SB
probably
submit ted "Sonnet" ("At last I find .
Samuel Beckett
London: Pimlico, 1991) 102.
Dating: from pm on pneumatique.
1 BeckettwrotetoPatriciaHutchinsGraecen(1911-1985)on25April1954:"Ifear I have no recollection of that note to Joyce and can shed no light on it" (TCD,MS
4098/11).
The source of the text that SB sends to Joyce is not certain. The Greek phrase
"t,moprnoμevov mxpa rraTpo�" (ekporeuomenon para patros ! proceeding from the Father]) alludes to John 15:26, and is central to the F11ioque debate that divided
8
10 May 1929, Vessiot
the Roman Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox churches. Ft1ioque (and from the Son). For suggestions of how this passage may relate to Finnegans Wake: Roland McHugh, Annotations to Finnegans Wake, rev. edn. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991) 156, and a letter of 26 June 1975, from Danis Rose to Karl Gay, Curator, Lockwood Library Poetry Collection, State University ofNew York at Buffalo.
2 "i\K7topEurn8m" (ekporeuesthai [to proceed]).
3 "rn" (to: [the]).
ERNEST VESSIOT,ECOLE NORMALE SUPERIEURE PARIS
10/5/29 Ecole Normale [Paris]
Monsieur le Directeur1
Je vous ecris dans l'espoir que vous voudrez bien ratifier
mon desir de passer l'annee scolaire prochaine a l'Ecole comme
2
le Doctorat de l'Universite de Paris.
Veuillez agreer, Monsieur le Directeur, ! 'expression de mes
sentiments respectueux. Samuel B. Beckett
ALS; 1 leaf. 1 side; AN 61AJ/202. Displayed in an exhibition at the Archives Nationales (1994).
10/5/29 Ecole Normale [Paris]
Dear Sir1 Iamwritingtoyouinthehopethatyouwillratifymywishto
2
9
lecteur d'Anglais.
Mon travail personnel sera la preparation d'une these pour
3
spend the next academic year at the Ecole as Lecteur in English.
10 May 1929, Vessiot
My private work will be the preparation of a thesis for the DoctorateoftheUniversityofParis. 3
Yours respectfully Samuel B. Beckett
1 ErnestVessiot(1865-1952),Directeur,EcoleNormaleSuperieure,'from1927to 1935.
2 SB was nominated to be the Lecteur d'anglais (English language assistant) for 1927-1928 in the exchange program between Trinity College Dublin and the Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris by his mentor Thomas Brown Rudmose-Brown· (known as Ruddy, 1878-1942), Professor of Romance Languages at Trinity College Dublin. Without prejudice to SB's nomination, the administration of the ENS decided to renew the appointment of the current Lecteur, Thomas McGreevy• (1893-1967), who was also a graduate of TCD (Gustave Lanson, Directeur, Ecole Normale Superieure [1919-1927] toRudmose-Brown, 31 July 1927, AN: 61AJ/ 202). SB was offered the appointment for 1928-1929.
SB's request to be retained for a second year was subject to the approval of both institutions; Ernest Vessiot wrote to Alfred Blanche, Consul General de France en lrlande, 14 May 1929, that he was inclined to grant this request (AN: 61AJ/ 202).
3 As the subject for his thesis, SB proposed Joyce and Marcel Proust (1871-1922), but he was discouraged from this by Professor Celestin Bougie (1870-1940), Directeur-adjoint, Lettres (Assistant Director, Arts), Ecole Normale Superieure Uames Knowlson, Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett [New York: Grove Press, 2004] 107, and notes of an interview with SB by Lawrence Harvey in the early 1960s [NhD, Lawrence Harvey Collection, MS 661, Notes for Samuel Beckett: Poet and Critic, 161).
THOMAS McGREEVY P ARIS
Friday [? summer 1929]
Landgrafenstr. 5 Kassel
My dear McGreevy1
The abominable old bap Russel[l] duly returned my MSS
with an economic note in the 3! Q person, the whole in a consid erably understamped envelope. I feel slightly paralysed by the courtesy of this gesture. I would like to get rid of the damn thing
10
Friday{? summer 1929), McGreevy
anyhow, anywhere (with the notable exception of 'transition'), but I have no acquaintance with the less squeamish literary garbage buckets. I can't imagine Eliott (for Eliot) touching it - certainly not the verse. Perhaps Seumas O'Sullivan's rag would take it? 2 Ifyou think ofan address I would be grateful to know it.
To my astonishment I arrived in Kassel at the hour numer
ous officials assured me I would arrive, must arrive. 3 I had the
carriage to myselfall night, but did not succeed in getting any
sleep. The aspirin was a snare and the coffee a delusion. So I was
reduced to finishing Le Desert de l'Amour, which I most decid
edly do not like. A patient tenuous snivel that one longs to see
4
ribbons by the sun, and am as uncomfortable in the bunk as Florence.
'Che non puo trovar posa in su le piume ma con dar volta suo dolore scherma. '6
I have read the first volume of'Du Cote de chez Swann', and find it strangely uneven. There are incomparable things - Bloch, Frarn;:oise, Tante Leonie, Legrandin, and then passages that are offensively fastidious, artificial and almost dishonest. 7 It is hard to know what to think about him. He is so absolutely the master ofhis form that he becomes its slave as often as not. Some ofhis metaphors light up a whole page like a bright explosion, and others seem ground out in the dullest desperation. He has every kind of subtle equilibrium, charming trembling equilibrium, and then suddenly a stasis, the arms ofthe balance wedged in a perfect horizontal line, more heavily symmetrical than Macaulay at his worst, with primos & secundos echoing to each complacently and reechoing. His loquacity is certainly more interesting and cleverly done than Moore's, but no less
11
projected noisily into a handkerchief. WecamebackfromKragenhofyesterday. Iamscorchedto
5
Friday{? summer 1929}, McGreevy
profuse, a maudlin false teeth gobble-gobble discharge from a
8
think that I have to contemplate him at stool for 16 volumes!
Cissie is devouringillysses, and likes talking about it and Joyce, a
delicate activity in the presence of Peggy, who has no interest in
9
Are you doing any work or are you infested by the aimable Thomas? How did Agreg. go? How is the position with regard to
11
to hear from you. Cissie remembers you well and sends her kindest. The Boss is in Ireland and the children conveniently dispersed, so there is a strange hot peace in the flat. I could'nt [for couldn't] sleep last night and read 'Sir Arthur Savile's Crime', 'The Something Ghost' & 'Poems in Prose', this last enormous Ithought. 12
S. B.
ALI; 1 leaf, 4 sides; TCD, MS 10402/1. Dating: although James Knowlson assigns a probable date of June 1930 to this letter, summer 1929 is more likely (Knowlson, Damned to Fame, 639-641, n. 90, n. 118). The agregation examinations took place in the early summer, and SB describes serious sunburn. The relatively formal greeting suggests this may be among the first of SB's letters to McGreevy with the issue of 12 April 1930, publication of The Irish Statesman ceased, and, given AE's definitive dis missal of SB's submission in early 1930 (see 1 March 1930), it is more likely that the understamped rejection described here is earlier than 1930.
1 McGreevyremainedinParisafterSBtookuphisappointmentasLecteurd'anglais at the Ecole Normale Superieure; he introduced SB to Joyce and to English novelist and poet Richard Aldington' (1892-1962).
12
colic-afflicted belly. I think he drank too much tilleul. And to
books and who cannot be persuaded that literacy is not a crime. I have made up my mind to write to 'transition' for the money they owe me, but have lost their address. 10 If you are writing I would be grateful to have it.
'Les Enfants'
Write when you feel strong. You know how glad I would be
. . .
Leb wohl. Yrs ever
13
Friday{? summer 1929}, McGreevy
2 Irish poet, painter, and editor George William Russell (pseud. AE, 1867-1935) edited The Irish Statesman (15 September 1923 to 12 April 1930), a journal that advocated national ideals and liberal policy on divorce and censorship. On the suggestion of Thomas McGreevy, who had published poems in the journal under the pseudonym L. St. Senen, SB may have submitted a prose piece to The Irish Statesman; John Pilling suggests "Assumption" (Pilling, A Samuel Beckett Chronology, 19). SB's story "Assumption" was published in transition, 16-17 Oune 1929), 268-271. Reference to an understamped envelope suggests that the submission was longer than one or two pages.
Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888-1965), poet and Editor of The Criterion (1923-1939). Poet and essayist Seumas O'Sullivan• (ne James Sullivan Starkey, 1879-1958) edited Dublin Magazine (1923-1958).
3 SB writes from Kassel, Germany, from the home of his paternal aunt Frances Sinclair• (nee Beckett, known as Fanny, and by family and friends as Cissie, 1880-1951) and her husband William Abraham Sinclair• (known as Boss, 1882-1937), an art dealer.
4 Fram;oisMauriac,LeDesertde! 'amour(1925;TheDesertofLove).
5 Between1923and1925theSinclairshadlivedinthePensioninKragenhofon the Fulda River, near Kassel; they continued to go to Kragenhofto swim and take walks along the river or through the forests (Morris Sinclair, 20 October 1993).
6 The city of Florence is compared to a sick woman by Dante Alighieri (1265-1321): "Che non puo trovar posa in su le piume, / ma con dar volta suo dolore scherma" ("that can find no rest on her bed of down but with turning seeks to ease her pain") (La Divina Commedia, with comment by Enrico Bianchi [Florence: Adriano Salani, 1927], Purgatorio Canto VI, lines 150-151; Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri, Vol. II, Purgatorio, tr. and comment John D. Sinclair [London: John Lane The Bodley Head, 1939, rev. 1948] 89). All citations are from these editions.
SB used the 1926 Salani edition, although he did not think highly of it; the editors could only obtain a 1927 edition. For further discussion of the Salani edition, see Daniela Caselli, "The 'Florentia Edition in the Ignoble Salani Collection': A Textual Comparison,"Journal ofBeckett Studies 9. 2 (2001) 1-20; Daniela Caselli, "The Promise of Dante in the Beckett Manuscripts," Notes Diverse Halo, Special issue SBT/A 16 (2006) 237-257.
SB read Dante in Italian, not in translation. The editors chose the prose translation of Sinclair with the Italian text. "the critical text of the Societa Dantesca Italiana revised by Giuseppi Vandelli," on the facing page, so readers can consult both texts (The Divine Comedy ofDante Alighieri, I, Inferno, 9).
7 SBreferstocharactersinDucotedechezSwann,thefirstpartofProust'snovel A la recherche du temps perdu (1913-1927; In Search ofLost Time).
8 English writer and statesman Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800-1859); Irish novelist George Augustus Moore (1852-1933).
The narrator of Proust's A la recherche du temps perdu recovers memories of his childhood when drinking a cup of "tilleul" (lime-flower infusion) with a madeleine.
13
Friday{? summer 1929}, McGreevy
9 RuthMargaret Sinclair• (known asPeggy, 1911-1933 ), daughter ofCissie and Boss Sinclair, had spent time with SB in Dublin in the summer of 1928, and in September 1928 in Kassel and Vienna, where she studied dance and movement at the Schule Hellerau-Laxenburg (Pilling,A Samuel Beckett Chronology, 17).
JamesJoyce,Ulysses1( 922).
10 SB's essay"Dante . . . Bruno. Vico . . Joyce," and his story"Assumption," hadjust
appeared in transition.
11 McGreevy continued to have a room at theEcole Normale Superieure. Jean Thomas• (1900-1983),Agrege-repetiteur at theENS (1926 to 1932), coached students preparing for the agregation. the highest-level university examination. SB taught students taking the agregation d'anglais.
McGreevy had been asked to consider translating Les Enfants tenibles 1( 929) by Jean Cocteau (1889-1963) (McGreevy to George Yeats, 21 August 1929, NL! ,MS 20,849; Susan Schreibman,15 January 2007).
12 lord Arthur Savile's Crime, The Canterville Ghost, Poems in Prose byOscar Wilde (1854-1900) (London: James R. Osgood,Mcilvaine,1891).
13 "Leb wohl. " (Ger. , Be well. )
RO GER DIO N, ECOLE NORMA LE SUPERIEURE PARIS
25/11/29 Trinity College Dublin
Cher Monsieur Dion1
Je peux maintenant vous annoncer definitivement la date
de mon retour a l'Ecole. 11 m'est impossible de partir avantjeudi, le 28 de ce mois. 2 Je me presenterai a l'Ecole dans l'apres[-]midi du vendredi suivant.
Veuillez agreer, Monsieur Dion, ! 'expression de mes senti ments les plus distingues,
s/ S. B. Beckett
TLS;1 leaf, 1 side;AN, 61AJ/119. Dating: although written in Roman numerals,the date refers to November.
14
25/11/29 Trinity College Dublin
Dear Monsieur Dion1
I can now tell you definitively the date of my return to the
Ecole. It is impossible for me to leave before Thursday the 28th of this month. I shall come to the Ecole in the afternoon of the following Friday.
Yours sincerely S. B. Beckett
1 RogerDion(1896-1981),amemberoftheSocialSciencesfaculty,wasSurveillant,a senior administrator with responsibility for discipline, at the Ecole Normale Superieure in 1929.
2 SB'sreturntotheEcoleNormaleSuperieureintheautumnof1929wasdelayed by Rudmose-Brown, who asked that SB remain at Trinity College Dublin in the absence ofAndre Parreaux (1906-1979). Parreaux had been the ENS exchange Lecteur at TCD in 1928-1929 and had been expected to return for 1929-1930; however, he was detained in Paris to retake examinations in English and Philology (Rudmose-Brown to the Directeur, Ecole Normale Superieure, 9 October 1929, AN, 61AJ/202). When it was determined that Parreaux would not be returning to TCD for 1929-1930, the ENS named Georges Pelorson• (after 1945 known as Georges Belmont, b. 1909) to take up the appointment at TCD beginning in the Hilary term (27 January 1930). Only when this decision was reached could SB return to his position at the ENS.
25 November 1929, Dion
15
1930 March 14May
1June
15June 16June
After 1 July SAugust 25August
16 September 17 September
1 October
10 October 14 October
Chatto and Windus accept Proust.
SB proposes adding a conclusion to Proust.
CHRONOLOGY 1930
SBpoem"ForFutureReference"publishedin
transition.
SB submits English translations from Italian for a special issue of This Quarter.
Richard Aldington proposes to Chatto and Windus that they publish what will become The Dolphin Books series.
SB submits MS ofWhoroscope to the Hours Press. Awarded Hours Press Prize for Whoroscope.
Applies for Trinity College Dublin lectureship in Modern Languages.
Sends two pages of French translation of Joyce's "Anna Livia Plurabelle" to Philippe Soupault.
Has begun to write Proust. Jacob Bronowski selects three of the four poems by SB published in The European Caravan: "Hell Crane to Starling," "Casket of Pralinen for the Daughter of a Dissipated Mandarin," "Text," and "Yoke of Liberty. "
SB leaves Paris for London.
Personally delivers the MS of Proust to Charles Prentice at Chatto and Windus in London.
In Dublin for the beginning of theMichaelmasTerm at Trinity College Dublin.
17
Chronology 1930
15 October
17 October
By 14 November
25 November By 12 December
December
Bifurissues printer's proofs oftranslation of"Anna Livia Plurabelle" by SB and Alfred Peron, but Joyce withdraws the translation.
Chatto and Windus sends contract for Proust.
SB presents "Le Concentrisme," a spoof study of an invented poet, Jean du Chas, to the Modern Languages Society, Trinity College Dublin.
Visits Jack B. Yeats for the first time.
Sends final typescript of Proust to Chatto and Windus.
Song lyric "From the Only Poet to a Shining Whore: for Henry Crowder to Sing" published in Henry Crowder's Henry-Music.
18
THOMAS McGREEVY TARBERT, CO. KERRY
1/3/30 Paris
Cher Ami
I bearded the 2 salauds in den 40 [for 42] as instructed, and
translated their titles. They gave me other things to do, notably an archaeological chronicle by Delaporte and two lists of illus
1
Russel[l] sent back the pome, with a note to the effect that
I might save myself the trouble of sending him anything further,
couched in the following terms: 'I have a copy box stuffed to the
brim with poetry sufficient to supply the needs of the Statesman
for a year to come without taking in a single MS. and it is no use in
accepting new Mss to add to the pile waiting their tum for pub
lication'! ! 2 Now I think that is about the best so far. As if I were
trying to sell him a load of manure or a ton of bricks. And the nice
little whimper I wrote specially for him! Dear dear dear. Worked
with the Penman last night. He recited Verlaine and said that
trations-Maillol&Picasso. Itisalldoneandsentoff. Noletters for you at the hotel.
poetry ought to be rimed and that he couldn't imagine anyone
writing a poem 'sinon a une petite femme. ' He talked a lot about 3
petitesfemmes. Hisowndidnotappear. Nonews-exceptthat
to-day the Spring is here at last. Alan has had a dream - that he
received a parcel of books including 2 new works by Shaw, a play
andananalysisofamurdertrial. Represseddesires! Amusez-vous bien5
Yours ever
Sam Beckett
4
19
1 March 1930, McGreevy
ALS; 1 leaf, 2 sides; TCD, MS 10402/5.
