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Miranda Revue pluridisciplinaire du monde anglophone / Multidisciplinary peer-reviewed journal on the English- speaking world
4 | 2011 Samuel Beckett : Drama as philosophical endgame ? L'épreuve du théâtre dans l'œuvre de Samuel Beckett : fin de partie philosophique ?
Édition électronique URL : http://journals.openedition.org/miranda/324 DOI : 10.4000/miranda.324 ISSN : 2108-6559
Éditeur Université Toulouse - Jean Jaurès
Référence électronique Miranda, 4 | 2011, « Samuel Beckett : Drama as philosophical endgame ? » [En ligne], mis en ligne le 01 juin 2011, consulté le 16 février 2021. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/miranda/324 ; DOI : https:// doi.org/10.4000/miranda.324
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SOMMAIRE
Samuel Beckett : Drama as philosophical endgame?
Foreword Philippe Birgy
Performance and subjective perception
Confining, Incapacitating, and Partitioning the Body: Carcerality and Surveillance in Samuel Beckett’s Endgame, Happy Days, and Play Victoria Swanson
“From Inner to Outer Shadow”: Reading the Obscure Object of Anxiety in the “Dramaticules” of Samuel Beckett Arka Chattopadhyay
Hostaged to the Voice of the Other: Beckett's Play and Not I. Tram Nguyen
“Close your eyes and listen to it”: schizophonia and ventriloquism in Beckett’s plays Lea Sinoimeri
Ideas & Forms : philosophical palimpsests
“R.C.”: Rosicrucianism and Cartesianism in Joyce and Beckett Steven Bond
La coïncidence des contraires dans l'œuvre de Samuel Beckett Lydie Parisse
Beckett, Wittgenstein and Blanchot: Language Games from Text to Theatre Katy Masuga
Samuel Beckett : Drama as philosophical endgame ?
“No one that ever lived ever thought so crooked as we”: Endgame According to Adorno Philippe Birgy
Eleutheria―Notes on Freedom between Offstage and Self-reference Shimon Levy
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Occasional papers
Charles du Bos, lecteur de Thomas Hardy Bénédicte Coste
Circulations de l’écrit : la construction de la communauté catholique anglaise dans les écrits jésuites de 1580 à 1610 Gaëlle Serena
Rastafarians in Post-Independence Caribbean Poetry in English (the 1960s and the 1970s): from Pariahs to Cultural Creators Eric Doumerc
« Bad neighbors make good fencers » : esthétique des liens de voisinage dans les premiers poèmes de Robert Frost Candice Lemaire
Reviews
Selene Scarsi, Translating Women in Early Modern England: Gender in the Elizabethan Versions of Boiardo, Ariosto and Tasso Nathalie Rivère de Carles
Diane Waggoner (ed.), The Pre-Raphaelite Lens―British Photography and Painting, 1848-1875 Muriel Adrien
Logie Barrow, François Poirier (eds), A Full-Bodied Society Fanny Robles
Louise Penner, Victorian Medicine and Social Reform: Florence Nightingale among the Novelists Laurence Talairach-Vielmas
Tabitha Sparks, The Doctor in the Victorian Novel: Family Practices Laurence Talairach-Vielmas
Fay Bound Alberti, Matters of the Heart: History, Medicine and Emotion Laurence Talairach-Vielmas
Katherine Byrne, Tuberculosis and the Victorian Literary Imagination Laurence Talairach-Vielmas
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Nathalie Rivère de Carles et Philippe Birgy (dir.) Samuel Beckett : Drama as philosophical endgame? L'épreuve du théâtre dans l'oeuvre de Samuel Beckett : fin de partie philosophique ?
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Foreword
Philippe Birgy
1 Beckett studies have been enriched by a variety of criticism that relies on theoretical constructs or introduces abstract concepts to clarify its objects, explain their construction or validate interpretative hypotheses concerning their significance.
2 The purpose of this collection of articles is not to offer an exhaustive panorama or a radical assessment of such philosophical approaches, which, broadly speaking, also include all forms of universals that might be recognized in Beckett's plays, be they archetypal or psychoanalytical (psychoanalysis being understood as a form of applied philosophy of the mind or of the subject). Nonetheless, the reader will remark that most of the contributors to this collection either resort to a particular branch of philosophy to push forward their enquiry into Beckett’s oeuvre, or react to them in an attempt to define a singularity of the stage and valorize the physicality of the dramatic experience. That is why the examinations of Beckett's work contained in this particular issue of Miranda range between the two poles of theatricality and conceptualization. The material and scenographic presence of the actors’ bodies and the staged objects, as well as the tangible character of the voices, belong to the former, while the ideas that might possibly reveal or obscure the originality or otherness of Beckett's theater stand at the other extremity of the critical spectrum.
3 As one gets involved in a discursive practice on the theatre, one is necessarily caught between the elusiveness of symbolical language and the material dispositions of staging, which, according to some, overcome discursive and textual evidence. This friction certainly signals a certain limit of interpretation, but there is no way this border can be neatly drawn. There will unavoidably be some extra-linguistic event that must be recognized by the critic yet can hardly be so without the critic's relying on logical inferences and notional words. In short, it seems that he cannot do otherwise but touch upon philosophy, if ever so lightly.
4 If we are to believe Douglas McMillan and Marta Fehsenfled,1 Beckett’s statements about the absence of a philosophical system behind his plays seem to preclude any recourse to a theoretical apparatus that would eventually explain them away.2 But such a statement does only describe one of the inroads that the investigation of Beckett's plays may take. Indeed, many commentators have made the case for some form of
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conscious influences bearing on Beckett. Consequently they have endeavored to trace back his works to their sources, using a form of genetic criticism, as the one chosen by Steven Bond and Lydie Parisse.
5 Some have argued the existence of universal logical laws that regulated the artistic production. Others still deemed that Beckett's plays were necessarily related to a context, either because certain ideas were historically relevant and contributed to the formation of Beckett's style, or because they were a response to a cultural “state of affairs” that affected them. Thus, the playwright's productions were inscribed in a history of ideas and mentalities. That is certainly why Beckett has been commonly associated with existentialism (as Victoria Swanson reminds us), or re-read within the historicist perspective of Adorno, on the grounds that his writings were contemporary with Beckett's.
6 Eventually Beckett's oeuvre has been related to a post-historical or post-modern paradigm which arguably decreed the impossible achievement of both historical relevance and philosophical universals.
7 Whether the theater is interpreted as a matter of affects and percepts situated beyond the limits of the thinkable (Deleuze, Adorno), as the experience of the failure of intended meaning, as a mode of approach of the subject, or as a metadramatic reflection on the categories of time, plot, characters, and the figuration of reality, all these critical voices, which insist that Beckett's plays resist coherent exposition, end up paradoxically grounding their own theories on such notions as the “unsayable” and the “irrepresentable”.
1. Performance and subjective perception
8 Victoria Swanson considers the presentation and dramatization of bodies on stage in Endgame, Happy Days, and Play. She first lays the stress on the common historical situation in which thinkers and artists alike found themselves after the Second World War in France. Acknowledging the relationship between Beckett’s theatre and the dilemmas of Sartre's existentialism, she posits a dialogue between their respective conceptions of subjectivity. Yet she also emphasizes other aspects of the plays which “anticipate” poststructuralism, the latter being understood as a reaction to the post- war intellectual climate in France. Swanson documents the hypothesis of an influence of Beckett upon Foucault. Indeed Beckett's work, insofar as it revolves around the issues of constriction and confinement of the body, shares some ground with the philosopher's. Conversely, Foucault proposes a model which applies particularly well to Beckett's exhibition on stage of “fragments of beings” whose subjectivity has no liberating function. Emphasizing both men's common preoccupations with corporeality, Swanson studies Endgame as a panoptic mechanism. Indeed the centrality of Hamm’s position, Clov's constant scrutiny of the off-stage, his regulated actions under his master’s supervision, as well as his self-inflicted punishments all become very significant when related in this manner to dramatic techniques. Yet Beckett parts way with Foucault when he exposes on stage a “bodily potential” that reaches beyond the passive corporeal confinement implemented by the panoptic structure of power.
9 “Why is there something instead of nothing on Beckett's stage?” Starting, half in jest, from the ontological question which provides the grounding of a first philosophy, Arka Chattopadhyay proceeds to demonstrate that, although many commentators have
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dwelt on the notion of absence, the exhaustion or impoverishment of all the objects and subject matters of drama does not leave a void on the stage. The question of this material remainder is tackled with reference to Freud and Lacan. The notion of an unnamable and irrepresentable core of the Real from which the endless play of substitution originates is, according to the author, fundamentally related to Beckett's use of the stage and to his creation of objects which appear to be both inside and outside. Such conception resonates with Shimon Levy's discussion of the off-stage in the second part of this collection.
10 Tram Nguyen’s article concentrates on the “visceral gusto” of the voice, even when it is disembodied and does not issue from any interiority but rather comes from the exteriority of the Other. She observes the restriction of the body's gestures in Beckett's plays and the dramatic strategies used to capture the audience's attention in spite of these self-imposed limits. Language “sustains the body”, its “aural staging” contributes to a theatre that goes against “visual satisfaction”. Taking into account Levinas' ethical reflections on the figure of otherness, she envisages Beckett's theater in terms of interaction with an audience, arguing that “the voice that speaks reveals to us the necessity of engaging with the Other”.
11 Lea Sinoimeri equally engages with the question of the voice with reference to Beckett's use of technical media in the series of plays from Krapp's Last Tape to Rockaby. She interprets this move partly as a reaction to the development of the radio and recording industries: a technological and cultural situation which effectively disembodies human voices, alienating them from the physical site of subjectivity. Yet, according to Sinoimeri, this dissociation of the voice from the corporeal presence of the body is also the result of a purposeful “return to the psychoanalytical concept which had informed his works in the early thirties”, accompanied by a shift of focus from the “schizophrenic” to the “schizophonic”. From then on, Beckett increasingly explores the potential of recorded sounds and assigns new functions to auditory perceptions. Enhancing the grain of externalised sound thus becomes the object of his dramatic art. In the later plays, the recorded voice eventually materializes the texture of life on stage while the characters become listeners affected by its resonance. Furthermore, this shift affecting Beckett's conception of the stage has direct consequences on his choice of language and furthers a linguistic inquiry on the spectral and divided nature of the voice.
2. Ideas & Forms: philosophical palimpsests
12 Where do recurrent motifs come from? Can we still believe, as Yeats more than occasionally did, that they emanate from some reservoir of collective memory? Are they not rather fanciful patterns forced upon a text or a play at the risk of dismantling its integrity? Or do they just serve as a peg to organize our perceptions of the play? These questions seem as much addressed to the authors under study as they are to the critical readers that we intend to be. Steven Bond's hypothesis is firstly that of an influence: Beckett inherited through Joyce a concern with the possible significance of occult disciplines. Yet both authors were also keen to put a distance between themselves and esoteric practices of interpretation. For Beckett also picked up from Joyce a marked ambivalence towards abstract worldviews and ready-made theoretical constructs. Bond proposes a close reading of the two authors that traces the possible
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sources of the initials “R. C.” used a simple motif in their texts. The article thus casts a light on the “covert Rosicrucianism at play in Joyce and in Beckett”. But that is far from being the end of this genetic line of argument. For both authors appears to be similarly indebted to Descartes, who figures in the text in the form of “covert references”, that is, of the same coded signature, “R. C.”. The father of rationalism consequently becomes associated to the practice of deciphering of a code to get access to some secret knowledge. As Bond shrewdly concludes: “Joyce and Beckett were likely invoking the blurred distinction between theosophical and philosophical matters which characterized the period of the late Renaissance”. This critical dilemma, or coincidentia oppositorum, is also at the heart of the following paper.
13 Lydie Parisse considers Beckett's theater deep motivation to be the unsettling of dualistic principles. The playwright thus works from and on abstractions, trying to stage an impossible conflation of opposites that would overcome the logical dichotomies structuring our thoughts. If, on the one hand, Beckett tries to reason out the nature of language, on the other hand, he also confronts its instability, and uses it against itself, forcing it to reveal its flaws and insufficiencies. Parisse summons Heraclitus and Berkeley to argue the case of a writerly and dramatic craft based on paradoxes, a method of madness used as a means to attain a visionary experience. “The site of speech resides on the stage”, that is, “in a space of practical experimentation where one can concretely experience the dimensions of the visible and the invisible”, where a “negative theology” is brought into play. This paradox also determines Parisse’s approach: the unnamable is the limit of principled philosophy, yet it can itself be formulated as a principle, that of the “coincidence of opposites”, a philosophical theme [or motif] that irrupts in Beckett's play as a tangible presence.
14 Starting from the simple observation that language misses its point, Katy Masuga chooses to use Wittgenstein's philosophy of language to discuss Beckett's attempts at presenting the incompleteness of the verbal utterance through dramatic expression. She notes that, in spite of his negative assessment of the insufficiencies of language, Beckett persists in writing, playing linguistic games, testing and probing the limits of language, dismantling it and toying with “the possibility of a peculiar and even entertaining gap” in it. Masuga registers the consequences of this linguistic predicament on the practical aspects of the performance and its impact on the audience. Thus, she posits a “scène de l'écriture”, a “literal presence of the text”, of the arrangement of words and of its underlying logic―or lack of thereof. Something happens in Beckett's plays, as one would naturally expect in drama, but it happens to language. Consequently, the stage is of crucial importance to present the ambiguity of words in their relationship to the objects they can or cannot refer to. This, according to the author, explains how the performance of Beckett's plays can become “a matter of sound instead of sight” revealing the “paradoxical nature of existence within language, which can only be made evident by means of the very deliberate and visual absence of ordinary action and in the empty space of vigorous, active silence”.
3. Philosophical endgame?
15 Philippe Birgy proposes a close reading of Adorno's “Understanding Endgame”, an essay where Adorno precisely contests the possibility of such an understanding. Adorno is commonly perceived as a very unprincipled philosopher yet the very coherent theses
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developed in his more theoretical books (The Dialectic of Enlightenment, for instance) are implicit in his assessment of Beckett's play. This has led commentators to dismiss his argumentation as insufficiently based on the text of the play. Yet, contrary to that opinion, Birgy would rather call Adorno's essay a fair description that closely follows the variations of whatever is “following its course” on stage, down to the smallest utterances and gestures. It thus offers an account which is at one with Beckett's prescription that the actors should be, as Shimon Levy reminds us, a function in the representation of space bringing the attention of the audience to bear on it. The characters are run through by a series of contradictory affects and Adorno carefully attends to the variations of these states of existence. He shows Hamm and Clov to be hampered in their attempts at speaking or acting on principles by the recognition that they have no ground to base themselves on, no unquestionable reason or logical deductions to suggest any proper course to follow.
16 Shimon Levy, who is not only a scholar but also a stage director and a playwright, insists that Beckett's theater is less receptive to philosophy than his prose and proposes to start from the experience of the stage if one wants to elaborate critical concepts that may, if not explain away Beckett's play, at least capture the dramatic situation they consist in, thereby ruling out any pre-conceptions that most philosophical systems impose upon the object of their investigation. To do so, he concentrates on Beckett's first play, Eleutheria, and the situation of theatrical communication that it defines, involving the author, the medium and the public. He stresses the determining function of the off-stage as a means to signal the irrepresentable and “grasp essences that are neither physical nor [...] mental”. Shimon Levy also posits the presence of Beckett in his characters, and the difficulty in “putting one's soul” into the part. He argues the case for metatheatricality, the presentation of the author's creative life and freedom in the very fabric of the performance.
NOTES
1. McMillan, Douglas and Marta Fehsenfeld. Beckett in the Theatre: the Author as Practical Playwright and Director. London: John Calder, 1988. 12. 2. As we shall see, the possibility of saying anything rational or even reasonable about the play (or for that matter about any work of art) is precisely what preoccupies Adorno.
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INDEX
Keywords: abstraction, coincidentia oppositorum, dramatic experience, existentialism, irrepresentable, metatheatricality, object, philosophy, poststructuralism, rosicrucianism, scenography, self, Stage, subject, unsayable, unamable, voice Mots-clés: philosophie, Beckett, théâtre, corps, voix, histoire
AUTHORS
PHILIPPE BIRGY Professeur Université Toulouse 2 – Le Mirail [email protected]
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Samuel Beckett : Drama as philosophical endgame?
Performance and subjective perception Jeu et perception du sujet
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Confining, Incapacitating, and Partitioning the Body: Carcerality and Surveillance in Samuel Beckett’s Endgame, Happy Days, and Play
Victoria Swanson
1 Beckett’s works are often said to reflect the human condition. Certainly, such claims are reinforced by his dramatic oeuvre, within which Beckett populates his theatrical landscapes with whittled-down remnants of people such as ashcan dwelling amputees, partitioned heads, or a disembodied mouth. The development of such isolated consciousnesses, existing in a meaningless world that sets them at physical odds with their surroundings, are inextricably linked to and influenced by the historical moment in which Beckett writes. In both a historical and a philosophical sense, many of his depictions and the ways in which he presents images of subjectivity reflect the widespread disillusionment that followed in the wake of World War Two. Because he writes in the shadow of The Holocaust, Beckett knows firsthand the horrors of an unchecked power structure. He was, by all accounts, an integral participant within the most prolific intellectual and artistic circles in post-World-War-Two France—at a time when philosophers such as Jean-Paul Sartre, Louis Althusser, and Claude Lévi-Strauss were parsing issues of existentialism, Marxism, and structural anthropology.
2 Most thinkers in France, including Beckett recognized the war as a socio-cultural rupture. Indeed, no one operating within proximity to Europe could have gone untouched by its violence and destruction. Therefore, it is not surprising that similarities can be traced between various schools of French thought and Beckett’s works. In Beckett and Poststructuralism Anthony Uhlmann finds that there are “numerous and striking points of intersection” between Beckett’s works and the concerns of French philosophers in post-World-War-Two France; as he puts it, “they discuss the same problems because these were the social and intellectual problems
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inherent in the world they encountered” (34). Uhlmann addresses what he refers to as “the problem field” (35) through which, he suggests, Beckett and post-World-War-Two French philosophers can be aligned as writers who: [W]rite in response to common problems […] certain common antecedents, and thereby develop similar themes, similar responses. This, then, might provide explication of how works, apparently unrelated and belonging to different disciplinary traditions, resonate with one another within a given milieu. (35)
3 In this article, while acknowledging points of philosophical intersections, particularly between Sartre’s and Beckett’s treatments of subjectivity, I focus on the ways in which Beckett’s partitioning of the subject and the dispersal of the self is mirrored in Michel Foucault’s work. Beckett’s preoccupation with confined bodies is expressed across multiple dramatic texts. For example, being trapped, entombed, buried alive, crippled, blinded, or held captive are universally terrifying scenarios which the characters populating Endgame (1957), Happy Days (1961), and Play (1963) are forced to endure to varying degrees. The carcerality imposed by or upon the characters in these plays is central to Beckett’s development of the dramatic trajectory of repetition, confinement, constraint, and immobility. This, I argue, demonstrates how Beckett’s drama utilizes subjectivity in a way that both engages and resists Sartrean themes. The connections between the methods used by Beckett and Sartre are significant; however, it is my contention that parsing panoptic constructions with Beckett’s portrayals of subjectivity, fragmentation, and debilitated physicality and/or consciousness in Endgame, Happy Days, and Play demonstrates both the parallels and disparities within the constructs of carcerality and subjectivity present in Beckett and Foucault’s respective milieus and works.
4 Beckett’s work, given its historical context, reflects the existentialist thought of his time; therefore, his plays and novels are often read through a Sartrean lens. That Sartre defines the human gaze as a paralyzing, objectifying construct that denies subjectivity and freedom captures an important feature of Beckett’s drama. Sartre sees the objectifying gaze of the “Other” as something that is always already internalized by the subject. The organizing consciousness, the consciousness of the observer, displaces and objectifies the subject. Sartre and Beckett both present the gaze of the “Other” as violent and subjectifying. Sartre’s Being and Nothingness: A Phenomenological Essay on Ontology (1943) contemplates the visual apprehension of an Other by illustrating an encounter: I am in a public park. Not far away there is a lawn and along the edge of that lawn there are benches. A man passes by those benches. I see this man; I apprehend him as an object and at the same time as a man. What does this signify? What do I mean that this object is a man? […] We are dealing with a relation which is without parts, given at one stroke, inside of which there unfolds a spatiality which is not my spatiality; for instead of a grouping toward me of the objects, there is now an orientation which flees from me. (341-42)
5 Yet, this existential framework overlooks a significant part of Beckett’s work. Sartre presents subjectivity as a dilemma, but he grants the subject the possibility of a kind of existential heroism whereby the subject can achieve authenticity by willing his or her own absurd existence. Diverging from Sartre’s existential model, Beckett’s drama does not make possible the authentic act, will, or existential heroism—those movements of authenticity towards which the Sartrean subject aspires. While Beckett’s works are understood as framed by a Sartrean milieu, where being precedes essence, it is reductive to read Beckett exclusively through a lens that insists upon reaching for the
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meaning and tragedy of language’s failure. By contrasting Beckett’s methodologies to those later developed by Michel Foucault, it may be argued that Beckett embraces the impossibility of meaning as liberation from the confinement inherent with predicaments of subjectivity, power, and the limitations of language.
6 As Deleuze so aptly reminds us, Beckett “exhausts the possible” (Deleuze 7), and this is indeed true of subjectivity for Beckett’s characters as his characterizations magnify the dilemmas of Cartesian duality. Beckett often places each character’s consciousness in stark contrast with the substantial self on which it reflects. In so doing, he presents subjectivity as a predicament of self-consciousness. For Beckett, the Sartrean vision of subjectivity is a trap that can only be escaped, if it can at all, by the kind of self-violence that leads to self-dissolution. Sartre sees the subject-object relation in terms of exteriority whereby one sees while also being seen and where only through being seen does gazing actualize a relation which remains outside the self. Indeed, there is no escape from the Sartrean gaze, from the hell of other people1, and for Beckett this condition cannot be resolved except through dissolution of subjectivity itself. In this way, Beckett both appropriates and resists Sartrean themes.
7 While Beckett’s subjects are bound by the gazes of “Others” and struggle, unsuccessfully, to escape these gazes, what makes these gazes so powerful and inescapable is the way in which they are internalized. Beckett’s works often present subjects straddling the line between subjectivity and subjugation. In Beckett’s cosmos, subjectivity is, in itself, subjugation as self-consciousness becomes its own worst enemy through its internalization of power. For instance, in Endgame, Clov epitomizes the internalization of power as he allows himself to be both subjectified and subjugated by Hamm. Through this self-conscious internalization of authority, Beckett employs subjectivity and subjugation interchangeably, often simultaneously.
8 Such structures in Beckett’s dramatic works extend beyond the character-subject to reflect larger social and historical implications. His emphasis on the internalization of authority stretches beyond the dilemmas offered by Sartre’s interpretation of subjectivity and anticipates poststructuralist explorations of carcerality, entrapment, confinement, and incapacity. Beckett’s focus on portraying both internalized and externalized forms of subjectivity diverges from Sartrean examples. Furthermore, Beckett’s mingling of internalizations of authority with depictions of both corporeal and psychological entrapment demonstrates how his vision in transforming Sartre anticipates the works of Michel Foucault. Where the Sartrean gaze objectifies, Foucault insists that the gaze creates the subject. Michel Foucault, who attended the university at the École Normale Supérieure following the war (1946), reacted to the post-war intellectual environment through his own forays into the marginalization of the subject. For example, Foucault’s explorations in The Birth of the Clinic (1963) and The Order of Things (1966) take previous accounts of subjectivity to task. Like Beckett, Foucault also diverges from Sartre’s position that the subject is a centralized figure, recognizing, instead, the marginality of the subject. Foucault locates power in structures of observation in the carceral machinery and this renders the subject peripheral. For Foucault, power is internalized; it is within the system and the subject is the peripheral effect of the system.
9 Both Beckett and Foucault see a world of stasis that seems designed to create and control human desire. Beckett’s imagery of confinement and claustrophobia finds its theoretical counterpart in Foucault’s theories of carcerality. Although the sources for
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inspiration may differ between these two thinkers, it is evident—through Foucault’s quotations of Beckett in both the “The Order of Discourse” and “What is an Author?”— that Beckett’s work resonates with Foucault. Further, there are similarities between the methodologies that Beckett and Foucault employ in their conceptualizations of subjectivity. Both Beckett and Foucault recognize the constraints of subjectivity, most palpably; they both call into question the personal and public functioning of the subject, the ways in which order impacts meaning and the reliability of subjectivity. Foucault himself acknowledges that Beckett’s Waiting for Godot (1952) served as a catalyst from which he developed a new critical perspective: I belong to that generation who, as students, had before their eyes, and were limited by, a horizon consisting of Marxism, phenomenology, and existentialism. Interesting and stimulating as these might be, naturally they produced in the students completely immersed in them a feeling of being stifled, and the urge to look elsewhere. I was like all other students of philosophy at that time, and for me the break was first Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. (Begam, 185)
10 Foucault’s admission indicates that Beckett provided the impetus which led to the “break” he sought from accepted praxis. Clearly, given Foucault’s statement and his philosophical preoccupations, even a casual familiarity with Beckett’s work reveals the importance of the imagery of confinement and surveillance to Foucault’s thinking. Beyond such fortuitous connections, both bodies of work present the stark account of human subjectivity that emerges in post-war France which is, consequently, also the subject of Sartrean existentialism. Within the dialectic of comparisons, it is reasonable to assume that the connections between Beckett and Foucault have not been more rigorously explored because the existentialist noir that epitomizes Beckettian constructs seems, in many ways, vastly different from Foucault’s highly technical language of structuralism. However, for Foucault, subjectivity, while not desirable, is productive—serving purposeful functions within the constructs and operations of Power. Alternately, Beckett’s work posits subjectivity as a failure of Power.
11 Beckett does not acknowledge the predictability that is required for subjectivity to succeed. Rather, he recognizes the potential for a chaotic function of the subject that, once initiated, can disrupt the machinations of Power. Perhaps the chaotic potential of the subject is demonstrated most effectively in Beckett’s short prose piece “The Lost Ones” which portrays an “Abode where lost bodies roam […] Inside a flattened cylinder fifty meters round and sixteen high for the sake of harmony” (101). The abode is described as being “Narrow enough for flight to be in vain” (101), and the “harmony” mentioned in the opening of the piece is achieved by the subjects’ queuing up for their turn at a climb up and then back down a system of ladders to convey the “searchers” or subjects into and then back out of a series of niches and tunnels. Should an “unprincipled climber […] engross the ladder beyond what is reasonable [or] fancy to settle down permanently in one of the niches or tunnels [he would leave] behind him a ladder out of service for good and all” (208). Beckett’s narrator concedes that This is indeed strange. But what is at stake is the fundamental principle of forbidding ascent more than one at a time the repeated violation of which would soon transform the abode into a pandemonium (209).
12 This example suggests that the power structure would be disrupted if the subjects in question attempt to challenge the fundamental principle that governs rules of motion as such violations would lead to “pandemonium.” For Beckett, subjectivity produces
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nothing and the “harmony” that Power hopes to achieve through subjectivity remains vulnerable to disruption, to the potentially chaotic function of the subject.
13 Beckett’s use of carceral formations in his dramatic works confines and constricts both his theatrical subjects and his actors2. In this way, Beckett demonstrates the kinds of containment, surveillance, and futility that Michel Foucault describes in Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Foucault illustrates the reach of carcerality by first offering Bentham’s Panopticon as an example of central Power and peripheral subjectivity: An inspector arriving unexpectedly at the center of the Panopticon will be able to judge at a glance, without anything being concealed from him, how the entire establishment is functioning (204).
14 However, Foucault then expands Bentham’s model, suggesting that its utility extends beyond the prison, becoming an institutional mechanism that exacts its subjective gaze across society as a whole: “The Panopticon, on the other hand, must be understood as a generalized model of functioning; a way of defining power relations in terms of the everyday life of men” (205). Foucault points to the complicit subject as a central construct of panopticism, whereby cooperation with the power structure becomes so ingrained and automatic that the subject requires little, if any, supervision. “The Lost Ones” illustrates this dichotomy as it is populated by a veritable swarm of enthusiastically self-policing subjects. For both Beckett and Foucault, the ultimate redemption lies in the undoing of the subject. Beckett’s plays are full of images of physical confinement, but they anticipate Foucault in the most “dramatic” fashion in the way they illustrate the internalization of authority.
15 Michel Foucault’s theories on carcerality, while echoing Beckett’s use of confinement, also provide a framework through which to explore formations of surveillance, restriction, and carcerality in Beckett’s dramatic works. Foucault’s reference to the model of Bentham’s Panopticon amplifies the wider implications of Beckett’s theatricized variations of confining structures as Foucault’s illustration of panoptic surveillance presents an institutionalization of the Sartrean gaze. Foucault finds that Bentham’s model of Panoptic surveillance promotes interiority and ensures the inverse of Sartre’s model in that seeing has no relation to being seen: Bentham’s Panopticon is the architectural figure of this composition [of Power]. We know the principle on which it was based: at the periphery, an annular building; at the centre, a tower; this tower is pierced with wide windows that open onto the inner side of the ring; the peripheric building is divided into cells, each of which extends the whole width of the building […] all that is needed, then, is to place a supervisor in a central tower and to shut up in each cell a madman, a patient, a condemned man, a worker or a schoolboy [.…] The Panopticon is a machine for dislocating the [Sartrean] see/being seen dyad: in the peripheric ring, one is totally seen, without ever seeing; in the central tower, one sees everything without ever being seen. (200-202).
16 While Sartre’s concept of the gaze and Foucault’s rendition of panoptic surveillance diverge, they nonetheless resonate when juxtaposed with Beckett’s writings. The immuration that frames much of Beckett’s theatrical works foreshadows Foucault’s insights on carcerality. Beckett’s Endgame, Happy Days, and Play all offer characters circumscribed to either restrained movement or total confinement. Within these works Beckett uses paralysis and confinement as governing, subjectifying, and centralizing mechanisms. For example, Beckett’s application of paralysis ensures his characters’ vulnerability to observation; his people are often so restrained, so literally bound by
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authority, and so self-regulating that they might best be described as deriving their subjectivity from subjection. They are consistently undone by their own self-conscious obsessions. The effects of these obsessions are evident in both the character’s dialogues and their physical confinement. Their limited physicality and consciousness marks them as fragments of beings rather than fully formed “people.” Although these subjects are presented in varying degrees of fragmentation—figures buried up to their necks in earth or urns, disembodied lips, the elderly convalescing in ash cans—Beckett ceaselessly offers clues within the narratives which suggest that these remnant figures retain their corporeal origins. In so doing, Beckett depicts these individuals as corporeally vulnerable; however, there are few revelations within the narratives that illuminate what these subjects may or may not think about their own vulnerability.
17 Whereas Foucault finds that panopticism inevitably extends its reach beyond the prison until it is woven so tightly within the social matrix that liberation from its institutional gaze becomes an impossibility, Beckett demonstrates the aftermath of such constriction—the remnant fragments of self and being, the trace that exists as the only evidence of a potential whole from which the self must remain severed. In Samuel Beckett and the Philosophical Image, Uhlmann asserts: It is not by simple chance that Michel Foucault turns to the works of Samuel Beckett in order to illustrate his ideas [….] Foucault was not alone in developing a set of ideas related to these questions of the subject in France at this time [In Beckett’s work] the critical eye focuses so fiercely on the self that the self disperses and flees, yet rather than the problem of the relation of the self to the work vanishing it becomes diabolically complex. (108-09)
18 Foucault’s work, while providing insights into Beckett’s manipulations of confined bodies and consciousnesses also illustrates the Beckettian challenge to Sartre’s model of existentialism. For Foucault, desire is never pure or purely accessible. This is also true of Beckett, for whom desire may be expunged altogether as the natural world is forever at odds with the emptiness and failings of human consciousness. Certainly, Beckett demonstrates congruence with Sartre’s model of the gaze which paralyzes and objectifies. However, Beckett diverges from this dyad, experimenting with mechanisms that Foucault would later identify as carceral, where violence—even the violence of the subjectifying gaze—is visited upon the body as an object and surveillance governs the body as subject. Foucault sees the objectifying gaze as being internalized. This internalization is productive and economical as it keeps the subject working. Beckett utilizes internalization as a duality between objectification and self-presentation. This is particularly evident in Endgame wherein Clov, who is mobile and could leave, and, in fact, threatens to leave, never does. Instead, he submits himself to do Hamm’s bidding. Whereas Clov is the worker within the cosmos of Endgame, and Hamm sets himself up as warder, even though he is blind and crippled, he has no real control over Clov. Clov epitomizes Foucault’s panoptic subject because he polices himself; he self-regulates. While Foucault embraces subjectivity as necessary for the successful functioning of Power, Beckett presents subjectivity as a site of vulnerability which marks a failure of Power. Foucault sees subjectivity as not only productive but also necessary for production. For Beckett the inverse is true: subjectivity produces nothing.
19 Beckett’s use of incapacitation underscores the play’s theme of repetitious misery wherein the characters remain utterly stuck. Beckett makes no attempt to extract dignity, love, or even a small amount of comfort from the stark nothingness of Endgame’s bleak stage or characters; rather, he allows their handicaps to keep them
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physically and emotionally confined—sentenced to remain partitioned from the world, and in the case of Nell and Nagg, their ash can compartmentalization partitions them from one another. The desolation revealed in the repetitiousness of the perpetual immobilizing forces, which are either thrust upon or adopted by the characters, frames Endgame and mirrors the institutional carcerality of the prison where restrained movement and total confinement are coupled with constant surveillance. Beckett’s version of carcerality in Endgame holds with panoptic discipline and clearly depicts a carceral system wherein no one is really in charge. All of the surveillance in Endgame is self-regulated by the characters, which is ironic, considering that throughout the play the antagonistic self-instilled warder is a blind man who manages to “watch” and regulate everyone and everything around him.
20 Throughout the play, physical disability, such as Hamm’s literal paralysis, is juxtaposed against Clov’s seemingly self-imposed position of paralyzing servitude—and in Clov’s case, a combination of outside (Hamm’s) surveillance and inside or self-surveillance. Not unlike the prison, levels of confinement and surveillance vary within Endgame. Hamm’s wheelchair projects the potential for at least some movement, Clov’s limp merely restricts but does not necessarily confine him, and the compartmentalizing of Nell and Nagg into ash cans bears a striking similarity to the prison and most specifically to the utter enclosure of solitary confinement. Levels of confinement and surveillance vary within Endgame. Foucault reveals that in moving beyond punishment to the system of discipline which remains evident today: The body now serves as an instrument or intermediary: if one intervenes upon it to imprison it, or to make it work, it is in order to deprive the individual of a liberty that is regarded both as a right and as property. The body, according to this penalty, is caught up in a system of constraints and privations, obligations and prohibition. (Foucault 1975, II).
21 Endgame certainly depicts bodies that fall within Foucault’s definition of “instrument or intermediary.” For example, Clov, the only mobile character in the play, completes a constant itinerary of instrumental tasks. Clov is obligated by the incapacity of the others to wait upon them. Most often, Clov simply does as he is told, his servitude prohibiting him from autonomous action. Beckett’s use of this form of disciplined servitude, whereby his characters simply do as they are expected without question or thought to do otherwise, is not far removed from the ideas of self-regulating instrumentation of the subject espoused in Foucault’s chapter on “The means of correct training” wherein he writes: Discipline ‘makes’ individuals; it is the specific technique of a power that regards individuals both as objects and as instruments of its exercise […] the success of disciplinary power derives no doubt from the use of simple instruments [.…]. (170).
22 Foucault describes “hierarchical observation” (170) which when utilized can suppress a group. While Clov is an individual subject, he consistently yields to the hierarchical observations of Hamm. In Aesthetic Nervousness: Disability and the Crisis of Representation, Ato Quayson remarks that impairment and disability in Beckett’s works “[…] bring together an array of different images of corporeality [….]” (57). While the characters in Endgame remain partitioned from one another and whatever may or may not exist beyond their shelter, their collective non-movement presents containment as conditional to as much as a condition of their social system. The characters do lament their respective isolation—Nagg and Nell, for example, strain towards one another, hoping to kiss, but their physical distance prevents them from reaching one another
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(14). However, Hamm, at least, appears suspicious of what or who might exist beyond the confines of their shelter’s walls: “[…] Old wall! Beyond is the … other hell. Closer! Closer! Up Against!” (25-26). This scene mirrors Garcin’s realization in Sartre’s No Exit that “Hell is—other people!” (61). Hamm’s reference to the “other” hell implies that he too equates hell with “Others”. He also functions as a panoptic device as he is the absolute center and all else occurs at a peripheral distance to him. He imposes himself as the central figure by insisting that Clov, who is the only character who can move independently, place him in the physical center, literally center-stage: Hamm: Am I right in the centre? Clov: I’ll measure it. Hamm: More or less! More or less! […] Am I more or less in the centre? Clov: I’d say so. Hamm: You’d say so! Put me right in the center! (26-27)
23 Once satisfied that he is physically positioned in the center, the blind Hamm proceeds to assert a vantage point, but as he cannot see, he can only do so through Clov’s gaze. Hamm demands that Clov “Look at the earth” (27). Hamm’s centrality coupled with the employment of his superficial gaze imposes a Panoptic, prison-like system of surveillance upon the “Other” characters. Although Hamm’s gaze is not a sighted one, he holds such hierarchy over Clov that he can use Clov’s sight as an extension that replaces his own eyes. Such an extension of sight and power exemplifies Foucault’s assertions that “the Panopticon presents a cruel, ingenious, cage” (205), and illustrates how the system of carcerality in Endgame presents a decidedly panoptic mechanism.
