doctorate in 1947, taught Philosophy at St. Louis University in Missouri, and returned to England in 1952. Coffey pub­ lished his Missouri Sequence (1962), edited The Complete Poems of Denis Devlin in a special issue of University Review (3. 5 [1963]; reissued with additions as Collected Poems, 1964), and Devlin's Heavenly Foreigner (1967). Coffey founded Advent Press in 1966 to publish books ofpoetry as well as a poetry series that featured younger writers. Coffey's later collec­ tions were Monster: A Concrete Poem (1966), The Big Laugh (1976), Death of Hektor (1979), Chanterelles: Short Poems 1971-1983 (1985), Advent (1986), and translations ofMallarme. Coffey and SB corresponded often in the later years; SB appreciated his writing and his efforts to make Devlin's poetry available.
Nuala Costello (1907-1984), the daughter ofThomas Costello, Tuam physician and amateur folklorist, and Evelyn Costello (nee Drury), who was active in the Irish Language Movement, a judge for Sinn Fein courts during the War oflndependence, and Senator in Seanad Eireann. Nuala Costello studied French and History at University College Dublin, and began postgraduate studies at the Sorbonne in 1929. She was a friend of the Joyce family; SB first met her at the home of Giorgio Joyce and his wife, Helen. On one occasion Nuala Costello and her mother accompa­ nied the Joyces and SB to the Paris Opera to hear tenor John Sullivan. Not a little smitten, SB saw a good deal ofCostello in London and Dublin during 1933 and 1934. Nuala Costello settled inTuam later in the 1930s; she wrote a biography. John McHale, Archbishop ofTuam (1939) and edited Two Diaries ofthe French Expedition 1798 (1941).
Henry Crowder (1895-1955), American jazz pianist and composer, moved to Paris in 1927 to play with the Eddie South Band and remained to play at the Bateau Ivre in the Place de l'Odeon. Crowder met Nancy Cunard in Venice in 1928. Because he was black, their relationship shocked her upper-class British family, which provoked Cunard to write Black Man and White Ladyship (1931). Crowder worked with Cunard at her Hours Press, which produced the first French publication of SB's Whoroscope in 1930. Crowder composed Henry-Music (1930), a collection of original scores that were improvisations on poetry,
693
Pro. files
including SB's "From the only poet to a shining whore. " Crowder's relationship with Cunard inspired her to compile Negro, Anthology Made by Nancy Cunard, 1931-1933 (1934), which she dedicated to him. Crowder's memoir, As Wondeijul as All That? (1987), was published posthumously.
Nancy Cunard (1896-1965), English writer, editor, publisher, and activist, was the great-granddaughter of the founder of the Cunard shipping line. She lived in Paris in 1920, where she moved in avant-garde literary, artistic, and political circles. She published three volumes of poetry: Outlaws (1921), Sublunary (1923), and Parallax (1925). From 1928 to 1931 Cunard ran the hand-operated Hours Press with American jazz artist Henry Crowder in La Chapelle-Reanville; the press published small editions of prose and poetry, including SB's Whoroscope (1930). Reacting to her family's response to her affair with Henry Crowder, Cunard wrote an essay against racial prejudice, Black Man and White Ladyship (1931), and then compiled Negro, Anthology Made by Nancy Cunard, 1931-1933 (1934) for which SB translated nineteen essays from French. During the Spanish Civil War, Cunard was a corre­ spondent in Spain for the Manchester Guardian. She edited Authors Take Sides On The Spanish Civil War (1937) to which SB contributed. In the 1950s, SB and Cunard renewed their friendship. Cunard wrote memoirs of Norman Douglas and George Moore, as well as a memoir, These Were the Hours: Memories ofMy Hours Press, Reanville and Paris, 1928-1931 (1969).