1 SB stood in for Thomas McGreevy, who was Secretary for the English edition ofFonnes: an International Review ofPlastic Art, a journal of art theory published in French and English (December 1929 - March 1933). Fonnes was directed by Shigetaro Fukushima (1895-1960) with Waldemar George (ne Waldemar Jerzy Jarocinski, 1893-1970) as Art Director, and Marcel Zahar (1898-1989) as Secretary; its editorial office was at 42 Rue Pasquier, Paris 8. Normally, McGreevy translated and typed "between 25 and 30 thousand words every month" for Fonnes (Thomas McGreevy to James Pinker, Sunday [1930[, NYPL, Berg: James B. Pinter and Sons Records 1893-1940). However, SB had only translated the titles of articles, a list of illustrations, and a "Chronicle of Archaeology" by Louis Delaporte (ne Louis-Joseph Delaporte, 1874-1944) (Fonnes, 4 [April 1930[ [2[, 25). The illustrations by Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) and French sculptor Aristide Maillol (1861-1944) were related to articles on the artists: "Aristide Maillol" ([2], 5-7) by French novelist Jules Romains (ne Louis Farigoule, 1885-1973) and "The Passion of Picasso" ([2], 8-9) by Waldemar George. SB's translations are unsigned.
"Salauds" (bastards).
2 The Irish Statesman published its final issue on 12 April 1930.
SB probably submit ted "Sonnet" ("At last I find . . . ), which he thought would appeal to AE who was a theosophist (Lawrence E. Harvey, Samuel Beckett: Poet and Critic [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970] 283-285; Pilling, A Samuel Beckett Chronology, 23). "Sonnet" was later published as part of SB's story "Sedendo et Quiesciendo [for Quiescendo]", tran sition 21 (March 1932) 17, and in Samuel Beckett, Dream of Fair to Middling Women, ed. Eoin O'Brien and Edith Fournier (New York: Arcade Publishing, in association with Riverrun Press, 1993) 70; all citations are from this edition.
3 JamesJoycewasknownasthePenman(afterhischaracterShemthePenmanin Finnegans Wake). French poet Paul Verlaine (1844-1896).
"Sinon a une petite femme" (except to a little woman).
4 Alan George Duncan• (1895-1943) lived in Paris from 1924; he and his wife Isabel Belinda Atkinson Duncan• (1893-1964) were frequently Beckett's cafe companions. Alan Duncan's "only subject" was Shaw (Brian Coffey, June 1993).
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) did have a new play, The Apple Cart (first pub lished in German as Der Kaiser von Amerika: Eine politische Komodie in drei Akten, tr. Siegfried Trebitsch [Berlin: S. Fischer Verlag, 1929], and then in English with Saint
Joan in George Bernard Shaw, The Works of Bernard Shaw: Collected Edition, XVII [London: Constable, 1930], as well as separately in December 1930 [London: Constable, 19301). In Shaw's Doctor's Delusion, Crude Criminology, and Sham Education (1931), several essays were republished that offered analyses of criminal cases (see Dan H. Laurence, Bernard Shaw: A Bibliography, I [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983] 187-189).
5 "Amusez-vousbien"(enjoyyourself).
20
Sunday [c. 27 April to 11 May 1930}, McGreevy
THOMAS McGREEVY TARBERT, CO. KERRY
Sunday [c. 27 April to 11 May 1930] E. N. S. [Paris]
My dear Tom
I have just read your letter, and am glad you have found
1
is very little of either, except perhaps to-day, when this place is
empty and silent. I have started vaguely to work. I saw Goll.
Another slave. I am seeing Soupault to-morrow, to ask him to
take on my part of the rivers & let me begin on the base trans
somepeace&happinesswithyourMother&sisters. Herethere
lation. 2 Last night I drank with Alan, Belinda, Harry Clark [for 3
Clarke]&theM�Kennas. [•••]
Harry C. left for London this morning. The M�Ks. arrived last
4
people shits? Signed photographs, signed books, signed menus.
night laden down with Poe & Goethe for him to sign. Aren't
I suppose the Gilberts & Carduccis would feel honoured ifJoyce
signed a piece of his used toilet paper. 5 I saw J. J. on Thursday 6
night. MissWeaverwasthere. Ilikeherverymuch. AndjustLucia and M�. A pleasant evening. Sometimes I hear from Germany, but
7
tapirising & reading Keats, you'll be sorry to hear. I like that
crouching brooding quality in Keats - squatting on the moss,
crushing a petal, licking his lips & rubbing his hands, 'counting
the last oozings, hours by hours. ' I like him the best of them all,
because he doesn't beat his fists on the table. I like that awful
sweetness and thick soft damp green richness. And weariness.
'Take into the air my quiet breath. ' But there's nobody here to
8
21
now with a very decent irregularity. I have been doing a little
talk to, & it[']s so rarely one is enthusiastic, or glad ofsomething.
Sunday [c. 27 April to 11 May 1930}, McGreevy
I am afraid the Trinity - Ecole arrangement is doomed. I'm
afraid I'm going to be embarrassed again - if they offer me
anything. I only heard indirectly, Pelorson via Beaufret - so
9
do so far, and it['Js as good a way of creating [a] past as any other - & safer than most. 10
Lucia is coming to tea. God bless. Yrs ever
Sam
ALS; 1 leaf, 4 sides; TCD, MS 10402/6. Dating: Harry Clarke left Pau at the end of April 1930, stopping in Paris and London on the way to Dublin, where he arrived on 16 May (Nicola Gordon Bowe, The Life and Work of Harry Oarke [Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1989] 223). The date for their evening together may have been 26 April, 3 or 10 May, with the first two most likely. Joyce was in Zurich c. 13 May to c. 17 June.
1 McGreevy'sfatherThomasMcGreevy(1858-1930)diedon19April;McGreevyhad returned to Tarbert to be with his mother Margaret McGreevy (nee Enright, 1855-1936) and his sisters.
2 When asked to undertake a French translation of the Anna Livia Plurabelle chapter of Work in Progress, SB was assisting Joyce by translating into French references to over a thousand names of rivers woven through that section of the manuscript later published as Finnegans Wake ([New York: Viking Press, 1959] 196-216; for a listing ofthe rivers see McHugh, Annotations to Finnegans Wake, 196-216).
Ivan Goll (ne Isaac Lang, 1891-1950), born in St. -Die-des-Vosges, Lorraine, wrote poetry, drama, and novels in both French and German. On behalf of the Basel pub lisher Rhein-Verlag, Goll approached Joyce about publishing German translations of his work. As a polyglot, Goll was helpful to Joyce as he wrote Work in Progress.
French surrealist poet, writer, and critic Philippe Soupault (1897-1990).
3 AlanandBelindaDuncan.
Dublin illustrator and stained-glass artist Harry Clarke (1889-1931). These McKennas have not been identified.
4 Harry Clarke illustrated editions of Tales of Mystery and Imagination (London: G. G. Harrap, 1919) by Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) and Faust (London: G. G. Harrap, 1925) by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832).
5 StuartGilbert(1883-1969)workedontheFrenchtranslationofJoyce'sUlyssesand helped to popularize Joyce's work with his book, James Joyce's Ulysses: A Study (1930). French poet and translator Auguste Morel (n. d. ) translated Ulysses as Ulysse (1929), assisted by Gilbert; the translation was revised by French novelist, poet, critic, and translator Valery Larbaud (1881-1959). (For discussion of the process: Richard
22
keepitclose. Theyaremakingabigmistake.
Don't worry about Formes. I have had practically nothing to
14 May 1930, Putnam
Ellmann, James Joyce: New and Revised Edition [Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, paper back with corrections, 1983] 562-563, 601-602; James Joyce, Letters of]ames Joyce, I, ed. Stuart Gilbert [New York: Viking Press, 1957] 28).