24 With Hamm at its center, directing the continuum of non-movement, the stage on which the play is performed becomes the inside or center into which the audience, the outside, concentrates its collective gaze. Like the containment prevalent in the prison, Beckett confines the characters to the socially and psychologically restrictive setting of their shelter. The litmus test for the Panopticon’s effectiveness is its ability to cage and condition the mind into a state of self-regulation; in this way, the “cruel, ingenious cage” controls its subjects. The “control” in Endgame is presented as a mental cage, and the physical constraints endured by the characters ensure that they remain bound within that cage. By inhibiting spatial movement, Beckett frames his characters in such a way that all of their social and physical confines are compartmentally observed by the panoptic gaze of the audience, whose view can only be hindered by props such as Nell and Nagg’s ash cans, Hamm’s handkerchief, and Clov’s retreats to his off-stage kitchen. Physical sight for the characters is either non-existent or restricted. Hamm is blind, Nell and Nagg—whose ash cans are set side-by-side—can “hardly” see one another, and Clov’s vision is poor. Only through the use of a prop—a “telescope”—can Clov turn his gaze onto the audience: Clov: Things are livening up. (He gets up on ladder, raises the telescope, lets it fall.) I did it on purpose. (He gets down, picks up the telescope, turns it on the auditorium.) I see… a multitude… in transports… of joy. That’s what I call a magnifier. (He lowers the telescope, turns it towards Hamm). (29)
25 That Clov can only impose his gaze through the telescope denies him the capacity to see peripherally and implies that while he can extend his gaze, his agency in doing so must be asserted by means of an artificial substitution. This supplementation is not lost on Ato Quayson who observes:
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Hamm’s insistence on knowing what lies outside their desolate room is satisfied by Clov’s spying out the landscape with the telescope, another prosthesis of vision that, significantly, also renders Clov himself dependent to a degree upon a notion of bodily extension. (67).
26 Clov’s incapacities are more ambiguous than the ailments of the others. He can walk, although it is with a stiff limp and while he is the only character who is able to independently move about, he is physically unable to sit. From the very opening lines of Endgame, Clov communicates that he longs for an end: “Finished, it’s finished, nearly finished, it must be nearly finished […] I can’t be punished any more […]” (1). That Clov defines himself as “being punished” signifies that he senses his own confinement. Beckett depicts Clov as irrevocably stuck in a self-perpetuating cycle of carcerality; one in which the characters’ compliance with their own subjectivity manifests as a mental bind, as evidenced through their self-regulation, rather than a punitive one. While physically able to leave, he remains trapped because he fears leaving and therefore ensures that his condemnation to the punishment he so grievously laments is never “finished.”
27 Foucault’s explanation that punishment and correction “are processes that effect a transformation of the individual as a whole—of his body and of his habits by the daily work that he is forced to perform, of his mind and of his will [.…] The prison […] will at the same time be a machine for altering minds” (Foucault 1975, 125) illuminates Clov’s self-regulating state of confinement. Clov, not unlike a machine, is constantly at task. Beckett presents Clov’s mind and will as cycling, almost mechanically, through a litany of tasks which seem habitual. Just as the functions of a machine must be regulated by some outside operator, Clov’s movements are regulated by Hamm’s manipulations. Effectually, Clov’s “punished” state signifies as a machine-like process that is partly supervised by Hamm and partly self-regulated. Thereby, Beckett situates Clov as the embodiment of a machine which allows for a comic portrayal of Clov’s pseudo-tragic confinement.
28 Beckett portrays the characters in Endgame as suffering, and in doing so, he initiates a sociological commentary on the social dysfunction of passive compliance because in Endgame the characters are aware that they suffer, but they do not aspire to improve their suffering; rather, they seem resolved, as demonstrated by Clov, to improve at suffering “I say to myself—sometimes, Clov you must learn to suffer better than that if you want them to weary of punishing you—one day” (80). Why Nell and Nagg dwell in garbage cans is never addressed, but the fact that they are stored as one would store refuse is more than just a device Beckett employs to visually assail Endgame’s audience. Beckett’s use of debilitated or incapacitated characters ensures their further surveillance. Even though Hamm cannot see, he cannot avoid being looked at. While he externalizes his version of a gaze through Clov, he is simultaneously subjected to the formalizing gaze of the spectator, including Clov. Hamm’s blindness binds him as he cannot gaze back, sealing him within a static framework of immobility. Likewise, the compartmentalization of Nell and Nagg corresponds to the isolating confinement of prison cells. The similarities between the panoptic prison and the Endgame stage are evident if we recall Foucault’s description of the panoptical cells, designed to hold within them “a madman [Hamm], a patient [Nell], a condemned man [Nagg], a worker [Clov]” (Foucault 1975, 200). Beckett’s portrayal of these confined individuals mirrors the historio-sociological approach to the prison wherein Foucault reminds “the discipline-blockade, the enclosed institution, established in the edges of society, turned
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inward toward negative functions: arresting evil […] At first, they were expected to neutralize dangers, to fix useless or disturbed populations […]” (Foucault 209-10). Regardless of Beckett’s intent for the characters, the partitioning of Nell and Nagg serves, at the very least, as a microscope through which the audience can glimpse society’s treatment of the old, disabled, and infirm.
29 Rather than expand his characterizations in Endgame, Beckett whittles them down to their essence and invites the audience to imagine the scarcity of contact and incapacitation that his characters endure. Hamm complains: “That’s right. Me to play […] You weep, and weep, for nothing, so as not to laugh, and little by little […] you begin to grieve [….]” (68). Even the punishments endured by the characters are depicted as “natural” or, at the very least, second nature to them. He portrays Hamm as the “technical” overseer, endowing him with the ‘technical’ ability to discipline the others, particularly as Hamm has the combination to the larder, which gives him the ability to ration out or withhold food. In “Trying to Understand Endgame,” Theodor W. Adorno defines Endgame’s “abstract domination” as reflective of concentration camps— the dark side of human nature, “the domination of nature which destroys itself” (145). Here, again, “nature” is placed in terms of carcerality where either dominating nature or being dominated by nature paradoxically produces the same result: the destruction of nature. If this is the case, then it is arguable that Hamm’s central dominant position, his “nature,” forms the catalyst which dismantles his and, consequently, the “Other” characters’ world. Adorno states Endgame occupies the nadir of what philosophy’s construction of the subject-object confiscated at its zenith: pure identity becomes the identity of annihilation, identity of subject and object in the state of complete alienation (128).
30 The character Nell, whose life is reduced to peeking her head out of the top of the ash can she lives in, is the virtual embodiment of “the identity of alienation,” but she jests at her predicament, stating “Nothing is funnier than unhappiness [.…]” (18). Her comment contrasts humor against the dismal setting in which she lives. Adorno postulates that Beckett’s Endgame exists as “an expression of meaning’s absence” (126). A sense of hopelessness within what Adorno calls its “organized meaninglessness” prevails in Endgame; as he states, “the prison of individuation is revealed as a prison and simultaneously as mere semblance” (127). The characters in Endgame, while partitioned from the world that may or may not exist just beyond the views of the earth and the ocean that at least Clov can take in, remain in every way stuck. They are bound to their place on the stage, constrained by debility, and confined to mutual subjugation.
31 Beckett continues to experiment with precepts of surveillance, incapacity and confinement in later plays. Perhaps the ash cans that contain Nell and Nagg in Endgame inspired the confining mound of earth in Happy Days. Throughout the play, Beckett’s protagonist Winnie remains implanted within the inescapable mound. The play opens with Winnie, asleep, hunched over the ground, buried to her waist within a mound of earth. A bell rings, according to the stage directions, “piercingly, say ten seconds, stops. She does not move. Pause. Bell more piercingly, say five seconds. She wakes. Bell stops” (275). The piercing quality of the bell as described in Beckett’s stage directions gives the impression that the sound should mimic an institutional or industrial ring not unlike the bell ringing in a school that directs students to move through its hallways, or perhaps a factory buzzer that rings at the beginning and ending of a work shift, or the clamoring bell that rings in a prison whenever a security or cell door opens. Like the
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characters in Endgame, Winnie also suffers from a physical malady. She starts off examining herself, inspecting the skin of her arms: “Ah well, no worse. No better, no worse, no change. No pain. Perhaps a shade off colour just the same” (278) and then rummages through her shopping variety bag to retrieve a revolver—which she kisses. Next, she pulls a near-empty bottle of medicine from her bag, pulls the bottle to her lips and swigs back the last drop. Satisfied that she has used the last drop of pain reliever, she pitches the empty bottle over her shoulder. It lands at a distance behind her, and as Winnie cannot turn in that direction, any relief of her pain is cast away— literally behind her (278). Winnie’s partner Willie is, like Clov, able to move about, but not without physical limitation. Beckett restricts Willie’s movements to crawling between his hole and Winnie’s mound. Unlike Clov, however, Willie does very little to aid his counterpart and barely speaks. Still, Winnie frets over what her life would become without Willie: “If you were to die […] or go away and leave me, then what would I do, what could I do, all day long, I mean between the bell for waking and the bell for sleep?” (282). From Winnie’s confined position, she can lead only a simplified existence: sleeping, waking, rummaging through her bag, cataloguing her things, brushing her hair and teeth and talking to Willie. She wonders, “Perhaps some day the earth will yield and let me go, the pull is so great, yes, crack all around me and let me out” (289). However, the second act opens with “Winnie imbedded up to neck…. Her head, which she can no longer turn, nor bow, nor raise, faces motionless throughout the act” (299). Again Winnie is summoned by the bell, but this time she expresses her resentment of the clamor and with her pain reliever gone, she laments her pain: The bell. [Pause.] It hurts like a knife. [Pause.] A gouge. [Pause.] One cannot ignore it. [Pause.] How often…[pause]…I say how often I have said, Ignore it, Winnie, ignore the bell, pay no heed, just sleep and wake, sleep and wake, as you please, open and close the eyes, as you please…. (302).
32 The bell holds sway over Winnie’s waking and sleeping. While the bell lacks a panoptic “eye,” it nevertheless functions as an apparatus of surveillance in that its ringing dictates the terms by which Winnie conducts her daily routine.
33 Winnie, who is in every way a prisoner, remains powerless to exact her freedom at the close of the play. Her imprisoned state is reminiscent of the solitary confinement of early prisons, which, ironically, inmates referred to as being sent to the hole. In “What Can a Foucauldian Analysis Contribute to Disability Theory?” Bill Hughes remarks, “The central contradiction of the human body is this: it is simultaneously a potential source of our enslavement and of our freedom” (89), and while Hughes may be correct in asserting that “Foucault would not see the body in these dialectical terms” (89), I would argue that Beckett certainly does. Hughes insists that “For Foucault, the body does not act in and on the world; rather, the body is docile” (86), and while Winnie’s passivity and resignation to her plight exemplifies docile compliance, Beckett weaves hints within her dialogue which suggest a bodily potential: I used to perspire freely. [Pause.] Now hardly at all. [Pause.] The heat is much greater. [Pause.] The perspiration much less. [Pause.] That is what I find so wonderful. [Pause.] The way man adapts himself. [Pause.] To changing conditions. (290)
34 That Winnie recognizes her body’s adaptation to her physical confinement suggests that Beckett does indeed see the human body as a potential source of either enslavement or of freedom. For Winnie, while her body continues to function, she will inevitably remain entrapped, enslaved to linger in her half-life within the mound, but
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her body’s adaptation to her entrapment, the eventual failure of her body, and ultimately the death of her body will facilitate her escape. For Winnie, the only way to freedom remains, quite literally, through her body.
35 As the bell for waking rings at the start of Act II, Winnie’s response at waking changes significantly from that in Act I, wherein she quips, “Another heavenly day” (275), to Act II’s almost prayerful, “Hail, holy light. Someone is looking at me still. Caring for me still” (300). While “Hail, holy light” mirrors the opening lines to the third book of Milton’s “Paradise Lost,3” here, Winnie’s narration takes on clear subject/object overtones. That she is hailing the light and referring to it as holy suggests that she now holds what she earlier called “Hellish light” (277) in some sort of reverence. Winnie’s sense that “Someone is looking at me still” implies that she is mindful of her own subjectivity. She considers herself an object of holy surveillance. That is not to say that Winnie thinks of that which observes her as having a divine origin, only that she recognizes herself at wholly surveilled—observed in every sense. Taking Beckett’s sense of humor into account, the line “Someone is looking at me still” also serves as a double- entendre, suggesting that at the start of the second act, the audience—a veritable group of someone’s, is still looking at Winnie. Beckett thus portrays Winnie as struggling with her own crisis of identity: “To have always been what I am—and so changed from what I was. [Pause.] I am the one, I say the one, then the other [....] My arms. [Pause.] My breasts. [Pause.] What arms? [Pause.] What breasts?” (300). Winnie expresses her frustration at her resounding physical lack by itemizing what remains: The face. [Pause.] The nose. I can see it… [squinting down]… the tip… the nostrils… breath of life… that curve you so admired [Pause.] a hint of lip… if I pout them out… [sticks out tongue] … the tongue of course… you so admired… if I stick it out … suspicion of a brow… eyebrow… imagination possibly… [eyes left] … cheek… no.… That is all. (301)
36 The more Winnie suffers the confinement of her physical body, the more emphasis she places on what remains free. Winnie never loses sight of what she has retained: “I have not lost my reason,” Winnie insists, adding, “Not yet. [Pause.] Not all. [Pause.] Some remains” (302).
37 Toward the end of the second act, Winnie’s entrapment leaves her unable to do anything but speak. However, this presents a conflict for Winnie. She announces, “I can do no more. [Pause.] Say no more. [Pause.] But I must say more. [Pause.] Problem here” (305). The narrative illustrates a paradox that is problematic for Winnie: she has no more to say, yet she must say more. Winnie’s assertion that she must say more implies that she feels compelled or coerced to speak her speech—a condition which must be categorized as forced speech. By her own admission, she cannot speak; she has no more to say. Yet, by virtue of her confinement and the constant gaze of the holy light under which she is wholly surveilled, Winnie must speak. Foucault’s illustration of the Panopticon offers a frame of reference from which to consider Winnie’s compulsion to speak. She enthusiastically polices herself to comply, despite her confinement. Of course, she has little other option: Beckett offers her no other alternative for expression beyond discourse. As the second act winds to a close, Winnie asks, “Does anything remain? [Pause.] Any remains? [Pause.] No?” (306). Beckett leaves Winnie to endure a state of gridlocked stasis that will, inevitably, swallow her up. Despite Winnie’s attempts to adapt to her confinement, she has no real control. As her physical body slips deeper within its earthen cell, Winnie is caught in a state of unattainable longing, signifying Beckett’s position that these indignities can only be understood in
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light of subjectivity’s impossible yearnings. Throughout Happy Days we are continually reminded that the need for wholeness and reconciliation may be as pernicious as the lack of them. This is particularly evident in Winnie’s closing words. Unable to choose between oblivion and a desire for reparation, she quips, “pray your old prayer, Winnie” (297).
38 The figures in Play, which are far more otherworldly than the characters in Endgame and Happy Days, suffer a level of incapacity and captivity which mirrors Winnie’s entrapment by virtue of the urns in which they are implanted. Beckett’s stage directions instruct that the urns be placed quite specifically: Front centre, touching one another, three identical grey urns of about one yard high. From each a head protrudes, the neck held fast in the urn’s mouth. The heads are those, from left to right as seen from auditorium, of W 2, M and W 1. They face undeviatingly front throughout the play. Faces so lost to age and aspect as to seem almost part of the urns. (355)
39 The subjects in Play are trapped bodily and also in a stream of memory, wherefrom they issue a constant verbal regurgitation of moments from their past selves. While they are animate, they seem to have passed from the realm of the living. The method by which they are interred casts a hellish pallor that announces the insignificance of their bodies. The trio is encased, save from the neck up, within urns that trap them in a punitive stasis from which “They face undeviatingly front throughout the play. Faces so lost to age and aspect as to seem almost part of urns” (354). The psychological entanglement between the three stems from a love-triangle-fueled-suicide that culminates in their purgatorial present. The partitioning of the subjects in Play punctuates their imprisoned status. Not unlike prisoners, the trio presents a collective—sharing a sentence, surveilled by the light to which they must respond and self-surveilling—Are you listening to me? Is anyone listening to me? Is anyone looking at me? Is anyone bothering about me at all? (362)—in what might best be described as a communal cognitive fracture. Disembodied by virtue of their imprisonment within the urns, the figures present mere fragments of physicality. Their disjunctive narrations underscore their physical segregation. Like prisoners, the trio are separated, yet confined only a short distance from one another. Unlike Winnie and Willie, however, Beckett does not allow for the three to interact with one another. Although they are constantly speaking, there is no discourse between them, and whether or not the trio is at all aware of one another remains unknowable throughout Play. In Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason, Foucault reasons that: The substitution of a theme of madness for that of death does not mark a break, but rather a torsion within the same anxiety. What is in question is still the nothingness of existence, but this nothingness is no longer considered an external, final term, both threat and conclusion; it is experienced from within as the continuous and constant form of existence. (16)
40 Here, Foucault’s comparison between madness and death provides an avenue from which to explore the confinement of Beckett’s subjects in Play. Clearly, the trio in Play no longer has the option of experiencing external relationships or livelihoods. They are caught within a system which prevents them from any external pursuit. The “nothingness of existence” that the trio endure is, in every respect, “experienced from within”as their respective woes can only be experience internally. All of their experiences must now take place “from within” the confines of their urns, and their
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imprisonment ensures that their respective anxieties form a “continuous and constant form of existence.” Like a child placed on temporary restriction, (M) considers his external life—the “that” he refers to his life as having been—and wonders at the “this” (the present moment) within which he is trapped: “I know now, all that was just… play. And all this? When will all this—[.…] All this, when will all this have been…just play?” (361). (M)’s questioning suggests some awareness on his part that that led to this. However, (M) minimizes any culpability for his part in that—that which led to suicide and led to this—maintaining that “ was just…play“.
41 In The History of Sexuality, Volume 1, An Introduction, Michel Foucault discusses what he refers to as “the policing of statements” (qtd. in Norton 1648). Foucault ruminates on how the policing of statements regarding sexuality or sexual practices leads to an “incitement to discourse” meant to counterbalance the increase in sexual discourse (1648-49). Foucault deals specifically with discourses spawned from instances of infraction—breaches that instigated discourses of confession, discourses which required restrained language: “But while the language may have been refined, the scope of the confession—the confession of the flesh—continually increased” (1649). While the discourse of confession leads to self-reflection, for the system of confession to yield the fruit of its intended purpose, it should inspire penance: [I]t attributed more and more importance in penance […] to all the insinuations of the flesh: thoughts, desires, voluptuous imaginings, delectations, combined movements of the body and the soul […] everything had to be told. (1649)
42 Not unlike prisoners, within Play’s trio none take responsibility for how they conducted themselves prior to their confinement, but they readily recount one another’s faults. They readily confess, to borrow Foucault’s terms, “all the insinuations of the flesh: thoughts, desires, voluptuous imaginings” and “delectations” of their love triangle. However, where Foucault points to penance as the counterpoint to confession, Beckett diverges: the subjects in Play confess, but they do not repent, nor do they atone for their sexual infractions. By separating the trio into urns, alienating their discourses and sundering them from their external lives or the “that” that led to “this”, Beckett partitions the love triangle three ways: they are physically trapped, cannot interact, and have no existence beyond their constraints. While they appear somewhat conscious, somewhat aware of their constrained stasis, Beckett excises them and their respective narrations from any hint of conscience. Like prisoners refusing to confess, the three remain in the purgation of their binds, unrepentant despite their interrogation.
43 The carceral imagery and surveilling constructs that are woven within Beckett’s works offer counterpoints of intersection when considered alongside both Sartre’s and Foucault’s theories of subjectivity. Indeed, Sartrean and Foucauldian themes are inextricably bound together in some of Beckett’s major works. Within Beckett we see the objectifying Sartrean gaze appropriated and transformed. Beckett’s theater both utilizes and diverges from Sartre’s centralized subject/object configurations which see no possibility of the subject escaping the formalizing, objectifying gaze. Sartre emphasizes exteriority of the subject, requiring the gaze to be reflected back between subjects. In contrast, in Beckett’s theater seeing does not guarantee being seen, as is exemplified in Happy Days wherein Winnie hails the “holy” light she assumes is watching her even though she has no evidence that it does. Similarly, in Play the three
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urn-interred subjects wonder at the spot that blinks on and off like an eye observing them, asking “Am I as much… as being seen?” (366). The scrutinizing light which exists in both Happy Days and Play is an intensification of the Sartrean gaze, and, certainly, in Play the interrogative quality of the light presents an enacted version of the all powerful gaze.
44 Beckett frames the dissolution of the subject as the construct that ultimately frees his characters from subjectivity. Understanding the carceral, restrictive, and debilitating formations vital to the structure of Beckett’s plays is enhanced by careful application of Foucault’s concepts of carcerality and panoptic surveillance. However, in exploring Beckett’s use of surveillance, we must also question at what point the discomfort of being objectified by the Other becomes the spur of subjectivity in the Panoptic system. Beckett’s appropriation of both the Panoptic model and the Sartrean gaze might most fittingly be described as a willful embrace of the precondition of Sartrean subjectivity. Beckett never totally abandons Sartrean concepts; however, as he takes on the discomfort and paralysis of the Sartrean model of dueling gazes, he also moves more toward the kinds of surveilling constructs that would later prove central to Foucault’s Panoptic model. In this way, Beckett’s use of surveillance and carceral formations anticipates the works of Michel Foucault. Like Sartre and Foucault, Beckett constructs for our careful deliberation a mirror of the prisons in which we daily position and reposition ourselves.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Abbott, H. Porter. “Tyranny and Theatricality: The Example of Samuel Beckett.” Theatre
Journal: 40: 1 (Mar., 1988): 77-87.
Adorno, Theordor W. “Trying to Understand Endgame. ”New German Critique: An
Interdisciplinary Journal of German Studies (NGC) 26 (Spring-Summer. 1982): 119-50.
Beckett, Samuel. Dramatic Works. Ed. Paul Auster. Grove Centenary ed. vol. 3. New York: Grove, 2006.
---. “The Lost Ones.”The Complete Short Prose, 1929-1989. Ed. S.E. Gontarski. New York: Grove, 1995.
Begam, Richard. Samuel Beckett and the End of Modernity. Palo Alto: Stanford, 1996.
Deleuze, Gilles. “The Exhausted.”SubStance. vol. 24, No. 3, Issue 78 (1995): 3-28.
Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. 1975. Trans. Alan Sheridan. Second Vintage Books ed. New York: Random House, 1995.
---. Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason. New York: Vintage, 1988.
---. The Birth of the Clinic: An Archaeology of Medical Perception. 1973. Trans. A.M. Sheridan Smith. New York: Vintage, 1994.
---. The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences. New York: Vintage, 1994.
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---. Qtd in The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. The History of Sexuality, vol. 1, An Introduction. Ed. Vincent B. Leitch. New York: Norton, 2001. 1648-66.
Huges, Bill. “What Can a Foucauldian Analysis Contribute to Disability Theory?” Foucault and the Government of Disability. Ed. Shelley Tremain. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005.
Quayson, Ato. ”Samuel Beckett: Disability as Hermeneutical Impasse." Aesthetic Nervousness: Disability and the Crisis of Representation. New York: Columbia UP, 2007. 54-85.
Sartre, Jean-Paul. Being and Nothingness. New York: Washington Square, 1956. Print.
---. No Exit and The Flies. New York: Knopf, 1946.
Uhlmann, Anthony. Beckett and Poststructuralism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
---. Samuel Beckett and the Philosophical Image. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
NOTES
1. 1 Refers to Sartre’s No Exit, wherein Garcin recognizes that he has been eternally condemned to endure the scrutinizing, unblinking gazes of Estelle and Inez, proclaiming, “Hell is--other people!” (Sartre 61). 2. In “Tyranny and Theatricality: The Example of Samuel Beckett,” H. Porter Abbott articulates the actor’s plight in undertaking one of Beckett’s roles: “Beckett is famous for his exactitude, for the precise realization of his will on stage. One should keep in mind, moreover, what Beckett does to his actors. He ties ropes around their necks and crams them in urns. He ties them to rockers. He buries them in sand under hot blinding lights and gives them impossible scripts to read at breakneck speed[....]” (Abbott, 82). 3. The third book of Milton’s Paradise Lost opens with: “HAIL, holy Light, offspring of Heaven first-born!/Or of the Eternal coeternal beam/May I express thee unblamed? since God is light,...” (John Milton, Complete Poems, The Harvard Classics, 1909–14).
ABSTRACTS
Beckett’s utilization of subjectivity is directly linked to his excavation of the carceral, restrictive, and debilitating formations which are vital to the structure of his plays. His preoccupation with confined bodies is expressed across multiple dramatic texts and the characters of Endgame, Happy Days, and Play are forced to endure such strictures to varying degrees. The carcerality imposed by or upon the characters in these plays is central to Beckett’s development of the dramatic trajectory of repetition, confinement, constraint, and immobility and, I argue, this demonstrates how Beckett’s drama utilizes subjectivity in a way that both engages and resists Sartrean themes. Beckett’s partitioning of the subject and the dispersal of the self bears striking resemblances to Michel Foucault’s work. This article parses panoptic constructions with Beckett’s portrayals of subjectivity, fragmentation, and debilitated physicality to establish how his treatment of subjectivity anticipates Foucault’s explorations of carcerality.
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L'utilisation de la subjectivité par Beckett est directement liée à son archéologie des formations carcérales, restrictives et débilitantes qui sont essentielles à la structure de ses pièces. L'obsession beckettienne des corps confinés est exprimée dans de nombreux textes dramatiques tels que Endgame, Jours Heureux, et Jouer, dont les personnages sont contraints de supporter ces restrictions à des degrés divers. La carcéralité imposée par ou sur les personnages de ces pièces est cruciale dans le développement de la trajectoire dramatique de répétition, de confinement, de contrainte, et d'immobilité. Cet article s’attachera donc à démontrer comment le théâtre de Beckett utilise la subjectivité de façon à ce qu’une fois confrontée à la carcéralité les deux concepts dialoguent et résistent à leur interprétation sartrienne. En outre, la division du sujet et la dispersion de l’être chez Beckett présentent des similitudes avec les travaux de Michel Foucault. Cet article se donne pour but d’analyser les constructions panoptiques que sont les portraits beckettiens d’une subjectivité fragmentée et d’une faiblesse physique, et d’établir comment un tel traitement du sujet anticipe les explorations foucaldiennes de la carcéralité.
INDEX
Keywords: Beckettian, carceral, consciousness, critical theory, drama, imprisonment, confinement, restriction, subjectivity, immobility, incapacity, panopticon, postmodern, partitioning, poststructuralism, theatre Mots-clés: beckettien, carcéral, consciousness, théorie critique, drame, emprisonnement, détention, restriction, subjectivité, immobilité, incapacité, panopticon, partitionnement, postmoderne, poststructuralisme, théâtre
AUTHORS
VICTORIA SWANSON Ph.D. Graduate Teaching Associate University of Tennessee, Knoxville [email protected]
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“From Inner to Outer Shadow”: Reading the Obscure Object of Anxiety in the “Dramaticules” of Samuel Beckett
Arka Chattopadhyay
The fact that what is threatening is nowhere characterizes what Angst is about. Angst ˈdoes not know’ what it is about which it is anxious… It is so near that it is oppressive and stifles one’s breath—and yet it is nowhere (Heidegger 1996, 186).
1 Be it Molloy’s line “To restore silence is the role of objects” (Beckett 2006, 09) or Beckett’s famous quip about his last stage-work What Where: “I don’t know what it means. Don’t ask me what it means. It’s an object” (Gussow 1996, 42) or better still, the infinite inventories of little objects in Watt and The Trilogy, “object” is almost a privileged term in Beckett’s works. What makes the term privileged is the position of the “object” precisely on the line which distinguishes presence from absence and inside from outside. From as early as Waiting for Godot, the presence-absence binary and its deconstruction have been central to commentaries on his theatre. To re-phrase a fundamental philosophical question in this context is to ask: why is there some-thing instead of no-thing on Beckett’s stage? The existentialist notion of nothingness has been the prevalent critical grid to tackle these issues in Beckett’s theatre. But, the question I would like to pose in this article is precisely the opposite: does Beckett’s theatre at all show nothingness? I would argue that it is precisely the impossibility of this nothingness that Beckett is concerned with in his works in general and especially in his theatrical works. In the theatrical medium, this trace of presence in the form of an obscure, unreadable and enigmatic object located at the edge of absence, resisting the absolute void, assumes a new dimension in the performance. As I hope to show here, Beckett seems to theatrically ground this obscure object principally through his onstage-offstage dialectic. There cannot be absolute nothingness in theatre. To show nothing on stage, one has to turn it into something. But in Beckett, the obscure object is not some-thing which would be used as a way of showing no-thing. Instead, the object has a spectral presence of something which annuls the supposition of nothing by
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virtue of its being located in the nothing itself. Beckett’s theatre appropriates this abstract philosophical problem at the level of the medium and translates it into a practical philosophy of performance.
2 In Breath, a play which lasts for 35 seconds in Beckett’s stage directions (Beckett 2003, 371), there are many things scattered on the stage and a recorded “vagitus” and breath off it. In a play like this, which apparently depicts the nothingness of human existence in as little as 35 seconds, Beckett loads the stage with a strictly horizontal rubbish-heap [“No verticals” in his instructions] (Beckett 2003, 371). The stage-image of the waste and its auditory counterpart offstage constitute the obscure object in Breath. This trace of an object is the remainder of presence in absence. The liminal and fading nature of the trace is further highlighted by Beckett’s prescribed lighting where the faint light increases and decreases systematically with the breath and the cry.
3 Commenting on Beckett’s works in Acts of Literature, Jacques Derrida talks about “this remainder which remains when the thematics is exhausted” (Derrida 1992, 61). Derrida seems to pitch this remainder on a structural level, pitting it against the exhaustion of thematics. It is also crucial to note that he relates this remainder in Beckett with a certain kind of “nihilism” which is both interior to and in the beyond of “metaphysics” (Derrida 1992, 61). This is what prompts the powerful contradiction—“He (Beckett) is nihilist and he is not nihilist” (Derrida 1992, 61). It is not the bland aura of an unproblematic affirmation which has the power to counter nihilism. Nihilism can only be countered through nihilism itself. Beckett’s systematic impoverishment uncovers the impossibility of nothingness. In his own words, it is like saying “the no against the nothingness” (Gontarski 1992, xiii). The question organizes itself around that which remains in Beckett—the “unnullable least” (Beckett 1989, 118) of Worstward Ho which resists the totalization of annulment. This faded and obscured trace of a real object beyond the immediate mise-en-scene operates like an interstice between presence and absence. Though Beckett’s art approaches this inassimilable remainder in all the genres he writes in, I would argue, it is the spatial dynamic of theatrical representation, which suits this most perfectly.
4 The quest for the obscure object is enabled by Beckett’s bold encounter with the limits of theatrical representation and his ability to push the nihilistic topos to its point of self-collapse. I would relate this to the way the psychoanalytic thought of Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan has grappled with this obscure disembodied object in its conceptualization of “anxiety”. Heidegger’s line from Being and Time, which I have used as an epigraph to this article, marks the same tension between “nowhere” and “everywhere” as the locus of the object of “angst”, as distinct from “fear”. Beckett’s late-works in theatre explore this immanent object in relation to a condition of anxiety which not only shapes human experience in between the object and the objectless but accentuates the same problematic at the core of theatrical experience. As Alain Badiou observes, to continue not only when it is possible but also when it is impossible to continue is the imperative of all art (Badiou 2006). Anxiety is no mere despair. It only contributes to this impossible continuity.
5 In Simon Critchley’s succinct summary, Heidegger’s point is that “[i]f fear is fearful of something in particular and determinate, then anxiety is anxious about nothing in particular and is indeterminate” (Critchley 2009). But the crucial detail is that it is “being-in-the world” that causes anxiety in the form of an ontological attunement and thus the “nowhere” and “nothing” of anxiety is also an “everywhere” and an
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“everything”. In Lecture XXV (entitled ‘Anxiety’) of ‘General Theory of The Neuroses’, Freud states—“I think ˈAngstˈ relates to the state and disregards the object, while ‘Frucht’ (fear) draws attention precisely to the object” (Freud 2001, 395). As opposed to “realistic anxiety” which definitely has an object, Freud considers “neurotic anxiety” to be objectless. It is anxiety in the face of void. From an early theory of anxiety as excessive and unsatisfied libidinal energy, Freud kept returning to the question of anxiety, throughout his career. To him, anxiety was a “nodal point” (Freud 2001, 393) of psychoanalysis.
6 From the Otto Rankian theory of anxiety as a “reproduction of the trauma of birth” (Freud 2001, 133), the separation from the mother and castration to “the return of the repressed” causing the “uncanny”—there are multiple paradigms of a Freudian theory of anxiety and important revisions such as Freud’s reformulation of the causal relation between repression and anxiety. In his final and definitive text on anxiety, ‘Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety’, Freud says—“It was anxiety which produced repression and not, as I formerly believed, repression which produced anxiety” (Freud 2001, 109). In the same essay, Freud makes the absolutely crucial statement that the “ego is the actual seat of anxiety” (Freud 2001, 140) but then he also says that often the processes causing the ego-anxiety get going in the id only. The contribution of the id to the process of anxiety-generation is an important nuance in Freud since it looks forward to Lacan’s focalization of the Real in redefining anxiety. The order of the Real, in Lacan’s conceptualization, goes beyond the Imaginary trappings of the ego. If the id is closer to the true locus of the unconscious than the ego or the super-ego in Freud’s topology, in Lacan’s [especially in his later-teachings], the Real, despite all its impossibility, is closer to the true unconscious than the Imaginary or the Symbolic order.
7 In Seminar 10 ˈL’angoisseˈ [ˈAnxietyˈ] delivered in the years 1962-63, Lacan seizes on Freud’s sentence in the ˈAddendaˈ to ˈInhibitions, Symptoms and Anxietyˈ—“[…] it is anxiety about something. It has a quality of indefiniteness and lack of object” (Freud 2001, 165). He reads this sentence in a different way so as to observe that there is indeed an object of anxiety. It is anxiety about a lacking object or what Lacan calls “object a”. In his contradictory figuration, anxiety dawns “when the lack is lacking” (Lacan 1962-63, III-12). Anxiety is the lack of a lack and its object is a part-object, not fully symbolized. In the sixth session of the seminar, Lacan says that the special object of anxiety is related to “the grill of the cut, the furrow, of the unary trait” (Lacan 1962-3, VI-6). Here, he seems to allude to the notion of the “signifying cut” (Lacan 2002, 709). It is a cut of language that divides the subject while locating him in language and alienates “das Ding” or what Lacan also calls “l’a-chose” or “the a-thing”. With the foundation of the human subject in language, the Real [where “das Ding” or the thing is located]is lost forever and what the subject gains is the Symbolic register of language. So, at the heart of language is this pure loss—“[…] the dumb reality which is das Ding” (Lacan 1997, 55). All subjects are thus barred subjects in the sense that they are barred by the cut of language. In Lacan’s definition, a signifier represents the subject for another signifier (Lacan 2002, 708).
8 The Real, in Lacan, is this impossible beyond of language. It is the thingness of the thing or the objectality of the object. It can never be expressed through language. The ‘object a’ in the Lacanian schema, is located at the point of intersection of the Real, the Imaginary and the Symbolic and thus partakes of all three. In the sixth session of Seminar 10, Lacan also calls anxiety that very cut which renders thinkable “the
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presence of the signifier, its functioning, its entry, its furrow in the real” (Lacan 1962-3, VI-7). The furrow of the signifier in the Real relates back to the pre-subjective constitution of “das Ding” by the “caput mortuum” of the signifier in the Real order (Lacan 2002, 43). This constitution can only be a logical presupposition since there is no subjective record of this original ontological experience. One has to presuppose this from the lifelong repetitions of symbolic constitution. There is something that happens in the always already existing order of the Real by way of a rupture. Then the dead letters, always already there in the Real, come to constitute or brace the hole created by the rupture. This symbolic constitution of the lack preserves it. To make use of Lacan’s own example, when a potter makes a pot, he preserves the hole or the lack in the pot by constructing the rim around it.
9 At the end of Seminar 22, titled RSI, Lacan calls anxiety “the naming of the Real” (Lacan 1974-5, 72). All speech and writing, in his thought, is a repetitive and compulsive act of constituting the hole through which signifiers originate. However, it is also an act of inevitable failure since all of the Real can never be symbolized or named. Alain Badiou, in his book Theory of the Subject, evokes an economy of the Real while dealing with the Lacanian concept of anxiety: “Now as far as anxiety is concerned, it is from the point of view of the real in excess” (Badiou 2009, 146). He continues: Anxiety is the submersion by the real, the radical excess of the real over the lack, the active failure of the whole apparatus of symbolic support provoked by what reveals itself therein, in a cut, as unnameable encounter (Badiou 2009, 146).
10 What is important in Badiou’s analysis of Lacanian anxiety is the prescription of economizing the Real and thus trying to avoid both extremes—too much of the Real and too little of the Real. The Beckettian process of subtraction is imbued with courage, in Badiou’s sense of the term. This courageous labour of minimalism aims at making the encounter with the Real, economical and bearable.
11 In the tenth session of Seminar 10, Lacan clarifies—“[…] there is no lack in the real; the lack is only graspable through the mediation of the symbolic” (Lacan 1962-3, X-2). This mediation takes place through constitution. It is when this constitution fails and the signifiers cannot “presentify what is not there” (Lacan 1962-3, X-2), that the lack itself becomes lacking. It is at this point that the Real is glimpsed through the lacking object a. The lacking lack of anxiety is thus not “an absence which the symbol can make up for” (Lacan 1962-3, X-5). Freud seems to anticipate this Real of anxiety in “The ‘Uncanny’” when he says that anxiety can be caused when “a symbol takes over the full functions of the thing it symbolizes” (Freud 2003, 43) or in other words when there is no distinction between the symbol and the thing or in still more radical terms, when the symbol becomes the thing.