Denis Devlin (1908-1959), Scots-born to an Irish Catholic family, poet, diplomat, and translator, was a seminarian at Clonliffe College and then studied at University College Dublin where he met Brian Coffey; together they published Poems (1930). After study at Munich University and the Sorbonne (1930-1933), Devlin completed his MA on Montaigne at University College Dublin, where he became an Assistant Lecturer in English. Devlin's collection of poems Intercessions (1937) was published in the Europa Poets series and reviewed by SB in transition. In 1935 Devlin joined the Irish Diplomatic Service; he served in Rome, New York, Washington, and London from 1938 to 1949. He became Minister to Italy (1950) and to Turkey (1951), and Ambassador to Italy (1958). Devlin's international experiences are reflected in his later collections ofpoetry: Exile (1949), Heavenly Foreigner (1950), and Memoirs ofa Turcoman
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Profiles
Diplomat (1959); he also translated works by St. -John Perse, Paul Eluard, Rene Char, and Paul Valery. His work was edited by Allen Tate and Robert Penn Warren in Selected Poems (1963), by Brian Coffey in The Complete Poems ofDenis Devlin in a special issue of University Review (3. 5 1963; reissued with additions as Collected Poems, 1964) and Heavenly Foreigner (1967), by J. C. C. Mays in Collected Poems of Denis Devlin (1989), and by Roger Little, Translations into English: from French, Gennan, and Italian Poetry: Denis Devlin (1992).
Hester Dowden (1868-1949) was a daughter ofliterary critic and Trinity College Dublin Professor of English Edward Dowden; she studied Music in London but returned to Dublin after her mother's death. In 1896 she married Dr. Robert Montgomery Travers-Smith; their daughter was the artist and set-designer Dorothy Travers-Smith (known as Dolly), who married Irish playwright Lennox Robinson. Hester Dowden separated from her husband in 1916, and in 1921 moved to London where she opened her home to lodgers, primarily artists and Dublin acquaintances, including Thomas McGreevy. McGreevy introduced SB to Dowden, who invited SB to musical evenings, played duets with him, and encouraged him to use her piano when he wished. Hester Dowden was also a pro­ fessional medium and a leading figure in the practice of automatic writing; books written "as dictated" to her as a medium are: Voices from the Void (1919), Psychic Messages from Oscar Wilde (1923), The Book of]ohannes (1945) and Talks with Elizabethans: Revealing the Mystery ofWilliam Shakespeare (1947).
Dublin Magazine (1923-1958), edited by Seumas O'Sullivan, was founded as a non-political, non-partisan publication committed to pub­ lishing a variety of literary works. It began as a monthly, but in 1926 it became a quarterly publication. O'Sullivan was interested in SB's writing and asked him for poems to consider, although not all were published, and he occasionally commissioned SB to write reviews. In 1936, O'Sullivan proposed that SB take over the editorship of Dublin Magazine, but SB was not interested. O'Sullivan remained Editor until his death in 1958.
Alan George Duncan (1895-1943) was the son ofthe Dublin art patron Ellen Douglas Duncan, who was a founder of the United Arts Club and
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the Municipal Gallery of Modern Art. Alan Duncan served in the Royal Welsh Fusiliers during World War I until he was invalided out as a result of having been gassed. When he married Isabel Belinda Atkinson in 1924, Lennox Robinson was his best man. After 1925, the Duncans lived primarily in Paris; they were friends of the Joyce family and of Thomas McGreevy who was godfather to Alan's sister, Betty. Duncan introduced George Reavey to Thomas McGreevy. According to Brian Coffey, Alan Duncan's "only subject" was George Bernard Shaw. When W. B. Yeats made a lecture tour of the United States in 1932, Duncan served as secretary.
SB spent the evening of 7 January 1938 with the Duncans at the Cafe Zeyer; as the three were returning to the Duncans' apartment, SB was attacked by a stranger and stabbed. The Duncans were very sup­ portive of SB throughout his recovery. By September 1939, the Duncans were living on the western coast of France; just before the invasion by the Nazis in June 1940, they removed to England. Alan Duncan died in Surrey in 1943.
