Manuscript Genetics, Joyce's Know-How, Beckett's Nohow

1. Genetics and Poetics

1 Genetics and Poetics Genetic criticism (critique génétique) is a confusing term, often associated with biogenetics instead of literary studies. The relationship between both disciplines may be a vaguely similar fascination with creation or procreation , but the thoroughly different nature of their respective research objects suggests a merely metaphorical connection. Nevertheless, metaphors may be a useful instrument to study the way in which we conceive of our own activities. They reflect the ways in which we look at things, and as such they can also have a profound impact on the way we understand those things. As a consequence, new fields of research in the early stages of their conceptualization are typically marked by a frequent change in the use of metaphors. This also applies to genetic criticism, a relatively young discipline that was developed in France by scholars such as Louis Hay, Almuth Grésillon, Daniel Ferrer, Pierre-Marc de Biasi, and Jean-Louis Lebrave, working together as a team in the Institut des Textes et Manuscrits Modernes (ITEM) in Paris. As Almuth Grésillon points out, the metaphors that were employed to give shape to this new discipline can be divided into two categories: an organic and a constructivist type (1992: 11). But these two types have a much longer history that marks the development of poetics in general. The history of representations of the creative process shows a constant tension between imitation and originality. The Greeks and Romans “outsourced ” the notions of inspiration and creative impulse to what they called “the Muses.” This view was dominant from Homer’s “Tell me, Muse” until the first half of the eighteenth century. In Swift’s Battle of the Books, the bee gets the full support of the Ancients, against the Modern spider who pretends to be able to create ex nihilo. In his Imitations of Horace (1733–38), Alexander Pope suggested studying Homer to find the Muses among the Ancients: “Be Homer’s Works your Study, and Delight, / Read them by Day, and meditate by Night, / Thence form your Judgment, thence your Maxims bring, / And trace the Muses upward to their Spring.” 10 / Manuscript Genetics, Joyce’s Know-How, Beckett’s Nohow Around the middle of the eighteenth century, the scales were drastically tipped and the stress on imitation was replaced by a radical emphasis on originality, as in Edward Young’s Conjectures on Original Composition (1759). The metaphors he uses are almost exclusively organic. According to Young, “the mind of a man of Genius is a fertile and pleasant field (. . .); it enjoys a perpetual Spring” (§34). Moreover, “an Original may be said to be of a vegetable nature; it rises spontaneously from the vital root of Genius; it grows, it is not made” (§43). This development is contrasted with what Young calls “Imitations,” which are “a sort of Manufacture, wrought up by those Mechanics, Art, and Labour, out of pre-existent materials not their own” (§43). A century after Young’s Conjectures, his suggestion that an original “is not made” but “grows” was exemplified in the works of Walt Whitman. The organic metaphors employed by Whitman also apply to the “growth” of the successive editions of Leaves of Grass, and even to Whitman studies, which are marked by a long tradition of organic metaphors. This tradition is examined in The Growth of “Leaves of Grass” by M. Jimmie Killingsworth, who points out that Whitman critics have often unquestioningly absorbed the author’s organic metaphors. In Killingsworth’s typology, three variations on the theme of growth are clearly discernible: the genetic, the progressive, and the cyclic. The genetic type “implies that the work of the poet grows from an essential center of being” (1993: 1). According to this view, each poem, each stanza, each line by the same poet is imbued with an identity that links it to “an informing center.” The entire oeuvre radiates from this center, which is compared to a gene. Because of this analogy, Killingsworth calls this conception of poetry “genetic”—which further confuses the term “genetic criticism.” The second category in his typology stresses the sequential aspect of growth, as in concepts such as progress and evolution, which contrast sharply with the image of radial growth. This second concept of growth implies amelioration and a form of teleology. According to this view, the steady progress culminates in completion. The third category in its turn dismisses this “ascending narrative ” and prefers a cyclic view on organic growth. This “modern” approach includes both maturation...