12 I would argue that in Beckett’s later plays, he is concerned with the glimpsing of this Real of performance i.e. performance on the edge. The real object of anxiety is always an elsewhere and the ethic of admission drives his characters to express this paradoxical object of anxiety which is there and not there at the same time. The Real absence and the insistently overdetermined Symbolic presence of Godot is only an anticipation of things to come. In the later plays, the import of the offstage and the darkened and absentified areas of the stage in Beckett’s minimalist lighting hold on to the interstitial point. His figures keep pushing the limits of the Symbolic, peeping into the Real. The stage-image keeps backtracking onto the void of the offstage. But the
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reinforcement comes in a loaded offstage through auditory transmissions of recorded voices, tantalizing objects and tools that control the stage spectacle.
13 In the Prologue to his book The Psycho-Analytic Reading of Tragedy, André Green identifies the edge of the stage with the edge of representation. The edge of the stage is where the spectator’s look has to stop and reflect itself back on to the onlooker himself. This returning gaze from the edge of the stage observes the spectator. It is a Lacanian notion of the gaze where the look of the subject is returned by the gaze of the object. Green says that this gaze is an invitation to transgress the edge of the stage “through its link with the invisible space off-stage” (Green 1994, 43). He adds—“The space off- stage frames this ˈblankˈ of the stage on which the action is inscribed” (Green 1994, 22). The role of the off-stage space is vital in the “Dramaticules” of Beckett. It is the offstage which inscribes the obscure object of anxiety, neither here nor there or both nowhere and everywhere, as Heidegger would say.
14 From Alain Robbe-Grillet’s early essay “Presence in Theatre” to Shimon Levy’s article “The Poetics of Offstage”, the offstage has been a talking point in Beckett-criticism. But both Robbe-Grillet and Levy tend to relate the offstage to absolute nothingness or non- being. Levy is correct in saying that in the “Dramaticules”, the offstage takes over and starts to suck in that which is on stage, but he misses the subtler point when he says —“Eventually all will be pulled into offstage” (Levy 2002, 60). This is precisely what does not happen and will never happen. This may surely be a logical possibility but it always remains unrealized in Beckett. There is always something in the offstage, either the verbal supposition of the child outside in Endgame or the offstage voices in the later-plays like Footfalls and Rockaby. The offstage does loom large over the stage- entities, but a trace like the Mouth in Not I or the face in That Time will always remain. The anxiety of the figure on stage is caused by something in the offstage. In the later- plays, Beckett often splits the speaking subject and the speaking voice over the stage and the offstage-space. It is their unity as one split being that gives the stage-offstage dialectic its driving force. The speaker and the voice and the stage and the offstage form a Beckettian “pseudo-couple” (Uhlmann 2006, 51); they are both different and the same. They form the obscure object together. In a very Lacanian way, the subject is related to the object by way of an internal exclusion. They are internally excluded from each other. The stage-offstage dialectic is charged with this internal exclusion. That is why one cannot replace the other and all cannot be pulled into the offstage. The tape- recorder in Krapp’s Last Tape is one such obscure object, both inside and outside, both on the stage and off it. Though it is a stage-prop, the voice it generates, belongs to the offstage. It is the voice of an-other Krapp in an-other time and place.
15 In many of the later plays, Beckett creates an alterity between the spoken text and the stage-image. The characters do not speak and an offstage-voice tells their story in the third person. Is the woman spoken of by V in Rockaby W herself? The situation of the third person “she” in the spoken text corresponds perfectly with the situation of W on stage but the voice does not say “I”. In Ohio Impromptu, the content of the “Reader’s” narration would suggest that he is talking about himself and the Listener but once again, the first person identification seems to be prohibited. A Piece of Monologue has the same pattern of a detoured speech where the self speaks about itself as of an other and that too in a voice, which is split from the subject on stage. It is crucial to note that in the first draft, the opening line of this monologue was—“My birth was my death”
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(Knowlson 1996, 572) which ultimately became “Birth was the death of him” (Beckett 2003, 425).
16 There is a double-bind of jubilation and aggressiveness that marks the characters’ attitude towards the obscure object. In Rockaby, W keeps saying an anxious “more” as soon as the offstage-voice stops. Krapp keeps listening to his recorded voice from the tape despite his disgruntlement with it. There are occasions when he just cannot tolerate it and switches off but soon afterwards turns it on again. The object of anxiety is also the object of desire because it blocks the passage to the absolute nothing. Voice B says in That Time—“[…] just another of those old tales to keep the void from pouring in on top of you the shroud” (Beckett 2003, 390). Signifiers attempt to constitute the lack and yet the lack glimpses through the intermittent failures of the signifier’s mediation. This is the unconstituted and lacking lack. When words fail, the lack also fails to appear and the Real is encountered in all its ungraspability.
17 The Speaker in A Piece of Monologue says—“Words are few. Dying too” (Beckett 2003, 425). Death is a perpetual unknown as it does not allow the consciousness to grasp it. The consciousness can only reach and symbolize the final frontier before collapsing into death. The inscription of death within birth has to do with the eschewal of the Real self at the moment of the subject’s birth into language due to the “signifying cut”. The signifiers insist on this eschewal throughout subjective existence. With the onset of death, this excluded Real is at stake. But, there are always words, however few they may be. The pure Real belongs to an unknowable post-cognitive realm of death. Anxiety always finds the obscure object at the edge of non-being to repress non-being. This is the problematic of death-anxiety in the play. Words are dying and still there is the vehement admission—“No such thing as none” (Beckett 2003, 426). The entire text dwells on the gap among the words “going”, “gone” and “begone” (Beckett 2003, 429). Theatre cannot represent the “gone” or the “begone” of death. What it can show is only the process of “going”. The speech-act itself becomes a remainder in the play. And throughout this act, the Speaker is desperate to identify traces at the edge of the void. He faces the blank wall, once studded with the pictures of his loved ones. The pictures are not there anymore. But the drawing-pins with which they were fixed are still there on the wall. They are the traces which help him remember the pictures. In this obscure object, once again, there is the combination of the drawing-pins on stage and the pictures off it.
18 The fading presence of the obscure object is brilliantly underscored when the question about the object (“what”) and its locus (“where”) in What Where becomes the answer itself. That is to say the “what” becomes the object and the “where” its locus. When Bam instructs Bim to “give him the works” until he confesses “that he said it to him”(Beckett 2003, 473), it is this “it” which marks the nature of the object of anxiety, almost echoing the “it speaks” of the unconscious in psychoanalytic thought. A little later, when Bam tells Bim—“It’s a lie. [Pause.] He said where to you. [Pause.] Confess he said where to you”(Beckett 2003, 475), once again, it is the signifier “where” which becomes the sole spatial marker for the what-object. Interestingly enough, the trial always takes place offstage. That is where the real truth of the “what” and the “where” is dis-concealed.
19 In the two mimes, Beckett wrote for the theatre, Act Without Words I and II, the offstage both vertically and horizontally controls the stage-spectacle. In Act Without Words I, a man constantly tries to rush out of the stage but each time, he is “flung back” (Beckett
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2003, 203) from the wings. This is the horizontal axis of the offstage at work. The vertical axis is charged with the tantalizing objects (a tree with its cooling shade, a tiny carafe with the label ‘Water’ etc), coming down in the desert-scene. They all rest suspended in the air, just above the reach of the man. Cubes descend too, in order to facilitate his ascent but each time he tries to make use of these objects, they are withdrawn with an offstage-whistle, which had also marked their appearance. After the repeatedly futile attempts, the man renounces the lure at the end and sits unmoved. The anxiety of the man is caused by the offstage, where he wants to go initially and when relief-objects arrive from offstage, they always arrive only to depart. His renunciation of these alluring objects at the end is a renunciation of the desire to go off. This is why all can never be pulled into the recesses of non-being. The offstage will keep the stage alive. It will continue to govern the stage spectacle. Like the “strictly horizontal goad” (Beckett 2003, 209) that pokes the two players out of their sacks in Act Without Words II, the obscure object will provoke the stage into action from the edge. This is a mutually sustaining and endless relation between presence and absence, fixed on the object in between. Although the man in Act Without Words I apparently renounces the objects at the end, his gesture of looking at his hands (that is the final line of Beckett’s text) is a remainder of his desire for them. In this to-and-fro of desire is enacted the subjective attitude to the obscure object. The partial renunciation does not put an absolute end to the process. As in Act Without Words II, everything may start all over again in an endlessly repetitious circularity. The goad keeps darting at the two sacks and A and B keep crawling out to perform their trifles. After the first poke of the goad, the position of the sacks had changed (from BA to AB) but the second poke restores the original position with a neutralizing turn (from AB to BA). The play ends with the third poke, suggesting infinite circularity.
20 Thus, in these two mimes, the movement is originated at the level of the offstage and brings the stage into action. Here, the obscure objects govern the spectacle, very much like the “ex-sistence” or “ek-sistence” of the Real in Lacan. In Lacan’s terms, the Real is the third element after the Symbolic and the Imaginary and it always “ek-sists” or “ex- sists” in the sense that it pushes the structure from outside. In the tenth session of Seminar 21, titled, ‘The Non-Dupes Err’ [‘The Names of the Father’] (1973-74), Lacan says—“If something ek-sists with respect to something, it is very precisely because of not being coupled to it, of being thirded (troisé), if you will allow me this neologism” (Lacan 1973-4, X-10). Be it the offstage-objects or the goad, the “ex-sistence” of the Real pushes the stage-action from the edge and the subject is enmeshed in the dialectic of its naming. As we have seen, the subjects in both the plays try, fail, renounce, still desire the attempts and go on trying in a bid to economize the effect of this encounter with the Real. Their anxiety is thus not just a negative response, but a defense as well as a drive to go on.
21 In Come and Go, Not I and That Time, Beckett narrows down the stage space to its bare bones, further differentiating between the offstage and the dark zones of the stage, excluded from performance. As the stage-directions in Come and Go indicate, Vi, Flo and Ru exit one after the other not into the offstage but into the dark zones of the stage. The moment one disappears, the other two murmur a truth about the absent one. The truth causes anxiety and it is communicated through their appalled facial expressions and articulations. The audience never gets to know the anxiety-evoking truth but it is not even the void. The materiality of the signifier is embedded in the reaction of the listener—three very different “oh!” sounds on the three occasions (Beckett 2003, 357).
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The inaudibility of the murmur problematizes it. It is spoken on the stage but maintains a link with the offstage in so far as it is inaudible. In these dark and “unperformed” zones of the stage, something of the Real may exist. These dark zones stand internally excluded.
22 In Not I, the Mouth is the only object on stage. The Mouth, eight feet above stage level and lit up by a faint light from close-up and below, presents the purest image of lack on stage, ejecting an excremental and torrential speech. It is an embodiment of the lacking lack, which the unending flow of signifiers tries to constitute in vain. There is a split between the voice and the female speaker, accounting for the movement from “I” to “not-I”. Once again, the first-person pronoun “I” remains strictly prohibited—“[…] what?..who?..no!..she!..SHE!” (Beckett 2003, 382). It is like an endless buzzing in her mind. She desperately wants to stop but something keeps stirring, keeps moving in her poor mind. Her desire to end the torrential flow of signifiers produces the anxious babble. This desire draws her closer and closer to the supposed Real of nothingness. But the Real is not nothingness. It is an impossibility that makes nothingness impossible. Thus the voice can never stop. The babble continues for ten seconds after the fall of the curtain. This does not signify the absolute collapse of the stage-trace into the offstage. This is the continuation of the buzz as sound-object in an elsewhere, suggesting the final no to nothingness. Something keeps begging in her mind and this interminability is what sustains the object in a hypothetical elsewhere—“[…] nothing there… on somewhere else… try somewhere else […]” (Beckett 2003, 382).
23 In Ohio Impromptu, a man comes every night to read to the subject, his “sad tale” all over again. The Listener, whose story is being read aloud from a book, keeps interrupting the narration by intermittently knocking on the table-top. Anxiety is figured in terms of a desire for textual interminability. With each knock, the Reader goes back a few lines until there is nothing left to tell and the knock only induces the clarification—“Nothing is left to tell” (Beckett 2003, 448). The Reader is sent by some offstage-entity and one night he comes and declares that he has been told by the sender not to come again. He names the dear name of the sender but Beckett’s text omits it—“[…] I have had word from—and here he named the dear name […]” (Beckett 2003, 447). When the Listener describes the place in the book where the “fearful symptoms” (Beckett 2003, 446) of the subject’s nocturnal anxiety is recorded, he prevents the Listener from going to that page. The address of the symptom is mentioned nevertheless—“page forty paragraph four” (Beckett 2003, 448). Both the name of the dear other and the symptom of anxiety are there and not there at the same time. They are there somewhere or everywhere or perhaps nowhere. When all is done, there is always a no-thing left to tell. This leftover is the gestural unification of the Reader and the Listener, at the end of the play where “[…] simultaneously they lower their right hands to table, raise their heads and look at each other” (Beckett 2003, 448P) and the text reads—“[…] they grew to be as one” (Beckett 2003, 447). Are the Reader and the Listener same as the two men in the story? The correspondence between the stage-image and the narration would suggest so. But, Beckett significantly avoids all first-person references. There was a first-person passage (“I am out on leave” cited in Adam Seelig’s article “Beckett’s Dying Remains: The Process of Playwriting in the Ohio Impromptu Manuscripts”) in the early dramatic fragments that finally led to this occasional piece. But Beckett decided to do away with it in the final version. It is this
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text-performance split, which locates the Reader-Listener pseudocouple at the edge of the stage.
24 In the television-play Quad, the centre of the stage is called ˈEˈ—a “danger zone” (Beckett 2003, 453). The four players in turn try and move along the margins and across the square-shaped playing area. As the number of figures increases by one, it becomes more and more difficult to avoid the centre. With proliferation of figures from the four corners of the square, the threat of collision and fall around the dangerous centre grows rapidly. And yet there is no collision, no fall either. The strictly choreographed ballet-movements of the players ensure continuous circulation. All four swirl in towards the centre which attracts them and then there is an equally precise deflecting movement, backtracking, away from the centre. This “danger zone” is another of the obscure objects, defying the stage-offstage divide. It is there on the stage alright, but it is also a point the players are desperate not to bring into play. It is an internally excluded object. It is a lack, which the players try to constitute through their circulation. In this play, they do not have the aid of words and have to depend on the Symbolic aid of the body which makes inscriptions through its movements. But this process of figural constitution passes into an eternity of repetition. Seeing Quad, Beckett had said that the second part of the play takes place “ten thousand years later” (Knowlson 1996, 593)). In the second part, the colours go off and the pace of the movements significantly drops so as to imply the exhaustion of infinite constitution. The whole of the Real point can never be symbolized but the process of symbolic constitution has to go on. This is a courageous continuation where we hear the final pronouncement of The Unnamable—“[…] you must go on, I can’t go on, I’ll go on” (Beckett 2006, 407).
25 The “obscure object” in Beckett’s theatre is thus the result of a subtractive labour on the part the artist. This aesthetic labour aims to control the symptom of excess and localize it at the edge of representation. In accordance with the psychoanalytic ethics of cure, in Beckett, it is impossible to remove the symptom of anxiety. Any attempt at a complete removal of the object may make the process susceptible to the horror of nothingness or non-being. Beckett’s project, as I have tried to show in my analysis of the plays, is to preserve this object and not to dislodge it since that would open the floodgates of absolute void. As Badiou’s reading of Beckett implies, the ethics of Beckettian minimalism is to admit the lack or what the playwright himself would call the chaos. This chaos can only be shaped if the artist decides not to deny or exclude it but to let it in. Only by admitting and internalizing the chaos can one begin the process of subtraction where all inessential particularities are stripped away and we reach the exact configuration of the “obscure object”. Beckett had told Tom Driver in the early 60s—“[…] there will be new form, and this form will be of such a type that it admits the chaos and does not try to say that the chaos is really something else… To find a form that accommodates the mess, that is the task of the artist now” (Hesla 1971, 06-07). Beckett’s theatre aims at establishing a kind of control over the state of anxiety and one may see in it a trace of the classic Aristotelian function of tragic catharsis. If Aristotelian catharsis aims at a purgation of fear, Beckettian subtraction is aimed at controlling anxiety by fixing it in its lowest possible denomination—a tiny speck at the edge of the void. This entire discussion underscores Beckett’s successful translation of philosophy into theatre where he is not only raising philosophical questions through theatre but relating them to the fundamental mechanism of the medium itself. Beckett’s theatre is not just philosophical theatre but it is a theatricalization of
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philosophy. He makes us see purely ontological and philosophical problems at the level of the literary genre and we realize that they are theatrical problems too. This is how he seems to me to be implicating philosophy in theatre. His theatre seizes philosophy as action and performance on stage. In Badiou’s philosophical system, philosophy deals with four truth procedures as its four “conditions”, (mathematics or science, art, love and politics) one of which is art (Badiou 1999, 35). According to Badiou, in different ages, philosophy has “sutured” to or exclusively engaged itself with only one of these four truth procedures (Badiou 1999, 61). In Heidegger, Badiou locates an artistic “suture” of philosophy where philosophy starts to deal with the artistic truth procedure at the cost of the other three (Badiou 1999, 66). In Beckett’s appropriative, internalizing and assimilative use of philosophy in theatre, we may see a “suture” from the other side, i.e. art being sutured to philosophy instead of philosophy being sutured to art. What problematizes this “suture” from the other end is the fact that Beckett does not appropriate philosophy to art at the cost of the other truth procedures of science, politics and love. His is an aestheticization of philosophy, which displaces philosophy from its domain exterior to art and the other truth procedures and encapsulates it within the artistic locus.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Badiou, Alain. “Art’s Imperative: Speaking the Unspeakable”, a talk delivered at
The Lacanian Ink Event, The Drawing Centre, New York, March 8, 2006.
---. Theory of the Subject. Bruno Bosteels trans. London:
Continuum, 2009.
---. Manifesto for philosophy. Norman Madarasz trans. Albany: State
University of New York press, 1999.
Beckett, Samuel. The Complete Dramatic Works. London: Faber and Faber
2003.
---. The Grove Centenary Edition Vol II: Novels. New York: Grove
Press, 2006.
---. Nohow On. London: John Calder Publishers, 1989.
Critchley, Simon. “Being and Time, part 5: Anxiety”. Guardian, July 6, 2009.
(accessed October 20, 2010)
Derrida, Jacques. The Acts of Literature. Derek Attridge ed. New York: Routledge, 1992.
Freud, Sigmund. “Lecture XXV: Anxiety.” In The Standard Edition Of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud Vol XV. James Strachey trans. In collaboration with Anna Freud. Advised by Alix
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Strachey and Alan Tyson. London: Vintage: The Hogarth Press and The Institute of Psycho- Analysis, 2001.
---. “Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety.” In The Standard Edition Of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud Vol XX. James Strachey trans. In collaboration with Anna Freud. Advised by Alix Strachey and Alan Tyson. London: Vintage: The Hogarth Press and The Institute of Psycho-Analysis, 2001.
Gontarski, Stanley (ed.) The Theatrical Notebooks of Samuel Beckett Vol II: Endgame. London: Faber and Faber, 1992.
Green, André. “The Psycho-Analytic Reading of Tragedy.” In Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism. Maud Ellmann ed. London: Longman, 1994.
Gussow, Mel. Conversations with and about Beckett. New York: Grove Press, 1996.
Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time. 1953. John Stambaugh trans. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996.
Hesla, David H. The Shape of Chaos: An Interpretation of the Art of Samuel Beckett. Minneapolis: The University of Minnesota Press, 1971.
Knowlson, James. Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett. New York: Grove Press, 1996.
Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar of Jacques Lacan: Book VII; The Ethics of Psychoanalysis, 1959-1960. Jacques-Alain Miller ed. Dennis Porter trans. New York: Norton, 1997.
---. “The Seminar of Jacques Lacan: Book X. L’angoisse/Anxiety, 1962-63.” Unpublished. Translated by Cormac Gallagher from unedited French Manuscripts.
---. Ecrits. Bruce Fink ed. in collaboration with Heliose Fink and Russell Grigg. Norton: London, 1996.
---“The Seminar of Jacques Lacan: Book XXI; The Non-Dupes Err/The Names of the Father, 1973-74”. Unpublished. Translated by Cormac Gallagher from unedited French Manuscripts.
---. “The Seminar of Jacques Lacan: Book XXII; RSI, 1974-75”. Unpublished. Text established by Jacques-Alain Miller and translated by Jack W. Stone et al.
Levy, Shimon. “The Poetics of Offstage.” In Samuel Beckett’s Self-Referential Drama: The Sensitive Chaos. Portland: Sussex Academic Press, 2002.
Robbe-Grillet, Alain. “Presence in the Theatre”. In Samuel Beckett. Martin Esslin ed. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1965.
Seelig, Adam. “Beckett’s Dying Remains: The Process of Playwriting in the Ohio Impromptu Manuscripts”. (Accessed October 25, 2010)
Uhlmann, Anthony. Samuel Beckett and the Philosophical Image. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2006.
ABSTRACTS
The article aims to examine the obscure object of anxiety in the “Dramaticules” of Samuel Beckett in the context of the psychoanalytic formulations of anxiety from Sigmund Freud to Jacques Lacan, considering especially the debate regarding the presence or absence of the object of anxiety. Focusing on Beckett’s dialectical interplay of stage and offstage, the article seeks to
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identify the trace of the object right at the edge of theatrical representation. Beckett’s courageous subtraction grounds the interstitial object in a bid to arrive at an affordable economy in this treatment of anxiety, involving a problematic encounter with the Real.
Nous nous proposons d’étudier l’obscur objet de l’angoisse dans les “Dramaticules” de Samuel Beckett, ceci dans le contexte des formulations psychanalytiques de l’angoisse, de Sigmund Freud à Jacques Lacan, en particulier le débat concernant la présence ou l’absence de l’objet de l’angoisse. Partant d’une observation de l’interaction dialectique entre la scène et le hors-scène chez Beckett, nous essaierons d’identifier la trace de l’objet au seuil de la représentation théâtrale. La soustraction courageuse de Beckett permet de fonder l’objet interstitiel afin d’aboutir à une économie viable dans le traitement de l’angoisse qui implique une rencontre problématique avec le Réel.
INDEX
Keywords: anxiety, fear, obscure object, object-a, Das Ding, real, ek-sistence, symbolic, imaginary, presence, absence, lack, stage, offstage, nothingness, remainder, subject, constitution, voice, alterity Mots-clés: angoisse, peur, obscur objet du désir, objet a, Das Ding, réel, ex-sistence, hors-scène, présence, absence, manque, scène, néant, résidu, sujet, constitution, voix, altérité
AUTHORS
ARKA CHATTOPADHYAY M. Phil Scholar Department of English, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India [email protected]
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Hostaged to the Voice of the Other: Beckett's Play and Not I.
Tram Nguyen
1 After the Second World War, Beckett moves away from the modernist concern with interiority, striving1, albeit ironically, in his late plays for a “porous” language (Beckett 1983, 172). In Play and Not I, characters are reduced to heads and mouths; they utter their despair and confusion with visceral gusto, and yet there is no interiority to ground their pain. Their words are spoken from a place that is pre-ontological, pre- subjective. Through the spoken word, the summoning voice, language becomes ethical, foregrounding the heteronomy of the “I” and the Other. According to Levinas, the primordial, pre-personalized nature of the Other requires that we think “the ethical relation beyond being”, for the Other is “the ethical excess” to which “I” am bound (Marder). Ethics and singularity usurp ontology, which re-installs at its heart the centrality of the “I”. For Beckett, the acting “I” no longer signifies except to indicate the approach to ethics, to the Other. Drilling into language, Beckett arrives at a site of intersubjectivity that sustains the exteriority of the Other. Levinas calls this approach the freedom of the Other, for it is a freedom that liberates the “I” from its mastering impulse (1969, 39). In returning to Levinas's ethics and theory of metaphysical desire, we see that Beckett’s rendering of fatigue and the speaking voice achieves an aesthetics infused with the ethics of infinity and surplus.2
2 A student of Husserl and Heidegger, Levinas developed a first philosophy of ethics that sets out the condition for the possibility of an engagement with an Other. This Other is not simply physically and spatially dissimilar to the “I”, but rather asymmetrically exterior (Perpich 106). Levinas coins the term alterity to designate the singularity and absolute otherness of the Other which can never be reduced to our alter ego. In Totality and Infinity, Levinas begins with a critique of “feeding”, the prevailing attitude that the world, its objects, and its people are made available for our consumption (1969, 33). Though we “need” to consume the other, this does not fill us; these desires are not “pure”, not ethical (1969, 34). For Levinas, the most honest desire is not about lack, but generosity. It is a desire that “desires beyond everything that can simply complete it” (1969, 34). The desire for the Other provides no opportunity for self-reward or
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satisfaction. The Other is not constituted by my knowledge of him, or by my intentionality, but by my respect for his infinity and absolute otherness. Levinas separates himself from Husserl’s phenomenology by clarifying that the intentional operation “is always the same that determines the other” (1969, 124). To make the exterior world intelligible, the “I” assumes the position of “mastery exercised by the thinker upon what is thought in which the object’s resistance as an exterior being vanishes” (1969, 123-4). This “adequation” is fundamentally contrary to Levinas’s suppositions about the foundational core of ethics. In proposing that the Other is a cold Stranger who “disturbs the being at home with oneself”, Levinas emphasizes that “over him I have no power” (1969, 38-39). The non-attendance of power founds the condition of an ethical intersubjective event. The recognition of the Other’s “irreducibility to the I” marks his irreducible exteriority or non-coincidence, which summons the best in me (Levinas 1969, 43). He calls me into an infinite ethical event that predates history and time.
3 Infinity is central to Levinas’s ethics: as the overflow of being, infinity provides the “optics” for ethics, teaching us that there is being prior to inscription and apprehension (1969, 23).3 Without infinity the “I” falls prey to adequation, thinking those exterior to it are simply versions of itself, of the same (1969, 27). This is most troubling for Levinas, and much of Totality and Infinity redresses the premises upon which the “I” and intersubjective experiences are thought. The destruction of the “I” inhering in the face to face encounter, an irreducible relation of separated existences, creates a habitat for ethics: “the 'face to face' position is not a modification of the 'along side of ... '” but an acceptance of the multitudinous formlessness of lived affectivity (1969, 79-80). Not simply a passive acceptance, the face to face thesis speaks about a call from the Other that must be answered—because the presence of the Other guarantees the “I” 's freedom. Lingis notes that the face “is not so much a mode of appearing of the other, as a ‘trace’ where alterity passes” (xxi). This trace is infinitely expressive, perpetually interrogative, summoning the ethical and compassionate desires of the “I”. In essence, the face and its expansiveness refuse totalization, or external inscription (1969, 66). Levinas demands that the “I” always be in the labor of the Other and the Other’s Others, “where the face of the Other becomes a passageway to all the other Others” (Marder).
4 The transcendental face to face relation resonates in Beckett’s critique of the expressive power of the artist, who, face to face with his object, imposes his dominance over it. Objecting to the notion that art is “expression”, by which he means mimesis or representational bonds between the artist and the object, Beckett says, “All that should concern us is the acute and increasing anxiety of the relation itself, as though shadowed more and more darkly by a sense of invalidity, of inadequacy, of existence at the expense of all that it excludes” (1983, 145). Asking art to represent and to address itself to the “occasions” of life obscures two things: 1.) the failure of representation, and 2.) the obligation to act in the face of this failure. Here we see that Beckett’s terse formulation of the artist and the object reverberates with a Levinasian notion of desire as beyond what can complete or make whole the “I” who acts. In a helpless gesture similar to Levinas's, Beckett describes an infinite obligation that transcends subjectivity. The ethical turn for Beckett is in “submitting” to the new understanding of “relation”—that is, in embracing “this [new] fidelity to failure, a new occasion, a new term of relation, and of the act which, unable to act, obliged to act, he makes, an expressive act, even if only of itself, of its impossibility, of its obligation” (1983, 142).
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These words are particularly foreknowing in light of Beckett's increasing involvement with the staging of his plays, particularly. The obligation to act—as director or as actor on a stage with his back against an inevitable failure—highlights a performance ethic that moves beyond “self-indulgent fierceness and ... in-your-face political and erotic righteousness” embodied by a certain strain of “political theatre” (Erickson 10-11). The responsibility for an Other, be it the audience or even the void beyond the stage, carves out a theatrical imperative to broker the best nuanced understanding of freedom.4
5 By immobilizing his performers in their bodies or objects and by isolating them from all context (as early as Murphy and as late as Rockaby), Beckett alters the relationship between space, movement, light, and sound. On the stage, without the crutch of gestures to capture the audience's attention, the restricted, broken body “introduces force and dramatic tension, if only by contrast with the uselessness and insignificance of movements in most plays” (Chabert 25). For instance, in Waiting for Godot, Lucky’s physical exertions dramatize the body’s burden and make his speech all the more astounding. When, after his speech, Lucky collapses as though emptied of life—and is only revived when his basket and bag are placed back in his hands—we sense that he makes meaning out of the failures of his body (1986, 44). Language, rather than matter or organs, sustains the body.5 Beckett's characters face the difficulty of their bodily restrictions with dark humour and ontological earnestness; their twitches, blinks, flapping, flailing, flinches and shudders take on the forcefulness of tectonic shifts so that when they do speak, words offer up “salvation [...] sought in a different experimentum linguae” (Deranty 175). The “implacable logic” of these constrained body, according to Chabert, brings words “back to its vital organ: the mouth in a face which utters words” (28).
6 While the body fails, language and ethics speak on. Beckett seemingly divines the ethical call of voices in Play and Not I—as the characters’ voices drift upward, their sound, meaning, and invocation disperse into our own lungs and enter our own organs. Their monologues depend upon the aural staging of language, become what Deleuze calls “soundings” rather than voice (1995, 10). These soundings, these voices, are not a guarantee of individuality, but an indication that the work of signification is taking place. Dialogue is a labor that presupposes the co-existence of the “I” and the Other. This co-existence is foremost in the logic of language which “accomplishes a relation between terms that breaks up the unity of a genus” of the self (Levinas 1969, 195). In doing so, language disrupts hierarchical ordering and “announces the ethical inviolability of the Other” (Levinas 1969, 195.) When words are said, spoken, uttered as a gift from one being to another, speaking “solicits the Other. Speech cuts across vision” (Levinas 1969, 195). For Levinas as much as for Beckett, the Other is an interlocutor who escapes perceptual apprehension. In a medium married to vision, Beckett opts instead for a darkness that would spotlight the inadequacies of vision. His is a theatre against visual satisfaction. He reveals to us in the darkness of stage and theatre the “obligation to act”, to listen to the ethical summoning of the “stuttering” voice (Deleuze 1994, 28).
7 The importance of speech accounts for Beckett's preoccupation with plays and the theater after the Second World War. In his important genetic reading of Play, Gontarski judges that Play delineates a shift in Beckett’s aesthetics and understanding of the artistic relation (1999, 442-3). Beckett's numerous revisions signal a battle with traditional conceptions of the work of art and the exigencies of staging words for an
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audience. Dissatisfied with the German premiere of Play in 1963, Beckett worked closely with George Devine on the English production, which debuted in April 1964. Though Beckett wanted to set the “standard of fidelity”, his own collaborations with directors or with himself (his published texts) brought changes to original, already finalized texts (Gontarski 1999, 443, 447). Besides meticulous instructions about the size of the grey urns and the intensity of the spotlight Inquirer, revisions to the play included the volume, speed, and order of interrogation in the second act. As Gontarski surmises, Beckett “was prepared to change and even at times substantially to rewrite a published text based on the practicalities, the realities, the insights that working in a stage space literally brought to light” (1999, 445). Beckett would continue to make changes to the text of the play until 1978, altering the da capo ending to allow the Inquirer to disrupt the order of the inquiry (1999, 445, 448). The “standard of fidelity”, then, was one established in conjunction with the vocalization of texts rather than measured against the “objectivity” of published works. Changes to the rhythm, textual order, and tone of the play came from Beckett’s re-newed understanding of the speaking voice as processual.
8 Play commences with a description of “Front centre, touching one another, three identical grey urns about one yard high” (Beckett 1990, 307). Though the play kick- starts with the idea of touching, it reveals itself in opposition to contiguity and more in tune with asymmetrical co-existence. The trapped figures of Play deliver their monologues with unceasing rapidity; they speak tonelessly about their romantic entanglement. There is obviously pain, but their words are marked largely by the need to speak, as though speaking would enact a flight from their bodies, from their selves. They respond when the Inquirer “interrogates” them, and they speak immediately. Their delivery is staccato, pared down. Individually they re-tell the climactic events of an indefinite moment, their faces “gone to age”, suggesting that this dilemma is old and eternal (1990, 307).
9 The heads do not turn, do not address one another. Their words seem to emerge from a place that is pre-ontological, rooted rhizomatically in the earth as they are rooted in the grey urns. Each character re-lives his or her memories over and over again, unheeding the imperative of response or reciprocity, voice rising “to the ghostly dimension of an impersonal indefinite” (Deleuze 1995, 16). Elizabeth Barry, following H. Porter Abbott, claims that this is the nature of the “middle voice”, which births “agentless sentenceless” (Barry 116). Marjorie Perloff argues that Beckett's texts are usually closed off in terms of sound and rhythm, causing a disintegration of order and referentiality (Perloff 204). Though their fragmented utterances broach nonsense, nonsense is not simply the lack of sense; it is an attack on the imperatives of rationality and order of everyday language. This is the making of Deleuze’s third phase of language, one rooted in the “force” of the Image (Deleuze 1995, 8).6 The language of the “pure” Image counters the burden of reason, memories, and stories, “appear[ing] in all its singularity, retaining nothing of the personal, nor of the rational, and ascending into the indefinite as into a celestial state” (Deleuze 1995, 10, 9). All subjectivity is abolished, but voicing remains as the drive of dialogue.7 And, according to Enoch Brater, “to be is to be heard” (1987, 67). Echoing Berkeley's dictum “to be is to be perceived” (esse est percipi), Brater's comment speaks to Beckett's addendum to the notion that reality is conceived through sense perception received by the mind (Levy 225). On the stage, though Beckett’s characters come to life when called upon by a
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spotlight and the audience’s expectation, they articulate to us their being through the force of their voices.
10 The closed loop of words and utterances and the rapidity with which the heads utter their thoughts or memories beg the listener (audience and Inquirer) to face, to host the Other's pain. While there is little to ground our understanding: no time markers, no continuous action, no social coordinates, the voice guides us (Deleuze 1995, 16). The Voice that speaks reveals to us the necessity of engaging with the Other, calling upon us to be listener rather than judge. As listener, we embody a “‘boundary condition’” of ethics and comprehension (Rayner 6). Rayner argues that “Like the syntax of the pronoun, the ”audience“ is a shifter, changing both in what body it designates and in what position: variously operating as an ‘I,’ a ‘you,’ an ‘it,’ ‘we’ or ‘they’” (Rayner 7). Beckett tests us at these liminal edges of sense and forces us to work to understand without violently imposing our own intentions.
11 Against all appearances, the audience and the spotlight Inquirer of Play act as hostage to the speakers’ voices. The Inquirer shines a faint light on their three faces and they are compelled to speak their fragments. They speak for three seconds, and are then plunged into near blackout. Five seconds later the Inquirer's light summons all three faces again, as though it were experimenting with listening, with a new form of dialogue. Unable to understand the three voices when together, the Inquirer begins to train its spotlight on the faces individually: Woman 1, Woman 2, Man, and so on, in varying orders. Beckett's Inquirer has the function of the interrogator, but it is also the listener and the “victim” of the voices, the voice’s Other (Gontarski 1999, 444). Through the Inquirer, we are confronted with the face to face relation that transports us into the ethical realm. Beckett generously positions us alternately as “I” and the Other’s Others.8 The voices inflict upon us and the Inquirer their speech, their alterity, and we/ it must attempt to decipher and to answer the call; the Inquirer is the “I” here and the audience is the Other’s Others. The voices, our Others, seem to carry on their stories even when the Inquirer is not on them, for when the light calls them to life they speak more and more in fragments. “I said to him”, W1 utters, “Give her up. I swore by all I held most sacred—”; on her second turn, she says, “Though I had him dogged for months by a first-rate man, no shadow of proof was forthcoming ...” (Beckett 1990, 308). In turn, W2 says, “Her parting words, as he could testify, if he is still living, and has not forgotten” (1990, 309). But there is no testimony, no answer from the other characters that matters. Indeed, all the characters inhabit a solipsistic existence: though M is next to her, W2 only hears herself.
12 The Inquirer trains its light in the manner of a child learning to operate a new toy, clumsily and curiously, employing the spotlight to verify and to fill in gaps of understanding: W1: I confess my first feeling was one of wonderment. What a male! [Spot from W1 to M. He opens his mouth to speak. Spot from M to W2.] (Beckett 1990, 309)
13 Indeed, the Inquirer exercises its power with humour and wit. The Inquirer attempts to give each figure its due in the first half of the first act, which is still narratively driven, with the three voices composing a sensible history of the trio. This triadic narration becomes impossible after the climatic bonfire of M's things (1990, 311). The Inquirer at this point plunges the heads into darkness and the play begins again with the three voices speaking in unison, as in the beginning. However, the heads speak in shorter fragments as the Inquirer loses patience, or loses the ability to listen with compassion
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and sincerity. W2 says with desperation, “Are you listening to me? Is anyone listening to me? Is anyone looking at me? Is anyone bothering about me at all?” (1990, 314). Meanwhile, M thinks, “I know now, all that was just ... play. And all this? When will all this—” ... “have been just play” (1990, 313). At this point, the audience’s obligation to the voices is stretched to a maximum; Beckett tests our generosity. The audience as listeners must prick up their ears to the “murmurs of past voices not entirely absent and the babble of presences which do not yet have a language in which to speak” (Janus 186).