The Italian composer and music critic Edgardo Carducci-Agustini (1898-? ), set Joyce's poem "Alone" to music, and for some months "read to Joyce in Italian for two hours a day" (Ellmann,JamesJoyce, 648).
6 Harriet Shaw Weaver (1876-1961) published and promoted Joyce's work in England. She was a devoted friend and benefactor of Joyce.
7 SB's German correspondent is his cousin Peggy in Kassel, with whom he had been emotionally involved (see Knowlson, Damned to Fame, 113-114).
8 "Tapirising,"from"tapir"(Frenchacademicslang,privatepupil).
SB misquotes a line from "To Autumn" by John Keats (1795-1821): "Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours"; the second quotation is from "Ode to a Nightingale" by Keats: "I have been half in love with easeful Death, / Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme, / To take into the air my quiet breath" Oohn Keats, The Poems of]ohn Keats, ed. Jack Stillinger [Cambridge, MA: Belknap-Harvard University Press, 1978] 476-477;
369-372).
9 Rudmose-BrownexpectedSBtoreturntoTrinityCollegeDublinashisassistant in the autumn of 1930. That year, TCD did not propose a candidate for the exchange program with the Ecole Normale Superieure (William Kennedy, Trinity College Registrar, to Ernest Vessiot, Ecole Normale Superieure [31 May 1930], AN, 61AJ/202). IntheplaceofsomeonefromTCD,RobertI. Brown(1907-1996)fromtheUniversityof Glasgow was accepted asLecteur d'anglais by the ENS. In a further complication, Georges Pelorson petitioned to remain at TCD for 1930-1931 rather than accept an assignment at the University of Glasgow (Pelorson to the Directeur, Ecole Normale Superieure [21 June 1930], AN, 61 AJ 202).
Jean Beaufret" (known as Bowsprit, 1907-1982) was a Philosophy student and had been McGreevy's roommate at the ENS; "Bowsprit," based on the French, "beaupre" (bowsprit) (Knowlson, Damned to Fame, 150-151).
10 SBcontinuedtostandinforMcGreevyatFonnes,sothatMcGreevycouldretain his position while he was away from Paris (see 1 March 1930, n. 1).
SAMUEL PUTNAM PARIS
14/5/30 Ecole Normale
Rue d'Ulm 45 [Paris]
Dear Mr Putnam
This was nearly finished when your pneu came, so I went on
1
withit. Itisfarandawaythebestofabadlot. Therearesomegood
23
14 May 1930, Putnam
things in the Favola Gattesca - do you remember it? It is roughly four times as long as Paesaggio. Do you wish me to translate it - or would you prefer something shorter in the way of a pendant to this rather watery pastoral humility: Crepuscolo Mitologico, for example. 2 I will not start anything until I hear from you.
Very sincerely yours s/ S. B. Beckett
TLS; 1 leaf. 1 side; enclosure not with letter; NjP, New Review Correspondence of Samuel Putnam, COl11/1/9.
1 As Associate Editor of This Quarter, Samuel Putnam• (1892-1950) compiled the "Miniature Anthology of Contemporary Italian Literature" for This Quarter, 2. 4 (April-May-June, 1930). It includedSB's translations: "Paesaggio" by the Italian writer
Raffaello Franchi (1899-1949) translated by SB as "Landscape"; "Delta" by Eugenio Montale (1896-1981); and "TheHome-Coming" byGiovanni Comisso (1895-1969) (672, 630, 675-683).
The European Caravan: An Anthology of the New Spirit in European Literature• had been planned as a two-volume anthology; an Italian section was to appear in the second volume, but this was not published (ed. Samuel Putnam, Maida Castelhun Damton,
George Reavey, and J[acob]Bronowski [New York:Brewer, Warren, and Putnam, 19311).
2 Franchi's Favola Gattesca was published in Piazza natia (Turin: Fratelli Buratti Editori, 1929) 97-106. "Crepuscolo mitologico" (120-122) is the third section of Diorama (107-124) in Piazza natia.
THOMAS M cGREEVY TARBER T, CO. KERRY
Thursday[? 17 July 1930]
Ecole Normale [Paris]
My dear Tom
Glad to get your letter & know that things had gone well in
1
London. You do not say anything about the Connoisseur people. Did you see them? Here nothing more interesting than the usual drink & futility. Alfy is here, and we saw Soupault together. We are working on the bloody thing together in a vague ineffectual
24
Thursday{? 17 July 1930}, McGreevy
kind of way. 2 Alfy has gone to repose himself at Boulogne sur
Merde (or sur Seine, as you like) and then of course he must lie
with his subtle Russian sweet. Indeed, I have seen very little ofhim.
He is changed or I have or both. I guess at the old Alfy. The first
evening he burst out in a fury about Ethna, and the 'salaud qui m'a
fait rater ma vie'. Since then nothing, mockery & decompositions
and dreadfully perfect. Shining agates of negation. How energetic
they always are, these self-avowed cynics and desabuses, bristling
with passionate estimates and beating their breasts in a jemenfou
tiste & jusquauboutiste frenzy. 3 He will be here till the end of the
month and then in Auvergne. How can we do any thing in that
time, meeting tired in the evening and gal[l]oping through a page?
I know there is nothing to be done and that nothing of any value
4
The 14th was all right, because I was drunker than either
Nancy or Henry. There were other people there, God knows who,
5
also what I said & did, but I think it was all right. I was so tired at
the end that I could hardly climb into a taxi. They liked the Rahab
tomfoolery, God help them. Henry said several times that it was
'vey vey bootiful & vey vey fine in-deed. ' He was very nice &
behaved very well, and played the piano at the Cigogne, where I
6
'By the Embankment I counted the grey gulls Nailed to the wind above a distorted tide. '7
No . . ? And then a lot of padding I am afraid. I don't know. Perhaps it's very good.
25
will be done, but one goes on, driven by a wind, like the accidiosi.
buttheywentoffearlyforalittlecoucherieIsuppose. Godknows
describedarabesquesofanoriginalpattem. IheardfromNancy from London. She has given me her Parallax that I asked her for, & lent me The Apes of God & some Pound Cantos. I read Parallax. I don't know what to say about it. There are some fine things:
Thursday[? 17 July 1930}, McGreevy
8
I had a terrible l1⁄2 h(our] with Alan & B. in the usual kip.
I was sitting there with Alfy (whom they know) & Pelorson, and
of course they had to be invited to our table. Then the noble
captain & traducer turned on his salivary glands and his supply
of Shaw texts, and was a camelot on the strength of the 141h's
bunting. He went on & on & Alfy heaped fuel on the flame by
disagreeing. Pelorson collapsed spontaneously on the banquette
and I observed a terrible silence that will never be forgiven
9
Fortunately Louis le Cardonnel was there & the exquisite
Therive. Pelorson was delighted. Therive left without paying
for his beer, and the fat Chestertonian individual refused angrily
to pay for him. 10 Pelorson was in an extraordinary state of
excitement & hilarity. Really he is charming - specially alone.
Ican'tstarttheProust. Cursethishurryanyhow. Didthey mention it in London? I know what will happen: that the German trip will be sacrificed to no purpose, and that I will creep away at the last moment without having done any thing - Joyce or Proust. At least I have finished reading the bastard.
by Rathmines. It is more impossible every time I see them.
Yesterday we were up all night. At last we bought a bottle of
champagne a la Charlus, and brought it up here with his gram
ophone & played Tristan & Isolde & the Oiseau de Feu. Poor
11
A long cheerless letter but very friendly from Ruddy. He
can't find a publisher for a book he wants to write on Racine.
Could anything be done with Chatto & Windus? I bought the
Larousse edition & tried to read Esther. What is wrong with me?
12
Pelorson! What an unhappy person. II n'y a que cela he said.
I find chevilles everywhere, and I never did before in Racine.
I had a nice friendly card from Peggy from the North Sea, where she is with the Boche Hausfreund & Cissie & the youngest
girl. 13 I was very glad. I sent the pome to the Boss. 14 26
Thursday[? 17July1930}, McGreevy
A letter from Lucia too. I don't know what to do. She is
unhappy she says. Now that you are gone there is no one to
talk to about that. I dare not go to Wales, and I promised I would
15
if they were there on my way through.