Belinda Duncan (nee Isabel Belinda Atkinson, 1893-1964), daughter of a prosperous Dublin china merchant, studied Art and was a friend of painters Jack B. Yeats, Norah McGuinness, and Dolly Travers-Smith. Belinda Atkinson married Alan Duncan in 1924; they settled in Paris where their flat was a place of rendez-vous for many Irish exiles. The Duncans left France for Surrey in June 1940. After Alan Duncan's death in 1943, Belinda Duncan worked in an aircraft factory. Following the war, she returned to Dublin. There she renewed her friendship with SB; both found the relative abundance of food and personal comfort in Ireland a sharp contrast to their war-time experiences. In 1945, Belinda Duncan married Brian Lunn (former husband of Alan Duncan's sister Betty); after several years in England, they lived in Dublin from 1951.
L'Ecole Normale Superieure, Rue d'Ulm, Paris, founded in 1794, is an elite educational institution; students ofthe school are among the most brilliant of the French education system. Before taking the fiercely competitive concours d'entree (entrance examination), Arts candidates prepare, in the two preceding lycee years, for the premiere superieure and lettres superieures (commonly known as hypokhagne and khagne).
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Once admitted as 'normaliens,' they are expected to prepare for another highly competitive examination, the agregation. The original purpose of this examination was to ensure high-quality recruits to the teaching pro­ fession. As an exchange Lecteur in English from Trinity College Dublin from 1928 to 1930, SB followed Thomas McGreevy in the post, living at the ENS and supervising students in English. Georges Pelorson was his only pupil in 1930. SB also assisted advanced students in their preparations for examinations. Normaliens from the period of the ENS tenures of McGreevy and Beckett (classes of 1924-1930) included Jean-Paul Sartre, Annand Berard, Paul Nizan, Alfred Peron, Emile Delavenay, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Jean Beaufret, Georges Pelorson, Jean Rolland, Henri Evrard, and, from the ENS des Jeunes Filles, Simone Weil.
Maurice English (1909-1983), American poet, journalist, translator, and publisher, met SB when he was a foreign correspondent for the Chicago Tribune in Paris. English worked with NBC radio news until 1946; later, he edited Chicago Magazine (1954-1958). He was Editor of the University of Chicago Press (1961-1969), Temple University Press, Philadelphia (1969-1976), and Director of the University of Pennsylvania Press (1978). English translated the work ofItalian poet Eugenio Montale, as did SB, as well as ofGreek poet Odysseus Elitis.
The European Caravan: An Anthology ofthe New Spirit in European Literature (1931), planned as a two-volume anthology to introduce "the after-war spirit in European literature," involved SB with editors Samuel Putnam, Jacob Bronowski, and George Reavey. The first volume comprised selec­ tions from French, Spanish, English, and Irish literatures; selections from Russian, German, and Italian literatures were prepared for the second volume, which was not published. The English and Irish section, edited by Jacob Bronowski, included SB's poems "Hell Crane to Starling," "Casket ofPralinen for the Daughter ofa Dissipated Mandarin," "Text. " and "Yoke ofLiberty. " Samuel Putnam asked SB to suggest and translate some ofthe selections for the Italian section ofthe projected second volume.
Otto Freundlich (1878-1943), a German abstract artist ofJewish ori­ gin, studied Art in Berlin, was active in Paris avant-garde circles (1910-1914); he then lived and exhibited in Berlin and Cologne
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Pro. files
(1914-1924), where he joined the "November Gruppe"; he organized the first Dada Exhibition in Cologne in 1919. He moved between Germany and Paris until 1933, when his work was removed from German museums; his sculpture The New Man appeared on the cover of the catalogue of the exhibition of "Degenerate Art" (Munich 1937). Introduced by Polish painter Jankel Adler, who had known Freundlich since the 1920s in Berlin, SB attended the retrospective exhibition ofhis work at the Galerie Jeanne Bucher (1938). He and Freundlich met several times during that year. SB read a draft ofFreundlich's essay on aesthetics "Der bildhafte Raum" and shared his own essay "Les Deux Besoins" with Freundlich. As a German resident in France, Freundlich was interned in 1939; early in 1940, he requested French naturalization and was provisionally released, but was again interned from February to May 1940; on 23 February 1943 he was arrested by the Gestapo and deported to Poland. He died five days later in the Lublin-Majdanek Concentration Camp.