14 As the voices and their words get more desperate and the pace of the inquiry escalates, the audience is compelled, summoned doubly to respond, to take the place of the “I” that is hostage to the voices, which, in their desperation to be heard, lose their ability to act or re-act towards one another: W1 despairs, “And that all is falling, all fallen, from the beginning, on empty air. Nothing being asked at all. No one asking me for anything at all” (1990, 314). Trapped in their solipsism, their utterances become enervated and nonsensical. However, nonsense works to threaten the orderly habits of logic. Sense and intelligibility do damage to the “I”: “Clarity is the disappearance of what could shock”, of anything that moves or enlivens the “I” (Levinas 1969, 124). Beckett himself says, “My writing is pre-logical writing. I don’t ask people to understand it logically, only to accept it” (quoted in Knowlson 2006, 109). According to Patrick Bowles, Beckett talked “of his books as if they were written by someone else. He said that it was the voice to which he listened, the voice one should listen to” (quoted in Knowlson 2006, 109).
15 In the intersubjective experience staged by the play, wherein the audience and the Inquirer complete the linguistic triad, a metaphysical ethics is established as paramount to being. Called to witness the rare instance of someone risking him/ herself, we experience not the call to empathy, but responsibility to the Other. The ethical relation here is one of listening and answering, if silently, the call of the Other. The irreducibility of the Other’s voice drives the urgency of Play and reveals the infinite “pleating” of ethics (Marder). Through a razing of context and sense, of social coordinates and individuated memories, Beckett is thus able to achieve what he wanted: language as a divining, “mantic instrument” (cited in Brater 1987, 194). The characters' utterings create for the listening audience the double folding of the voices' individuality and generality. In a propulsive rhythm of words rising and descending like crashing waves—W 1 asking if she should “Bite off my tongue and swallow it? Spit it out? Would that placate you?”; W2 demanding in quick succession, “What do you do when you go out? Sift?”; and M pondering, “Have I lost ... the thing that you want? Why go out? Why go—” (1990, 315), the heads call upon the listener to awaken to the singularity of each voice. Likewise, in Not I, Mouth’s fragmentary cataclysm of words exceeds subjective containment and advances a singularity that is heteronomous but also universal and characteristic of all beings. It is not simply words, codified and signifying, that speak to us but the act of sounding. M's uncontrollable hiccupping throughout the play arouses a kind of visceral reaction related to a sensing of bodily discomfort. Hiccups, which are the result of an unbalance in the diaphragm, represent the convulsive imbalance of a distinct and irreducible being. Similarly, Mouth’s distress forces us to confront the asymmetry and exteriority of an Other. As Meir argues, “Face to face with the Other, the priority and tranquillity of the same is put into question” (Meir 262).
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16 In Not I, the image of Mouth, first served by Jessica Tandy, then by Billie Whitelaw, is projected against a dark background.9 Reciting in the third person the details of a life from birth till death, Mouth speaks in hyperventilating bursts, “mouth on fire” (Beckett 1990, 378). Mouth is haunted continually by a self-correcting mechanism that repeatedly interrupts her outbursts, causing her to pause and exclaim “what?” and to deny another impulse (1990, 377). With great excitement, Mouth narrates the change to one who “had never … on the contrary … practically speechless … all her days”, concluding “how she had survived!” (1990, 379). The voice, the act of speaking, the way one forms “certain vowel sounds”, the “lips moving … the cheeks … the jaws .... the whole face … the tongue in the mouth” are experienced as fundamental and primordial, above the actual words, or “what one is saying” (1990, 380).10 Beckett's wonderful and deliberate rejection of sense in favour of the “contortions” and “machine” of speaking, of voicing, with painful abandon, celebrates the body's capacity to labor, to do. While the brain “begs” Mouth to stop in order to “make sense of it all”, Mouth cannot because it was something she “had to do” (1990, 381). Following Levinas, Marder argues that “labor, as well as noisy monotony of non-sense and the element, challenge and ultimately flatten the subjective, conceptual, and ontological borders” to reveal the site of ethical responsibility to the Other as well as the Other’s Others.
17 Mouth's parents are “unknown”, the father having “vanished … no sooner buttoned up his breeches” (1990, 376). She is “spared love”—as though love was punishing and necessitated submitting one’s self to another (Beckett 1990, 376). Beckett reasons that “There is more than a difference of degree between being short, short of the world, short of self, and being without” (1983, 143). Here Beckett points to a radical asceticism, for “being without” denotes being-without-lack or covetous needs. Beckett’s sense that “being without” is not an impoverishment transforms our understanding of Mouth’s late linguistic development. At an age between sixty and seventy, near death or a stroke, she hears buzzing and “realized words were coming” (1990, 377). Unable in the past to speak in court, when she is judged and stared at, censured for getting “half the vowels wrong”, Mouth is able to speak—finally—when crippled, near death, faced down on the grass one April morning (1990, 376, 381). And through the deluge of her words, she produces a rupture in the fabric of sense, a rupture which forces us to confront our ethical convictions about the masterful speaking subject. Here is the “indication that language takes place”, that sounding is an event which colludes to make the subject part of an intersubjective, ethical network (Agamben 32).
18 Mary Catanzaro observes that the speaking voice is “external to Mouth” because of a dis-identification with her femaleness (36, 41). In the language of Kristevan jouissance, Catanzaro argues that after being “condemned to silence” by the symbolic order, “Mouth's text is not fantasy, it is desire, the surplus unaccounted for” (42, 40). Cantazaro suggests that excessive desire is particular to the feminine, one that is suppressed by patriarchy. However, in Beckett, desire is not the desire to be initiated into the social symbolic, even as excess, but, rather, to act even in the knowledge of failure; and, perhaps, to merge with the Infinity of the ethical. In fact, Mouth can be seen as pre-eminently ethical, for, having been systematically alienated and disenfranchised, she rises to a radical impersonality through the labor and force of her voicing. The darkness which surrounds Mouth structures the audience’s encounter with her mainly as sound rather than figure, as “the anonymous rustling of the there is” (1969, 159-160). The there is, according to Marder, “announces the anonymity of the one
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who labors” in favour of the singularity of that which she creates. Her voice is a point of convergence and divergence, of folding and enfolding; in the instance that Mouth voices, she initiates an event of ethics and being, sounding the “pure indication that language is taking place” (Agamben 34). According to Agamben, “Being is in the voice (esse in voce) as an unveiling and demonstration of the taking place of language” (35). However, metaphysics has hollowed out the voice of mere sounds in order to turn it into Voice. This hollowed Voice “goes to the ground and disappears in order for being and language to take place” (35). The grounding of the animal voice as “the originary articulation (the arthron) of human language” creates a fundamental negativity and violence in the heart of being (32).11 For Agamben, uncovering the “mystery” of the grounding of the Voice makes the violence of the originary moment surface, and, in doing so, neutralizes the “sacrificial mythogeme and […] the ideas of nature and culture, of the unspeakable and the speakable, which are grounded in it” (106). Agamben ends Language and Death with the joyous proclamation, “So, language is our voice, our language. As you now speak, that is ethics” (108). Agamben and Levinas both judge the praxis of speaking to be the ethical cartilage between “I” and the Other. In the instance that one voices, one enters into ethics and being with the Other.
19 Indeed, Beckett raises the promise that every speech act, every voice produces and necessitates an ethical response, which requires tearing down the assumptions about the I and the Other. His “orphic” conceit, for Daniel Katz, “give[s] voice to something that is constitutionally mute, to give a body to that which is incorporeal” (Katz 12). And though Herbert Blau may be right in saying that Beckett champions a “tradition of sometimes disdainful sometimes disconcerted ambivalence toward the audience”, why is it the case that audiences do not turn away (34)? It is because Beckett's disembodied voices crack the calm façade of language and show us the infinity of the Other. They summon “a being capable of receiving a revelation, learning that he is created” a moral being not by God, necessarily, but by his relation to the Other (Levinas 1969, 260). Levinas suggests that “we are not free to distance ourselves from him or her” because our primordial responsibility for him or her generates “the impossibility of evading the neighbor’s call” (1996, 95).
20 The built-in Auditor in Not I, a facet on which Beckett wavered (in published texts leaving its presence, but in performances removing it),12 suggests the importance of the speaker-voice-listener triad. With the Auditor removed in productions, it is the audience who hear the summons of the Other and they prepare themselves to respond (Atterton 190). The Auditor, an indeterminate figure draped in black “downstage audience left”, watches Mouth intently and raises its arms at four crucial moments in “helpless compassion” (Beckett 1990, 375). These four moments occur when Mouth must stop her verbal onslaught in order to answer the interior-other who seemingly challenges her about the third person pronoun she employs: “she found herself in the —...what? .. who? .. no! ... she! ...” (1990, 377). The challenge from the inside and the compassionate reception from the outside subvert the normative expectation that the unified subject must defend herself from the outside world, that the Other is the hostile enemy. The audience and the Auditor, like the Inquirer of Play assume crucial roles as hostaged to the speaker. Levinas deems this “hospitality”, in the sense that the “I” must, in the face of the other, create space for the alterity of the Other. Instead of submerging the Other into the “I”, Levinas invites us to let the Other escape and to allow the infinity of our responsibility to guide us, because “The absolute experience is not
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disclosure but revelation: a coinciding of the expressed with him who expresses, which is the privileged manifestation of a face over and beyond form” (1969, 27, 67).
21 According to Levinas, in an oft quoted interview The best way of encountering the other is not even to notice the color of his eyes! When one observes the color of the eyes one is not in a social relationship with the Other. The relation with the face can surely be dominated by perception, but what is specifically the face is what cannot be reduced to that. (1985, 85-86).
22 Furthermore, he clarifies that the subject is bound by the double logic whereby it comes into being and devolves on its responsibility for the Other and “it answers to the point of expiating for others” (Levinas 1985, 100). In the darkness that surrounds Mouth, we are indeed hostaged to her alterity. She escapes us, but she reveals to us the ethical relation. Revelation through the face to face relation is a form of teaching that does not depend upon vision—the traditional mode of accessing the Other which maintains the Other under my domain or reference. And of course this is singularly compelling: Beckett's characters risk exposing their vulnerabilities and voicing their basest instincts and actions. While Daniel Albright argues that Beckett’s “characters [...] aren't images of human beings, but flimsy, jury-rigged theatrical conveniences, all dreck and bricolage”, they not only represent some of the most memorable characters in literature, but also some of the most empathetic and compassionate (Albright 25).
23 In the iconic Beckettian phrase, “I can’t go on. I’ll go on” (expressed in both The Unnameable and Waiting for Godot), we see that the desire to give up versus the necessity of persisting stages a primordial wrestle with responsibility—to the “I” and to the Other. Beckett's writing emerges from the tension between the characters' knowing and unknowing recognition of this responsibility. This pre-cognitive knowing opens out into the face of the Other and comes into being in the very staging of Beckett’s plays. Beckett’s desire for directorial involvement puts into practice this ethic and constitutes another fold in the creation of the voice in his work. In productions, Beckett's voice fascinated actors and yet he abhorred having it recorded and played back to him. He thought his voice too sentimental (Knowlson 2006, 150). But whenever he gave in to pleas from his actors to read a certain passage from his plays, they were invariably mesmerized by his intonation, pacing, timber, and delivery (Knowlson 2006, 188, 210). It wasn’t simply a matter of authoritative versions. It was because Beckett’s words came from his voice and hearing Beckett’s voice gave the actors a glimpse into the work of the voice not only to communicate sense but to speak the unsayable, the naked word.13
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Abbott, H. Porter. Beckett Writing Beckett: The Author and the Autograph. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1996.
Agamben, Giorgio. Language and Death. Trans. Karen E. Pinkus with Michael Hardt. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1991.
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Albright, Daniel. Beckett and Aesthetics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
Atterton, Peter. “The Talking Cure: The Ethics of Psychoanalysis.” Radicalizing Levinas. Eds. Peter Atterton and Matthew Calarco. New York: SUNY Albany Press, 2010, 185-204.
Barry, Elizabeth. “One's Own Company: Agency, Identity and the Middle Voice in the Work of Samuel Beckett.” Journal of Modern Literature 31.2 (2008): 115-132.
Brater, Enoch. Beyond Minimalism: Beckett’s Late Style in Theatre. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.
---. “The 'I' in Beckett's Not I.” Twentieth Century Literature 20.3 (1974): 189-200.
Beckett, Samuel. Complete Dramatic Works. London and New York: Faber and Faber, 1986.
---. Complete Short Prose. New York: Grove Press, 1997.
---. Disjecta: Miscellaneous Writings and a Dramatic Fragment. Ed. Ruby Cohn. London: John Calder, 1983.
-----. Novels II. Ed. Paul Auster. New York: Grove Press, 2006 (a).
-----. Dramatic Works III. Ed. Paul Auster. New York: Grove Press, 2006 (b).
Catanzaro, Mary. “Recontextualizing the Self: The Voice as Subject in Beckett’s ‘Not I’.” South Central Review 7.1 (1990): 36-49.
Chabert, Pierre. “The Body in Beckett's Theatre.” Journal of Beckett Studies 8 (1982): 23-28.
Critchley, Simon, Adriaan Peperzak and Robert Bernasconi, Eds. “Preface.” Emmanuel Levinas: Basic Philosophical Writings. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1996, vii-xvi.
Davies, Matthew. “‘Someone is Looking at Me Still’: The Audience-Creature Relationship in the Theatre Plays of Samuel Beckett.” Texas Studies in Language and Literature 51.1 (2009): 77-93.
Deleuze, Gilles. “The Exhausted.” SubStance 78 (1995): 3-29.
---. “He Stuttered.” Gilles Deleuze and the Theatre of Philosophy. Eds. Constantine Boundas and Dorothea Olkowski. London and New York: Routledge, 1994, 23-32.
Deranty, Jean-Philippe. “Witnessing the Inhuman: Agamben or Merleau-Ponty.” South Atlantic Quarterly 107.1 (Winter 2008): 1065-186.
Ephraim Meir, “Teaching Levinas on Revelation.” Paradigms in Jewish Philosopphy. Ed. Raphael Jospe. New Jersey: Associated University Press, 257-279.
Erickson, Jon. “The Face and the Possibility of an Ethics of Performance.” Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism 13.2 (1999): 5-21.
Gontarski, S. E. The Intent of Undoing in Samuel Beckett’s Dramatic Texts. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985.
---. “Beckett's Play, In Extenso.” Modern Drama 42.3 (1999): 442-455.
Grayling, A.C. “Berkeley’s Argument for Immaterialism.” The Cambridge Companion to Berkeley. Ed. K. P. Winkler. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 166–189.
Janus, Adrienne. “In One Ear and Out the Others: Beckett ... . Mahon. Muldoon.” Journal of Modern Literature 30.2 (2007): 180-196.
Katz, Daniel. Saying I No More. Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 1999.
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Knowlson, James and Elizabeth Knowlson, eds. Beckett Remembering, Remembering Beckett. London: Bloomsbury Press, 2006.
Levinas, Emmanuel. Basic Philosophical Writings. Eds. A. Peperzak, S. Critchley, and R. Bernasconi. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1996.
---. Ethics and Infinity. Conversations with Philippe Nemo. Trans. Richard A. Cohen, Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1985.
-----. Humanism of the Other. Trans. Nidra Poller. Bloomington: University of Illinois Press, 2003.
---. Otherwise than Being, or Beyond Essence. Trans. Alphonso Lingis. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1998.
---. Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority. Trans. Alphonso Lingis. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1969.
Levy, Eric P. “‘To Be Is to Be Deceived’: The Relation of Berkeley and Plato to ‘Waiting for Godot’.” The Journal of English and Germanic Philology 101.2 (2002): 222-237.
Lingis, Alphonso. “Translator’s Introduction.” Otherwise than Being, or Beyond Essence. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1998, xvii-xlv.
Marder, Michael. “Terror of the Ethical: On Levinas's Il y a.” Postmodern Culture 18.2 (2008): N. pag.
Perloff, Marjorie. The Poetics of Indeterminacy. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981.
Perpich, Diane. “Figurative Language and the ‘Face’ in Levinas's Philosophy.” Philosophy and Rhetoric 38.2 (2005): 103-121.
Rayner, Alice. “The Audience: Subjectivity, Community, and the Ethics of Listening.” Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism 7.2 (1993) : 3-24.
NOTES
1. H. Porter Abbott has shown in Beckett Writing Beckett: The Author and the Autograph that the rhetoric of “onwardness” and “striving” is deployed with much skepticism in Beckett's writing (36, 38, 39). Abbott judges that as early as Malone Dies, “Beckett introduces the trope almost as if to signal his own emergent sense of an oeuvre” that would feel the Victorian drive for progress “as a whip” (36). 2. Deleuze speaks of this fatigue as an exhaustion of means, a depletion of cultural modes of meaning and of saying. He says, “To exhaust words, one must relate them to the Others who pronounce them—or rather, emit them, secrete them—following the flows that alternately intermingle and become distinct” (1995, 7). In evacuating words of sense and subjectivity, Beckett bores “one hole after another” in language to get to formlessness (1983, 172). 3. Critiquing Heidegger’s subordination of “the relation with someone, who is an existent, (the ethical relation) to a relation with the Being of existents, which, impersonal, permits the apprehension, the domination of existents (a relationship of knowing)”, Levinas instead argues for ethical justice. This justice “involves obligations with regard to an existent that refuses to give itself, the Other, who in this sense would be an existent par excellence” (1969, 45). In other words, Levinas opposes the neutralization of the Other in the aid of conquering or thematizing it.
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4. My reading is in opposition to a line of interpretation which sees Beckett’s work as punishing the audience. For example, Davies argues that “Destabilizing his audience also allowed Beckett to wield greater control, to impose his authority both on and off stage” (82). Davies’s judgment seems to suggest a sado-masochistic relation between the director and the audience which contradicts Beckett’s desire to produce primordial connectivity. 5. This is more visible in narrative works such as Texts for Nothing, in which the narrator says, “I say to the body, up to you now, and I can feel it struggling, like an old hack foundered in the street, struggling no more, struggling again, till it gives up” (Beckett 1997, 100). Beckett’s bodies fight their decrepitude in order to make meaning beyond symbolic signification. 6. The three stages of language in Beckett's writing advance from 1.) the enumerative language of The Unnamable, 2.) the atomic language of middle texts like How It Is, 3.) the ceaseless, impersonal flow of Worstward Ho and Not I (Deleuze 1995, 8). In the face of this incessant, criss-crossing flow of language, the Other and the I “are the same person, the same dead foreign language” that can only play witness or pay homage to the expansion of a pre-ontological moment (Deleuze 1995, 8). 7. In Endgame, Clov and Hamm consider: “Clov. What is there to keep me here? Hamm. The dialogue” (Beckett 1986, 135). However, unlike Davies, who observes that “Driving the dialogue is the characters’ terror that they are becoming invisible, unattended”, this moment signals to me the centrality of sounding oneself into being (Davies 80). 8. Careful not to allow the reduction of exteriority into a single, totalized Other, Levinas increasingly formulates Other (l’Autre) as Other’s Others (l’Autrui), but not consistently, thus creating much difficulty for his translators (see Critchley, Bernasconi, and Peperzak’s “Preface” to Emmanuel Levinas: Basic Philosophical Writings, xiv). 9. See Knowlson and Knowlson’s Beckett Remembering, Remembering Beckett, 169-171. 10. In Breath, a play which Beckett wrote in a fury when provoked by a question about the progress of his writing, a cry of “recorded vagitus” is heard when curtains open (Beckett 1986, 72). Besides “miscellaneous rubbish” scattered on the stage, no figure or character appears, only this primordial recorded voice. 11. Agamben’s desire to correct a tradition of metaphysical violence challenges Hegel and Heidegger equally. He remarks that the Hegelian dialectical process of negation conceives of being, “inasmuch as it always takes place in a having-been, in Gewesen, ... [as] a pure nothing” (37). On the other hand, Heideggarian separation of language and voice, of “the living being” and Dasein, results in a paradox, “that the very absence of voice in Dasein, the very ‘empty silence’ that Stimmung revealed, now reverses itself into a Voice” and shows itself as inextricable from death (59). In other words, ontology is governed by a negativity from which it attempts to hide and recover. 12. See Gontarski’s “Beckett's Play, In Extenso”, 445. 13. My favourite anecdote about Beckett’s voice is one included in Knowlson and Knowlson’s Beckett Remembering, Remembering Beckett. When charged by an American academic of not caring about people, about his audience, Beckett, retelling the incident in a quiet tea room in an elegant old hotel in Paris shouted, “But I do give a fuck about people! I do give a fuck!” (cited in Knowlson 2006, 206). And that is Beckett’s voice.
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ABSTRACTS
In his later theatre works, Beckett denudes language of the physical body in order to spotlight the singularity of the voice. Reduced to heads and mouths in Play and Not I, Beckett’s figures utter their despair and confusion with visceral gusto, yet there is no interiority to ground their pain. As the voices drift upward and enter our own lungs and organs, the vocalization of their pain summons us to a moment of ethical exchange, for Beckett obliges our compassionate listening. We witness the rare instance of someone risking him/herself and exposing vulnerabilities. And, in witnessing, we embrace our ethical responsibility to the Other. Employing the “optics” of Levinasian ethics, I will argue that Beckett recuperates an intersubjectivity grounded in a radical responsibility to an Other’s humanity.
Dans ses œuvres dramatiques publiées à la fin des années 1960s, Beckett sépare la langue du corps physique pour mettre en lumière la singularité de la voix. Dans Play et Not I, des personnages réduits à des têtes et à des bouches expriment leur désespoir, leur confusion avec une force viscérale bien qu’ils n’aient pas de corps physiques pour enraciner leur douleur. Quand les voix montent et pénètrent nos organes, leur douleur devient un moment d'échange moral car Beckett nous contraint à une écoute compatissante. Nous sommes les témoins privilégiés d’un individu qui prend des risques et devient volontairement vulnérable. Au travers de ce témoignage, nous acceptons notre responsabilité morale envers l'Autre. A cet égard, nous nous servirons de Levinas pour montrer que Beckett s’approprie une intersubjectivité fondée sur la responsabilité radicale envers l’Autre.
INDEX
Keywords: play, Not I, philosophy of ethics, voice, humanism of the other Mots-clés: philosophie de l’éthique, voix, humanisme de l'autre
AUTHORS
TRAM NGUYEN Assistant Professor of English American University in Dubai
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“Close your eyes and listen to it”: schizophonia and ventriloquism in Beckett’s plays
Lea Sinoimeri
1 One of the most enigmatic and fascinating innovations of Beckett’s theatre is the use of a mediated voice as a character on stage. From Krapp’s Last Tape to Rockaby, Beckett explores radical solutions to sever voices from bodies, challenging the conventions of dramatic genre and reinventing dramatic character. Beckett's characters grow increasingly uncomfortable with their own voices as they split into twin opposites, a hearer and a speaker and voices move away from their bodies into artificial mouthpieces. The tension between aurality and visuality sustains a new dramatic economy in these plays, where the restless movement of voices functions in opposition to the fixity of the actors on stage. The solitary figures to whom recorded voices drone out past stories and forgotten memories appear as fluid and spectral subjectivities, suspended as they are between the airy sounds of the recorded voices and their bodily presence.
2 The question of split consciousness thus appears to be reread and reinterpreted through the mediated voice. This invention of duality for the stage―the self divided into a listener and a speaker―has widely been debated in Beckett studies which have often focused on the “disembodied” voice in his work.1 As Ulrika Maude has argued, Beckett’s interest in aurality and radio art is often seen as a reflection of his interest in interiority and labyrinths of the mind.2 However, this duality does not simply reflect an inner conflict on stage: it complicates the relationship between interiority and exteriority, presence and absence and shows Beckett’s growing interest in technologies of voice reproduction. Thus, the influence of these technologies will here be considered as a change of focus from split interiority to the exteriority of the technological support and the materializing qualities of the recorded voice.
3 The tape recorder as technical innovation, which Beckett encounters in his experience with radio-art, provides an appealing means by which to transform voice into both object and “pure exteriority.”3 The magnetic tape is now able to repeatedly reproduce
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that inner/outer voice which haunts Beckett’s characters. Indeed, from Watt onwards, all Beckett’s characters appear to be struggling with the main paradox of the human voice: that of being, as Maud Ellmann puts it too inside and too outside: too inside because it erupts out of the viscous depths of corporeality, […] but also too outside because the voice ventriloquizes the body rather than belonging to it.4
4 Lying alone in the ditch, “on his face, half buried in the wild long grass”, Watt unexpectedly experiences the ventriloquizing power of voice when a mixed choir of voices comes to him “with great distinctness from afar, from without.”5 Likewise, the protagonist of How It Is, “lying panting in the mud and dark murmurs his ”life“ as he hears it obscurely uttered by a voice inside him”.6 In Company, “a voice tells of a past” to a man lying on his back in the dark.7
5 Beckett’s interest in the question of the voice has led to a wide body of psychoanalytical criticism. Here, his characters are often seen as being afflicted with that “schizoid voice”, which Beckett attributes to Mr. Endon, a character from his first novel, Murphy.8 In a recent essay, Shane Weller offers a rich and compelling reading of the question of the “schizoid voice” in Samuel Beckett’s works.9 Weller’s interesting argument is that the encounter with the work of Friedrich Hölderin, which Beckett read in German before starting Watt, is central to the “writing” of the schizoid voice. 10 Weller convincingly shows that Beckett’s interest and understanding of the schizoid voice develops from an appropriation of psychoanalytical concepts to a progressive deconstruction of psychoanalytical language.11According to Weller, this passage articulates an initial “thematization” of the schizoid voice in Murphy (writing about the schizoid voice) and develops into an actualization of it in L’innommable and later in Comment c’est (writing that voice), then becoming “an attempt to complicate (without simply effacing) the distinction between schizophrenia and hysteria in the later plays”. 12
6 This paper aims to build on this argument while looking at the use of recorded voice as another medial “interference” which, joined to the literary ones, sustains Beckett’s “syntax of weakness”13 and the “voicing” of the schizoid in his canon. What is at stake here is questioning the way in which the mediated voice both complicates and undermines received psychoanalytical knowledge on schizophrenia. Recording technologies may indeed have played a crucial role in the passage from thematization to actualization of the schizoid voice, offering as they do a possibility to sever voice from bodies. In the same way, the refurbishing of the question of the schizoid voice in Beckett’s middle and later theatre and the progressive splitting of voices and bodies that it stages can be thought of as directly connected to ventriloquist techniques widely used in radio art since the ’20s.14
7 With the advent of sound technology in the mid-fifties, Beckett returned to psychoanalytical concepts which had informed his works in the early thirties, now transforming and reinterpreting them from a medial perspective. Joining the respective functions of radio and telephone on the one hand and the phonograph on the other, audiotape frees sound both in space and in time. As such, it could not but pique the curiosity of an author who had always devoted marked attention to the question of the “schizoid voice”. With the audiotape, this voice could now materialize and be reproduced on stage, severed from the bodies of the actors. Indeed, from the
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mid-fifties onwards, performing the schizoid voice increased in importance as Beckett turned to stage and radio theatre.
8 Significantly, Beckett’s focus seems to shift in these dramatic works from schizophrenia to “schizophonia”, that is, that separation of sound from source which in the late sixties Murray Schaeffer identifies as one of the central innovations of the 20th century and the distinctive feature of the modern soundscape.15 Schizophonia appears to be what most affects Beckett’s characters: Krapp is an old man who, ear glued to the tape recorder, listens to fragments of his past life as told by his recorded voice. In Play, three talking heads, imprisoned in three grey urns, endlessly repeat what would appear to be a pre-recorded speech. In Eh Joe, Joe, imprisoned in a sound-proof room, listens to a haunting voice from his past. In Not I, at the mercy of an outer voice speaking through it, a mouth spits out a flood of words in the presence of a silent listener. In That Time, a ghostly head, three feet above the stage, listens to three sourceless voices. In Footfalls, May paces up and down her line of light talking to an offstage voice, coming from dark upstage. In Rockaby, a woman in a rocking chair listens to her recorded voice. From Krapp’s Last Tape to Rockaby, Beckett’s “post-radiophonic” works could indeed be thought of as staging that cultural and individual trauma which Steven Connor calls the “bloodless surgery”, or the painless loss of the human voice which technological developments in telephony and phonography produced.16
9 Interestingly enough, with the introduction of such technologies, it is the English language which comes back in Beckett’s work. After a long season of writing in French (1946-1956), All that Fall (1956), the first radio play is also the first work to be written in English. So are Krapp’s Last Tape, Embers, and all the other memory plays of the seventies and eighties which Beckett composed in English and translates later in French. Awakened by the sounds of radio, the English language Beckett refused and now accepts anew, returns to his characters in its ghastliest otherness, as an outer, disembodied voice, at once too inside and too outside. Not surprisingly, Mrs. Rooney, the old and talkative protagonist of All that Fall, starts hearing her own words resound with all their strangeness and otherness inside her body: “Do you find anything… bizarre about my way of speaking? […] she asks Christy―I use none but the simplest words, and yet I sometimes find my way of speaking very …bizarre.”17 In Krapp’s Last Tape the English language returns after a long exile as a reified and mediated language whose forgotten sonorities the old Krapp has to rediscover.18 A few years later, other characters will be affected by Mrs Rooney’s identical trouble with words. Winnie, for example, buried in her unchanging routine, at the mercy of her uncontrollable speech, feels that something is dangerously changing, and that words might sooner or later fail and end up abandoning her: “Is not that so Willie, that even words fail, at times? What is one to do then, until they come again?” and towards the end of the play she reflects on the fact that: “(I suppose) this―might seem strange―this what shall I say―this what I have said―yes―strange―where it not―that all seems strange. Most strange. Never any change. And more and more strange.”19
10 As technology enters more and more preponderantly in Beckett’s plays, his bilingual characters start speaking in a languageat once strange and familiar, “devoid of significance” and yet “so much Irish”20. Instead of sinking into the abyss of interiority, Beckett’s characters seem to be obsessed by a linguistic consciousness pushing them towards the surface of language. This attitude of course explodes in the Unnameable, where the only place for the “I” to be is nowhere else but in the language (“I’m in
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words, made of words, others’ words, what others”), but it is in the works for radio that it finds its favourite ‘blind’ soundscape, where disembodied voices resound with all their strangeness and otherness to the body. Conserving and translating voice from one medium to the other, the techniques of voice recording show their spectral nature of external archives. They operate a radical disjunction between signifier and signified, between bodies and voices signing the beginning of a new relation to interiority.
11 Indeed, set against the traditional association of sound with interiority and recorded voice with stream of consciousness, contemporary cultural history of sound emphasizes the nature of sound as exteriority. Jonathan Stern, for example, relates early technology for voice reproduction to embalming practices at the end of the 19th century. As such, and since the very beginning of its history, recorded sound only translates a version of the words, and not the acoustic materiality of the words themselves. It preserves the exteriority of the voice, split from all subjective interiority. “The voices of the dead” become, in Stern’s words, real “figures of exteriority”: Because it comes from within the body and extends out into the world, speech is traditionally considered as both, interior and exterior, both “inside” and “outside” the limits of subjectivity. In contrast, the voices of the dead no longer emanate from bodies that serve as containers for self-awareness. The recording is, therefore, a resonant tomb, offering the exteriority of the voice with none of its interior self-awareness.21
12 The English language returns in All That Fall, Embers and then Krapp’s Last Tape as an exiled “voice of the dead”, impersonal, disembodied and more and more alienated from its content. In the sixties and seventies, the dramaticules radicalize the split between recorded voices and mummified bodies of the actors, staging an after-life reality where language returns to the subject as a constitutive alterity. Put at a distance from the subject, the words slip off-stage and resound, overpowering, superfluous and repetitive, in an uncertain, multidirectional, space. The main protagonist on Beckett’s stage becomes the Listener or Le Souveneur, as French and English metonymically comment each other in That Time/Cettefois. Constantly on the edge of language,22 the listener is ventriloquized by the outer voice and endlessly caught in the compulsion to repeat her own falling out of language. The voracious imperative of W in Rockaby “More, more” cries out at both the terrorising effect of the outer voice and its vital necessity for the presence of the character on stage.
13 As voices move from the medium of body to the medium of tape, Beckett’s characters start feeling like strangers to their own voices until they literally fall out of words. Henry, Krapp, Winnie, Joe and Wall fear that very same “loss of words” which affected Watt. They perform the drama of a memory that is transposed and preserved on a technological prosthesis of their bodies. The loss of the “old worlds”, “the old credentials” as Watt said, “the old style” as Winnie liked to call it, leaves its mark on their alienating ventriloquism which turns them into the speakers of streaming and mechanic monologues and the listeners of their half true, half invented stories.
14 Henry, the protagonist of Embers, Beckett’s second radioplay, is one of the most representative characters of this new saga of Beckett’s figures. If Mrs Rooney felt her way of speaking to be rather bizarre,23 Henry turns into a real ventriloquist. We hear him create the whole soundscape of his radioplay, calling out sounds as he does at the beginning of the play: Henry: On. [Sea. Voice louder.] On! [He moves on. Boots on shingle. As he goes.] Stop. [Boots on shingle as he goes, louder.] Stop! [He halts. Sea a little louder.]
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Down. [Sea. Voice louder.] Down! [Slither of shingle as he sits. Sea, still faint, audible throughout what follows whenever pause indicated.] […] That sound you hear is the sea. [Pause. Louder] I say that sound you hear is the sea, we are sitting on the strand. [Pause] I mention it because the sound is so strange, so unlike the sound of the sea, that if you didn’t see what it was you couldn’t know what it was. [Pause.] Hooves! [Pause. Louder.] Hooves! [Sound of hooves walking on a hard road. They die rapidly away. Pause.] Again! [Hooves as before. Pause. Excitedly.]24
15 According to Schafer, recording techniques of sound transmission and preservation give way to new transgressive qualities in sound. Freed from its original source, the sound is object to a virtual dislocation in time and space, thus realizing a total permutability of all acoustical space.25 All soundscapes can now be transformed into another one without any solution of continuity; Henry, who manipulates his multiple sounds at will, appears to be very much aware of this new potentiality of recorded sound.
16 The materializing qualities of mediated sound favour aural presence over the visual as is suggested by Henry’s repeated imperatives to his father and the auditor alike: “Listen to the light now” and later on: “Listen to it. Close your eyes and listen to it, what do you think it was? A drip a drip.”26 The dreamlike power of radio art lies in its ability “to open a breach in the reign of the real”. It is an effective device for exploring the endless territories of imagination. For Henry it turns into “a machine à rêver”27, similar to the dream Hamm wishes to have in Endgame: Talk softer. [Pause.] If I could sleep I might make love. I’d go into the woods. My eyes would see… the sky, the earth. I’d run, run, they wouldn’t catch me. [Pause.] There’s something dripping in my head. [Pause.] A heart, a heart in my head.28
17 The rhythmic noise of dripping breaks the homogeneity of the real for both Henry and Hamm. Overcoming the limits of the visible, voice recording opens to the infinite perspective of hyper-reality. But if the cynical Hamm can only imagine how his dreams would be if he could sleep, the radiophonic Henry literally performs this dreamlike condition. If Nagg laughs at Hamm’s sonorous hallucinations: “Do you hear him? A heart in his head! [He chuckles cautiously]”,29 the audience of Embers shares the same auditory experience as the protagonist. Indeed, in Embers the dripping goes out of Henry’s head, protagonist and audience alike are haunted by the inner rustling of language that the play stages.
18 Voices as well as sounds can be summoned and materialize in the play. The voices of Henry’s wife Ada, his daughter Addie and the music and riding masters cease to be confined to Henry’s head and appear in the play in dialogue with his own voice. The scenes of the past which these voices evoke overlap endlessly and traverse temporal dimensions occasionally melding with the radiophonic presence of Henry’s radioplay.30 Being unable to stop speaking to either himself or Ada or his dead father, Henry’s world is wrapped in a dense enclosure of sounds. In the course of the play we hear him mimic the voices of Bolton and Holloway and animate whole fragments of dialogues from his unfinished story and then speak with his other voice, the voice of the listener that hankers for other stories and other voices to come keep him company: Stories, stories, years and years of stories, till the need came on me, for someone, to be with me, anyone, a stranger to talk to, imagine he hears me, years of that, and then, now, for someone who…knew me, in the old days, anyone, to be with me, imagine he hears me, what I am now.31
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19 We learn in the play that everything started for him with restless talking, a murmur akin to roaring prayer. He turns the need to tell stories into the urge to have somebody listen to his words which are otherwise impossible to utter. Henry prays for his “old, blind and foolish” father to listen to him; he implores Ada not to leave, but stay with him: “You needn’t speak – he tells her - Just listen. Not even. Be with me.”32 Similarly, Bolton, Henry’s alter ego in the “play within the play”, is always on the point of being abandoned by Holloway, his repeated and piercing prayers for his visitor to remain are the last sounds we hear before the dead silence of the coal burning out. As Winnie says: “merely talking to themselves with not a soul to hear, is talking in the wilderness”33 and Henry musters all his radiophonic abilities to escape the darkness of his silent solitude.