There is no solution. What terrible instinct prompts them to have the genius of beauty at the right - or the wrong - moment!
But it is impossible.
1 BeckettwrotetoPatriciaHutchinsGraecen(1911-1985)on25April1954:"Ifear I have no recollection of that note to Joyce and can shed no light on it" (TCD,MS
4098/11).
The source of the text that SB sends to Joyce is not certain. The Greek phrase
"t,moprnoμevov mxpa rraTpo�" (ekporeuomenon para patros ! proceeding from the Father]) alludes to John 15:26, and is central to the F11ioque debate that divided
8
10 May 1929, Vessiot
the Roman Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox churches. Ft1ioque (and from the Son). For suggestions of how this passage may relate to Finnegans Wake: Roland McHugh, Annotations to Finnegans Wake, rev. edn. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991) 156, and a letter of 26 June 1975, from Danis Rose to Karl Gay, Curator, Lockwood Library Poetry Collection, State University ofNew York at Buffalo.
2 "i\K7topEurn8m" (ekporeuesthai [to proceed]).
3 "rn" (to: [the]).
ERNEST VESSIOT,ECOLE NORMALE SUPERIEURE PARIS
10/5/29 Ecole Normale [Paris]
Monsieur le Directeur1
Je vous ecris dans l'espoir que vous voudrez bien ratifier
mon desir de passer l'annee scolaire prochaine a l'Ecole comme
2
le Doctorat de l'Universite de Paris.
Veuillez agreer, Monsieur le Directeur, ! 'expression de mes
sentiments respectueux. Samuel B. Beckett
ALS; 1 leaf. 1 side; AN 61AJ/202. Displayed in an exhibition at the Archives Nationales (1994).
10/5/29 Ecole Normale [Paris]
Dear Sir1 Iamwritingtoyouinthehopethatyouwillratifymywishto
2
9
lecteur d'Anglais.
Mon travail personnel sera la preparation d'une these pour
3
spend the next academic year at the Ecole as Lecteur in English.
10 May 1929, Vessiot
My private work will be the preparation of a thesis for the DoctorateoftheUniversityofParis. 3
Yours respectfully Samuel B. Beckett
1 ErnestVessiot(1865-1952),Directeur,EcoleNormaleSuperieure,'from1927to 1935.
2 SB was nominated to be the Lecteur d'anglais (English language assistant) for 1927-1928 in the exchange program between Trinity College Dublin and the Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris by his mentor Thomas Brown Rudmose-Brown· (known as Ruddy, 1878-1942), Professor of Romance Languages at Trinity College Dublin. Without prejudice to SB's nomination, the administration of the ENS decided to renew the appointment of the current Lecteur, Thomas McGreevy• (1893-1967), who was also a graduate of TCD (Gustave Lanson, Directeur, Ecole Normale Superieure [1919-1927] toRudmose-Brown, 31 July 1927, AN: 61AJ/ 202). SB was offered the appointment for 1928-1929.
SB's request to be retained for a second year was subject to the approval of both institutions; Ernest Vessiot wrote to Alfred Blanche, Consul General de France en lrlande, 14 May 1929, that he was inclined to grant this request (AN: 61AJ/ 202).
3 As the subject for his thesis, SB proposed Joyce and Marcel Proust (1871-1922), but he was discouraged from this by Professor Celestin Bougie (1870-1940), Directeur-adjoint, Lettres (Assistant Director, Arts), Ecole Normale Superieure Uames Knowlson, Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett [New York: Grove Press, 2004] 107, and notes of an interview with SB by Lawrence Harvey in the early 1960s [NhD, Lawrence Harvey Collection, MS 661, Notes for Samuel Beckett: Poet and Critic, 161).
THOMAS McGREEVY P ARIS
Friday [? summer 1929]
Landgrafenstr. 5 Kassel
My dear McGreevy1
The abominable old bap Russel[l] duly returned my MSS
with an economic note in the 3! Q person, the whole in a consid erably understamped envelope. I feel slightly paralysed by the courtesy of this gesture. I would like to get rid of the damn thing
10
Friday{? summer 1929), McGreevy
anyhow, anywhere (with the notable exception of 'transition'), but I have no acquaintance with the less squeamish literary garbage buckets. I can't imagine Eliott (for Eliot) touching it - certainly not the verse. Perhaps Seumas O'Sullivan's rag would take it? 2 Ifyou think ofan address I would be grateful to know it.
To my astonishment I arrived in Kassel at the hour numer
ous officials assured me I would arrive, must arrive. 3 I had the
carriage to myselfall night, but did not succeed in getting any
sleep. The aspirin was a snare and the coffee a delusion. So I was
reduced to finishing Le Desert de l'Amour, which I most decid
edly do not like. A patient tenuous snivel that one longs to see
4
ribbons by the sun, and am as uncomfortable in the bunk as Florence.
'Che non puo trovar posa in su le piume ma con dar volta suo dolore scherma. '6
I have read the first volume of'Du Cote de chez Swann', and find it strangely uneven. There are incomparable things - Bloch, Frarn;:oise, Tante Leonie, Legrandin, and then passages that are offensively fastidious, artificial and almost dishonest. 7 It is hard to know what to think about him. He is so absolutely the master ofhis form that he becomes its slave as often as not. Some ofhis metaphors light up a whole page like a bright explosion, and others seem ground out in the dullest desperation. He has every kind of subtle equilibrium, charming trembling equilibrium, and then suddenly a stasis, the arms ofthe balance wedged in a perfect horizontal line, more heavily symmetrical than Macaulay at his worst, with primos & secundos echoing to each complacently and reechoing. His loquacity is certainly more interesting and cleverly done than Moore's, but no less
11
projected noisily into a handkerchief. WecamebackfromKragenhofyesterday. Iamscorchedto
5
Friday{? summer 1929}, McGreevy
profuse, a maudlin false teeth gobble-gobble discharge from a
8
think that I have to contemplate him at stool for 16 volumes!
Cissie is devouringillysses, and likes talking about it and Joyce, a
delicate activity in the presence of Peggy, who has no interest in
9
Are you doing any work or are you infested by the aimable Thomas? How did Agreg. go? How is the position with regard to
11
to hear from you. Cissie remembers you well and sends her kindest. The Boss is in Ireland and the children conveniently dispersed, so there is a strange hot peace in the flat. I could'nt [for couldn't] sleep last night and read 'Sir Arthur Savile's Crime', 'The Something Ghost' & 'Poems in Prose', this last enormous Ithought. 12
S. B.
ALI; 1 leaf, 4 sides; TCD, MS 10402/1. Dating: although James Knowlson assigns a probable date of June 1930 to this letter, summer 1929 is more likely (Knowlson, Damned to Fame, 639-641, n. 90, n. 118). The agregation examinations took place in the early summer, and SB describes serious sunburn. The relatively formal greeting suggests this may be among the first of SB's letters to McGreevy with the issue of 12 April 1930, publication of The Irish Statesman ceased, and, given AE's definitive dis missal of SB's submission in early 1930 (see 1 March 1930), it is more likely that the understamped rejection described here is earlier than 1930.
1 McGreevyremainedinParisafterSBtookuphisappointmentasLecteurd'anglais at the Ecole Normale Superieure; he introduced SB to Joyce and to English novelist and poet Richard Aldington' (1892-1962).
12
colic-afflicted belly. I think he drank too much tilleul. And to
books and who cannot be persuaded that literacy is not a crime. I have made up my mind to write to 'transition' for the money they owe me, but have lost their address. 10 If you are writing I would be grateful to have it.
'Les Enfants'
Write when you feel strong. You know how glad I would be
. . .
Leb wohl. Yrs ever
13
Friday{? summer 1929}, McGreevy
2 Irish poet, painter, and editor George William Russell (pseud. AE, 1867-1935) edited The Irish Statesman (15 September 1923 to 12 April 1930), a journal that advocated national ideals and liberal policy on divorce and censorship. On the suggestion of Thomas McGreevy, who had published poems in the journal under the pseudonym L. St. Senen, SB may have submitted a prose piece to The Irish Statesman; John Pilling suggests "Assumption" (Pilling, A Samuel Beckett Chronology, 19). SB's story "Assumption" was published in transition, 16-17 Oune 1929), 268-271. Reference to an understamped envelope suggests that the submission was longer than one or two pages.
Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888-1965), poet and Editor of The Criterion (1923-1939). Poet and essayist Seumas O'Sullivan• (ne James Sullivan Starkey, 1879-1958) edited Dublin Magazine (1923-1958).
3 SB writes from Kassel, Germany, from the home of his paternal aunt Frances Sinclair• (nee Beckett, known as Fanny, and by family and friends as Cissie, 1880-1951) and her husband William Abraham Sinclair• (known as Boss, 1882-1937), an art dealer.
4 Fram;oisMauriac,LeDesertde! 'amour(1925;TheDesertofLove).
5 Between1923and1925theSinclairshadlivedinthePensioninKragenhofon the Fulda River, near Kassel; they continued to go to Kragenhofto swim and take walks along the river or through the forests (Morris Sinclair, 20 October 1993).
6 The city of Florence is compared to a sick woman by Dante Alighieri (1265-1321): "Che non puo trovar posa in su le piume, / ma con dar volta suo dolore scherma" ("that can find no rest on her bed of down but with turning seeks to ease her pain") (La Divina Commedia, with comment by Enrico Bianchi [Florence: Adriano Salani, 1927], Purgatorio Canto VI, lines 150-151; Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri, Vol. II, Purgatorio, tr. and comment John D. Sinclair [London: John Lane The Bodley Head, 1939, rev. 1948] 89). All citations are from these editions.
SB used the 1926 Salani edition, although he did not think highly of it; the editors could only obtain a 1927 edition. For further discussion of the Salani edition, see Daniela Caselli, "The 'Florentia Edition in the Ignoble Salani Collection': A Textual Comparison,"Journal ofBeckett Studies 9. 2 (2001) 1-20; Daniela Caselli, "The Promise of Dante in the Beckett Manuscripts," Notes Diverse Halo, Special issue SBT/A 16 (2006) 237-257.
SB read Dante in Italian, not in translation. The editors chose the prose translation of Sinclair with the Italian text. "the critical text of the Societa Dantesca Italiana revised by Giuseppi Vandelli," on the facing page, so readers can consult both texts (The Divine Comedy ofDante Alighieri, I, Inferno, 9).
7 SBreferstocharactersinDucotedechezSwann,thefirstpartofProust'snovel A la recherche du temps perdu (1913-1927; In Search ofLost Time).
8 English writer and statesman Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800-1859); Irish novelist George Augustus Moore (1852-1933).
The narrator of Proust's A la recherche du temps perdu recovers memories of his childhood when drinking a cup of "tilleul" (lime-flower infusion) with a madeleine.
13
Friday{? summer 1929}, McGreevy
9 RuthMargaret Sinclair• (known asPeggy, 1911-1933 ), daughter ofCissie and Boss Sinclair, had spent time with SB in Dublin in the summer of 1928, and in September 1928 in Kassel and Vienna, where she studied dance and movement at the Schule Hellerau-Laxenburg (Pilling,A Samuel Beckett Chronology, 17).
JamesJoyce,Ulysses1( 922).
10 SB's essay"Dante . . . Bruno. Vico . . Joyce," and his story"Assumption," hadjust
appeared in transition.
11 McGreevy continued to have a room at theEcole Normale Superieure. Jean Thomas• (1900-1983),Agrege-repetiteur at theENS (1926 to 1932), coached students preparing for the agregation. the highest-level university examination. SB taught students taking the agregation d'anglais.
McGreevy had been asked to consider translating Les Enfants tenibles 1( 929) by Jean Cocteau (1889-1963) (McGreevy to George Yeats, 21 August 1929, NL! ,MS 20,849; Susan Schreibman,15 January 2007).
12 lord Arthur Savile's Crime, The Canterville Ghost, Poems in Prose byOscar Wilde (1854-1900) (London: James R. Osgood,Mcilvaine,1891).
13 "Leb wohl. " (Ger. , Be well. )
RO GER DIO N, ECOLE NORMA LE SUPERIEURE PARIS
25/11/29 Trinity College Dublin
Cher Monsieur Dion1
Je peux maintenant vous annoncer definitivement la date
de mon retour a l'Ecole. 11 m'est impossible de partir avantjeudi, le 28 de ce mois. 2 Je me presenterai a l'Ecole dans l'apres[-]midi du vendredi suivant.
Veuillez agreer, Monsieur Dion, ! 'expression de mes senti ments les plus distingues,
s/ S. B. Beckett
TLS;1 leaf, 1 side;AN, 61AJ/119. Dating: although written in Roman numerals,the date refers to November.
14
25/11/29 Trinity College Dublin
Dear Monsieur Dion1
I can now tell you definitively the date of my return to the
Ecole. It is impossible for me to leave before Thursday the 28th of this month. I shall come to the Ecole in the afternoon of the following Friday.
Yours sincerely S. B. Beckett
1 RogerDion(1896-1981),amemberoftheSocialSciencesfaculty,wasSurveillant,a senior administrator with responsibility for discipline, at the Ecole Normale Superieure in 1929.
2 SB'sreturntotheEcoleNormaleSuperieureintheautumnof1929wasdelayed by Rudmose-Brown, who asked that SB remain at Trinity College Dublin in the absence ofAndre Parreaux (1906-1979). Parreaux had been the ENS exchange Lecteur at TCD in 1928-1929 and had been expected to return for 1929-1930; however, he was detained in Paris to retake examinations in English and Philology (Rudmose-Brown to the Directeur, Ecole Normale Superieure, 9 October 1929, AN, 61AJ/202). When it was determined that Parreaux would not be returning to TCD for 1929-1930, the ENS named Georges Pelorson• (after 1945 known as Georges Belmont, b. 1909) to take up the appointment at TCD beginning in the Hilary term (27 January 1930). Only when this decision was reached could SB return to his position at the ENS.
25 November 1929, Dion
15
1930 March 14May
1June
15June 16June
After 1 July SAugust 25August
16 September 17 September
1 October
10 October 14 October
Chatto and Windus accept Proust.
SB proposes adding a conclusion to Proust.
CHRONOLOGY 1930
SBpoem"ForFutureReference"publishedin
transition.
SB submits English translations from Italian for a special issue of This Quarter.
Richard Aldington proposes to Chatto and Windus that they publish what will become The Dolphin Books series.
SB submits MS ofWhoroscope to the Hours Press. Awarded Hours Press Prize for Whoroscope.
Applies for Trinity College Dublin lectureship in Modern Languages.
Sends two pages of French translation of Joyce's "Anna Livia Plurabelle" to Philippe Soupault.
Has begun to write Proust. Jacob Bronowski selects three of the four poems by SB published in The European Caravan: "Hell Crane to Starling," "Casket of Pralinen for the Daughter of a Dissipated Mandarin," "Text," and "Yoke of Liberty. "
SB leaves Paris for London.
Personally delivers the MS of Proust to Charles Prentice at Chatto and Windus in London.
In Dublin for the beginning of theMichaelmasTerm at Trinity College Dublin.
17
Chronology 1930
15 October
17 October
By 14 November
25 November By 12 December
December
Bifurissues printer's proofs oftranslation of"Anna Livia Plurabelle" by SB and Alfred Peron, but Joyce withdraws the translation.
Chatto and Windus sends contract for Proust.
SB presents "Le Concentrisme," a spoof study of an invented poet, Jean du Chas, to the Modern Languages Society, Trinity College Dublin.
Visits Jack B. Yeats for the first time.
Sends final typescript of Proust to Chatto and Windus.
Song lyric "From the Only Poet to a Shining Whore: for Henry Crowder to Sing" published in Henry Crowder's Henry-Music.
18
THOMAS McGREEVY TARBERT, CO. KERRY
1/3/30 Paris
Cher Ami
I bearded the 2 salauds in den 40 [for 42] as instructed, and
translated their titles. They gave me other things to do, notably an archaeological chronicle by Delaporte and two lists of illus
1
Russel[l] sent back the pome, with a note to the effect that
I might save myself the trouble of sending him anything further,
couched in the following terms: 'I have a copy box stuffed to the
brim with poetry sufficient to supply the needs of the Statesman
for a year to come without taking in a single MS. and it is no use in
accepting new Mss to add to the pile waiting their tum for pub
lication'! ! 2 Now I think that is about the best so far. As if I were
trying to sell him a load of manure or a ton of bricks. And the nice
little whimper I wrote specially for him! Dear dear dear. Worked
with the Penman last night. He recited Verlaine and said that
trations-Maillol&Picasso. Itisalldoneandsentoff. Noletters for you at the hotel.
poetry ought to be rimed and that he couldn't imagine anyone
writing a poem 'sinon a une petite femme. ' He talked a lot about 3
petitesfemmes. Hisowndidnotappear. Nonews-exceptthat
to-day the Spring is here at last. Alan has had a dream - that he
received a parcel of books including 2 new works by Shaw, a play
andananalysisofamurdertrial. Represseddesires! Amusez-vous bien5
Yours ever
Sam Beckett
4
19
1 March 1930, McGreevy
ALS; 1 leaf, 2 sides; TCD, MS 10402/5.
