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

8. Recollection

8 Recollection 1. Existential Recollection: “Life Scenes” In his essay “Dante . . . Bruno . Vico . . Joyce,” Beckett described poetry as “the first operation of the human mind”: “Barbarians, incapable of analysis and abstraction, must use their fantasy to explain what their reasons cannot comprehend. Before articulation comes song; before abstract terms, metaphors” (1929: 246). But before it becomes “successful composition,” a few other operations of the human mind are required, at least according to William Wordsworth: Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity: the emotion is contemplated till by a species of reaction the tranquillity gradually disappears , and an emotion, kindred to that which was before the subject of contemplation, is gradually produced, and does itself actually exist in the mind. In this mood successful composition generally begins. (Wordsworth, 1802 version) Composition and recollection preoccupy the eponymous character in Krapp’s Last Tape when he listens to the tape on which he recorded his memory of “the vision.” In the early drafts, he mentions a “turning-point.” In the third corrected typescript, Beckett changed this turning-point into a “vision” (HRHRC 4.2, Ts. 3), thus giving it a more pompous air. As Philip Laubach-Kiani (2005) has pointed out, the impact of Romantic discourse on the genesis of Krapp’s Last Tape is subtle but clearly noticeable. For instance, the choice of the verb “to recollect” in the sentence “One dark young beauty I recollect particularly” (CDW 219) is carefully introduced in the second typescript. Originally, the verb was “to remember.” In the second typescript (HRHRC 4.2, Ts 2, f. 3r), it was first changed into “recall” and subsequently into “recollect.” In the third typescript, Beckett happened to arrive at the end of the page in the middle of this sentence. He entered a new sheet of paper Recollection / 129 in his typewriter and continued typing the rest of the sentence: “remember particularly, all white and starch, splendid bosom, with a” (HRHRC 4.2, Ts 2, f. 4v). After “with a” Beckett stopped abruptly, pulled out the sheet from the typewriter, and started again on the other side, again replacing “remember” by “recollect” (HRHRC 4.2, Ts 3, f. 4r). The introduction of this verb is not accidental; it has a history in Beckett ’s work. The most conspicuous occurrence is the parodic reference to Wordsworth’s definition in the story “The Expelled”: “Recollecting these emotions, with the celebrated advantage of tranquillity, it seems to me he did nothing else, all that day, but turn about his lodging” (CSP 58). The same futile circular motion was hinted at in the original title of Beckett’s almost contemporaneous first novel in French, Voyage de Mercier et Camier autour du pot dans les Bosquets de Bondy. In the same period shortly after the war, in July 1947, Beckett wrote in his first Molloy notebook: (. . .) c’est dans la tranquillité de la décomposition que je me rappelle cette longue émotion ^[commotion]^ ^émotion^ confuse que fut mon existence, et que [je le] juge, comme il est dit que Dieu nous jugera, et avec autant d’impertinence. Décomposer c’est aussi vivre, je le sais, je le sais, xx ^ne^ me [fatiguez] pas, mais [on] n’y est pas toujours [tout] entier. D’ailleurs de cette vie-là ^aussi^ j’aurai peut-être un jour la bonté de vous entretenir, un jour, (. . .) (HRHRC Beckett 4.5, Nb. 1: 123) The manuscript shows some commotion about “emotion,” but apart from the change from “existence” to “vie,” the passage remained almost unaltered in the published version, and Beckett made no attempt to obscure the allusion to Wordsworth in the English translation.1 The parodic strain in this passage may give the impression that Beckett simply pokes fun at Romantic poetics. A portion of ridicule is undeniably involved, but Beckett’s relationship to Romanticism seems to be more complex than that. In “Proust,” for instance, he appreciates the author of A la recherche du temps perdu because “[h]e is a Romantic in his anxiety to accomplish his 130 / Manuscript Genetics, Joyce’s Know-How, Beckett’s Nohow mission, to be a good and faithful servant. He does not seek to evade the implications of his art such as it has been revealed to him. He will write as he has lived—in Time” (1999a [1931]: 81). Beckett contrasts this type of writer with...