20 Listeners are also mouthpieces, narrators who hand down forgotten stories to other generations of listeners. Coming back to life thanks to the wireless sounds of radio, memories gain a spectral presence: they talk with real voices in the same way real characters do, but their bodies are absent. Contrary what happens with Henry, we do not hear the sound of boots on shingle as Ada moves around, nor the slither of shingle as she sits. We can only hear her voice coming back to retell fragments of Henry’s past life. Listening to Ada’s flux of memories helps Henry in his ever-lasting search for lost time: “Keep on, keep on!―he implores her―Keep it going Ada, every syllable is a second gained.”34 But as Ada goes backwards in that “rubbish”, as she calls it, of memories and past impressions, Henry hastens to finish his own invented stories, at once repeating and remaking anew the narrative of his memories. We listen to him taking notes of Ada’s recollection of Henry’s father “sitting on a rock looking out to sea” and the passage unveils the written nature of a mechanically reproduced and disembodied memory: Left soon afterwards, passed you on the road, didn’t see her, looking out to … [Pause] Can’t have been looking out to sea. [Pause] Unless you had gone round the other side. (pause) Had you gone round the cliff side? [Pause] Father! [Pause] Must have I suppose. Stands watching you a moment, then on down path to tram, up on open top and sits down in front.35
21 As Ada’s voice fades, Henry’s stories come to a halt. He desperately tries to animate Bolton and Holloway; he cries, begging for Ada and his father to come back, but they appear to have been “worn out” as Ada’s threatening words anticipate earlier in the play, consumed by that very same phonographic device created by Henry. The inner voice which Henry has rejected and transformed into an outer voice has animated the characters of his stories during the whole play. Without this dramatic alterity, Henry loses all his powers and we leave him in the dark counting the empty days of his life: This evening .... [Pause.] Nothing this evening. [Pause.] Tomorrow ... tomorrow ... plumber at nine, then nothing. [Pause. Puzzled.] Plumber at nine? [Pause.] Ah, yes, the waste. [Pause.] Words. [Pause.] Saturday ... nothing. Sunday ... Sunday ... nothing all day. [Pause.] Nothing, nothing all day nothing. [Pause.] All day all night nothing. [Pause.] Not a sound.36
22 Starting from Krapp, the characters of Beckett’s post-radiophonic period share with Henry a deep need for narratives together with the consciousness of the dramatic quality of the outer voice. The ventriloquism that animates the radiophonic machine of Embers constitutes the core of Beckett’s memory plays. It is transposed under the form of a split between the postures and voices of the characters on stage, literally performing the play of the “act of listening to a play”. Krapp’s Last Tape which opens a
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new phase in Beckett’s theatre is the best example of how radiophonic strategies have entered his later production. The play stages the drama of voice and listener: in a late evening in the future, the old Krapp listens to recordings of his own voice from different periods of his life. The play itself is split into two distinct parts: first, the initial pantomime of Krapp pacing in and out of his cone of light and performing his banana gag, second the radioplay of his recorded memories jealously guarded in his loved spools. The notebooks of the play confirm this firm opposition between aurality and visuality as Knowlson notes: In the production notebook of the play Beckett turns his attention to the non- listening sections of the play. He does an approximate timing of all the non- listening parts of the play and discovers that the play is fairly evenly divided between listening and non listening sections, and consequently between immobility and movement.37
23 As Katherine Hayles has argued: “The immobility of Krapp as he listens establishes a powerful tension between the aural and the visible, between presence as technologically mediated voice and presence as embodiment.”38 In the closed, solitary space of Krapp’s room, aurality opposes spectral spatiality. Here the memorial process is shown as an echo: the old Krapp listens to an adult Krapp who is listening to the young Krapp, each of them handing down their memories through a vertiginous chain of listeners and auditors. Like Henry, Krapp produces his own radio set: he handles his spools, moving back and forth in time, recreating his own “radiophonic” programme. From one spool to the other, as Krapp’s voice is “once, twice, thrice removed”,39 and memories come back as strange, unknown stories, the old Krapp conducts his quest for the “grain” of life, progressively dispossessing himself of all the previous Krapps who inhabited him.
24 We know that this quest has started early in his life. The thirty-nine-year-old Krapp, sitting alone before a fire, says he wants to separate the “grain from the husks”, meaning by “grain” “those things worth having when all the dust has settled.”40 This is why he confesses, he has said farewell to love to fully devote his life to writing. The recorded archives of his voice are, to the young and ambitious Krapp, storage of his memory, raw material for his future creative works: “These old PMs are gruesome, but I often find them a help before embarking on a new retrospect.”41
25 By contrast, the old Krapp, who has not written a word for more than a year, deeply loves his spools. He handles them with care and calls them by their name―Spool! Spoooool!―he repeats, savouring each letter of the word. Listening to his previous self, the old Krapp separates the grain from the husks too, but this time his quest inverts that of the other Krapp: he nervously winds his tapes back and forth, cutting off and brooding on the parts where the pompous voice of the young Krapp speaks of his ambitions and intellectual visions. Only when he has found the passage he was searching for, does Krapp stop and listen. Instead of finishing by recording his voice on his present birthday, Krapp again turns his ear to the machine, abandoning speaking in favour of listening, as one of the last stage directions of the play reads: [Long pause. He suddenly bends over machine, switches off, wrenches off tape, throws it away, puts on the other, winds it forward to the passage he wants, switches on, listens staring front.]42
26 Cut away from all the rubbish, to use Ada’s words, from all the previous Krapps, the description of the love scene captures Krapp’s attention and affects his memory as he listens to it again and again. In the same way as lovers are rocked on the stuck punt, the
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old Krapp is carried away by the sounds of the memorial voice and we leave him motionless, staring toward the audience. The “grain” of his life, is indeed for the old Krapp, the grain of the voice; all that sound and breath and colour which make human utterance alive: the event of the spoken word that gives life to new and sensible images.
27 A modern King Lear in the epoch of the technical reproducibility of sound, Krapp has lost all his possessions, his body has been stripped of all past identities, emptied of words and memories and turned into a puppet-like figure, restlessly performing the same comically mechanic actions. Still, reduced to such extreme poverty, Krapp rediscovers the importance of the physicality of sounds. He handles with extreme care the tapes containing the sounds of his life, cutting, recording, fast forwarding or rewinding, behaving like a real sound engineer, not far away from those who, in the same years when Krapp’s Last Tape was written, were discovering the concrete sonorities of electronic music.43
28 How It is, Play, Not I and then Company, Worstward Ho and Rockaby further develop Krapp’s quest for the grain of sounds. In these later works, Beckett’s characters become sheer listeners and their bodies resound in the concrete materiality of words. The writing of the schizoid voice, which Weller detects between L’innommable and Comment c’est is thus articulated through the intermediate passage of the radiophonic and dramatic season (All that Fall, Krapp’s Last Tape and Embers), where the inner conflict of the schizophrenic condition is transposed onto the exteriority of the tape recorder which the schizophonic condition brings to the fore. Freed from the bizarre parasites which inhabit them, Beckett’s later dramatic figures become pure listeners, engaging in new practices of embodiment. Beckett explores the virtual and labyrinthine spatio- temporal dimensions which sound recording permits; in his plays he exploits the power of aurality to dissolve the established boundaries of bodily presence, as well as theatrical genre. Beckett’s post-radiophonic plays perform the making and unmaking of a “schizophonic” subjectivity, while at the same time exploring the alienating condition where rampant schizophonia throws his characters.44
NOTES
1. See: S. E. Gontarski. “The Body in the Body of Beckett’s Theatre.” In Samuel Beckett Today/Aujourd’hui, n. 11, (2000): 169-177; Levy, Shimon. Samuel Beckett's self-referential drama: The Three I's. Basingstoke/ Macmillan, 1990; Brater, Enoch. Beyond minimalism: Beckett's late style in the theater. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987. 2. In her Beckett, Technology and the Body, Ulrika Maude contests this view arguing that Beckett’s special attention to aurality and the acoustic responds to an interest in materiality and exteriority. See Maude, Ulrika. Beckett, Technology and the Body. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. 47-69. 3. Allen S. Weiss. “Radio Icons, Short Circuits, Deep Schisms.” Allen S. Weiss (ed.), Experimental Sound & Radio. Cambridge (Mass.): MIT Press, 2001. For a short story of audiotape and its consequences on the work of authors such as Beckett and Burroughs
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see also: Hayles , Katherine. “Voices out of Bodies, Bodies out of Voices: Audiotape and the Production of Subjectivity.” In Adelaide Morris (ed.). Sound States. Innovative Poetics and Acoustical Technologies. Chapel Hill and London: The University of North Carolina Press, 1998. 4. Maud Ellman, “Joyce’s Noises.” Modernism/modernity. Volume 16, Number 2 (April 2009): 383-390. 387. 5. Beckett, Samuel. Watt, New York: Grove Press, 1953, 33. 6. Samuel Beckett quoted in Knowlson, James. Damned to Fame. The Life of Samuel Beckett. London: Bloomsbury, 1996. 461-462. 7. Beckett, Samuel.Company (1980). In Nowhow On, New York: Grove Press, 1996. 4. 8. Beckett, Samuel. Murphy (1938). New York: Grove Press, 1957. 185. For some readings of schizophrenia in Beckett’s works see: Ackerley, Chris. “The Uncertainity of the Self. Samuel Beckett and the Location of the Voice.” Samuel Beckett Today/Aujourd'hui, n. 14 (2004): 39-52; Bryden, Mary. “The Schizoid Space: Beckett, Deleuze, and l'Epuisé.” Samuel Beckett Today/Aujourd'hui, No 5 (1996): 85-93; Winer, Robert. “The Whole Story.” In Smith, Joseph H. (ed.), The World of Samuel Beckett. Baltimore: John Hopkins UP, 1991; Watts, Eileen H., “Beckett’s Unnameables: Schizophrenia, Rationalism, and the Novel.” American Imago: Studies in Psychoanalysis and Culture. 1988, Spring 45 (1): 85-106; Brink, Andrew. “SB’s Endgame and Schizoid Ego.” The Sphinx: A Magazine of Literature and Society. 1982, 4. 87-100. 9. Weller, Shane. “Some Experience of the Schizoid Voice": Samuel Beckett and the Language of Derangement.” Forum for Modern Language Studies. 45 (1), 2009. 32-50. 10. Weller 40 sg. 11. Weller 46. 12. Weller. 13. Beckett quoted in Harvey, L. Samuel Beckett: Poet and Critic. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970, 249. 14. See: Frasca, Gabriele. “Prima o poi tutti i pupazzi piangono.” In Fernando Marchiori (ed.). Beckett & Puppet: Studi e scene tra Samuel Beckett e il teatro di figura. Pisa: Titivillus, 2007, 72. 15. Murray Schafer, R. The Soundscape: Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World. New York: Knopf, Toronto, McClelland and Stewart Ltd., 1977, 90. 16. Connor, Steven. Dumbstruck. A Cultural History of Ventriloquism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000, 411. 17. Beckett, Samuel. All that Fall. The Complete Dramatic Works. London: Faber and Faber, 1986, 173. 18. On the question of language in Krapp’s Last Tape see: Katz, Daniel. “Les archives de Krapp : enregistrement, traduction, langue.” Samuel Beckett Today/Aujourd’hui, 17 (2006) 145-156. Katz interestingly argues that: “Krapp’s Last Tape représente le retour vers une langue ‘primaire’, une langue d’archive personnelle, désormais rendue non- originaire par un travail d’écriture et d’auto-traduction, tandis qu’au niveau textuel, le pièce met en scène l’extériorisation et la mécanisation les plus littérales de souvenirs, de la langue, et de la voix.” 147. 19. Samuel Beckett, Happy Days, The Complete Dramatic Works, 158.
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20. Samuel Beckett, Watt, 169. 21. Sterne, Jonathan. The Audible Past: Cultural Origins of Sound Reproduction. Durham: Duke University Press, 2003, 290. Emphasis added. 22. For Jean-Luc Nancy, the proper condition of the listening subject is that of being on the edge of sense: “Sonner, c’est vibrer en soi ou de soi : ce n’est pas seulement, pour le corps sonore, émettre un son, mais c’est belle et bien s’étendre, se porter et se résoudre en vibrations qui tout à la fois le rapportent à soi et le mettent hors de soi.” Nancy, Jean-Luc. Al’écoute. Paris: Galilée, 2002, 22. 23. Beckett, Samuel. All that Fall. 173. 24. Beckett, Samuel. Embers, The Complete Dramatic Works. 253. 25. Cf. Schafer, R. Murray. The Soundscape: Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World. 94. 26. Beckett, Samuel. Embers. 253; 255. 27. I borrow the term from Pierre Schaeffer: “Un microphone peut explorer pour vous le monde, et vous informer de ce qui s’y passe; il peut explorer le temps, et recréer le passé perdu; mais il peut aussi explorer l’imaginaire, il peut être une machine à rêver. N’est-ce pas parce qu’il est aveugle qu’il a tant de pouvoir? Qu’une brèche s’ouvre dans le réel, que le contexte visible manque tout à coup à une phrase, que le décor soit partout et nulle part, et voilà les rêves qui accourent au moindre appel de l’insolite, qui se glissent dans le noir, qui bâtissent sur les silences.” Dix ans d’essais radiophoniques, du Studio au Club d’essai, 1942/1952. 2ème éd., nouvelle éd., Arles: Phonurgia nova, 1994, Disque C, 25. 28. Beckett, Samuel. Endgame. The Complete Dramatic Works. London: Faber and Faber, 1986, 100. I am grateful to one of the two anonymous readers of this paper for having pointed my attention to this interesting intertextual reference in Endgame. 29. Endgame 101. 30. On Beckett’s use of the transgressing qualities of sound in Embers see: Maude, Ulrika Beckett, Technology and the Body. 56-60. 31. Beckett, Samuel Embers.. 255. 32. Beckett, Samuel. Embers. 263. 33. Beckett, Samuel. Happy Days. 145. 34. Beckett, Samuel. Embers. 262. 35. Ibidem, 263. 36. Ibidem, p. 264. 37. Knowlson, James. In Samuel Beckett, Krapp’s Last Tape. (The Theatrical Notebooks). London, Faber and Faber, 1992, 273. 38. Hayles, Katherine. “Voices out of Bodies, Bodies out of Voices: Audiotape and the Production of Subjectivity.” 82. 39. I borrow the expression from Charles Krance who argues that the voice speaking in Company is “that of selfhood―once, twice, thrice removed”. See: Krance, Charles. Samuel Beckett’s Company/Compagnie and A Piece of Monologue/Solo. A bilingual Variorum Edition. New York and London: Garland Publishing, Inc, 1993, 189. 40. Beckett, Samuel. Krapp’s Last Tape. In The Complete Dramatic Works. 217.
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41. Krapp’s Last Tape. 218. 42. Krapp’s Last Tape. 223. 43. See: Frasca, Gabriele. “Prima o poi tutti i pupazzi piangono.” 95. 44. I am thankful to Shimon Levy who has given me much precious advice on an earlier version of this paper and to the two anonymous readers for their insightful remarks.
ABSTRACTS
This paper addresses the question of the recorded voice in Beckett's drama, and more specifically in his second and later theatre, after the mid-fifties. It investigates Beckett's use of recorded voice technologies as a technique to materialise the characters’ split consciousness and schizoid voice. With the advent of sound technology in the mid-fifties, Beckett appears to return to psychoanalytical concepts which had informed his works in the early thirties, now transforming and reinterpreting them from a medial perspective. Notably, the paper argues that Beckett replaces the psychoanalytical approach of the schizoid voice by a concrete illustration, materialized in the form of the “mediated voice”, via the technologies of recording tape and the radio. To do this, the paper focuses on Beckett's shifting interest from schizophrenia to “schizophonia”, a concept coined by R. Murray Schafer to denote the split between the sound and its source. It thus analyses the “ventriloquism” that animates Beckett’s dramatic characters arguing for a growing interest in exteriority and alterity.
Cet article considère la question de la voix enregistrée dans le théâtre de Beckett, et plus spécifiquement dans la deuxième partie de son oeuvre, écrite à partir du milieu des années cinquante. On y observera l'usage que fait Beckett des voix enregistrées comme techniques matérialisant la conscience divisée des personnages et leur parole schizoïde. Avec l'avènement des technologies du son dans les années cinquante, Beckett semble en revenir à des concepts psychanalytiques qui avaient inspiré son oeuvre au début des années trente, mais celles-ci sont transformées et réinterprétées dans la perspective nouvelle de la médiatisation technologique. Nous arguerons notamment que Beckett remplace l'approche psychanalytique de la voix schizoïde par une illustration concrète, matérialisée sous la forme d'une “voix médiatisée”, grâce aux technologies de la bande magnétiques et de la radio. Afin de le démontrer nous nous concentrerons sur le déplacement des centres d'intérêt de Beckett de la schizophrénie à la “schizophonie”, un concept introduit par R. Murray Schafer pour désigner la césure entre le son et sa source. Nous analyserons ainsi le “ventriloquisme” des personnages de Beckett, lequel témoigne d'un intérêt grandissant pour l'extériorité et l'altérité.
INDEX
Keywords: mediated voice, schizophonia, ventriloquism, technology, alterity, exteriority, psychoanalysis Mots-clés: voix médiatisée, schizophonie, ventriloquisme, technologie, altérité, extériorité, psychanalyse
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AUTHORS
LEA SINOIMERI A.T.E.R. Université du Havre [email protected]
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Samuel Beckett : Drama as philosophical endgame?
Ideas & Forms : philosophical palimpsests Idées et Formes : palimpsestes philosophiques
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“R.C.”: Rosicrucianism and Cartesianism in Joyce and Beckett
Steven Bond
Introduction
This paper explores the possible theosophical and philosophical implications of James Joyce’s recurrent use of the initials “R. C.,” which appear once in Ulysses and three times throughout Finnegans Wake. Historically, the initials have been conceived both as the seal of the Rose Croix, or Rosicrucian Brotherhood, and as a pseudonym for René Descartes, either as René des Cartes or alternatively under his Latin designation of Renatus Cartesius. We consider both of these theoretical frameworks as likely reference points for Joyce, making extensive use of the early works of Samuel Beckett in arguing for each case. Section I takes as its starting point W. B. Yeats’ interest in the Brotherhood of the Rosicrucians, a ‘society’ which originated as a loose conglomerate of texts published primarily in Ulm in the early years of the 17th century. The Rosicrucian imagery of the blooming rose, as significant of the Virgin Mary, is traced through its various manifestations in Yeats, Joyce and Beckett. The suggestion, which is well corroborated if not conclusively confirmed, is that Joyce and Beckett were creating an intertextual mosaic of Rosicrucian allusions, most clearly evidenced in Joyce’s use of the “R. C.” initials. Beckett’s Dream of Fair to Middling Women plays a central role in this context. Section II, which argues conversely for Joyce’s invocation of Renatus Cartesius, avails instead of Beckett’s first separately published work, ‘Whoroscope,’ a notoriously cryptic account of the life of Descartes. Again, the suggestion is that Beckett makes conscious references to Joyce that assist us in understanding certain aspects of the latter which would otherwise remain beyond our grasp. Our aim is not to argue for the use of one theoretical vantage point above the other, or to prove conclusively that Joyce used either, but to highlight the likelihood of a multi-referential method evidenced in his ambiguous use of the “R. C.” abbreviation. The connections fashioned
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between Joyce and Beckett, if accurate, are some of the more concrete yet uncovered, and will add to our understanding of their relationship more generally.
1. “R. C.” as rose croix
Joyce, notoriously superstitious about birthdays and anniversaries, may have been aware that Yeats became founding chairman of the Dublin Hermetic Society on 16 June, or Bloomsday, 1885. This detail, had he known it, would doubtless have appealed to him. In 1887 Yeats met Helene Blavatsky and in 1890 joined the Rosicrucian oriented Order of the Golden Dawn. Joyce’s attitude to Dublin’s “druidy druids” (1992b, 11) is undeniably scathing at times, such as when “they creepycrawl after Blake’s buttocks into eternity” (1992b, 238). The attitude of Yeats, who fancifully conceived of Blake as a Rosicrucian initiate (Raine 213) and a descendent of the Irish O’Neill’s (Flannery 41), stands starkly opposed. But regardless of whether Joyce was humoured by the contemporaneous fascination with the occult, his works yet betray an avid interest in such matters. For brother Stanislaus, Joyce was feigning a farcical attitude to the occult, when in reality he took it “as much in earnest” as did George Russell (Joyce 1958, 180). James Atherton notes almost a score of references to Madame Blavatsky in Finnegans Wake (Atherton 236), and a copy of Rudolph Steiner’s Blut ist ein ganz besonderer Saft was left in Joyce’s Trieste library (Ellmann 128). Amongst other occult works by Steiner, ‘Goethe’s Secret Revelation’ offered a Rosicrucian interpretation of Goethe’s fairy story The Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily (Das Märchen). Terrinoni’s Occult Joyce lists Steiner and Yeats as two “revivalists of modern Rosicrucianism” with whose works Joyce came into contact (18). The debt to Yeats of course is the more significant of the two. Joyce learnt two of Yeats’ Rosicrucian stories off by heart, ‘The Tables of the Law’ and ‘The Adoration of the Magi,’ Stephen Dedalus also having read both in Stephen Hero (178). Weldon Thornton outlines “some striking parallels” with both throughout the early sections of Ulysses (Thornton 47). Allusions to Yeats’ poetry specifically recall his treatment of the mystical Rose, with direct references to ‘The Rose of Battle’ and ‘To the Rose Upon the Rood of Time.’ In this context, it is worthy of comment that two of Joyce’s primary characters are designated a surname (‘Bloom’) which Yeats and the wider Rosicrucian tradition repeatedly utilized in describing the mystical Rose. With Yeats, these begin with the magic “scarlet bloom” of The Island of Statues (Flannery 29), though being published in 1885, its ‘bloom’ may not have had the occult connotations that were evident in Yeats’ grouping of some shorter poems under ‘The Rose’ eight years later. 1895 saw the publication of Yeats’ essay, “The Body of the Father Christian Rosencrux,” which discusses the tomb of the mythical founder of the Rosicrucian order (Yeats 1903, 308-11). In ‘The Mountain Tomb,’ from 1914’s Responsibilities, Yeats is yet forging a direct connection between the blooming rose and Christian Rosenkreuz. Pour wine and dance if Manhood still have pride, Bring roses if the rose be yet in bloom; The cataract smokes upon the mountain side, Our Father Rosicross is in his tomb (Yeats 1914, 64). Yeats’ engagement with the occult, inclusive of Rosicrucianism, is well documented. Jeffares outlines that Yeats’ rose signifies the “mystic marriage” of rose and cross which is central to Rosicrucian symbolism: “the rose possessing feminine sexual elements, the cross masculine; the rose being the flower that blooms upon the sacrifice
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of the cross” (Jeffares 21). This connection is most succinctly surmised in the well known Rosicrucian Greeting “May the Roses Bloom upon your Cross,” which was certainly in circulation before the 1911 publication of Max Heindel’s The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception (Heindel 538). The electronic copy utilized here, incidentally, is stamped “Ex Libris C. K. Ogden,” the British philosopher and linguist who later prefaced Joyce’s Tales Told of Shem and Shaun and recorded the ‘Anna Livia Plurabelle’ section of what was then Work in Progress. Overt references to the Rosicrucian order are evident in Joyce’s work as early as the first story of the Dubliners, when the narrator of ‘The Sisters’ is jocosely referred to as “that Rosicrucian there” (2). The order resurfaces in “the crucian rose” and the “russicruxian” of Finnegans Wake (122, 155). Given that Joyce’s invocation of the Rosicrucians thus spans the composition of Ulysses, and the influential role of Yeats’ mystical bloom at precisely this time, the rose imagery of Molly Bloom in the final pages of Episode XVIII is highly suggestive. Molly is, as Joyce likewise referred to Nora, a “Flower of the mountain” (932). “Id love to have the whole place swimming in roses” she says (931). Ulysses closes with Molly’s reminiscence, “when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used” (933). It becomes a question of whether Molly’s many roses do not, at one level, constitute ‘The Rose of the World,’ which Joyce encountered in Yeats. To put it another way, we are enquiring as to whether Buck Mulligan’s “primrose” waistcoat does not already imply its etymological grounding in the prima rosa (first or early rose), so clearly encapsulated in the “primerose” of Finnegans Wake (361). At an abstract level, Molly Bloom, “the third person of the Blessed Trinity,” is easily conceived as Joyce’s rose upon the cross (Joyce 1992b, 693). Such deductive leaps would be bolstered by more concrete references to Rosicrucianism in Ulysses, which leads us firstly to the 17th century founding of the order. Historically, the order begins with the anonymous 1614 publication of Fama Fraternitatis, which foretold of cataclysmic changes afoot with the coming of the Brotherhood. The Confessio Fraternitatis (1615) and The Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreuz (1616) soon followed. Mythologically, the Brotherhood traced its origin to the figure of Christian Rosenkreuz, who was attributed with having founded the doctrine in 1407 as well as having lived to the age of one hundred and six (1378-1484). Yeats read these works, his most likely source being Arthur Edward (A. E.) Waite’s translations published in the The Real History of the Rosicrucians. The Fama there appears under its full title The Fama Fraternitatis of the Meritorious Order of the Rosy Cross, addressed to the learned in general, and the governors of europe. Christian Rosenkreuz is “our Brother, C.R. C.” (Waite 66) or “Brother R. C.” (68). One of the six articles of the Order is “The word R.C. should be their seal, mark, and character” (73). At another point, “Brother R. C.” becomes “Brother C. R.” (75), the two representing the initials of the Rose Croix order and Christian Rosenkreuz respectively. That R.C. appeared in the title of the Latin original, “... Confessione Fraternitatis R. C.” (85), ensured the persistence of this formulation into the literature of a 19th century Rosicrucian revival and, furthermore, into James Joyce’s Ulysses. The “R. C.” abbreviation appears in Episode VIII, as Bloom is scouring the ads of the Irish Times. “There might be other answers lying there. Like to answer them all. Good system for criminals. Code.” He provides a list of adds. “Wanted live man for spirit counter. Resp girl (R. C.) wishes to hear of post in fruit or pork shop. James Carlisle made that” (Joyce 1992b, 202). Tracing the term ‘Carlisle’ retrospectively through
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Ulysses brings us to “the red Carlisle girl, Lily,” who in Episode I is found spooning on the pier with Seymour (26). That the “red C” of “red Carlisle” intends the rose cross is further suggested by the forename, Lily, another traditional floral depiction of the Virgin Mary, whom the rose likewise signifies. The overlap with Goethe’s ‘Beautiful Lily’ may be coincidental, but the depiction of Lily as Virgin is not, as evidenced by the footnotes of Finnegans Wake II.2, when Joyce next returns to the use of “R. C.” “3. R. C., disengaged, good character, would help, no salary. 4. Where Lily is a Lady found the nettle rash” (306). Samuel Beckett was likely privy to this strand of thought in Joyce, for his use of Rosicrucian imagery in Dream of Fair to Middling Women is likewise prefaced by a reminder of Lily the red Carlisle girl, spooning on the pier. Chapter Two of Dream begins, “Belacqua sat on the stanchion at the end of the Carlyle Pier in the mizzle in love from the girdle up with a slob of a girl called Smeraldina-Rima...” (Beckett 1992, 3). Later, she becomes “his distant bloom” (40), “The bloom” (41), “the lady” (97), and “a rival of Saint-Bridget the Rose” (97). Belacqua describes his going to Smeraldina as a movement “From the rosa mundi ... to the rosa munda” (106). Both Yeats’ ‘The Rose of the World’ and Aleister Crowley’s ‘Rosa Mundi’ provide possible modern allusions, but Beckett was more likely attracted by the legend surrounding the mistress of Henry II, Rosamund Clifford. The engraving on Fair Rosamund’s tomb prefigures Dream in uniting the rosa mundi (rose of the world) with the rosa munda (pure rose): “Hic jacet in tumulo Rosa mundi non Rosa munda” (Hutton 118). If the somewhat modified history of Fair Rosamund’s labyrinth is indeed Beckett’s intended referent, the attraction was doubtless fuelled by the role traditionally assigned to Thomas Becket, Chancellor of England and later Archbishop of Canterbury. Tennyson’s Becket, for example, closes with “Rosamund seen kneeling by the body of Becket” (Tennyson 213). That Joyce’s solitary use of “becket” in the Wake should occur two lines prior to “I considered the liles” is again suggestive (543). As is Beckett’s choice of “the Alba” as the name of one of the primary characters in Dream, Alba being a class of rose translating literally as ‘white’. Martin Schongauer’s 1473 painting, Madonna of the Rose Bush, in which the Virgin’s head inclines towards the solitary white rose on a bush of reds, well exemplifies the traditional association. And so it is that the bloom of rose and lily are consistently entwined in Joyce and Beckett, most probably as repeated references to the Virgin. The Empress Wu of China is another enfolded in the embrace of Beckett’s rosa mundi. “The lily was nearly as fair and the rose as lovely as God Almighty the Empress Wu. ‘Bloom!’ she cried to the peonies ‘bloom, blast you!’ ” (Beckett 1992, 111). The list goes on. From the postman’s whistling of The Roses are Blooming in Picardy (146) to the ‘blood cross’ of “Himmisacrakrüzidirkenjesusmariaundjosefundblütigeskreuz” (239), Beckett’s Dream is never far from the imagery of the Rosicrucian tradition. Nevertheless, we must remain wary of Beckett’s warning that “the danger is in the neatness of identifications” (Beckett et. al. 3), and avoid imposing selective narratives upon the porous terrain of Beckett’s early works. Concluding “Brother R. C.” as the reason that Dick Deadeye works for the “R.A. C.” (Beckett 1992, 158), for example, would be to over-interpret. If Beckett used “R.A. C.” in a sentence about lilies and blooming roses, this interpretation would acquire a greater degree of corroboration, but it would remain an interpretation. It is not a question of finding conclusive proof, but of finding an interpretative framework that works. The Lily, blooming rose, Carlisle pier and “R. C.” initials are scattered haphazardly throughout Ulysses, and one takes license when inferring their
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Rosicrucian intent. This inference, however, acquires corroboration via Finnegans Wake, when “R. C.” is unmistakably brought together with the Lily and the Virgin (Lady). Further corroboration comes in Beckett’s Dream when the lily and the rose are brought together with the Carlyle pier. The presumed unity of selected sections from Ulysses is justified when these same elements are later brought into direct contact. That the perceived unity hinges necessarily upon “Brother R. C.” thus justifies our invocation of the Rose Croix. This is not to claim that our interpretation corresponds in all respects with the facts of composition. Our asserting the theory with a high degree of confidence is the most that textual support allows us. Finnegans Wake, III.3, illustrates well how the Rosicrucian interpretation engenders such confidence. This chapter finds Joyce again using the “R. C.” initials (Joyce 1992c, 520). If we are correct that they signify “Brother R. C.,” then further Rosicrucian imagery will lie in close proximity. “Rose Lankester” (485), “maryfruit under Shadow La Rose” (495) or even “maypole” (503) are possibilities, with the York and Lancaster Rose typically (though inaccurately) associated with the Rosa Mundi species. Similarly ‘rosy’ phrases, however, are evident in many Chapters of the Wake. We cannot say the same of the “recriution trousers” (491) and “a rouseruction of his bogey” (499), which are two of the Wake’s closest approximations to ‘Rosicrucian’. We also find “A. Briggs Carlisle” (514) and “forte carlysle,” their only appearances in the Wake in either formulation. All of this serves to justify the earlier leap from the initial “R. C.” of Bloom’s newspaper add to the “red Carlisle girl” of Episode I. The red Carlisle girl we conclude, like a myriad of female characters in the works of Joyce and Beckett, is symbolic of the Virgin Mary. What makes Lily’s case particularly interesting is the derivation that Joyce was consciously and covertly referencing Yeats’ “crucian rose” long before it’s more overt appearance in Finnegans Wake. And given that the rose imagery is most evident in Joyce’s treatment of Molly Bloom, Rosicrucianism must be considered as a possible source for her and Leopold’s surname. Rosicrucianism is at times well hidden in Ulysses and it would be easy to overlook the single appearance of “R. C.” therein. It may be, however, that the nomenclature of Joyce’s protagonists finds Rosicrucianism overlooked rather because it is virtually omnipresent, a nice illustration of Wittgenstein’s remark in Culture and Value: “How hard I find it to see what is right in front of my eyes!” (Wittgenstein 39). Again, one expects to find further textual support for such flights of theoretical fancy. Joyce provides it. Molly, or Marion, is itself derived from Mary and it is not novel to suggest that this signifies the Virgin. In the final Episode of Ulysses, Molly recalls reciting the Hail Mary, singing Ave Maria and we learn that she shares the Virgin Mary’s birth date of September 8. It does not require great feats of interpretation to perceive the parallel, and there is no reason to suppose that the traditional depiction of the Virgin as bloom does not likewise inform Molly’s surname. Leopold Bloom, on the other hand, writes secret love letters under the pseudonym of Henry Flower. His father converted his name to Bloom from ‘Virag’ (Joyce 1992b, 438), translation ‘flower’. To Molly, he is “the great Suggester Don Poldo de la Flora” (926) and earlier appears as “Herr Professor Luitpold Blumenduft” (394). That the Bloom is a flower is patently obvious and it is something of an oversight that the name has not yet been traced to Joyce’s much attested fascination with the Rosicrucian works of Yeats. We might conclude that Arthur Edward Waite’s texts were also a source for Joyce, as evidenced in Bloom’s musings upon A. E., which is also the occult pseudonym of Irish mystic George Russell. “Mr Geo. Russell. That might be Lizzie Twigg with him. A. E.: what does that mean? Initials perhaps. Albert Edward,
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Arthur Edmund, Alphonsus Eb Ed El Esquire” (210). That the two further A. E.’s considered form the compound Arthur Edward may not be coincidental. Nor the fact that Bloom pre-empts Russell’s appearance when musing upon “A. E. (Mr Geo Russell)” immediately prior to spotting “R. C.” in the Irish Times (202). Or perhaps we have merely hit upon a point at which Joyce’s many elements “begin to fuse of themselves” (Gilbert 204). Nevertheless, it is reasonable to assume Joyce’s knowledge of Waite, who was leader of the London temple of the Golden Dawn as well as the creator of the world’s most popular tarot deck. Such a careful occlusion of the occult, which we likewise witness in his treatment of “Brother R. C.,” would capture well the synonymy of form and content which Beckett admired in his ˈDante ... Bruno. Vico … Joyceˈ (Beckett et. al. 14). One further possible Rosicrucian reference in Beckett’s Dream is deserving of mention as it strengthens the case for an occult intertext operating between Beckett’s early works and the late works of Joyce. We refer to the description of Lucien as “a crucible of volatilisation...Looking at his face you saw the features bloom, as in Rembrandt’s portrait of his brother” (Beckett 1992 116). When Belacqua returns to thoughts of Rembrandt’s “portrait of his brother,” he conceives of himself as “a positive crucible of cerebration, ”and the bloom now becomes “the blown roses of a phrase [that] shall catapult the reader into the tulips of the phrase that follows” (138). According to Pilling, Beckett saw in the Louvre the Rembrandt portrait which tradition has associated with his brother, though the identity has been questioned since Rembrandt’s time. Today, the identity of the painter is also under scrutiny (Milz 152). Pilling’s account surely captures Beckett’s intent. Given the proximity of the “bloom,” “roses” and “crucible,” however, “Rembrandt’s portrait of his brother” likely alludes simultaneously to his portrait of “Brother R. C.” For tradition also has it that Christian Rosenkreuz, in a 17th century manifestation, is the subject of Rembrandt’s portrait A Man in Armour (1655). Rudolph Steiner is typically credited for this piece of misinformation, though the specific source has thus far proven elusive. The painting is likely recalled in Ulysses with Stephen’s “Doctor Swift says one man in armour will beat ten men in their shirts” (687). Doctor Swift never said this. What Swift said was that “Eleven men well armed will certainly subdue one Single Man in his Shirt” (Atherton 123). If the one “man in armour” is thus a deliberate distortion of Swift, Rembrandt’s painting of the same name is the likely reason for said distortion. Finnegans Wake has its counterpart, “For one man in his armour was a fat match always for any girls under shurts” (23). “Sir armoury” is less convincing, but notably follows shortly subsequent to both “The rose is white in the darik” and “Lillytrilly” (96). The aforementioned “primerose” follows a few lines after “How a mans in his armor we nurses know” (361), and this in a chapter which also mentions the “fourstar Russkakruscam” (352). The Five Pointed Star is another central emblem of the Rose Cross. Finally, just two pages subsequent to one final Wakean appearance of the “R. C.” initials, Joyce wonders “If I’ve proved to your sallysfashion how I’m a man of Armor” (446). Certainly, he has proved to this reader’s satisfaction that he knew of the presumed link between “Rerembrandtser”’s (Joyce 1992c, 54) A Man in Armour and “Brother R. C.” Frank Budgen remarked of Joyce and Rembrandt that they “both take ancient legends and present them in the dress and accent of their own day” (Budgen 178), a nice touch considering that the legend in this instance is one and the same. And if we can conclude “Brother R. C.” to be Joyce’s “man in armour,” we can moreover use this information to expose the likelihood of further occult undercurrents in such simple phrases as “I rose up one
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maypole morning” (Joyce 1992c, 249). One might judge Joyce to be playing upon just such a literal interpretation when Mulligan figuratively enquires of Lily, the red Carlisle girl, “Is she up the pole?” (Joyce 1992b, 26) As Finnegans Wake attests, the flower is frequently to be found up the pole. At some point one is lured into over-interpretation, but that does not alter the fact that much suggests a covert Rosicrucianism at play in Joyce and Beckett. Nor should Beckett’s devotion to Joyce at this time subordinate his role to that of mimic. Beckett’s interest in Rembrandt, for example, dates to undergraduate visits to Dublin’s National Gallery (Haynes and Knowlson 59). We must also save a significant role for Yeats, Joyce’s most likely source here and also a possible influence upon Beckett. We can certainly conclude that Joyce influenced Beckett directly, as the latter weaves together some highly idiosyncratic Joycean allusions (Carlisle, Rembrandt) to suggest that Dream is in part a direct commentary upon the hidden Rosicrucianism of Ulysses. But then this is to say little new, with one early reviewer rejecting Dream as “a slavish imitation of Joyce” (Beckett 1992, vii). This is harsh on Beckett, who does an equally sublime job of occluding the occult whilst keeping it close enough to the surface to appear suddenly obvious upon exposure. It now seems self-evident that Molly Bloom’s surname derives from, or at the very least is subsequently linked to, the rose upon the rood of time. That is not to deny the possibility of further significations, but that the Rosicrucian significance of the bloom was somehow lost on Joyce is seriously undermined in the light of above considerations.