1 SB stood in for Thomas McGreevy, who was Secretary for the English edition ofFonnes: an International Review ofPlastic Art, a journal of art theory published in French and English (December 1929 - March 1933). Fonnes was directed by Shigetaro Fukushima (1895-1960) with Waldemar George (ne Waldemar Jerzy Jarocinski, 1893-1970) as Art Director, and Marcel Zahar (1898-1989) as Secretary; its editorial office was at 42 Rue Pasquier, Paris 8. Normally, McGreevy translated and typed "between 25 and 30 thousand words every month" for Fonnes (Thomas McGreevy to James Pinker, Sunday [1930[, NYPL, Berg: James B. Pinter and Sons Records 1893-1940). However, SB had only translated the titles of articles, a list of illustrations, and a "Chronicle of Archaeology" by Louis Delaporte (ne Louis-Joseph Delaporte, 1874-1944) (Fonnes, 4 [April 1930[ [2[, 25). The illustrations by Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) and French sculptor Aristide Maillol (1861-1944) were related to articles on the artists: "Aristide Maillol" ([2], 5-7) by French novelist Jules Romains (ne Louis Farigoule, 1885-1973) and "The Passion of Picasso" ([2], 8-9) by Waldemar George. SB's translations are unsigned.
"Salauds" (bastards).
2 The Irish Statesman published its final issue on 12 April 1930.
SB probably submit ted "Sonnet" ("At last I find . . . ), which he thought would appeal to AE who was a theosophist (Lawrence E. Harvey, Samuel Beckett: Poet and Critic [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970] 283-285; Pilling, A Samuel Beckett Chronology, 23). "Sonnet" was later published as part of SB's story "Sedendo et Quiesciendo [for Quiescendo]", tran sition 21 (March 1932) 17, and in Samuel Beckett, Dream of Fair to Middling Women, ed. Eoin O'Brien and Edith Fournier (New York: Arcade Publishing, in association with Riverrun Press, 1993) 70; all citations are from this edition.
3 JamesJoycewasknownasthePenman(afterhischaracterShemthePenmanin Finnegans Wake). French poet Paul Verlaine (1844-1896).
"Sinon a une petite femme" (except to a little woman).
4 Alan George Duncan• (1895-1943) lived in Paris from 1924; he and his wife Isabel Belinda Atkinson Duncan• (1893-1964) were frequently Beckett's cafe companions. Alan Duncan's "only subject" was Shaw (Brian Coffey, June 1993).
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) did have a new play, The Apple Cart (first pub lished in German as Der Kaiser von Amerika: Eine politische Komodie in drei Akten, tr. Siegfried Trebitsch [Berlin: S. Fischer Verlag, 1929], and then in English with Saint
Joan in George Bernard Shaw, The Works of Bernard Shaw: Collected Edition, XVII [London: Constable, 1930], as well as separately in December 1930 [London: Constable, 19301). In Shaw's Doctor's Delusion, Crude Criminology, and Sham Education (1931), several essays were republished that offered analyses of criminal cases (see Dan H. Laurence, Bernard Shaw: A Bibliography, I [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983] 187-189).
5 "Amusez-vousbien"(enjoyyourself).
20
Sunday [c. 27 April to 11 May 1930}, McGreevy
THOMAS McGREEVY TARBERT, CO. KERRY
Sunday [c. 27 April to 11 May 1930] E. N. S. [Paris]
My dear Tom
I have just read your letter, and am glad you have found
1
is very little of either, except perhaps to-day, when this place is
empty and silent. I have started vaguely to work. I saw Goll.
Another slave. I am seeing Soupault to-morrow, to ask him to
take on my part of the rivers & let me begin on the base trans
somepeace&happinesswithyourMother&sisters. Herethere
lation. 2 Last night I drank with Alan, Belinda, Harry Clark [for 3
Clarke]&theM�Kennas. [•••]
Harry C. left for London this morning. The M�Ks. arrived last
4
people shits? Signed photographs, signed books, signed menus.
night laden down with Poe & Goethe for him to sign. Aren't
I suppose the Gilberts & Carduccis would feel honoured ifJoyce
signed a piece of his used toilet paper. 5 I saw J. J. on Thursday 6
night. MissWeaverwasthere. Ilikeherverymuch. AndjustLucia and M�. A pleasant evening. Sometimes I hear from Germany, but
7
tapirising & reading Keats, you'll be sorry to hear. I like that
crouching brooding quality in Keats - squatting on the moss,
crushing a petal, licking his lips & rubbing his hands, 'counting
the last oozings, hours by hours. ' I like him the best of them all,
because he doesn't beat his fists on the table. I like that awful
sweetness and thick soft damp green richness. And weariness.
'Take into the air my quiet breath. ' But there's nobody here to
8
21
now with a very decent irregularity. I have been doing a little
talk to, & it[']s so rarely one is enthusiastic, or glad ofsomething.
Sunday [c. 27 April to 11 May 1930}, McGreevy
I am afraid the Trinity - Ecole arrangement is doomed. I'm
afraid I'm going to be embarrassed again - if they offer me
anything. I only heard indirectly, Pelorson via Beaufret - so
9
do so far, and it['Js as good a way of creating [a] past as any other - & safer than most. 10
Lucia is coming to tea. God bless. Yrs ever
Sam
ALS; 1 leaf, 4 sides; TCD, MS 10402/6. Dating: Harry Clarke left Pau at the end of April 1930, stopping in Paris and London on the way to Dublin, where he arrived on 16 May (Nicola Gordon Bowe, The Life and Work of Harry Oarke [Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1989] 223). The date for their evening together may have been 26 April, 3 or 10 May, with the first two most likely. Joyce was in Zurich c. 13 May to c. 17 June.
1 McGreevy'sfatherThomasMcGreevy(1858-1930)diedon19April;McGreevyhad returned to Tarbert to be with his mother Margaret McGreevy (nee Enright, 1855-1936) and his sisters.
2 When asked to undertake a French translation of the Anna Livia Plurabelle chapter of Work in Progress, SB was assisting Joyce by translating into French references to over a thousand names of rivers woven through that section of the manuscript later published as Finnegans Wake ([New York: Viking Press, 1959] 196-216; for a listing ofthe rivers see McHugh, Annotations to Finnegans Wake, 196-216).
Ivan Goll (ne Isaac Lang, 1891-1950), born in St. -Die-des-Vosges, Lorraine, wrote poetry, drama, and novels in both French and German. On behalf of the Basel pub lisher Rhein-Verlag, Goll approached Joyce about publishing German translations of his work. As a polyglot, Goll was helpful to Joyce as he wrote Work in Progress.
French surrealist poet, writer, and critic Philippe Soupault (1897-1990).
3 AlanandBelindaDuncan.
Dublin illustrator and stained-glass artist Harry Clarke (1889-1931). These McKennas have not been identified.
4 Harry Clarke illustrated editions of Tales of Mystery and Imagination (London: G. G. Harrap, 1919) by Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) and Faust (London: G. G. Harrap, 1925) by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832).
5 StuartGilbert(1883-1969)workedontheFrenchtranslationofJoyce'sUlyssesand helped to popularize Joyce's work with his book, James Joyce's Ulysses: A Study (1930). French poet and translator Auguste Morel (n. d. ) translated Ulysses as Ulysse (1929), assisted by Gilbert; the translation was revised by French novelist, poet, critic, and translator Valery Larbaud (1881-1959). (For discussion of the process: Richard
22
keepitclose. Theyaremakingabigmistake.
Don't worry about Formes. I have had practically nothing to
14 May 1930, Putnam
Ellmann, James Joyce: New and Revised Edition [Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, paper back with corrections, 1983] 562-563, 601-602; James Joyce, Letters of]ames Joyce, I, ed. Stuart Gilbert [New York: Viking Press, 1957] 28).
