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

Notes

Notes Chapter 1. Genetics and Poetics 1. Published in 1831. The preface (of 1818, most probably written by Percy Shelley) states that it originated in “a playful desire of imitation.” Mary and Percy Shelley, together with Byron and Polidori, had been reading ghost stories, and the underlying aesthetics of the novel was modeled after great examples with the intention to “innovate upon their combinations” (M. Shelley 1992: 11). 2. The first change (maker > creator) was made by Mary Shelley (MWS); the later revisions were suggested by Percy Shelley (PBS). 3. “Unlike perspective, the grid does not map the space of a room or a landscape or a group of figures onto the surface of a painting. Indeed, if it maps anything, it maps the surface of the painting itself. (. . .) Considered in this way, the bottom line of the grid is a naked and determined materialism” (Krauss 1985: 10). 4. This mathematical interest is reflected in his statement “about my poetics” in “A”-12, which he presents in mathematical terms: “An integral / Lower limit speech / Upper limit music” (Zukofsky 1993: 138). Regarding this upper limit, Bach’s Kunst der Fuge served as a sort of poetical guideline: “From the spring of Art of Fugue: / The parts of a fugue should behave like reasonable men / in an orderly discussion” (Zukofsky 1993: 127). For a more detailed discussion, see Van Hulle 2006b. 5. For instance, in cahier 71, page 95v–96r: “Je crois que pour fondre avec plus d’unité, il faudrait mettre cela quand elle joue du pianola, ne faire en somme qu’une seule scène.” See also page 93v. 6. 27 March 1903. Second document preserved under MS number 36,639 at the National Library of Ireland (page 24). 7. See Van Hulle 2004a: 38–39. The variations between the different versions of this quotation “perform” what the text is about and nicely illustrate the link between biogenetics and textual genetics: “Diversité ^différentiation^ Cette Cette variété ^La variété^ que je ne trouvais pas da dans la vie, dans ^que j’avais^ cherchée en vain dans la vie dans l’amour ^dans la vie^, que je n’av que dans le voyage . . .” (cahier 73:16r) 8. “Au contraire la musique, elle, m’aidait à m’oublier et par là à descendre en moim ême, à y découvrir de nouveau la vérité que j’avais cherché en vain dans la vie, dans le voyage, (. . .)” (Proust 1987–89: 3: 1168, esquisse XVII). 9. “Das Anschwellen der Komposition beruht auf einem doppelten Vorgang, einem Bohrungsprozess und einem Ankristallisieren und Einbezogenwerden von aussen” (Mann 1994: 488–89). 10. The root/soil metaphor shows some resemblances to the metaphors Friedrich Schleiermacher employed to explain his view on hermeneutics: “Hence a work of art, too, is really rooted in its own soil. It loses its meaning when it is wrenched from this environment” (Schleiermacher, quoted in Gadamer 1975: 148). Hans Georg Gadamer quotes this passage in Wahrheit und Methode (Truth and Method) to renounce traditional , Schleiermacherian hermeneutics: “The reconstruction of the conditions in which a work that has come down to us from the past fulfilled its original purpose is undoubtedly an important aid to its understanding. But it may be asked whether what is then obtained is really what we look for as the meaning of the work of art, and whether it is correct to see understanding as a second creation, the reproduction of the original production . Ultimately, this view of hermeneutics is as foolish as all restitution and restoration of past life. The reconstruction of the original circumstances, like all restoration, is a pointless undertaking in view of the historicity of our being” (1975: 148–49). 11. Richard Brown described a set of “Missing Typescripts,” which were discovered in 1988 among the papers of Joyce’s Maecenas Harriet Shaw Weaver. One of these documents is a typescript of the section with the “Roll on” quotation. This typescript contains revisions that never made it into Finnegans Wake. They were made in an early stage of the composition process. More than fifteen years later (in August 1938), when Joyce gave the section its final destination, he most probably forgot he ever made these early revisions in the “missing typescript.” 12. Beckett first wrote “Mr Knott” and only subsequently replaced “Knott” by “Hackett ”; he did not replace it in the next lines; this transcription does replace respectively “Mr K” and “Mr Knott” by “Mr [Hackett]” in these lines too, on the assumption that this...