2. “R. C.” as Renatus Cartesius
We shift now from a likely theosophical referent for Joyce’s “R. C.” to a likely philosophical one, that is, René Descartes under the Latin translation of Renatus Cartesius. Once again we will avail of the early Beckett, particularly the Cartesianism of ‘Whoroscope,’ in fashioning an intertext which sheds light on the works of both. A stalwart in Beckett interpretation since the early sixties (Kenner, Esslin, Hoffmann, Hesla, Morot-Sir, Topsfield), Descartes has thus far played a marginalized role in Joyce scholarship. There are the seven references spotted by Adaline Glasheen in Finnegans Wake (Burns et. al. 140; Glasheen 72-3), and a single article by Phillip Sicker on the role of Descartes’ famous 1619 dreams/prophecies in Ulysses (Sicker 1984). This author has expanded on these attempts in two forthcoming articles, but will avoid where possible repeating what has been said there. We are now solely interested in Descartes’ historical or mythological connection with the Rosicrucians. That Descartes’ initials (Renatus Cartesius) match those of “Brother R. C.” may have had as much to do with their traditional association as Descartes’ travelling in 1619 to Ulm, the foremost printing place of early Rosicrucian texts. That he there studied mathematics with self professed Rosicrucian, Johan Faulhaber, and availed of Faulhaber’s symbolism when writing early notebooks added grist to the mill. There is also the content of the notebooks (transcribed by another alleged Rosicrucian, Leibniz) wherein Descartes announces his plans to compose The mathematical treasure trove of Polybius, citizen of the world. It is to be written under the pseudonym of Polybius Cosmopolita, professes to solve “all the difficulties in the science of mathematics,” and will be offered to “the distinguished brothers of the Rose Croix in Germany” (Descartes 1985, 2). Then there is Descartes’ adoption of Ovid’s phrase ‘Bene vixit, bene qui latuit’ -
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“He who lives well hidden, lives well” - it being the Rosicrucian motto at this time (Descartes 1991, 43). Adrien Baillet, Descartes’ most important biographer, states that Descartes went to Germany in search of them, justifying his interest in the order as follows. He found himself so much the more concern’d at it, because he received the News at the very time when he was the most busy concerning the Mediums he was to propound to himself for the finding out of Truth. (Baillet 1693, 37) Baillet adds that Descartes never found them. The question of the connection has nevertheless reappeared at various times since Descartes’ own lifetime, the early years of the 20th century being a case in point. Mahaffy’s Descartes (1902) and Haldane’s Descartes His Life and Times (1905) provide two popular contemporary accounts. Given that Joyce’s treatment of Descartes’ dreams guarantees his use of Baillet’s unabbreviated 1691 Vie de Descartes, however, we do not need to seek further sources in establishing Joyce’s knowledge of the Rosicrucian connection. Furthermore, if Joyce did envision “R. C.” as Renatus Cartesius, he may yet have been playing the “scissors and paste man” in doing so (Gilbert 297). For the ambiguity of the initials was highlighted in the Descartes biography of Charles Adam, the twelfth and final volume of the standard French edition of Descartes’ works (1897-1910): “his seal, with the two interwoven initials R and C (René des Cartes), happened to be exactly the seal of the Rosicrucian Brotherhood” (Harvey 25). “R. C.” was in fact the cachet of Descartes’ correspondence, and so the equation with “Brother R. C.” was not a difficult one to make. Nor were such accusations saved for Descartes alone, Francis Bacon providing the English with their own candidate for Rosicrucian authorship. Descartes’ seeking the Brotherhood, however, the adoption of Renatus Cartesius above the designated Seigneur du Perron, and the subsequent use of “R. C.” as his seal make his case especially alluring. The textual support for Joyce’s use of “R. C.” as indicative of Descartes is hardly definitive, but a few points of support certainly merit mention. There is the fact that Joyce’s first Wakean allusion to “R. C.” comes in II.2, which contains four of the seven Cartesian allusions hitherto spotted by Glasheen. “Reborn of the cards” in particular finds Joyce encoding Descartes’ name i.e. ‘born’ in French becomes ‘né’ and ‘of the cards’ becomes ‘Des Cartes.’ This encryption, occurring three lines above “cog it out, here goes a sum” (cogito ergo sum), is just two pages prior to “R. C.” Joyce’s preoccupation with encoding Descartes’ name in this section provides the required context. A second use of “R. C.” occurs just six pages subsequent to another of Glasheen’s finds, though the third and final “R. C.” negates this general trend. Probability alone suggests that one of Glasheen’s seven references to Descartes should occur in one of the three “R. C.” chapters, whereas five of the seven are to be found in such proximity. Additional Wakean allusions to Descartes detected by this author follow this general trend. Beckett’s Dream too, which makes extensive use of Descartes, is worthy of interest despite its more overt references to Rosicrucianism and Cartesianism not occurring side by side. More productive is a turn to Beckett’s ‘Whoroscope,’ a 98 line summation of Descartes’ life which refers directly to his flirtation with the Brotherhood. I have drawn attention elsewhere to the as yet unexplored fact of Beckett’s ‘Whoroscope’ being belatedly delivered for a poetry competition on 16 June, or Bloomsday, 1930. Like Joyce in Ulysses, Beckett makes covert references to the famous dreams of Descartes’ stove-heated room in Germany, “Them were the days I sat in the hot-cupboard throwing Jesuits out of the skylight” (Beckett 1984, 2). Or again, “A wind of evil flung
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my despair of ease against the sharp spires of the one lady” (3). 1 Beckett was entirely devoted to Joyce at this time, and it may not be coincidental that his interest in Descartes was renewed in the same year that he befriended Joyce, 1928. That Beckett could have independently and unknowingly delivered a Bloomsday composition which followed Ulysses in its treatment of Descartes’ dreams seems unlikely, the probable conclusion being that Beckett is again offering a direct commentary upon some of Joyce’s more covert themes. Bearing this striking correlation in mind, consider Beckett’s treatment of Rosicrucianism in ‘Whoroscope,’ “and farewell for a space to the yellow key of the Rosicrucians” (3). Johannes Hedberg, a Swedish scholar attempting to unravel ‘Whoroscope,’ was given pause by the above sentence. The fact of the matter is that there is no “yellow key of the Rosicrucians.” Hedberg’s idea, and a very good one at that, is that Beckett is referring to the shape of the Rosicrucian cross. “The emblem of the Rosicrucians was a golden cross with looped ends and a rose right in the centre, thus it looked not unlike a key” (Hedberg 21). Without detracting from Hedberg, we wish to alter his analysis slightly. The Rosicrucian cross looks like two keys, crossed. As with the treatment of Descartes’ dreams, we must consider the possibility that Beckett is again commenting directly upon Joyce. For although there is no historical “yellow key of the Rosicrucians,” there is a contender for a Joycean one. In Ulysses, Episode VII, Bloom is at work in the offices of the Freeman’s Journal. Freemason’s Journal may have been the implication, as we later hear rumours that Bloom is “in the craft” (226). He is running an advertisement for his client Alexander Keyes, a grocer and wine merchant, past the printing foreman Joseph Nannetti. But wait, Mr Bloom said. He wants it changed. Keyes, you see. He wants two keys at the top....Like that, see. Two crossed keys here. A circle. Then here the name...You see? Do you think that’s a good idea? (152-3) If intended as a further encoding of Rosicrucian symbols, it is a fantastic idea, though the intent remains highly speculative. There are further invocations of the rose in ‘Whoroscope.’ “Leider! Leider! she bloomed and withered” is linked by Hedberg, via the German leiden, to the suffering of Christ from Gethsemane to Golgatha (Hedberg 26). Beckett possibly recalls this line in Dream with “rose like a Lied” (33). ‘Whoroscope’ also sees Descartes described as “the chip of a perfect block that’s neither old nor new, the lonely petal of a great high bright rose” (Beckett 1984, 4). Harvey sees an allusion to Dante’s “rosa sempiterna” from Canto 30 of the Paradiso, and likely grasps authorial intention in doing so (Harvey 31). This is not to somehow negate Beckett’s concern, when detailing the blooming rose on Bloomsday, with the Cartesian-Rosicrucian connection most neatly encapsulated in Joyce’s ambiguous use of the “R. C.” initials. On the other hand, there is no attempt here to narrow the mystical rose to an offshoot of Cartesianism. Most likely, the rose provided Joyce and Beckett with a transcendent image under the rubric of which one could encompass various historical personages. In each case, Descartes plays his part, though Dante does not go unmentioned. The identity of “Brother R. C.” too surely appeals not simply for the opportunity to hide Descartes, but rather for its ambiguity. As such, the legends of the Rosicrucian tradition may provide us with further source material. It is noteworthy for example that Francis Bacon, the primary English contender for a historical Christian Rosenkreuz, also appears in ‘Whoroscope,’ “In the name of Bacon will you chicken me up that egg. Shall I swallow cave-phantoms?” (Becektt 1984, 3) When Joyce turns to Bacon in Ulysses, it is to invoke the Baconian authorship of Shakespeare’s plays, which is seemingly unrelated
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to our search for Rosicrucian intent. A closer reading, however, suggests the possibility of further covert allusions. The highroads are dreary but they lead to the town. Good Bacon: gone musty. Shakespeare Bacon’s wild oats. Cypherjugglers going the highroads. Seekers on the great quest. What town good masters? Mummed in names: A. E., eon... (250). Stephen Dedalus provides Brandes as his source for this theory, a claim confirmed in William Schutte’s classic Joyce and Shakespeare: A Study in the Meaning of Ulysses (Schutte 1957). Another likely and more covert source is Bacon, Shakespeare and the Rosicrucians by William Francis Wigston. When Stephen is asked for Mr Sidney Lee’s opinion on Baconian authorship, he does not respond with the historically accurate “There is no need to confute the theory, which confutes itself” (Lee 143). Instead, he expounds upon the names of three female characters from three separate Shakespearean plays, “Marina, Stephen said, a child of storm, Miranda, a wonder, Perdita, that which was lost” (250). Wigston’s Bacon, Shakespeare and the Rosicrucians, in a discussion of the harmonious balance between character names and parts in Shakespeare’s plays, anticipates Joyce in thus uniting Pericles, The Tempest and The Winter’s Tale upon a single page of text. “For example, this name of Perdita is connected with her loss. Similarly, Marina, in the play of Pericles, is named after her birth at sea...Ferdinand, on beholding Miranda, exclaims – “O you wonder! ”(147). None of the three names appear in Lee’s refutation of Baconian authorship, leaving us with another striking correlation and leading us to the conclusion that Wigston’s Rosicrucian text was rather Joyce’s source here. The name of Perdita, Wigston’s “Briar Rose” (65), is especially suggestive in this context. So is the forehead of Joyce’s quaker librarian, “enkindled rosily with hope” (251), and the “Primrosevested” (253) Buck Mulligan who shortly thereafter interrupts the discussion. “The highroads … [that] ... lead to the town” may also come from Wigston, who relates Dr Andrew’s “vile pun upon the town and title of St Albans, by saying some doggerel verses that it was on the high road to Dunce table, i.e., Dunstable” (274). It may not have been lost on Joyce that the following page invokes ”the adventures of Ulysses“ upon the piazza walls of Bacon’s youthful residence, Gorhambury (275). Similarly, that Joyce encountered Yeats’ ˈ The Body of the Father Christian Rosencruxˈ in the 1905 collection Ideas of Good and Evil, in which it immediately precedes ˈThe Return of Ulysses, ˈ may have prompted the inclusion of Rosenkreuz in Joyce’s Ulyssean web of allusions (Yeats 1903). Given that two copies of Bacon’s supposed Rosicrucian treatise, The New Atlantis, are also listed in Joyce’s Trieste library (Ellmann 99), Bacon may well provide a fruitful avenue for continued research. Bacon’s Christian priest, for example, who wears a white turban “with a small red cross on top ”(Bacon 243) may inform Joyce’s “handsome Moors all in white and turbans like kings” (932) who surface amidst the rose imagery which closes Molly’s monologue. The correspondence is only distantly suggestive, but Joyce’s evident interest in the Bacon/ Rosicrucian connection warrants further exploration. As the case of Descartes attests, both Joyce and Beckett were likely invoking the blurred distinction between theosophical and philosophical matters which characterized the period of the late Renaissance.
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Conclusion
In conclusion, while Descartes’ direct influence on Joyce is hitherto underestimated, we can say that his use of “R. C.”specifically can be linked with greater confidence to Rose Croix than it can to Renatus Cartesius. The surrounding text in each instance clearly expounds Rosicrucian symbolism to a degree that it does not in Descartes’ case. Nevertheless, the use of “R. C.” in the very section of the Wake most preoccupied with encoding Descartes is suggestive, in particular the appearance of “reborn of the cards” just two pages previous. It is more difficult to draw definitive conclusions concerning the Bloomsday birth of Beckett’s Cartesian creation, but the Rosicrucianism contained therein makes for another interesting intersection. Granting the yet speculative assumption that the rosy or blood crosses of Joyce and Beckett intend both Rosicrucianism and Cartesianism unearths some interesting parallels, suggesting a yet underexplored collaboration between the two authors. To take one further example, when referencing Yeats’ The Table of the Law, it is to the presence of the Italian mystic Joachim of Abbas Joyce turns. Joachim’s tripartite account of history saw it divided into the eras of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Descartes’ father was also called Joachim, likely a coincidence but one that should not go unmentioned for two reasons. Firstly, Joyce refers to Joachim as “Abbas father” (Joyce 1992b, 49), the subtle switch to lower case “father” suggestive of parenthood before priesthood. Secondly, Line 81 of Beckett’s own Bloomsday composition runs “nor Joachim my father’s” (Beckett 1984, 4). Again, this may well be mere coincidence, but one ought not to conclude as much without further research in this direction. The extent to which Beckett recapitulates Joyce’s meaning, as opposed to re-interpreting Joyce’s texts for his own ends, is difficult to determine. In the end it may prove impossible to draw the line past which history is simply playing into their hands, but that the texts explored above should so strongly support our thesis without Joyce or Beckett’s conscious assistance would be a remarkable coincidence indeed. At the very least one might conclude that when grafting Rosicrucianism onto Cartesianism, or vice versa, Joyce and Beckett were welcoming of the hand which history played them. What is more, they may have welcomed it together.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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Bacon, Francis. The Advancement of Learning and The New Atlantis. London : Oxford University Press, 1906.
Baillet, Adrien. La Vie de Monsieur Des-Cartes. 2 Vols. Paris: Daniel Horthemels, 1691.
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Beckett, Samuel et. al. James Joyce/Finnegans Wake: A Symposium. 1929. New York: New Directions Books, 1972.
---. Samuel Beckett Collected Poems. London: John Calder, 1984.
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Budgen, Frank. James Joyce and the Making of ‘Ulysses’. 1934. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972.
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Descartes, René. The Philosophical Writings of Descartes (vol. 1). J. Cottingham et. al. trans. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985.
---. The Philosophical Writings of Descartes (vol. 3). J. Cottingham et. al. trans. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
Ellmann, Richard. The Consciousness of Joyce. New York: Oxford University Press, 1977.
Esslin, Martin. The Theatre of the Absurd. New York: Doubleday, 1961.
Flannery, Mary Catherine. Yeats and Magic: the earlier works. Buckinghamshire: Colin Smythe Limited, 1977.
Gilbert, Stuart (ed.). Letters of James Joyce. London: Faber and Faber, 1957.
Glasheen, Adaline. Third census of Finnegans Wake. California: University of California Press, 1977.
Haldale, Elizabeth S. Descartes His Life and Times. London: John Murray, 1905.
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Heindel, Max. The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception. Third Edition. California and London: The Rosicrucian Fellowship, 1911.
Hesla, David. The Shape of Chaos: An Interpretation of the Art of Samuel Beckett. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1971.
Hoffmann, Frederick. Samuel Beckett: The Language of Self. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1962.
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Jeffares, Alexander Norman. A New Commentary on the poems of W. B. Yeats. 1968. California: Stanford University Press, 1984.
Joyce, James. Dubliners. 1914. London: Penguin Books, 1992a.
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---. Finnegans Wake. 1939. London: Penguin Books, 1992c.
---. Stephen Hero. London: Jonathan Cape, 1944.
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Kenner, Hugh. Samuel Beckett A Critical Study. New York: Grove Press, 1961.
Lee, Sidney. Shakespeare and the Modern Stage with other Essays. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1906.
Mahaffy, John Pentland. Descartes. New York: Books for Libraries Press, 1902.
Milz, Manfred. “Echoes of Bergsonian Vitalism in Samuel Beckett’s Early Works.” In Borderless Beckett. Eds. Minako Okamuro et. al. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2008. 143-154.
Morot-Sir, Edouard et. al. (eds.). Samuel Beckett: The Art of Rhetoric. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 1976.
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Schongauer, Martin. Madonna of the Rose Bush. 23/09/2010.
Schutte, William M. Joyce and Shakespeare: a study in the meaning of Ulysses. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1957.
Sicker, Philip. “Shades of Descartes: An Approach to Stephen’s Dream in Ulysses.” James Joyce Quarterly 22:1 (1984): 7-24.
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Tennyson, Alfred Lord. Becket. London: Macmillan and Co., 1885.
Terrinoni, Enrico. Occult Joyce. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2007.
Thornton, Weldon. Allusions in Ulysses: An Annotated List. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1961.
Topsfield, Valerie. The Humour of Samuel Beckett. London: Macmillan, 1988.
Waite, Arthur Edward. The Real History of the Rosicrucians. London: George Redway, 1887.
Wigston, William Francis. Bacon, Shakespeare, and the Rosicrucians. London: George Redway, 1888.
Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Culture and Value. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1980.
Yeats, William Butler. “The Rose.” In W. B. Yeats The Poems. Ed. Richard J. Finneran. London: Gill and Macmillan, 1983. 31-51.
---. Ideas of Good and Evil. London: A.H. Bullen, 1903.
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ENDNOTES
1. See my "Joyce, Beckett & the Homelette in the Poêle" for an in depth exploration of this particular overlap.
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ABSTRACTS
This paper explores the possible theosophical and philosophical implications of James Joyce’s recurrent use of the initials “R. C.” in Ulysses and Finnegans Wake. Historically, the initials have been used both as the seal of the Rosicrucian Brotherhood and as the cachet of René Descartes (René des Cartes). We consider both of these theoretical frameworks as likely reference points for Joyce, making extensive use of the early works of Samuel Beckett in arguing for each case.
Nous observerons dans cet article les possibles implications théosophiques et philosophiques de l'usage récurrent par James Joyce des initiales “R. C.” dans Ulysse et Finnegans Wake. Historiquement, les initiales ont servi, d'une part, de sceau à La Fraternité Rosicrucienne, et de l'autre, de paraphe à René Descartes (René des Cartes). Nous considérerons ces deux hypothèses théoriques comme des points de références probables dans l'usage que fait Joyce des initiales, ceci en nous appuyant sur les premiers écrits de Beckett.
INDEX
Mots-clés: Bloom, cartésianisme, dream of fair to middling women, Finnegans Wake, R. C., rose, rosicrucianisme, Ulysse, Whoroscope Keywords: Bloom, cartesianism, dream of fair to middling women, Finnegans Wake, R. C., Rose, Rosicrucianism, Ulysses, Whoroscope
AUTHORS
STEVEN BOND Lecturer Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick [email protected]
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La coïncidence des contraires dans l'œuvre de Samuel Beckett
Lydie Parisse
1 On ne peut aborder le théâtre de Samuel Beckett sans prendre en compte la recherche dans laquelle s’inscrit l’ensemble de l’œuvre narrative et spéculative : c’est du moins à cette lecture que nous convie Disjecta, laboratoire de l’œuvre à venir. Samuel Beckett était un novateur, un visionnaire, c’est incontestable. Son écriture reflète à tous points de vue un mode de perception visionnaire : une relation spécifique à l’espace-temps, une méfiance envers le sujet, un travail sur les déconditionnements de la pensée, enfin l’affirmation d’une poétique. L’écriture se nourrit à une culture littéraire, esthétique, philosophique, théologique immense. Penser le monde, l’être, le langage ne font qu’un chez Beckett. Il met en œuvre dans ses écrits une sorte de théologie négative, ne cessant d’émettre des réserves face à son propre discours, dont il souligne l’inadéquation en même temps qu’il l’énonce, se plaçant à la fois dans une posture d’affirmation et de retrait.
2 La question qui hante Beckett est celle de la réalité : « La réalité, qu’on l’appréhende de façon imaginaire ou empirique, demeure une surface impénétrable, hermétique », affirme-t-il dans Proust (87). Convaincu que le langage et l’approche conceptuelle font écran à la saisie du réel, il s’est fixé comme objectif d’explorer l’espace du doute, d’habiter le doute radical qui se défie de la pensée. C’est bien là, dans la lignée de René Descartes1 et d’Arnold Geulincx2, l’une de ses obsessions, qui aboutit en permanence, et sur tous les modes possibles―y compris comique — à une critique du dualisme, et à travers lui, de la pensée conceptuelle et de la logique rationnelle. C’est la figure de la coïncidence des opposés, dont l’une des formes est la circularité, qui permet d’explorer un état de conscience non dualiste, présent dans Imagination morte imaginez : « Des extrêmes, tant qu’ils persistent, la stabilité est parfaite » (TM 53) ; « Seuls les extrêmes sont stables » (TM 54). Dans ce texte, tout fonctionne par paires réversibles : mort-vie, montée-chute, blanc-noir, chaud-froid, ombre-lumière, stabilité-mouvement, permanence-impermanence, calme-tumulte, glace-feu.
3 On ne peut comprendre l’œuvre de Beckett hors des fondements anthropologiques sur lesquels elle repose. Le thème de la coïncidentia oppositorum nourrit depuis les origines
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des domaines de la connaissance très différents, au croisement de la métaphysique (définition du divin), de la physique (le mouvement), des mathématiques (théorie des intégrales). Héraclite et le mouvement pendulaire perpétuel, Empédocle et sa quête de l’unique, Maître Eckhart et son traité sur la Gelassenheit, Berkeley et son « Esse est percipi » (« être c’est être perçu »), Pascal et sa vision de l’univers comme « une sphère dont le centre est partout et la circonférence nulle part » (Pascal 73) Giordano Bruno et sa théorie de la pluralité des mondes. De Giambattista Vico, Beckett affirme par exemple que « sa conception de la progression circulaire de la société » est « entièrement nouvelle bien que le germe de celle-ci se soit trouvée dans le traitement par Bruno de l’identité des contraires » (DIS 2). À la première page de Disjecta, il avoue : Et me voici à présent, avec ma poignée d’abstractions, parmi lesquelles, tout particulièrement : une montagne, la coïncidence des contraires, l’inévitabilité de l’évolution cyclique, un système de Poétique, ainsi que la perspective d’auto- extension dans le monde du Work in Progress de M. Joyce. ( DIS 1).
4 Mettre ce principe en mots3, en espace revient à abandonner les modes de pensée appris, à apprendre à désapprendre pour entrer dans une autre approche du réel, qui est aussi le mode de perception inspiré, fondé sur le non-savoir. Les textes de Beckett sont traversés de fond en comble par la problématique de la dépossession, une dépossession qui affecte triplement la langue, l’espace-temps, le sujet, et s'illustre dans le thème, si cher à Héraclite, à Nicolas de Cues et à Giordano Bruno, de la coïncidentia oppositorum, qui se traduit dans la langue par une remise en cause des principes dualistes, dans l’espace-temps scénique par la figure du cercle, enfin dans les personnages par la figure de la réversibilité.
1. La critique du dualisme
1.1. La parole trouée
5 Ce qui frappe d’emblée, c’est la relation conflictuelle que Beckett entretient vis-à-vis du langage et du système de la langue en général. Il éprouvait, constamment et jusqu’à la fin, le besoin d’écrire dans la langue de l’autre―d'abord le français puis l'anglais retraduit en français. L’écriture en langue seconde est une des données de l’œuvre chez un écrivain qui vit le processus de création comme une nécessité de désapprendre la langue maternelle, d’en abandonner les automatismes, de vivre une désappropriation nécessaire, une dépossession. Nécessité qu’il exprime dans Disjecta. La langue est sentie comme le lieu d’une inadéquation fondamentale du mot et de la chose, qui rend inanes les tentatives de nomination propres à la pensée conceptuelle et à la logique rationnelle, fondées sur le mode d’appréhension dualiste. Si les bizarreries lexicales abondent dans la langue bégayante de Beckett, ce n’est pas seulement la langue de l’autre qui en est responsable, c’est que la parole, parole-voix, parole-son (janvier 1999, 34-37), est à l’origine trouée par le principe de dissociation qui l’anime, elle qui, toujours adressée, fait parvenir « des sons purs, libres de toute signification » (M. 66).
6 Le théâtre est le lieu par excellence où faire advenir cette altérité radicale de la parole, intimement liée au silence, indissociable du chant de la muse Loulou dans Premier amour. Le silence est toujours habité chez Beckett. Il est une véritable matière théâtrale, quasiment une polyphonie. De même que le rythme des textes narratifs, tissés en séries, en combinatoires, en algorithmes, révèle une fascination pour l'univers mathématique et la mise en chiffres, Oh les beaux jours, par ses pauses rythmiques,
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instaure un mécanisme d'horlogerie, comme si la parole était,―ainsi l’affirme Beckett en évoquant Vico―, un ensemble de signes perdus qu'il s'agirait de retrouver dans un certain agencement du son, de la voix, du rythme, du geste, du caractère écrit (DIS 6). Giambattista Vico avait écrit au XVIIIe siècle : « Quiconque désire exceller en tant que poète doit désapprendre la langue de son pays natal, et retourner à la misère primitive des mots ». Beckett écrit : « Vico affirme la spontanéité du langage et nie le dualisme de la poésie et du langage. De la même façon, la poésie est le fondement de l’écriture. Quand le langage était fait de gestes, les langages parlé et écrit étaient identiques. Les hiéroglyphes, ou langage sacré, comme il les appelle, (étaient) une nécessité des peuples primitifs. » (DIS 6).
7 Penser le langage est le propre des philosophes et des philologues, mais l’écrivain, le poète, bute aussi sur ces vertiges. Beckett avait étudié les théories sur le langage du philosophe tchèque Fritz Mauthner4, et était nourri d’Héraclite. Il a édifié son œuvre sur la volonté de « forer des trous » dans le langage, « jusqu’au moment où ce qui est tapi derrière, que ce soit quelque chose ou rien du tout, se mette à suinter à travers. » (DIS 70).5 Ein Loch nach dem andern in ihr zu bohren, bis das Dahinterkauernde, sei es etwas oder nichts, durchzusickern anfängt―ich kann mir für den heutigen Schriftsteller kein höherers Ziel vorstellen. (DIS 52)
8 Étant donné que nous ne pouvons éliminer le langage d’un seul coup, nous devons au moins ne rien négliger de ce qui peut contribuer à son discrédit. (Q 70).
9 La méfiance envers le langage porte sur l’inaptitude fondamentale de celui-ci à représenter les choses. « Dans tout cela qu’y aura-t-il de vrai ? », s’exclame Vladimir, semant le doute sur les perceptions. (G 128). Dissoudre la surface des mots revient à transposer un geste qui existe en peinture, en musique, quand on dissout la surface de la toile peinte ou la surface du son.6
1.2. Le mouvement pendulaire dans la langue
10 Le jeu de va-et-vient qui marque la relation des personnages à la langue vient sans doute de là. La parole de Winnie, par la scansion de métronome qui la soutient et lui impose un rythme, se tisse avec le silence et devient mimétique d'un rapport sensoriel, sonore, au vide du monde, entendu comme une caisse de résonance (raisonance ?), un vide qui ne serait pas privation mais plein : « Ce n’est pas le vide qui manque », soulignait plaisamment Estragon (G, 92). L’influence d’Héraclite7, théoricien de la coïncidence des contraires, est déterminante chez Beckett. Suspendus entre le silence et la parole, entre le silence et le chant, les personnages sont à l’écoute des interstices, comme le narrateur de Premier amour qui s’éloigne puis se rapproche pour entendre le chant de la muse Loulou, illustrant le rapport au Logos selon Héraclite ( le cadre de cet article étant trop limité, voir le développement de cette idée, avec citations à l’appui, dans Lydie Parisse 13-16). Le Logos est écart. Loulou chante faux et louche, Molloy est borgne. Écouter de travers, regarder de travers, sont autant de recherches sur la diagonale de l’invisible.8
11 Dans sa quête de la littérature du non-mot, de la langue impossible, de la langue du dépossédé, Beckett cherche à trouer le visible, pour faire advenir sur l’espace de la scène sa vision intérieure, à travers une parole visuelle et sonore. Entre convocation et refus des formes et des signes, son écriture dessine un espace conflictuel qui remet en
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cause les principes du dualisme et tend à s’abolir vers l’image, la peinture, le graphisme, jusqu’à devenir le scénario d’une non-action, tendu vers la contemplation d’une image immobile. Le poète, l’homme de théâtre, le cinéaste, ces trois tentations convergent pour nourrir une obsession de l’espace-temps réversible et un. Le regard que nous portons sur le prétendu « réel » doit être révisé de fond en comble, et transposé dans une conception singulière de l'espace-temps théâtral, particulièrement sensible dans Oh les beaux jours et En attendant Godot.
2. L’espace-temps circulaire
12 Comme pour Proust, écrire est pour Beckett une question de vision : Car il ne s’agit nullement d’une prise de conscience, mais d’une prise de vision, d’une prise de vue tout court […] au seul champ qui se laisse parfois voir sans plus […] : le champ intérieur. (MP 27-8).
13 La peinture9, parce qu’elle met en perspective le regard que nous portons sur le réel, fournit à Beckett les éléments de son esthétique théâtrale, actualisation maniaque de son « champ intérieur ». L’image cinématographique, parce qu’elle est vision simultanée, contrairement aux mots, toujours grevés de calculs, de souvenirs, offre des possibilités scéniques qui seront mises en œuvre dans les pièces pour la télévision. Selon Beckett, l’artiste doit regarder le monde avec « l’œil du cyclone » : La seule recherche féconde est une excavation, une immersion de l’esprit, une plongée en profondeur. L’artiste est certes actif, mais d’une manière négative : il se dérobe à la vanité des phénomènes situés à la circonférence périphérique, il se laisse attirer jusqu’à l’œil du cyclone. (P 77-8).
14 Il y a une obsession de l’œil chez Beckett, mais de l’œil en tant que point de vue limité situé à l’extérieur de soi. La figure circulaire de l’« œil du cyclone », au centre du tourbillon, culmine avec l’image filmique qui, par les gros plans, permet de mesurer ce potentiel d’étrangeté. Selon Gilles Deleuze, « l’image n’est pas un objet, mais un “processus”. On ne sait pas la puissance de telles images, si simples soient-elles, du point de vue de l’objet. » (Q 72). Film, tourné en 1964, avec Buster Keaton, est placé sous le signe de cette idée de George Berkeley10 : Esse est percipi. Pour ce philosophe, les choses qui n'ont pas la faculté de penser (les idées) sont perçues et c'est l'esprit (humain ou divin) qui les perçoit. Et Beckett de commenter : Perçu de soi subsiste l’être soustrait à toute perception étrangère, animale, humaine, divine. La recherche du non-être par suppression de toute perception étrangère achoppe sur l’insupprimable perception de soi. Proposition naïvement retenue pour ses seules possibilités formelles et dramatiques. (CO, 113).
15 Écrire c’est voir. Le mode de perception visionnaire, qui s’attache au négatif du visible, met en question nos représentations de l’espace et du temps.
16 « À quoi les arts représentatifs se sont-ils acharnés depuis toujours ? À vouloir arrêter le temps, en le représentant. » (MP, 29). L’espace-temps est la matière sur laquelle le théâtre travaille, et Beckett tend à l’abstraire des conditions a priori de notre sensibilité pour l’isoler, le dissocier, l’inscrire dans une durée. Hölderlin11 écrivait : « Aux limites extrêmes de la douleur, il ne reste plus rien que les conditions pures du temps et de l’espace. » Ces conditions pures, ce sont la durée, la lenteur, l’arrêt sur image. C’est aussi l’obsession des espaces géométriques, des figures censées mettre en
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chiffre l’univers. « Maximum de simplicité et de symétrie », indiquent les didascalies de Oh les beaux jours (Oh 11). Dans le texte Les Deux besoins, Beckett, comme Leibniz, rêve à un sujet sans nombre et sans personne :
17 Le décaèdre régulier suivant les dimensions duquel le Tout-Puissant se serait proposé d’arranger les quatre éléments. […] Décaèdre régulier, trop régulier, […] divine figure dont la construction dépend d’un irrationnel, à savoir l’incommensurabilité de la diagonale du carré avec le côté, sujet sans nombre et sans personne. (DIS 56).
2.1. Le temps non mesurable
18 Le théâtre de Beckett renvoie à un hors-temps, un temps messianique d'après une catastrophe qui ne peut être ni décrite ni datée, ce qui permet un déplacement du regard et un glissement du temps de l'histoire à celui de la légende. VLADIMIR. — Il fallait y penser il y a une éternité, vers 1900. (G 10) VLADIMIR. — Le temps s’est arrêté. (G 50) VLADIMIR. — Le dernier moment... (Il médite). C’est long mais ce sera bon. Qui disait ça ? (G 10).
19 La montre de Pozzo se détraque, puis il devient aveugle et perd la notion du temps : « Les aveugles n’ont pas la notion du temps. [...] Les choses du temps il ne les voient pas non plus. » (G 122). Les personnages de Beckett ne parviennent jamais à se mettre d’accord sur la mesure du temps. Le temps est soumis à l’opération du doute méthodique. — ESTRAGON - Et tu dis que c’était hier, tout ça ? — VLADIMIR- Mais oui, voyons. — ESTRAGON -Et à cet endroit ? (G, 85). — POZZO – [...] Je me demande parfois si je ne dors pas encore. (G, 122).
20 Dans Oh les beaux jours, Winnie met en évidence de manière radicale l’absence de mesure de ce qui nous mesure : « Peut-on parler encore de temps ? » (Oh, 60), ou encore : « je pensais autrefois qu’il n’y avait jamais aucune différence entre une fraction de seconde et la suivante. » (Oh 71). De cette difficulté découle une confusion des temporalités, qui toutes sont convoquées simultanément dans le ici-maintenant de l’évocation présente. Au temps de l’histoire s’entremêlent le temps eschatologique et l’interrogation sur les fins dernières.12 À ce temps se superpose le temps de l’horloge interne, dans le champ de la durée et de la remémoration. Surplombant les autres approches, la vision par delà le temps s’invite clairement chez certains personnages, dont Pozzo, aveugle visionnaire. Il illustre une figure paradoxale (G 122). A la charnière des contraires, l’aveugle voit. La circularité du temps est devenue une figure, elle aussi, de la rencontre des contraires convoquée dans une mémoire percée qui touche le temps de l’histoire collective comme de l'histoire intime. Dans la perte de repères se définit l'espace d’une errance circulaire, sur le mode de la spirale, qui est adhésion du personnage à sa propre dépossession, mais à l’intérieur d'une zone codifiée, une zone au carrefour de forces paradoxales.
2.2. L’impossible espace du centre
21 L’espace est soumis au même doute métaphysique, comme le formule avec humour dans Le Monde et le pantalon :
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L’espace vous intéresse ? Faisons-le craquer. Le temps vous tracasse ? Tuons-le tous ensemble. (MP, 45).
22 Le plateau de théâtre est concrètement un espace de tension des forces contraires, notamment entre cour et jardin, comme dans le théâtre grec. La figure de rhétorique privilégiée en demeure l’oxymore, très prisée par Beckett : Le meilleur moindre. Non. Néant le meilleur. Le meilleur pire. Non. Pas le meilleur pire. Néant pas le meilleur pire. Moins meilleur pire. Non. Le moins. Le moins meilleur pire. Le moindre jamais ne peut être néant. Jamais au néant ne peut être ramené. Jamais par le néant annulé. Inannulable moindre. Dire ce meilleur pire. Avec des mots qui réduisent dire le moindre meilleur pire ...... ……………………………………...... ………………………………………………… hiatus pour lorsque les mots disparus. (CP 41).
23 La Dernière bande décrit une expérience extatique marquée par l’« indestructible association jusqu’au dernier soupir de la tempête et de la nuit avec la lumière de l’entendement et le feu » (DB, 23) qui fait sans doute référence à une donnée autobiographique. Le plateau n’est pas seulement le lieu où advient l’extase, pas seulement la quête du nummus mundum, mais le lieu où à l’effondrement maximum correspond l’énergie maximum, le lieu de rencontre du minimum et du maximum, comme loi physique de la nature, ainsi que le formulait Giordano Bruno13, ce mystique et savant, défenseur de la pluralité des mondes, dont Beckett cite intégralement les mots dans Disjecta : Il n’y a aucune différence, dit Bruno, entre la corde la plus petite possible et l’arc le plus petit possible, aucune différence entre le cercle infini et la ligne droite. Les maxima et minima de contraires particuliers sont égaux et indifférenciables. La chaleur minimale équivaut au froid minimal. En conséquence, les transmutations sont circulaires. Le principe (minimum) d’un contraire prend son mouvement au principe (maximum) de l’autre. Il s’ensuit que non seulement les minima coïncident avec les minima, et les maxima avec les maxima, mais les minima avec les maxima lors de la succession des transmutations. La vitesse maximale est un état de repos. Le maximum de corruption et le minimum de génération sont identiques : en principe, la corruption est la génération. Et toute chose est en définitive identifiée à Dieu, la monade universelle, la monade des monades. (DIS, 3).
24 Dans Quad, courte pièce pour la télévision mise en scène et réalisée en 1981 par Beckett, — produite par la Süddeutscher Rundfunk et diffusée en RFA sous le titre Quadrat 1 & 2 —, la pratique qui consiste à forer des trous dans la langue aboutit, sur le plan scénographique, à une tentative radicale : l’espace scénique, dépotentialisé, est concentré autour d’un trou central, sorte de réservoir de forces contraires qui empêche les personnages répétant inlassablement le même parcours de s’en approcher. Plus de mots, seulement un quadrilatère, et une chorégraphie pour quatre interprètes vêtus de tuniques à capuchons, d’abord colorées — blanc, bleu, jaune, rouge — puis monochromes pour une séquence en noir et blanc. Tous les pas sont comptés, il s’agit uniquement d’éviter le centre sans se croiser.
