A Beckett Canon

1937–40: No Trifle Too Trifling

1937–40
No Tri›e Too Tri›ing 1937
Beckett took his German art tour seriously, making copious notes that came to light only after his death. Bair, who had no access to this notebook, stresses Beckett’s commitment to art, but Knowlson, who read “the unknown diaries,” stresses Beckett’s aversion to Nazi personalities and rhetoric. Once back in Dublin, Beckett began his thirty-‹rst year by wriggling out of possible employment. With Murphy still under submission, he made halfhearted stabs at journalism and translation. Axel Kaun, whom Beckett had met in Germany, evidently wrote him about translating the poems of Joachim Ringelnatz, the pseudonym of Hans Botticher (1883–1934). Although Beckett refused in a letter that he later dismissed (to me) as “German bilge,” he kept a copy of his reply to Kaun, which he later gave to Lawrence Harvey, and which is recognized as a document of critical importance to Beckett studies. Letter to Axel Kaun Dated July 9, 1937, and sent from Beckett’s own attic in his father’s old of‹ce at 6 Clare Street, Dublin, the letter begins by disparaging the verse of Ringelnatz. Beckett has read through three volumes, has selected twentythree possibilities for translation, and has actually translated two poems (translations that he evidently did not keep). Having dispensed with Ringelnatz in about one-quarter of the letter, Beckett moves on to the kind 88 Given to Lawrence Harvey, the typescript of Beckett’s letter to Kaun is at NhD, with a photocopy at RUL. It was ‹rst published (and translated by Martin Esslin) in Disjecta . of writing that does interest him, and it is a far cry both from Joyce’s apotheosis of the word and from Proust’s speleology of emotion, as analyzed in his 1931 monograph. By 1937 Beckett has come to feel that his own language is a veil that must be torn asunder: “die Sprache da am besten gebraucht wird, wo sie am tuchtigsten missbraucht wird” (Disjecta, 52) [language is best used where it is most ef‹ciently misused]. Instead of lagging behind the other arts, literature should be aware of its own falsity: “Gibt es irgendeinen Grund, warum jene fürchterlich willkürliche Materialit ät der Wort›äche nicht aufgelöst werden sollte, wie z.B. die von grossen schwarzen Pausen gefressene Ton›äche in der siebten Symphonie von Beethoven, so dass wir sie ganze Seiten durch nicht anders wahrnehmen können als etwa einen schwindelden unergründliche Schlünde von Stillschweigen verknüpfenden Pfad von Lauten?” (53) [Is there any reason why that frightfully arbitrary materiality of the word surface should not be dissolved, like, for example, the sound surface, devoured by great black pauses, of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony, so that through whole pages we can perceive nothing but a path of sounds suspended in giddy heights, linking unfathomable abysses of silence?]. These “abysses of silence” were already predicted in Belacqua’s “intervals of silence” in Dream, and Beethoven presided over both. Beckett denies that Finnegans Wake approaches the literature he envisions , and although he nods favorably at the “Logographs of Gertrude Stein,” he quickly dispraises her for infatuation with her vehicle, that is, words. Beckett’s letter then backtracks to espouse mockery of words before grappling with his desire for unwording. He is suf‹ciently dubious about his German to realize that he must be inadvertently sinning against that language , but he hopes intentionally to do so against his own language, and “Deo juvante,” will do so. It is an astonishing document from someone dedicated to becoming a writer. In a single letter Beckett rejects the particular artisanship of translation and the noble art of literary creation. In less than a decade he had moved from the verbal rapture of his Joyce essay to the desire for a porous language that approaches music. Almost every critic has cited this letter in connection with Beckett’s postwar writing. Such “unwording” states a goal that is impossible to achieve—in any language. While in Germany, Beckett made a number of acquaintances in the art world, many of them Jewish. It is, however, impossible to say whether this fact in›uenced a poem that he probably wrote back home in Dublin. Provoked by the memory of a sermon he attended with his father, the poem bears a peremptory Yiddish title—“Ooftish,” or “[Put your money] on the table.” a beckett canon: 1937–40 89 [18.224.149.242] Project MUSE (2024-04-23 19:04...