Marguerite Guggenheim (known as Peggy, 1898-1979), American patroness ofthe arts, moved to Paris in 1920; Guggenheim was married to Laurence Vail, a Dada sculptor and writer, from 1922 to 1930. In 1938 she opened the Guggenheim Jeune gallery in London, exhibiting surrealist and other contemporary art. Her attachment to SB dates from this period, and her autobiographies present her view of their affair. At SB's urging, Guggenheim gave Geer van Velde a one-man show at her gallery in May 1938. SB translated several essays related to the exhibitions of Guggenheim Jeune, published in London Bulletin. Guggenheim planned to establish a museum for contemporary art in London and was often in Paris in 1939 and 1940 to amass her collection which included works by Picasso, Ernst, Miro, Magritte, Man Ray, Dali, Klee, Chagall, and Tunnard. Facing the impending German invasion of France, she asked Maria Jolas to secure her collection until it could be shipped to the United States. In 1941 Guggenheim had moved to New York where she opened the gallery Art of This Century in 1942. She was married to Max Ernst from 1942 to 1946. When the New York gallery closed in 1947, Guggenheim moved to Venice; her villa there, now the Peggy Guggenheim Museum, houses her collection.
Arthur Henry Macnamara Hillis (1905-1997), lawyer and inter­ national economist, was a student with SB at Trinity College Dublin;
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both were Honours graduates, Hillis in Classics and Law. Hillis was called to the Bar in London in 1931, where SB met him again in 1934-1935; they developed a close friendship through their shared inter­ est in music and literature. Hillis later served the British Government in the Department of the Treasury (from 1941), in the United Nations (1958-1961), and as Comptroller General ofthe National Debt Office, London (1961-1968). His wife Lillian Mary Hillis (nee Francis, 1907-1990) worked with the BBC in the Spanish Section and the South European Service from 1942 to 1967. In later years, SB frequently visited their home in London, often playing four-hand piano duets and listening to music.
Joseph Maunsel Hone (1882-1959), Irish historian, biographer, and writer, was a friend ofSB's father William Beckett; although twenty-five years his senior, Hone came to know SB well through shared interests in cricket and literature. Hone was Literary Director ofthe Dublin pub­ lisher Maunsel and Co. and edited the quarterly Shanachie (1906-1907) that published writings by John Millington Synge and W. B. Yeats. Hone translated The Life ofFriedrich Nietzsche (1911), and wrote Irishmen ofTo-day (1915) and William Butler Yeats (1916). He collaborated with the Italian scholar ofIrish culture Mario Manlio Rossi, translating his Viaggio in Irlanda (1932; Pilgrimage in the West, 1933) and co-authoring Bishop Berkeley: His Life, Writings and Philosophy (1931) and Swift; or, The Egoist (1934). Later, he edited George Berkeley's The Querist (1936), and wrote The Life of George Moore (1936), The Moores of Moore's Hall (1939), and an expanded biography, W. B. Yeats 1865-1939 (1943). He became President ofthe Irish Academy ofLetters in 1957.
Eugene Jolas (1894-1952), American-born poet, writer, and journalist; having been raised both in the United States and in the borderland of Alsace-Lorraine, he was keenly aware oflinguistic and cultural divisions.
Jolas began his career as a journalist in the United States and became Literary Editor ofthe Paris edition ofthe Chicago Tribune (1923-1926); his column "Rambles Through Literary Paris" reflected his interest in surre­ alism and established his reputation among the city's literati.