25 Dans l’œil du cyclone, le centre est la zone de calme, autour est le cyclone, selon une cosmogonie circulaire héritée de ceux que le monde inquiète : des cercles de Dante, mais aussi des deux infinis de Pascal. « Impossible de vouloir autre l’inconnu, l’enfin vu, dont le centre est partout et la circonférence nulle part. » (MP 32). Toute l’existence humaine est une éjection hors de l’espace du centre. Cette projection irrésistible vers les périphéries, tous les personnages la vivent, de façon plus ou moins comique : au cœur d’un espace-temps effondré, Hamm, dans Fin de partie, demande : « Je suis bien au
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centre ? » (FP 42). Dans Oh les beaux jours, le centre qui effondré est occupé par Winnie : « Étendue d’herbe brûlée s’enflant au centre en petit mamelon. […] Enterrée jusqu’au- dessus de la taille dans le mamelon, au centre précis de celui-ci, Winnie. » (Oh 11).
26 Le centre est la mesure de l’univers, un point invisible de l’espace-temps. « Il y a encore un monde à découvrir » (Bernold 108), dit Beckett à la fin de sa vie, cité par son ami André Bernold, qui lui-même cite Heinrich von Kleist : « Und hier sei der Punkt, wo die beiden Enden der Ringförmigen Welt ineinandergriffen greifen. » (Bernold 108). Ce point de jonction circulaire, c’est le point de rencontre des antagonismes, que traduit le mouvement perpétuel de Quad14. Car « au centre il y a un abîme », dit Beckett (Bernold 108). L’écriture initie dans les romans ce que le théâtre actualise sur la scène, qui devient le lieu d’une scénographie de l’invisible.
27 « Route à la campagne, avec arbre » (G, 9). La concentration de l'espace scénique autour d'un point fixe est une donnée de la dramaturgie de Beckett. ESTRAGON. — [...] Tu es sûr que c’est ici ? VLADIMIR. — Quoi ? ESTRAGON. — Qu’il faut attendre. VLADIMIR. — Il a dit devant l’arbre. (Ils regardent l’arbre). Tu en vois d’autres ? ESTRAGON. — Qu’est ce que c’est ? VLADIMIR. — On dirait un saule. ESTRAGON. — Où sont les feuilles ? VLADIMIR. — Il doit être mort. ESTRAGON. — Finis les pleurs. VLADIMIR. — A moins que ce ne soit pas la saison. ESTRAGON. — Ce ne serait pas plutôt un arbrisseau ? VLADIMIR. — Un arbuste. ESTRAGON. — Un arbrisseau. VLADIMIR. — Un - (G, 17).
28 L’arbre, point immobile mais vivant, au milieu de l’espace, donne la direction du regard et la mesure de tout mouvement et renvoie au balancement, au mouvement pendulaire perpétuel évoqué par Héraclite ?
29 Lendemain. Même heure. Même endroit. [...] L’arbre porte quelques feuilles. Entre Vladimir, vivement. Il s’arrête et regarde longuement l’arbre. Puis brusquement, il se met à arpenter vivement la scène dans tous les sens (G 79). VLADIMIR. — [...] ah ! L’arbre ! ESTRAGON. — L’arbre ? VLADIMIR. — Tu ne te rappelles pas ? ESTRAGON. — Je suis fatigué. VLADIMIR. — Regarde-le. Estragon regarde l’arbre. ESTRAGON. — Je ne vois rien. VLADIMIR. — Mais hier soir il était tout noir et squelettique ! Aujourd’hui il est couvert de feuilles. ESTRAGON. — De feuilles ! VLADIMIR. — Dans une seule nuit ! ESTRAGON. — On doit être au printemps. VLADIMIR. — Mais dans une seule nuit ! ESTRAGON. — Je te dis que nous n’étions pas là hier soir. Tu l’as cauchemardé. VLADIMIR. — Et où étions-nous hier soir, d’après toi ? ESTRAGON. — Je ne sais pas. Ailleurs. Dans un autre compartiment. Ce n’est pas le vide qui manque. (G 92)
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30 Ce dialogue, repris en boucle à la page 132, nous installe dans un temps cyclique et un espace circulaire qui désigne métaphoriquement une cosmogonie fondée sur un abîme. Mais c’est surtout Oh les beaux jours qui met en scène un espace du centre, noyau vivace, volcanique, d'une écorce terrestre calcinée. « Maximum de simplicité et de symétrie. » (Oh 11), précisent les didascalies. Cette fois-ci, c’est la forme humaine qui constitue l’axe du mamelon. La mise en chiffres de l'espace revient à privilégier la verticalité, que l'être humain partage avec l'arbre. Une verticalité de préférence immobile, comme le préconise Winnie : « Quelle malédiction, la mobilité ! »(Oh 56). À la fin de En attendant Godot, les personnages essaient de faire l’arbre, évoquant comiquement l'ancienne correspondance entre le microcosme et le macrocosme (G 108). Mais ils n'arrêtent pas de gigoter : Vladimir fait l'arbre en titubant. VLADIMIR (s'arrêtant). — À toi. Estragon fait l'arbre en titubant. ESTRAGON. — Tu crois que Dieu me voit ? VLADIMIR. — Il faut fermer les yeux. ( G 108)
31 L’arbre de En attendant Godot, le mamelon de Oh les beaux jours, l’orifice de Quad, renvoient à un point de convergence de forces situé au centre de la scène du théâtre, qui frappe les personnages d’inconsistance et fait voler leur moi en éclats. VLADIMIR. — Ça ne veut rien dire. Moi aussi j’ai fait semblant de ne pas les reconnaître. Et puis, nous, on ne nous reconnaît jamais (G 67).
32 Les personnages de Beckett se tiennent sur un point singulier de l’espace-temps, au bord de l’abîme. À tout moment, tels des équilibristes, ils peuvent tomber, d’où leur posture clownesque, et cette forme particulière de rire : ce rire métaphysique qui abolit les frontières du comique et du tragique. Sur la crête des contraires, là où se trouve l’innommable, habite la figure du dépossédé.
3. Les personnages, figures de la réversibilité
33 Les héros de Beckett affirment une rupture involontaire mais de fait, vis-à-vis de la pensée commune. Ontologiquement, ils ne peuvent faire autrement car chaque parcelle de leur souffle est employée à traquer les conditionnements de comportement et de langage, à remettre en cause les représentations que nous avons de nous-mêmes et du réel, et les valeurs de la société humaine en général. Cette démarche exige une observation constante de soi, une forme d’ascèse, d’exercice spirituel. Cette attitude de déconstruction systématique tend vers le non-savoir, ou quelque chose que la pensée humaine ne peut circonscrire, en marge des attitudes savantes, lettrées, érudites.
34 Tous les personnages passent leur temps à observer et décrire de l’intérieur le mécanisme de la pensée dualiste, dont ils remettent en question les fondements conceptuels et rationnels. VLADIMIR. — Quand on cherche on entend. ESTRAGON. — C’est vrai. VLADIMIR. — Ça empêche de trouver. ESTRAGON. — Voilà. VLADIMIR. — Ça empêche de penser. ESTRAGON. — On pense quand même. VLADIMIR. — Mais non, c’est impossible. ESTRAGON. — C’est ça, contredisons-nous.
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VLADIMIR. — Impossible. ESTRAGON. — Tu crois ? VLADIMIR. — Nous ne risquons plus de penser. (G 89)
35 Dans cette dernière réplique, il faut comprendre : nous risquons d’entrer dans la non- pensée, c'est-à-dire la pensée en marge du système dualiste. Winnie, descendante de Molloy propose, dans ses facéties, non pas d'expliquer le monde, mais de se recueillir et de l'entendre avec ses oreilles.15 WINNIE. — Oui, ce sont de beaux jours, les jours où il y a des bruits (un temps) où j’entends des bruits. (Oh 64-65).
36 Les personnages de Beckett sont des créatures oxymoroniques. Figures intermédiaires entre le personnage et la persona, entre le mort et le vivant, entre l’animé et l’inanimé, entre l’humain, l’objet, le végétal, ce que renforce le caractère expressionniste des pièces pour la télévision. L’écriture didascalique convoque cette immobilité sculpturale à mi-chemin du monde animé et inanimé, comme dans Mal vu mal dit, cette figure de vieille femme au cabanon, quasi-fossile, soumise aux rayons changeants de la lumière lunaire. Cette « ombre d’une vieille femme » (CP 46), on la retrouve dans Cap au pire, dans le visage impassible du protagoniste de Dis Joe, dans l’entre-deux de l’insomniaque de Nacht und Traüme, avec l’intensité déchirante de la tête qui finit par retomber entre les mains de l’image qu’elle a convoquée. Entre le sujet et l’objet, ils sont quasiment dépossédés de leur nature humaine. Non seulement ils sont ceux qui désapprennent le langage, qui désapprennent la pensée, au point d’être prêts à perdre toutes leurs possessions. En revendiquant un déficit, une privation qui fondent leur différence, ils mettent en œuvre un manque fondamental, traditionnellement attribué aux figures de l’idiot et du pauvre, et qui renvoie au thème de la pauvreté spirituelle : figures du non- savoir, ceux qui n’ont rien sont aussi ceux qui ne sont possédés par rien. Ils échappent au point de vue humain.
37 Tous les personnages de Beckett sont des créatures dépossédées, chambres d’écho d’un monologue ininterrompu dans un temps d’après la catastrophe ― la catastrophe d’être né ? ― mais leurs facéties sont aussi des prières d’abandonnés à ce qui n’a pas de nom. « Horreur du contenu, sérénité de la forme », disait Beckett à propos de l’œuvre de Kafka (Bernold 81). Molloy, avec sa jambe de bois, ses béquilles, ses orteils coupés, perçoit ses membres comme étrangers, s’imagine de l’extérieur perçu comme un « point noir », comme « une épave » à l’horizon des sables (M. 100). Il y a Pozzo l'aveugle, comme Hamm dans Fin de partie, comme Monsieur Rooney dans Tous ceux qui tombent. Il y a Winnie la femme-tronc, la muette de Pas moi, et bien d’autres créatures paradoxales, qui semblent échapper à l’espèce par leur empêchement à être qui est attente de l’être. Ce déficit ontologique est une forme de la dépossession : c’est la perte du propre, que Premier amour appelle « le non-moi » La chose qui m’intéressait moi, roi sans sujets, celle dont la disposition de ma carcasse n’était que le plus lointain et futile des reflets, c’était la supination cérébrale, l’assoupissement de l’idée de moi et de l’idée de ce petit résidu de vétilles empoisonnantes qu’on appelle le non-moi, et même le monde, par paresse. (PA 21)
38 Cette impersonnalité ultime, que recherche le poète visionnaire, le mode de perception inspiré la lui fournit.
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3.1. Le don de folie
39 « Nous naissons tous fous, quelques-uns le demeurent », affirme Estragon (G 112). La folie n’est pas seulement déréliction mais folie inspirée, décloisonnement de la pensée qui permet de voir. Elle n’est rien d’autre que la « folle sagesse », celle que Beckett admire dans « Henri Hayden, homme-peintre » : Il s’entend, dans les toiles de Hayden, loin derrière leur patient silence, comme un écho de cette folle sagesse, et tout bas, de son corollaire, à savoir que pour le reste il ne peut qu’en être de même. Présence à peine de celui qui fait, présence à peine de ce qui est fait. Œuvre impersonnelle, œuvre irréelle. C’est une chose des plus curieuses que ce double effacement. Et d’une bien hautaine inactualité. Elle n’est pas au bout de ses beaux jours, la crise sujet/objet. (DIS 146).
40 État de perception du monde non dualiste, la folie est une position de rupture radicale face à la pensée commune, qui garantit l’intégrité du travail du peintre, comme celle du regard des personnages de Beckett : tous sont des fous, sans exception. « Ecrire en insensé », tel est l’art poétique que, sur le modèle de Jeanne Guyon, Beckett pourrait revendiquer16 : « Il faut croire que j’étais hors de moi, à cette époque », écrit le narrateur de Premier amour (39). La posture du fou, liée à la figure de l’écrivain inspiré, est éminemment libératrice. Ce qui la fonde, c’est sa référence à une parole de vérité ― ou de non-savoir. Ce n’est pas un hasard si le secrétaire de Joyce subit, avant d’écrire son œuvre, l’influence de Giordano Bruno. Ce dominicain brûlé comme hérétique en 1600 parce qu’il avait prôné la pluralité des mondes et l’immanence du divin offre le modèle d’une parole de folie qui, au nom d’une intuition supérieure, s’oppose aux institutions et à la parole des lettrés. Si Giordano Bruno est un inventeur de mondes, Beckett va demander à la littérature de déconstruire les visions du monde.
3.2. Figures prophétiques
41 La figure de la folie est le thème du dernier poème de Beckett, intitulé « Comment dire » (PO 26-7). À propos de Lucky, Vladimir émet cette hypothèse : « C’est peut-être un idiot » (G 34). Deux monologues de l'acte II donnent la mesure du couple de Pozzo et Lucky. Ils sont entièrement référés à un discours comique sur la transcendance, qui les rattache à la tradition de l’idiotie inspirée, de l’idiotus17, de la « folle sagesse », selon l’expression de Beckett (DIS 146) ou de la sage folie définie par saint Paul dans la première épître aux Corinthiens : « Que nul ne s’abuse de lui-même. Si quelqu’un parmi nous pense être sage selon ce siècle, qu’il devienne fou, afin de devenir sage. » (I 18). Le « sage fou », le salôs, est celui qui, totalement dénué d’amour-propre, ne craint pas de s’humilier jusqu’à la perte de soi : par son comportement ou son langage asocial, il est porteur de vérité. Lucky, personnage qui a peu parlé jusque-là, se met à ridiculiser, sur le mode de l’invective, l’hypothèse d’un dieu personnel à barbe blanche, dans une logorrhée verbale qui ruine toute ponctuation. (G 59-70). Pozzo également est porteur de cette forme de folie, dans le monologue où, contraignant Lucky à regarder le ciel, il évoque, également sur le mode prophétique, la précipitation du crépuscule après le passage de l'aube : « La nuit galope et viendra se jeter sur nous », conclut-il (G 51-52). Si au premier abord, son annonce est banale et ne nous apprend rien de nouveau, elle suggère une accélération météorologique, une rencontre improbable de l'aube et du crépuscule, qui nous ramène à l’attente de Godot et à la fameuse coïncidentia
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oppositorum, oxymore formulé par Héraclite et Nicolas de Cues, et qui n'est autre qu'une figure approximative pour évoquer la manifestation d'un divin qui échappe aux modes de conceptualisation humains : « Dieu est jour nuit, hiver été, guerre paix, satiété faim ; cela veut dire tous les opposés », affirmait Nicolas de Cues (Eliade 115). « Le Dieu est jour et nuit, hiver et été, guerre et paix, abondance et famine ; il se transforme comme le feu », écrivait Héraclite (Heidegger 1988, 122). Dans les deux cas, Lucky et Pozzo donnent à entendre, sur un mode décalé, une formulation négative de l’incommensurable, à la mesure d’une pièce qui prend pour titre le thème de la théologie négative.
3.3. La folie au féminin
42 Chez Beckett, de nombreux personnages féminins sont également porteurs de l’expérience visionnaire. Les femmes sont souvent des créatures fabuleuses, des fées, des figures de l’ineffable. Anne-Loulou (PA), Lousse (M), Mademoiselle Fitt (TC), la muette de Pas moi, sont de celles-ci. Mais c’est Winnie, qui, dans Oh les beaux jours, est le personnage féminin le plus accompli parce qu'elle inaugure une dramaturgie de la parole de folie, dans un dispositif scénique particulièrement cohérent et qui intègre une forme d'interactivité avec le public, autour du questionnement sur le voir et le représentable. WINNIE. — Je n’ai pas perdu la raison. (Un temps). Pas encore. (Un temps). Pas toute. Il m’en reste des bruits. (Un temps). Comme des petits ... effritements, des petits... éboulements. (Oh, 65)
43 Winnie est une authentique folle par son exigence de rénovation du regard porté dans la salle du théâtre et sur le théâtre. « Vieilles choses. (Un temps.) Vieux yeux. »(Oh 17). Dans le cadre de ce soliloque, l’adresse est autant au spectateur qu’au dieu absent. « Étrange sensation, que quelqu’un me regarde. »(Oh 48) « Le temps est à Dieu et à moi. » (Oh 28-9) Selon ce principe double, les actions scéniques peuvent se lire aussi comme autant d’actes de dévotion, de même que les accessoires, éléments fondateurs de l’acte théâtral, sont autant d’objets de contemplation. L’incarnation théâtrale met en abîme notre incarnation et l’inscrit dans une durée qui nous pousse sûrement vers l’abîme ou du moins vers la disparition, dans l’évocation finale d’une « étreinte exquise » (Oh 77) adressée à un vous qui renvoie autant au spectateur qu’à l’ineffable, à autrui qu’à l’Autre, à une mise en abyme de l’acte théâtral et de la situation immobile du spectateur, comme à une (méta)physique de l’abîme.
44 Le lieu de la parole, pour Beckett, c’est le théâtre, c’est le plateau, lieu de l’expérimentation concrète des dimensions du visible et de l’invisible, de la présence et de l’absence, c’est l’acteur en tant que personnage, en tant que figure cosmophore, qui voile et dévoile. Dans Oh les beaux jours, l’espace scénique est le lieu d’une énigmatique pluralité, par sa géométrie, par sa double adresse, par la durée installée dans les silences, par la parole où le mot est vidé de ses sens. « Non il faut que quelque chose arrive, dans le monde, ait lieu, quelque changement, moi je ne peux pas », dit encore Winnie (Oh 43). « Je me tiens d’instant en instant dans le néant, et d’instant en instant il me faut recevoir l’être comme un cadeau », écrivait la mystique juive Edith Stein, morte à Auschwitz (Stein 10).« […] ça qui est merveilleux », scande Winnie. « Prières peut-être pas vaines. » (Oh 17).
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45 « De l’autre côté, ai-je jamais connu des temps tempérés ? »(Oh 45). La folle convoque l’ineffable car elle est elle-même une figure de l’ineffable, peu importe que la lumière portée sur elle soit aveuglante, ce qui importe c’est que sa tension intérieure traduise l’état-limite du lieu sur lequel elle se tient, cratère improbable, cavité insondable. La coïncidence des contraires s’incarne en une figure de la réversibilité. La réversibilité de l’horreur et de la joie, du désespoir et de la merveille se trouvent dans l’esprit d’enfance qui est un des attributs les plus courants de la sainteté, dans la mesure où il est disponibilité au bonheur par l’absence de préjugés intellectuels, disponibilité souvent liée, dans les légendes hagiographiques, à la figure de l’illettré (e) éclairé(e).
46 Cet esprit d’enfance, la mise en scène de Oh les beaux jours par Joël Jouanneau18 parvient à le restituer, au mépris de l’indication scénique de Beckett sur la « lumière aveuglante » (Oh 11). La scène est resserrée sur un espace intérieur, intime : une naine parle, le plateau est le lieu où l’on « monstre », où le spectateur, en vertu du théâtre dans le théâtre, est interpellé en voyeur, et où joue pleinement, dans l’esprit et à la lettre, le principe de la mise en abyme, selon l’humour propre à Beckett. Débarrassée de son pathétique, la situation devient simple, évidente, l’actrice nous fait rire, sourire, sa présence est tendre, son timbre clair, l’espace de jeu ici dévoilé est aussi celui de l’enfance, qui n’est jamais loin chez Beckett.
47 Ce que Beckett, empruntant le titre d’un traité de Maître Eckhart, nomme L’Innommable, Héraclite en énonce la formule : « Le dieu est jour et nuit, été et hiver, guerre et paix, abondance et famine ; il se transforme comme le feu ; chaque fois qu’on y mêle les aromates, il est nommé [c’est-à-dire il est] suivant le parfum de chacun [des aromates]. » Heidegger commente : « Tu ne peux t’établir d’un seul et même côté, […] mais dans l’oscillation du combat (Heidegger 1980, 120) ». Cette oscillation est une donnée dramaturgique qui parcourt les textes de théâtre comme les romans et les nouvelles. Un exemple pourrait en être la quinzaine de pages de calculs de probabilités consacrées à décrire, dans Molloy, la circulation des seize pierres à sucer d’une poche à l’autre de Molloy. De même, immobilité et mouvement s’inscrivent dans une dialectique. Dans Premier amour, le narrateur se livre à plusieurs reprises à cette expérience de mouvement pendulaire.
48 Je fis donc quelques pas en arrière et je m’arrêtai. D’abord, je n’entendais rien, puis j’entendais la voix, mais à peine, tant elle m’arrivait faiblement. Je ne l’entendais pas, puis je l’entendais, je dus donc commencer à l’entendre, à un moment donné, et pourtant non, il n’y eut pas de commencement, tellement elle était sortie du silence, et tellement elle lui ressemblait (PA 36) .
49 De même, le silence est habité chez Beckett, il est une véritable matière théâtrale, quasiment une polyphonie.
50 La coïncidence mystérieuse des contraires est un point de rupture qui génère le comique, et devient opérant en tant que principe scénographique puisqu’il trace une sorte de point de fuite qui imprime toutes les composantes de la représentation théâtrale : la parole, l’espace, le temps, la figure de l’acteur.
51 Ce thème philosophique intervient donc comme une donnée concrète, ludique de l’écriture comme de la dramaturgie, à l’intérieur d’un univers qui cherche une large part de sa vitalité dans la quête de résolution concrète des antagonismes. Le thème de la coïncidence des contraires convoque l’irreprésentable dans l’espace-temps de la représentation, où se mêlent, selon Gilles Deleuze relisant Blanchot, la plus haute
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exactitude et la plus extrême dissolution, l’échange indéfini des formulations mathématiques et la « poursuite de l’informulé » (Q 62), à la recherche du « souffle de cette musique ou de ce silence qui est à la base de tout. » (DIS 15).
52 Beckett
Autres
BIBLIOGRAPHIE
CO Comédie et actes divers (Va-et-vient, Cascando, Paroles et musique, Dis Joe, Acte sans paroles I, Acte sans paroles II, Film, Souffle). Paris : Minuit, 1970.
DB La Dernière bande. Paris : Minuit, 1959.
G En attendant Godot. Paris : Minuit, 1952.
FP Fin de partie. Paris, Minuit : 1957.
Oh Oh les beaux jours. Paris, Minuit : 1963.
PM Pas moi. Paris, Minuit : 1963.
Q Quad et autres pièces pour la télévision (Trio du fantôme, …que nuages…, Nacht und Traüme). Paris, Minuit : 1992.
TC Tous ceux qui tombent. Paris, Minuit : 1992.
Romans, essais
CP Cap au pire. Paris : Minuit : 1991.
DIS Disjecta, Miscellaneous Writings and a Dramatic Fragments. Londres : John Calder, 1983. Trad. Hœpffner, dans Objet Beckett. Catalogue de l’exposition Beckett. Paris : Centre Pompidou/Imec, 2007.
M. Molloy. Paris : Minuit, 1951.
MP Le Monde et le pantalon, suivi de Peintres de l’empêchement. Paris, Minuit, 1989.
PO Poèmes et mirlitonades. Paris : Minuit, 1978.
PA Premier amour. Paris : Minuit, 1970.
P Proust. Trad. Fournier. Paris : Minuit, 1990.
TM Têtes-mortes. Paris : Minuit, 1972.
Bernold, André. L’Amitié de Beckett (1979-1989). Paris : Hermann, « Savoir : Lettres », 1992.
Blanchot, Maurice. L’Entretien infini. Paris : Gallimard, « NRF », 1969.
Certeau, Michel de. La Fable mystique I. XVIe-XVIIe siècles. Paris : Gallimard, « Tel », 1982.
Éliade, Mircea. Méphistophélès et l'androgyne. Paris: Gallimard, « Folio Essais », 1962.
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Heidegger, Martin. Les Hymnes de Hölderlin : La Germanie et le Rhin. Trad. Fédier et Hervier. Paris : Gallimard, 1988.
---. Essais et conférences. Paris : Gallimard, « Tel », 1958.
Janvier, Ludovic. Beckett. Paris : Seuil, « Écrivains de toujours », 1969.
---. « Beckett était obsédé par la voix », in Magazine littéraire 372 (1999) : 34-37.
Pascal, Blaise. Les Pensées. Paris : Garnier, « Classiques », 1954.
Parisse, Lydie. La parole trouée : Beckett, Tardieu, Novarina, Caen : Minard, 2008.
Stein, Édith. De la personne : corps, âme et esprit. Trad. Secretan. Paris : Cerf, 1992.
NOTES
1. Le Discours de la méthode fascinait Beckett, qui avait le projet d’écrire sur Descartes. 2. Arnold Geulincx (1624-1669, Pays Bas), philosophe flamand, métaphysicien et moraliste héritier de Descartes, est auteur de L’Ethique, parue en 1675. 3. Dans Proust, Beckett écrit : « La seule réalité est celle que fournissent les hiéroglyphes tracés par la perception inspirée (l'identification du sujet et de l'objet) » (P 87). 4. Fritz Mauthner (1849-1923), écrivain et philosophe allemand, est le représentant d’un courant sceptique en philosophie du langage. Mauthner voit par conséquent dans le langage humain un simple moyen de communication doué d'une fonction sociale, mais incapable d'être un outil pour la connaissance. 5. Cette lettre de Samuel Beckett, datant de 1937, est ici traduite par Gilles Deleuze dans L’Epuisé (Q 70). 6. Dans La Lettre allemande, qui en rappelle une autre, célèbre par le croisement qu’elle établit entre mystique et poésie — il s’agit de la Lettre de Lord Chandos —, Beckett énonce, avant d’écrire son œuvre, son programme : « Faut-il que la littérature suive seule les chemins de l’ancienne paresse depuis longtemps délaissés par la musique et la peinture ? Y a-t-il quelque chose de sacré et de paralysant dans le côté monstrueux du mot qui ne se trouve pas dans les éléments des autres arts ? Existe-t-il une seule raison qui explique pourquoi la matérialité terriblement arbitraire de la surface des mots ne peut pas se dissoudre, comme par exemple la surface sonore de la Septième symphonie de Beethoven […] ? »(Disjecta 6). 7. Héraclite (d’Ephèse, fin VIe siècle avant JC), philosophe grec, théoricien de la réversibilité te de la théologie négative. « Le Dieu est jour et nuit, hiver et été, guerre et paix, abondance et famine ; il se transforme comme le feu. » Héraclite définit la relation des humains au logos comme une relation de rapprochement et d’éloignement constant. Martin Heidegger commente ainsi le texte « Logos », fragment 50 : « Cette contrariété du 'rapprocher-s’éloigner'", définit, selon Maurice Blanchot, « cette relation mystérieuse existant entre l’écriture et le logos, puis entre le Logos et les hommes ». Il cite Héraclite : « Le Logos avec lequel ils vivent dans le commerce le plus constant, ils s’en écartent, et les choses qu’ils rencontrent tous les jours, elles leur semblent étrangères. » (Blanchot 125).
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8. « […] et n’ayant qu’un seul œil sur les deux qui fonctionnât à peu près convenablement, je saisissais mal la distance qui me séparait de l’autre monde… », dit Molloy (M 66). Beckett, qui affirmait entendre avant d’écrire, confie : « Ne comprenant pas ce que j’entends, ne sachant pas ce que j’écris. »(Janvier 1969, 77). 9. Beckett s’est intéressé à la peinture de Rouault, Kandinsky, Matisse, Caspar David Friedrich, Caravage, Cézanne, Bram Van der Velde, Tal Coat, Henri Hayden, et bien d’autres. 10. L'évêque George Berkeley philosophe irlandais de la famille des empiristes dont la principale réussite fut la théorisation de l'idéalisme empirique ou immatérialisme. La théorie de Berkeley montre que les individus peuvent seulement connaître les sensations et les idées des objets, non les abstractions comme la matière ou les entités générales. 11. Friedrich Hölderlin, Remarques sur Œdipe, traduction F. Fédier, (Paris : UGE, 1965), cité par Nathalie Léger et Marianne Alphant, Objet Beckett, catalogue de l’exposition Beckett (Paris, Centre Pompidou/Imec, 2007) 14. 12. Si Premier amour évoque les charniers de la seconde guerre mondiale, En attendant Godot pose la question des fins dernières : Godot est en retard (G, 69), il vient toujours demain, tel est le contenu du message qui se répète : « VLADIMIR- Mais il viendra demain LE GARCON - Oui Monsieur » (G 129). 13. Giordano Bruno (1548-1600), philosophe et théologien italien. Sur la base des travaux de Nicolas Copernic et Nicolas de Cues, il démontre, de manière philosophique, la pertinence d'un univers infini, peuplé d'une quantité innombrable de mondes identiques au nôtre. Accusé d'hérésie par l'Inquisition, notamment pour ses écrits jugés blasphématoires et son intérêt pour la magie, il est condamné à être brûlé vif au terme de huit années de procès. 14. Court-métrage de Samuel Beckett, Quad I & 2, mise en scène et réalisation Samuel Beckett, avec Elfrid Foron, Jurg Hümmel, Claudia Knöpfer, Susanne Rehe (Stuttgart, Süddeutscher Rundfunk,1981). 15. Voir Héraclite, « Logos », fragment 50, commentaire dans Martin Heidegger (Heidegger 1958, 249-78). 16. Jeanne Guyon, Lettres II, citée par Henri Delacroix. Paris : Félix Alcan, 1938, 157. 17. Voir le chapitre « Figures du sauvage » (Certeau 280-340). 18. Samuel Beckett. Oh les beaux jours. Spectacle. Mise en scène Joël Jouanneau, décor Jacques Gabel, avec Mireille Mossé, Alain Aithnard, Toulouse : TNT, 2007.
RÉSUMÉS
L’écriture de Samuel Beckett, quel que soit le genre dans lequel elle s’exprime, se nourrit d'une culture littéraire, esthétique, philosophique, théologique immense, en lien étroit avec une approche qui, appliquée à une manière de penser l’écriture et la scène, est celle de la théologie
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négative. La totalité de son œuvre est porteuse de théâtralité, par la relation à la parole, à l’espace-temps, à la notion de personnage. Les textes de Beckett sont traversés de fond en comble par la problématique de la dépossession, une dépossession qui affecte triplement le sujet, le réel et le langage, et s'illustre notamment dans le thème, si cher à Héraclite, à Nicolas de Cues et à Giordano Bruno, de la coïncidence des contraires.
Whatever the genre Beckett chooses to express himself, his writings feed on an impressive literary, aesthetic, philosophical and theological substrate. These influences are closely connected to the general approach that determined his conceptions of writing and the stage, namely, a negative theology. The totality of his work bears the trace of a theatricality that manifests itself in its relation to speech, space and time, and the notion of character. The problematic of dispossession runs through all of Beckett's texts and this dispossession affects the subject, reality as well as language itself. It is illustrated among other things by a theme that had been dear to Heraclitus, Nicolas de Cusa and Giordano Bruno: the coincidence of opposites.
INDEX
Mots-clés : théâtre, philosophie, contraires, théologie négative, langue, espace scénique, folie Keywords : drama, philosophy, contraries, negative theology, language, stage, madness
AUTEURS
LYDIE PARISSE PRAG Université Toulouse 2 Le Mirail [email protected]
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Beckett, Wittgenstein and Blanchot: Language Games from Text to Theatre
Katy Masuga
1 As often noted by critics, Mercier et Camier, written in 1946 but not published until 1974, in many ways foreshadows En attendant Godot (1953) and includes stylistic elements later found in the trilogy (Molloy 1951, Malone meurt 1951, L’innommable 1953). The parallels include, for example, the novel’s expression of futility of movement and action, the curiousness of the characters’ vanishing and useless possessions and a narrative voice that hides, in Curtis Willits’ words, the “imageless image” of the space of the text (“The Blanchot/Beckett Correspondence” 259). Seemingly coinciding with Beckett’s so-called revelation in 1945 that affected his perception of the world and the style of his body of work to come (an idealistically questionable but still relevant event), characterized in Krapp’s Last Tape (1958, La Dernière Bande 1959), Mercier et Camier, Beckett’s first major work in French, serves as his primary radical expression of language play and the significance of the concept of silence, in a manner that unknowingly parallels Wittgenstein and Blanchot’s contemporaneous philosophy on the uses and abuses of language.
2 Under consideration in this analysis is Beckett’s exploitation of the destabilizing potential of a form of theatre that implies the impossibility of full or complete expression. The first of three main points of this article draws a parallel between Mercier et Camier and Godot showing how both texts establish a rapport between the characters and the audience (reader or viewer) that is based on an incompleteness of expressed language. The second point suggests that Beckett uses language games in a manner similar to what Wittgenstein and Blanchot discuss in their work in order to produce this effect. Finally, the third point considers Godot as the welcome manifestation of what Beckett first began in Mercier et Camier, but which also gives him the opportunity to produce a greater effect upon the audience by using the space of the theatre as live performance.
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3 The late 1940s generally marks a shift in Beckett’s writing, where, notably, he begins to produce highly condensed works that provide stark and defining images of the human condition, which, in a profoundly implicit manner, not only fundamentally point toward a playfulness in futility but that also place a forceful emphasis on language as an inherently useless tool for meaningful expression in metaphysics. It is significant to note, however, that this claim appears to imply that language is an altogether useless tool, when indeed the contrary is the case. Beckett undermines the basic functioning of language for the very sake of its possibility. Like Wittgenstein and Blanchot, Beckett demonstrates an acute aware of the effects of metaphysical inquiry and in exploiting this gaping, yet often overlooked, hole in language. It is as though the recognition and acceptance of the flexibility and fallibility of language is itself a revelation (and possibly a disappointing, or at least destabilizing, and also humorous one), based on the given assumption that language can in some way provide universal or meaningful truths about the world.
4 In a letter to Axel Kaun dated July 9, 1937, Beckett explains: Ein Loch nach dem andern in [der Sprache] zu bohren, bis das Dahinterkauernde, sei es etwas oder nichts, durchzusickern anfängt—ich kann mir für den heutigen Schriftsteller kein höheres Ziel vorstellen. (514) To drill one hole after another into [language] until what is cowering behind, be it something or nothing, begins to leak out—I cannot imagine a greater goal for today’s writer. (My translation)
5 Beckett wants to reveal our presumptions about language and to stretch the limits of what language can do in a literary context. He begins serious exploration of this pursuit in prose, in Watt and Malloy but also in Mercier et Camier, and eventually finds its most lucrative expression in the theatre.
6 In Mercier et Camier, for instance, the “summary” included after each set of two chapters manages to reduce the already reductive chapters themselves into focused articulations of the events that occur, thus seemingly stripping out even further any possible interpretive or analytical meaning from the text. The summary of the final chapter (twelve in French and eight in English, as the summaries in the French version are labeled as independent chapters) reads as follows: La vie de survie. Camier seul. Mercier et Watt. Mercier, Camier et Watt. Le dernier agent. Le dernier bar. Mercier et Camier. Le pont de l’Ecluse. Mercier seul. L’ombre se parfait. (211-212) The life of afterlife. Camier alone. Mercier and Watt. Mercier, Camier and Watt. The last policeman. The last bar. Mercier and Camier. Lock Bridge. The arctic flowers.
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Mercier alone. Dark at its full. (101)
7 The chapters in Mercier et Camier are not divided, allowing the divisions that the chapter summaries provide to appear meaningful or to have an actual, overtly evident purpose (as though the summaries are anticipated by the reader). The reader, however, must then randomly insert mental breaks where the text turns to the next topic, as indicated in the summary, and to retroactively understand the text in light of these newly presented divisions.
8 The final chapter begins with Mercier and Camier having just parted. The first quarter of the chapter has no characters but is the narrative voice speaking of the general routine of a day and the inherent fatigue of life and its meaningless routines. The reader is then informed, in the summary at the end, that this description is “the life of afterlife”, thus connecting the summary directly with the wording in the chapter itself. Similarly, the first sentence of the short final paragraph of this last chapter is the following: “Seul il regarda son ciel s’éteindre, l’ombre se parfaire” (210). (“Alone he watched the sky go out, dark deepened to its full” [100]). In some instances the connection is evident, as in this one (“dark at its full” and “dark deepened to its full”), but in others it is made through an inference that the narration forces the reader to take.
9 The summary design of listing the “results” of preceding chapters by number also demonstrates how Beckett uses language to engage the reader with the words as though they are not part of a story but are merely providing objective details. However, these “details” are meaningless and can themselves be considered to be what Beckett calls “that something itself”—a phrase used in “Dante ... Bruno. Vico ... Joyce” (1929) to describe Joyce’s writing: “His writing is not about something; it is that something itself” (14). Such texts as Joyce’s (according to Beckett) and Mercier et Camier (according to the present argument) are not describing an idea within the context of the text but are declaring the text itself as that idea. In A Reader’s Guide to Samuel Beckett (1973) Hugh Kenner writes: “The difficulties, which are not to be underrated, occur between the sentences, or between the speeches” (10). Already in Mercier et Camier Beckett withholds from the reader the idea of anything more to the text than its literal presence.
10 By reducing, for example, the passages on the everyday at the beginning of the last chapter to the phrase “the life of afterlife”, any possibility of the text actually being about “the life of the afterlife” is removed. Instead, the text is immediately about the reduction of the text to a summary, rendering both the text and the summary meaningless in any traditional sense. What is instead revealed—or touched upon—is the presence of the words and the peculiar relation between the passages in the text and their summaries, putting the reader in the awkward position of trying to reconcile this unexpected arrangement of the text.
11 It is clear enough that Beckett’s later work enacts as opposed to describes, but Mercier et Camier already works in part toward this effect in passages, which is particularly evident in the chapter summaries, even pointing toward a narratorless speech that reflects the profound “something itself”—the writing is no longer descriptive or explanatory but becomes creation itself, with a concentration not on any subject matter but specifically on the writing. The following exchange between the two title characters from Mercier et Camier also illustrates.