The Italian composer and music critic Edgardo Carducci-Agustini (1898-? ), set Joyce's poem "Alone" to music, and for some months "read to Joyce in Italian for two hours a day" (Ellmann,JamesJoyce, 648).
6 Harriet Shaw Weaver (1876-1961) published and promoted Joyce's work in England. She was a devoted friend and benefactor of Joyce.
7 SB's German correspondent is his cousin Peggy in Kassel, with whom he had been emotionally involved (see Knowlson, Damned to Fame, 113-114).
8 "Tapirising,"from"tapir"(Frenchacademicslang,privatepupil).
SB misquotes a line from "To Autumn" by John Keats (1795-1821): "Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours"; the second quotation is from "Ode to a Nightingale" by Keats: "I have been half in love with easeful Death, / Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme, / To take into the air my quiet breath" Oohn Keats, The Poems of]ohn Keats, ed. Jack Stillinger [Cambridge, MA: Belknap-Harvard University Press, 1978] 476-477;
369-372).
9 Rudmose-BrownexpectedSBtoreturntoTrinityCollegeDublinashisassistant in the autumn of 1930. That year, TCD did not propose a candidate for the exchange program with the Ecole Normale Superieure (William Kennedy, Trinity College Registrar, to Ernest Vessiot, Ecole Normale Superieure [31 May 1930], AN, 61AJ/202). IntheplaceofsomeonefromTCD,RobertI. Brown(1907-1996)fromtheUniversityof Glasgow was accepted asLecteur d'anglais by the ENS. In a further complication, Georges Pelorson petitioned to remain at TCD for 1930-1931 rather than accept an assignment at the University of Glasgow (Pelorson to the Directeur, Ecole Normale Superieure [21 June 1930], AN, 61 AJ 202).
Jean Beaufret" (known as Bowsprit, 1907-1982) was a Philosophy student and had been McGreevy's roommate at the ENS; "Bowsprit," based on the French, "beaupre" (bowsprit) (Knowlson, Damned to Fame, 150-151).
10 SBcontinuedtostandinforMcGreevyatFonnes,sothatMcGreevycouldretain his position while he was away from Paris (see 1 March 1930, n. 1).
SAMUEL PUTNAM PARIS
14/5/30 Ecole Normale
Rue d'Ulm 45 [Paris]
Dear Mr Putnam
This was nearly finished when your pneu came, so I went on
1
withit. Itisfarandawaythebestofabadlot. Therearesomegood
23
14 May 1930, Putnam
things in the Favola Gattesca - do you remember it? It is roughly four times as long as Paesaggio. Do you wish me to translate it - or would you prefer something shorter in the way of a pendant to this rather watery pastoral humility: Crepuscolo Mitologico, for example. 2 I will not start anything until I hear from you.
Very sincerely yours s/ S. B. Beckett
TLS; 1 leaf. 1 side; enclosure not with letter; NjP, New Review Correspondence of Samuel Putnam, COl11/1/9.
1 As Associate Editor of This Quarter, Samuel Putnam• (1892-1950) compiled the "Miniature Anthology of Contemporary Italian Literature" for This Quarter, 2. 4 (April-May-June, 1930). It includedSB's translations: "Paesaggio" by the Italian writer
Raffaello Franchi (1899-1949) translated by SB as "Landscape"; "Delta" by Eugenio Montale (1896-1981); and "TheHome-Coming" byGiovanni Comisso (1895-1969) (672, 630, 675-683).
The European Caravan: An Anthology of the New Spirit in European Literature• had been planned as a two-volume anthology; an Italian section was to appear in the second volume, but this was not published (ed. Samuel Putnam, Maida Castelhun Damton,
George Reavey, and J[acob]Bronowski [New York:Brewer, Warren, and Putnam, 19311).
2 Franchi's Favola Gattesca was published in Piazza natia (Turin: Fratelli Buratti Editori, 1929) 97-106. "Crepuscolo mitologico" (120-122) is the third section of Diorama (107-124) in Piazza natia.
THOMAS M cGREEVY TARBER T, CO. KERRY
Thursday[? 17 July 1930]
Ecole Normale [Paris]
My dear Tom
Glad to get your letter & know that things had gone well in
1
London. You do not say anything about the Connoisseur people. Did you see them? Here nothing more interesting than the usual drink & futility. Alfy is here, and we saw Soupault together. We are working on the bloody thing together in a vague ineffectual
24
Thursday{? 17 July 1930}, McGreevy
kind of way. 2 Alfy has gone to repose himself at Boulogne sur
Merde (or sur Seine, as you like) and then of course he must lie
with his subtle Russian sweet. Indeed, I have seen very little ofhim.
He is changed or I have or both. I guess at the old Alfy. The first
evening he burst out in a fury about Ethna, and the 'salaud qui m'a
fait rater ma vie'. Since then nothing, mockery & decompositions
and dreadfully perfect. Shining agates of negation. How energetic
they always are, these self-avowed cynics and desabuses, bristling
with passionate estimates and beating their breasts in a jemenfou
tiste & jusquauboutiste frenzy. 3 He will be here till the end of the
month and then in Auvergne. How can we do any thing in that
time, meeting tired in the evening and gal[l]oping through a page?
I know there is nothing to be done and that nothing of any value
4
The 14th was all right, because I was drunker than either
Nancy or Henry. There were other people there, God knows who,
5
also what I said & did, but I think it was all right. I was so tired at
the end that I could hardly climb into a taxi. They liked the Rahab
tomfoolery, God help them. Henry said several times that it was
'vey vey bootiful & vey vey fine in-deed. ' He was very nice &
behaved very well, and played the piano at the Cigogne, where I
6
'By the Embankment I counted the grey gulls Nailed to the wind above a distorted tide. '7
No . . ? And then a lot of padding I am afraid. I don't know. Perhaps it's very good.
25
will be done, but one goes on, driven by a wind, like the accidiosi.
buttheywentoffearlyforalittlecoucherieIsuppose. Godknows
describedarabesquesofanoriginalpattem. IheardfromNancy from London. She has given me her Parallax that I asked her for, & lent me The Apes of God & some Pound Cantos. I read Parallax. I don't know what to say about it. There are some fine things:
Thursday[? 17 July 1930}, McGreevy
8
I had a terrible l1⁄2 h(our] with Alan & B. in the usual kip.
I was sitting there with Alfy (whom they know) & Pelorson, and
of course they had to be invited to our table. Then the noble
captain & traducer turned on his salivary glands and his supply
of Shaw texts, and was a camelot on the strength of the 141h's
bunting. He went on & on & Alfy heaped fuel on the flame by
disagreeing. Pelorson collapsed spontaneously on the banquette
and I observed a terrible silence that will never be forgiven
9
Fortunately Louis le Cardonnel was there & the exquisite
Therive. Pelorson was delighted. Therive left without paying
for his beer, and the fat Chestertonian individual refused angrily
to pay for him. 10 Pelorson was in an extraordinary state of
excitement & hilarity. Really he is charming - specially alone.
Ican'tstarttheProust. Cursethishurryanyhow. Didthey mention it in London? I know what will happen: that the German trip will be sacrificed to no purpose, and that I will creep away at the last moment without having done any thing - Joyce or Proust. At least I have finished reading the bastard.
by Rathmines. It is more impossible every time I see them.
Yesterday we were up all night. At last we bought a bottle of
champagne a la Charlus, and brought it up here with his gram
ophone & played Tristan & Isolde & the Oiseau de Feu. Poor
11
A long cheerless letter but very friendly from Ruddy. He
can't find a publisher for a book he wants to write on Racine.
Could anything be done with Chatto & Windus? I bought the
Larousse edition & tried to read Esther. What is wrong with me?
12
Pelorson! What an unhappy person. II n'y a que cela he said.
I find chevilles everywhere, and I never did before in Racine.
I had a nice friendly card from Peggy from the North Sea, where she is with the Boche Hausfreund & Cissie & the youngest
girl. 13 I was very glad. I sent the pome to the Boss. 14 26
Thursday[? 17July1930}, McGreevy
A letter from Lucia too. I don't know what to do. She is
unhappy she says. Now that you are gone there is no one to
talk to about that. I dare not go to Wales, and I promised I would
15
if they were there on my way through.
There is no solution. What terrible instinct prompts them to have the genius of beauty at the right - or the wrong - moment!
But it is impossible.