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Après un moment de silence Camier dit : Si on s’assoyait, cela m’a vidé. Tu veux dire s’asseyait, dit Mercier. Je veux dire s’assoyait, dit Camier. Assoyons-nous, dit Mercier. (15) After a moment of silence Camier said: Let us sit us down, I feel all sucked off. You mean sit down, said Mercier. I mean sit us down, said Camier. Then let us sit us down, said Mercier. (7)
12 The humor of this passage is directly related to a use of language that is both about the possibility of latent meanings and also not at all about meaning whatsoever. The reader can first laugh at Camier’s interpretation of the vernacular, but his deadpan insistence on such an his interpretation simultaneously raises questions for the reader as to other possible meanings―indeed, including a more conventional one. In this passage Beckett also demonstrates the very possibility of such an exchange and of Camier’s actually meaning something that he perhaps shouldn’t mean. Mercier’s direct and perhaps even confident concession deflates the reader’s possible irritation with the seeming senselessness of the exchange. That is to say, despite the exchange being apparently without tremendous meaning, it is presented not only as highly meaningful but rather as concise, direct and matter-of-fact. The passage is strikingly similar to the exchange at the end of Godot: ESTRAGON : Alors, on y va ? VLADIMIR : Relève ton pantalon. ESTRAGON : Comment ? VLADIMIR : Relève ton pantalon. ESTRAGON : Que j’enlève mon pantalon ? VLADIMIR : RE-lève ton pantalon. ESTRAGON : C’est vrai. Il relève son pantalon. Silence. VLADIMIR : Alors, on y va ? ESTRAGON: Allons-y. Ils ne bougent pas. (133-134) ESTRAGON: Well, shall we go? VLADIMIR: Pull on your trousers. ESTRAGON: What? VLADIMIR: Pull on your trousers. ESTRAGON: You want me to pull off my trousers? VLADIMIR: Pull ON your trousers. ESTRAGON: (Realizing his trousers are down.) True. He pulls up his trousers. VLADIMIR: Well, shall we go? ESTRAGON: Yes, let’s go. They do not move. (88)
13 As with the above passage from Mercier et Camier, the emphasis is not on the action (or the non-action) but on the lack of obvious connection between the use of the words and what they otherwise represent. The viewer is not only humored by Estragon’s obliviousness but also surprised by his subsequently peculiar response (“C’est vrai”, “True”), which is, curiously, a precise yet slightly inaccurate response within the context. Furthermore, as in Mercier et Camier, “true” is not only taken as the proper response, but it is also followed by an incomplete concession. (“Shall we go? Yes, let’s go. They do not move.”) Once again, the reader’s attention is drawn to the language insofar as it highlights the characters’ casual acceptance of their own odd behavior
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(e.g., to consider with earnestness pulling off one’s trousers, to not move when announcing movement).
14 Despite drawing the attention of Blanchot and other contemporary theorists including Bataille, Lacan and Adorno, one contemporary of Beckett’s whose ideas are intimately related but with whom Beckett apparently never directly crossed paths, is Wittgenstein. Sounding peculiarly similar to Mercier et Camier and even more to Godot, the last of the seven tenets of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus (1921) reads: “Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen.” (“Of that which one is unable to speak, one must pass over in silence” My translation). Investigating the inherent absurdity in metaphysical philosophizing, Wittgenstein comes to insist on the necessity of reticence —by way of schweigen—to avoid mistakes in philosophy when confronted with the limits of language. In the late 1930s after a lengthy period of silence of his own, Wittgenstein develops this concept at length in the Philosophische Untersuchungen (Philosophical Investigations, posthumous 1953), with which Beckett would have been familiar only later on, stating in a 1961 letter to John Fletcher that he had just very recently read Wittgenstein (Perloff 134).
15 Schweigen is only awkwardly translated in either English or French (slightly less so in French, with the reflexive verb se taire), as it simultaneously contains within it a sense of remaining silent but also the overt activity of being silent and of enacting a state of silence—an active doing that is also a non-doing (an action that is itself a deliberate non-action). In Mercier et Camier, Beckett begins to express more visibly a similar theory through a style of writing that progressively seeks to enact the fundamental structure of schweigen, and which leads him finally to turn to the theatre to perform this paradoxical communication of silence, exposing our dependency on language despite its stupefying limits. Generally speaking, Wittgenstein suggests that our sophisticated, yet perpetually inadequate, metaphysical reasoning is not due to lack of clarity or logical insight but to the misuse of language.
16 With an emphasis on the humour in paradox, Wittgenstein’s language games and Blanchot’s theory on the role of silence in the literary work are both significant to Beckett’s shift to the theatre. For, despite the possibility of reading Beckett as a nihilist or even as a negative, anti-literature author, it is important to note the tremendous longevity and deeply communicative nature of his writing career. Beckett never ceased writing, attesting to the value he placed not only on art in general and on his craft in particular, but also on language itself and the power of the word. The question is, then, how can Beckett’s critics reconcile his apparent love of writing with the content of writing that seems to suggest, if not the opposite, at least a focus on the incredible struggle to continue? In setting Beckett in relation to Wittgenstein and Blanchot, the reader can recognize Beckett’s insistence on an optimistic playfulness in language but a playfulness that directly concerns the seemingly lacking nature, or lacking possibilities, in the expression of language.
17 In Wittgenstein’s Ladder (1996) Marjorie Perloff includes a chapter on reading Watt through a Wittgensteinian lens, pointing out that most analyses of Watt focus on “the ‘Beckett’ constructed in the Paris of the fifties,” namely, “the chronicler of a postwar, postatomic world of alienation, emptiness and inevitable despair” (116). Perloff instead insists upon a reading that focuses on Beckett’s interest in language and in the similarity of his prose as reflective of Wittgenstein’s philosophy. She also mentions Jacqueline Hoefer’s essay “Watt,” which, already in 1959, suggests the possibility that
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Beckett is referring in Watt to Wittgenstein’s famous ladder metaphor in the Tractatus that represents the understanding of language as a (fallible) tool and nothing but. Wittgenstein claims: “Er muss sozusagen die Leiter wegwerfen, nachdem er auf ihr hinaufgestiegen ist” (§6.54). (“He must so to speak throw away the ladder, after he has climbed up on it.”) Beckett inserts a curious twist in Watt that has the potential to be read in a manner consistent with his interest in deliberately misusing language, which Hoefer contends is directly in alignment with Wittgenstein. The precise passage from Watt is as follows: “What was changed was existence off the ladder. Do not come down the ladder, Ifor, I haf taken it away” (42). Beckett, however, completely denies the reference to Wittgenstein, claiming his ladder is a reference in an old Irish song. Perloff denounces Hoefer’s analysis that the curious terms “Ifor” and “I haf” respectively refer to a type of ladder and a literary rendering of “I have” with a German accent. The denouncement is not necessarily based on Hoefer’s grammatical conclusions but on her misunderstanding of Wittgenstein: it is not a matter of constructing a system to be mastered and its methodology to subsequently be thrown away (the ladder), but rather of acknowledging that no such system exists in the first place, revealed through a series of steps that themselves become useless once this observation is made.
18 Although Perloff disputes Hoefer’s analysis, the investigation into an effective link between Beckett and Wittgenstein is well established and remains highly relevant. Perloff’s personal assessment is that whether or not Beckett is directly referring to Wittgenstein, the writers share an affinity in outlook, which is neither metaphysical nor pessimistic. E. M. Cioran makes the following remark in 1976 of Wittgenstein: More than once I have found common traits in him and in Beckett. Two mysterious apparitions, two phenomena that please one by being so baffling, so inscrutable. In both, one and the other, the same distance from beings and things, the same inflexibility, the same temptation to silence, to a final repudiation of words, the same desire to collide with boundaries never sensed before. (Critical Heritage 379)
19 In response to the manner in which Beckett’s work changed how we understand the potential of literary language, Deleuze writes in Cinéma I (1983): “Comment nous défaire de nous-mêmes, et nous défaire nous-mêmes?” (97). (“How can we rid ourselves of ourselves, and demolish ourselves?” [Cinema I 66]). By drawing attention to gaps in reasoning, Beckett reveals the senselessness in using language to philosophize in a manner that disregards les règles du jeu and that subsequently leads to the production of incomprehensible metaphysical conclusions. Wittgenstein frequently points out that reasoning errs when it attempts to express in language that which is only knowable beyond the sensical (things that can only be shown). What is “unsayable”, then, are the ideas evolving from such areas of thought as metaphysics, ethics and aesthetics. Beckett draws out the humor in such mistakes in reasoning, creating interactions where his characters are often just as disillusioned and confounded by the apparent shortcomings of language—thus transferring that deficiency onto the world itself, producing this existential gap in meaning, yet making its obvious connection to (and dependence upon) language most evident.
20 In “The Prose of Samuel Beckett: Notes from the Terminal Ward” James Atlas writes: “Beckett verifies Wittgenstein’s claim: ‘Nothing is lost if one does not seek to say the unsayable. Instead, that which cannot be spoken is—unspeakably—contained in that which is said!’” (192). What Beckett reveals by writing nonsense is the “nothing” that has no quality within language. It cannot be articulated because it is in the realm of the unsayable even though it is being said. No articulation can be made about what is
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“nothing”, because, according to Atlas, “to state what is ˈunsayableˈ is to invent reality rather than elicit its character” (192). Thus, to state what is unsayable is to create metaphysical truths where, of course, none existence. Beckett aims toward the limits of language, not toward meaning. He pushes toward the unsayable, exposing not just the untruth in metaphysical inquiry but the strange pleasure in the paradox of connecting language in unusual ways. Straining to say the unsayable reveals perhaps comical emptiness, but only in the sense that it is revealing a vacancy that immediately fills itself with the meaning of the complicated concept of “nothing” in its revelation.
21 Searching in vain, then, for a means to comprehend the text through conventional measures, the reader is left facing a use of language that constantly defies standard expectations, ironically through its casual and often humorous form. In the case of Mercier et Camier the emphasis is on idiomatic speech, and particularly the French idiom from the position of a non-native speaker—a technique Beckett later perfects in Godot. This device draws the reader’s attention to the fact that the narrator is examining each word as it is written and is hence focusing not on anticipated meaning but on the staging itself. In the second chapter just before the summary, Mercier and Camier encounter two children. As they call out “Papa!” the response is the following: “Bonsoir, mes enfants, dit Mercier, maintenant allez-vous-en” (47). What occurs next in the text is an unexpected comment by the narrator: “Mais ils ne s’en allèrent point” (47). (“ˈGood evening, my children, said Mercier, get along with you now.ˈ But they did not get along with them, no…” [23]). Beckett often refuses to allow expressions to go unnoticed as the curious alterations in conventional and rule-regulated language that they are. In the first instance, Mercier uses the reflexive pronoun in the French (and a prepositional phrase with pronoun in English) to give his command force: “vous” (“with you”). Because of its grammatical presence in the command, this reflection (of the command: you do this [“go”] with yourself) is kept in the narrator’s response, but which then has a literal and thus humorous (and possibly destabilizing) effect: in the narrator’s comment, the presence of the reflexive quality is superfluous but not exactly ungrammatical, making for an uncertain explanation (with various interpretations) of what has just occurred. What further complicates this passage is that this statement is made by the narrator, thus estranging the reader even further from a more comprehensive connection to the world of the text. It seems Beckett remains resolute in leaving the reader in the awkward position of not knowing any “full” purpose of such nuances while fully knowing them through the necessarily complete and haunting state of incompletion (or perhaps unclarity) of which they are composed.
22 As each example demonstrates, Beckett does not invent, that is to say, he does not provide stories for the sake of stories but instead for the sake of showing the possibility of peculiar and even entertaining gaps in language. Beckett draws the reader and viewer’s attention to a universal and profound dependency upon language and upon the idea that language will always necessarily behave as expected. However, Beckett is also focusing on the ways in which we expect language to behave even when it is contrary to the language game at hand. Such exercises in his work, then, that are often interpreted through the concept of nonsense, must also be rethought within their own context. The reader or viewer must ask what this disconnection between performance and language suggests about this universal blind dependency on language. Beckett seems to ask his reader or viewer to be wary, not only of the codifications imposed upon us by language (as Michael Worton suggests in “Waiting for Godot and Endgame: theatre as text”, for example) but also of making assumptions about the possibilities of
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language. This idea returns the analysis back to Wittgenstein’s insistence of language games as tools for avoiding mistakes in reasoning―mistakes in language that result in abstruse metaphysical dilemmas. Indeed, these dilemmas can even include those readings of Beckett that assume interpretations of the absurd, existential, symbolic, and so on.
23 Kenner explains that in reading Beckett “we shall experience the wreckage the story has left” (9). The language games that Beckett undertakes are like something from a Marx Brothers film: “Je sens l’humidité qui me rentre dans la raie, dit Camier. Du moment qu’il n’en sort pas, dit Mercier” (91). (“I feel the damp creeping up my crack, said Camier. So long as none creeps down, said Mercier” [46]). Although the “joke” is slightly different in the French and English, the effect is quite the same. Two items are at work: instead of understanding Camier’s metaphorical language use, and that is to say, its conventional use (“to creep up”), Mercier instead interprets it literally. The second point, however, is informed by the first: Mercier is not understanding Camier’s metaphorical language. In fact, for the joke to take place, the reader would assume that Mercier must in fact understand Camier’s metaphorical language but deliberately chooses to respond literally.
24 What this passage demonstrates is once again the play that ensues when language is torqued beyond its obvious use. We expect Mercier to respond to the metaphorical meaning, since we are aware of the language game that is taking place. When he does not respond in this way, we are surprised at the text for violating this convention, and we are also subsequently made aware of language’s imposed limitations as well as its new possibilities. Beckett makes it clear that the joke is actually on the reader, since it is only the reader who is aware of what is seen on the page, and it is also the reader who must accept the text at face value. In this instance, Mercier both does and does not “understand” Camier’s statement, but all that can be assumed by the reader is that Camier and Mercier are simply not exactly participating in the same language game. Or, rather, their subtle misunderstanding produces a different effect from the expected effect of the language game set out by Camier’s original claim. (And, even then, it is not really as though a “misunderstanding” exists at all, as it seems Mercier and Camier communicate in a manner that both seem to accept and understand.)
25 Wittgenstein explores these kinds of issues in language and language games throughout his work. In Über Gewissheit (1969 posthumous, On Certainty), for example, Wittgenstein plainly unravels G. E. Moore’s argument from “Proof of an External World” (1939), in which Moore describes holding out his hand and declaring that, because he knows of the existence of his hand by looking at it in front of him, he knows as plainly the existence of the external world. Wittgenstein points out, however, that such an argument is tantamount to Descartes’ metaphysical inquiry of the existence of God in Discours de la méthode (1637). As Wittgenstein explains, these are arguments that are misled by an understanding that language can do more than show empirical propositions; and, as such, they attempt to show the logical foundations of those propositions and in an empirical manner. This undertaking is an impossibility, since any act of doubt already rests upon a judgment that a priori indicates doubt is not only permissible but necessary to evaluate knowledge. Wittgenstein writes: “Die Wahrheiten, von denen Moore sagt, er wisse sie, sine solche, die, beiläufig gesprochen, wir Alle wissen, wenn er sie weiß” (§100) (“The truths which Moore says he knows, are such as, roughly speaking, all of us know, if he knows them”). A distinction exists
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between saying and showing, such that certain types of propositions (empirical) can actually say things about the world, whereas others (logical) can only show them, since it is these latter that inherently and necessarily serve as presupposed principles for understanding. Where they end is where schweigen begins.
26 As in direct response to Moore, Über Gewissheit begins with Wittgenstein declaring: “Wenn du weißt, daß hier eine Hand ist, so geben wir dir alles übrige zu” (§1) (“If you know that here is one hand, we’ll grant you all the rest”). Thus, knowing that there is a hand is not something that can be proven or explained. It simply is, and using language correctly, that is to say productively, is to understand that one’s knowledge of this hand is not tied up with being able to prove the claim of its existence. However, it is the nature of metaphysical inquiry to raise doubts, and thus even propositions that logically cannot be doubted indeed become doubted. This undertaking results in effects that are both disturbing and humorous (e.g., Descartes’ dubious evil spirit in the former, Beckett’s challenging fiction in the latter). The following exchange between Mercier and Camier is the epitome: “As-tu envie de chanter? dit Camier. Pas à ma connaissance, dit Mercier” (36) (“Do you feel like singing? said Camier. Not to my knowledge, said Mercier” [18]). Mimicking (and mocking) weighty epistemological dialectics, Beckett draws attention to the absurdity in violating what Wittgenstein here explains very simply: “Wohl aber läßt sich fragen, ob man dies sinnvoll bezweifeln kann” (§2). (“What we can ask is whether it can make sense to doubt it”.) Because it can’t and doesn’t make sense to doubt one’s own feeling about an interest in singing or not, the passage successfully highlights this dual nature in language between empirical proof and logical form but in a way that is both awkwardly funny and disconcerting.
27 Beckett’s work can also be contextualized in relation to understanding how the theatre serves as a more viable creative space for enacting the paradoxical quality of communicative expression through silence. Dissatisfied with the early prose work of Mercier et Camier, Beckett deliberately did not publish it until much later and, even then, reluctantly. Despite what appears to be evidence in his letters of what he was attempting with Mercier et Camier, this delay suggests that Beckett did not satisfactorily achieve the desired literary effect—what he called: “Literatur des Unworts” (“German Letter to Kaun, 9 July, 1937” 514) (“Literature of the unword” My translation). However, Beckett clearly found that strategy with Godot via a means more capable of demonstrating the existential issues of the impossibilities of language. In Mercier et Camier the relation is between the characters and the text. In Godot, it is between the viewer and the characters, but they achieve the same effect: both draw the reader and viewer into the unexpected and uncomfortable space where the words no longer stand for what they typically have stood for and hence into a distancing and questioning of meaning.
28 On a visit to Dublin from Paris in 1945, Beckett supposedly concluded that his literary interests should no longer be directed toward trying to gain more about the world and the attempt to render that in words, as he perceived to be his inherited pursuit from Joyce. His new pursuit would instead be to accept the inherent impoverishment of words and, thus, use his creative forces to subtract from the world and to negate the assumptions about it. In Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett (1996), James Knowlson de-dramatizes the revelatory significance generally given to this event in popular culture but acknowledges, in any case, that a notable shift did take place in Beckett’s style of writing at this time, but that it should be attributed to multiple
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elements including World War II, Beckett’s life-threatening stab wound, his self-exile and his extensive psychotherapy treatment (320). In the brief essay “Normandy Landing” (2010), Phyllis Gaffney also notes in particular that Beckett’s voluntary service at the emergency hospital in Saint Lô in Normandy greatly impacted his writing as well. After this time, Beckett’s focus turned toward the portrayal of lack and the exploitation of this impoverishment through its very physical manifestation in the theatre, which is potentially better equipped for depicting life closer to how it really is: an actual unfolding of events in space and time.
29 These experiences of the mid-1940s led Beckett to pursue more strongly “the literature of the unword”—having first developed the concept in the mid-1930s. Beckett describes this needed change in full: “Die Sprache da am besten gebraucht wird, wo sie am tüchtigsten missgebraucht wird” (514). ( “Language is used best where it is most efficiently misused” My translation.) Misusing language permits the hearer the opportunity to question the very concept of a correct or true form for meaning and comprehension. Such misuse, or perhaps unordinary use, opens up new avenues of thought and creates new possibilities for actualizing unanticipated effects that it can have on understanding. It was after this time that Beckett took up the theatre, which, as an active—living, as it were—depiction of the world, subsequently became for him a form necessarily able to depict the nuances that can manifest in the struggle to creatively manipulate language. By using a medium that displayed life unfolding, Beckett was able to make that displaying—the staging—itself a source for inquiry. The production could immediately present ambiguity of meaning where meaning was otherwise thought to be self-evident. The sequence of events on stage could suddenly become awkward, foreign, mechanically or arbitrarily joined and no longer be taken for granted as an inherently meaningful manifestation of a scenario extracted from life. Ultimately, the theatre could better show its own limitations as well as those of language in general.
30 To this end, Beckett’s later works, such as Godot, most clearly toy with the approach of the “something itself”, coinciding with Wittgenstein’s same idea from the Philosophische Untersuchungen, where he writes: “Alle Erklärung muß fort, und nur Beschreibung an ihre Stelle treten” (§109), (“All explanation must be done away with, and description alone must take its place” My translation). In this sense, “description” as Wittgenstein uses it may be understood as writing that seeks not to explain or fulfill a function but for itself to enact a kind of creation of its own, as a form for adding to the defining or establishing of things in the world (including itself) in a seemingly superficial or incidental manner. Explanation, on the other hand, is the attempt to get to the heart of things as though an elaborate uncovering were taking place in the words —something that Wittgenstein considers impossible. Description, however, implies the presence of a logical foundation from which to build and the lack of a sense of words as revelatory.
31 Beckett perfects this Wittgensteinian effect in the theatre where he is suddenly able to bring the audience closer to the dialogue so that, curiously, a more profound certainty, and subsequent estrangement, occurs. The narrator of Mercier et Camier writes, for example : “Il recommençait à pleuvoir. Mais la pluie avait-elle jamais cessé ?” (36) (“The rain was beginning again. But had it ever ceased?” [18]). Again, later in the text, the question of rain in the story arises, such that the reader cannot be sure if it is really raining or not. Mercier says to Camier : “Il pleut ferme, à ce qu’il me semble. Tu es
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même tout mouillé” (120) (“It’s coming down, if I am to believe my eyes. Can you not sense you’re wet?” [60]). Slightly different levels of obscurity between the English and French, both place significance on the importance or utter unimportance of the details of setting. It seems necessary to point out the setting, but then its relevance is immediately questioned. It is generally unclear if rain is actually falling, but, more importantly, it unclear how meaningful such a detail might be. This technique prompts Beckett’s reader ask him or herself: what is worth reporting, how reliable is the reporting and why is it significant? Strong consideration is placed on the characters’ senses. Beckett suggests that Mercier can perhaps mistrust his eyes, but how could he rightly mistrust the sensation of rain upon his body? This passage leads back to the distinction, according to Wittgenstein, between the sayable (sagbar), the sensical, and what is only showable (zeigbar), the metaphysical, ethical and aesthetic.
32 Comparatively, stage directions of the theatre productions obviously allow the scene to be immediately evident to the viewer, even when they are few or perhaps even vague (leaving the precise discretion up to the director, actors, and so on, which consequently still provides the viewer with a full and actual image on stage). The first stage directions of Godot automatically indicate the physical setting: “Route à la campagne, avec arbre. Soir” (6) (“A country road. A tree. Evening” [11]). Since the viewer can literally see the scene, the Verfremungseffekt of the ensuing dialogue is ultimately more powerful, since the sensory expectation is greater, in terms of being able to enter the scene and, particularly, of the rapport between the characters (with the removal of narration). Alternatively, the ambiguity in the prose work must be left as a technique for keeping the knowledge away from the reader, instead of drawing him or her in as in the theatre performance, and shattering that access through the possible surprise interactions between the characters. In other words, the focus can be upon the specifics of the staging itself and not simply on not knowing if the details reside in the prose or in the setting in which it is embedded.
33 An even more obvious example of this effect occurs toward the end of Mercier et Camier where the exchange involves an apparent (yet not evident) change of tone in the characters’ exchange: Tu ne sais pas où nous allons ? dit Camier. Qu’est-ce que ça peut nous faire, dit Mercier, où nous allons ? Nous allons, c’est suffisant. Ne crie pas, dit Camier. (150-151) Do you know where we are going? said Camier. What does it matter, said Mercier, where we are going? We are going, that’s enough. No need to shout, said Camier. (73)
34 The reader must both believe Camier, that Mercier is shouting, but must also believe nothing, insofar as it is evident at this point in the novel that nothing is what it seems and that the characters’ dialogues are not only rather meaningless but are generally misleading and unreliable. Beckett establishes and maintains this same Verfremdungseffekt in the theatre by creating a stage setting that inhibits the viewer from entering into the space of the world of the piece despite the enticing and obvious encouragement of the nature of the theatre itself. For example, the setting for Happy Days, written first in English, (1961, Oh les beaux jours 1962), includes the following: “Very pompier trompe-l'œil backcloth to represent unbroken plain and sky receding to meet in far distance” (138). In a letter to Alan Schneider in 1961, Beckett explains that
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he wanted this image to represent “a pathetic unsuccessful realism, the kind of tawdriness you get in a 3rd rate musical or pantomime, that quality of pompier, laughably earnest bad imitation” (94). Beckett creates a confounding sense of irony: the scene gives off an air of failure, of the inability to depict the scene realistically, through its unexpected presentation of everyday life under incredibly affected circumstances. Yet of course this effect is deliberate, and in its so-called failure, the scene precisely commands its own “bad imitation”. This imitation continues to confound the audience, by both drawing them in with the everyday qualities but estranging them through the peculiarity of the specific “tawdriness” of the elements of the staging.
35 Similarly, writing of the effects of Beckett’s plays, Blanchot says in L’Entretien infini (1969, The Infinite Conversation 1993) : “Il faut renoncer au domaine du visible et de l’invisible, à ce qui se représente, fût-ce négativement. Entendre, seulement entendre” (482). (“One must renounce the domain of the visible and of the invisible, renounce what is represented, albeit in negative fashion. Hear, simply hear” (329)). The multiplicity within the concept “entendre” points both toward the curious state of hearing silence and toward literal and figurative senses of hearing, which in turn reconfirm the significance of the theatre as the literal space where entendre can be expressed more directly (and even visually). Figuratively, the visible can no longer stand for a projection of reality in Beckett. At the same time, the visible can be nothing other than representation precisely because it is literally appearance. For this reason, Beckett’s appeal to the invisible―to what is possible beyond appearances―becomes a play with the senses. For, if the scene on stage simultaneously means both more and less than its overt depiction (more insofar as it demonstrates that it is not restricted to a representational meaning precisely through it’s being less than expected, less than realistic), the viewer must rely on the other senses to do the explaining and find an understanding. More precisely, if Beckett asks his viewer to disallow any standard meaning of the image on stage, it becomes, as Blanchot says, a matter of sound instead of sight.
36 Silence, then, can take on a new significance by becoming a powerful indicator of an action taking place in contradistinction to what is not taking place (speaking, communicating and so on). For example, the inserted stage directions and director’s notes of “silence” in Godot exemplify the weight of schweigen that is more possible in theatre than prose. Toward the end of Act I, Pozzo behaves as though he is engaged in an exchange with Estragon and Vladimir but which is more of a nonsensical monologue, where he suddenly asks (though no one has spoken): “Vous dites? (Silence.) Peut-être n’avez-vous rien dit ? (Silence.) C’est sans importance” (37-38). (“I beg your pardon? (Silence.) Perhaps you didn’t speak? (Silence.) It’s of no importance” [29].) Beckett uses the theatre to provide a visceral space that noticeably marks the absurdity of asking questions in silence or, perhaps, of indifferently receiving no answers but only silence. The difference is in the performance of Godot, such that silence is made evident through its very presence and not simply through the reading of its existence. The viewer literally encounters the silence.
37 In the general stylistic shift from the form of Mercier et Camier as a novel to the theatre of Godot, performance as non-performance already becomes central, announcing specifically that the piece no longer tells the story, but rather the story can only ever insufficiently be told. A parallel can easily be drawn between the two works and the two sets of characters that allows a comparison between prose and script to be more
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readily and carefully observed. This exercise leads to a recognition of the efforts of both works to achieve silence and “nothing”, while also indicating the greater success of Godot at this endeavor. The well-known critique of Godot in 1956 by Vivian Mercier elucidates: Its author has achieved a theoretical impossibility—a play in which nothing happens, that yet keeps audiences glued to their seats. What's more, since the second act is a subtly different reprise of the first, he has written a play in which nothing happens, twice. (“The Uneventful Event” 95)
38 The key to this shift toward “nothing” as performed in the theatre rests in Beckett’s interest in showing, as evidently as possible (thus, indicating the already fundamental necessity of the transformation from prose to theatre) not necessarily a nihilistic view of the world but the paradoxical nature of existence within language, which can only be made evident by means of the very deliberate and visual absence of ordinary action and in the empty space of vigorous, active silence.
39 In “Peintres de l’Empêchement” (1948), Beckett wonders : “Car que reste-t-il de représentable si l’essence de l’objet est de se dérober à la représentation ?” (136). (For, what is it that remains representable if the essence of the object is to evade representation? My translation.) He then also provides the answer : “Il reste à représenter les conditions de cette dérobade” (136). (“The conditions of this evasion remain to be represented” My translation.) Using prose as his first means to confirm his ontological response, Beckett attempts to establish an existential space between the text and the reader in Mercier et Camier—indeed, the question of writing and representation itself lay dormant in the text, which preceded the above-mentioned essay by several years. Dissatisfied, however, and perhaps uncertain, Beckett left the manuscript unpublished and moved on to the trilogy where he hoped to engage his response more effectively. Yet, not until Beckett began to write theatre would he be fully capable of developing a satisfactory illustration of his response to that nagging impossibility of a dérobade. The theatre permits Beckett to bring the reader—that is to say, now the viewer or the audience—into the space of the performance, which, for Beckett, becomes the space of non-action, of “nothing”. In this way, Beckett attempts to get closer to the limits of language.
40 In the section entitled “La voix narrative” (“The Narrative Voice”) from L’Entretien infini, Blanchot writes that the narrative voice exists as though in a sort of background, and it is this “in back” (380) (“en arrière” 557) that can serve as the space for the seemingly impossible distance that language needs in order to demonstrate its limit. Blanchot writes : “Se tenir dans le langage, c’est toujours déjà être au dehors” (557). (“To hold oneself in language is to be always already outside” [380].) However, language itself already forces the so-called limit to be unlimited by the limitless quality that is language itself. He begins this chapter with a metaphor that immediately recalls Beckett and his “literature of the unword”: “On fait quelques pas dans la rue, on en fait huit ou neuf, puis l’on tombe. La limite qu’indique la fatigue limite la vie” (556). (“You take a few steps on the street, eight or nine, then you fall. The limit set by weariness limits life” [379].) As though a simultaneously direct and indirect reference to Beckett, Blanchot suggests that not only is language insufficient for “explanation” (as Wittgenstein would say), but that insufficiency actually limits, most literally, physical life as well. It sets Beckett’s stage into states of absurdity, where movement itself is called into question—where all action and meaning is completely undermined and stripped down to silence.
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41 Blanchot then adds to this Beckettian image the following claim: “Le langage modifie la situation” (556). (“Language modifies the situation” [379].) This is because, of course, language inhibits but also permits expression. It creates the impossible by providing a system that can never fulfill its promise of wholly explaining its own existence or anything else. Blanchot writes : “La phrase que je prononce tend à attirer à l’intérieur même de la vie la limite qui ne devrait la marquer que de l’extérieur” (556). (“The sentence I pronounce tends to draw into the very inside of life the limit that was only supposed to mark it from the outside” [379].) Language draws back into life the limit that life seemed to be expressing; it unlimits the very limit that it establishes.
42 Widespread throughout Blanchot’s work (Faux pas 1943, L’Espace littéraire 1955), this idea is also found readily enough across Beckett’s entire oeuvre as well (e.g., Murphy 1938, the trilogy and Godot) and is also then taken further by both figures. Significantly, it is this philosophical next step that Beckett employs in his later work that reflects a phenomenological shift in his approach to getting at the unword in his language- centered text—both in prose and theatrical form. What the next step entails is recognizing the space between the writing and the reader. In L’Entretien infini Blanchot says : “Ecrire c’est passer du ˈjeˈ au ˈilˈ” (558). (“To write is to pass from ˈIˈ to ˈheˈ” [380].) It is this transference of the writer into the narrator at the moment of writing that signifies one of the greatest breakthroughs in Beckett’s work as begun in Mercier et Camier and most fully expressed in Godot. At the moment of writing, the words are suddenly no longer pre-text ideas, or even pre-text words belonging to the writer, but they have become part of the world, part of the system of language and hence part of the immediate fictional text, perpetually beyond the writer and out of reach of any complete meaning.
43 Beckett affinities with Wittgenstein and Blanchot extend toward their perception of the use and limitations of language, using shared philosophical concepts to effect in his work, with the chapter summaries of Mercier et Camier serving as a notable example. Such pronouncements defy literary expectations by pointing not away from the text toward interpretative meaning but toward themselves as somehow unavailable to such analysis. reportage of nonsense and of the gaps in language, and for this reason he turns to the theatre for a fuller means for expression.
44 As shown with Mercier et Camier, Beckett begins his writing career intent on approaching and expressing the fallible nature of the text and of language, and, because he ultimately wants to strip even the language quality out of language, he moves toward theatre and creates Godot and other works that struggle to extract silence out of language. Yet, Beckett of course cannot strip out language at any cost, because it is already and only through language that the limits of language are expressed. The effort becomes one, then, of perpetually searching for the invisible silence that does not exist in words. The making of silence that permeates Beckett’s work will always necessarily still be about the text, even in the text of the theatre. For Blanchot, this paradoxical effort in language that is transmitted in Beckett’s works exemplifies the perpetual pursuit of the ephemeral concept of the sound of silence, focusing on the “sound” component―on the production, on the audience, namely on entendre. For Wittgenstein, Beckett’s unknowing critic, this search takes the form of schweigen, focusing on the “silence” component―on the strangeness of speech to illustrate silence. Indeed, it is both the listening to and speaking about silence that makes Beckett’s work rich, playful and unceasingly enigmatic.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Astbury, Helen. “Mercier et/and Camier : Un voyage de découverte linguistique est-il traduisible ? ” Samuel Beckett Today/Aujourd’hui: Presence of Samuel Beckett/Présence de Samuel Beckett: Colloque de Cerisy 7 (1994): 109-120.
Atlas, James. “The Prose of Samuel Beckett: Notes from the Terminal Ward.” Two Decades of Irish Writing: A Critical Survey. Chester Springs: Dufour Editions, 1975.
---. The Complete Dramatic Works. London: Faber and Faber, 1990.
---. “Dante ... Bruno. Vico … Joyce.” Our Exagmination Round His Factification for Incamination of Work in Progress. New York: New Directions, 1972
---. Disjecta: Miscellaneous Writings and a Dramatic Fragment. London : Calder, 1983.
---. Dossier de presse : En attendant Godot (1952-1961). Ed. André Derval. Paris : IMEC et Editions, 2007.
---. En attendant Godot. Paris : Minuit, 1952.
---. Happy Days. New York: Grove Press, 1961.
---. Krapp’s Last Tape and Embers. London: Faber and Faber, 1959.
---. The Letters of Samuel Beckett 1929-1940. Ed. Martha Dow Fehsenfeld and Lois More Overbeck. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
---. “Letter to Schneider, 17 August 1961”. Ed. M. Harmon. No Author Better Served: The Correspondence of Samuel Beckett & Alan Schneider. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998.
---. L’Innommable. Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1953.
---. Malone meurt. Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1951.
---. Mercier and Camier. Trans. Samuel Beckett. New York: Faber and Faber, 2010.
---. Mercier et Camier. Paris : Editions de Minuit, 2006.
---. Molloy. Paris : Editions de Minuit, 1951.
---. “Peintres de l’Empêchement.” Disjecta. London : Calder, 1983.
---. Waiting for Godot. The Complete Dramatic Works. London: Faber and Faber, 2006.
---. Watt. London : Calder, 1976.
Blanchot, Maurice. L’Entretien infini. Paris: Gallimard, 1969.
---. The Infinite Conversation. Trans. Susan Hanson. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993.
Cioran, E. M. “E. M. Cioran in ‘Partisan Review’ (XLIII, 2, 1976, 280-5).” Samuel Beckett: The Critical Heritage. New York: Routledge, 2005.
---. Cinéma I: L'image-mouvement. Paris: Gallimard, 1983.
---. Cinema 1: The Movement-Image. Trans. Hugh Tomlinson and Barbara Habberjam. The Athlone Press: New York, 1986.
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Gaffney, Phyllis. “Normandy Landing.” Beckett Centenary. 29 October 2010.
Hoefer, Jacqueline (1959). “Watt.” Perspective 11: 166-82.
Kenner, Hugh. A Reader’s Guide to Samuel Beckett. London: Thames and Hudson: 1973.
Knowlson, James. Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996.
Mercier, Vivan. “The Uneventful Event.” The Critical Response to Samuel Beckett. Ed. Cathleen Culotta Andonian. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1998.
Perloff, Marjorie. Wittgenstein’s Ladder. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.
Willits, Curt G. “The Blanchot/Beckett Correspondence: Situating the Writer/Writing at the Limen of Naught”. In Colloquy text theory critique 10 (2005).
Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Philosophical Investigations / Philosophische Untersuchungen, bilingual ed., trans. G. E. M. Anscombe. New York: Macmillan, 1953.
---. On Certainty/Über Gewissheit. Trans. Denis Paul and G.E.M. Anscombe. Oxford: Blackwell, 1975.
---. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Side-by-Side Edition, Version 0.23. Trans. C. K. Ogden, Frank Ramsey, David Pears and Brian McGuinness. London: Kegan Paul [1922], 2010.
Worton, Michael. “Waiting for Godot and Endgame: theatre as text”. The Cambridge Companion to Beckett. Ed. John Pilling. Cambridge, New York and Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
ABSTRACTS
Beckett’s first major work in French, Mercier et Camier, written in 1946 but not published until 1974, in many ways foreshadows En attendant Godot (1953) and includes stylistic elements later found in the trilogy (Molloy 1951, Malone meurt 1951, L’innommable 1953). Mercier et Camier represents Beckett’s first radical encounter with nihilism and absurdity in relation, specifically, to language play in a Wittgensteinian and Blanchotian sense. In this stylistic shift from the form of Mercier et Camier as a novel to the theatre of En attendant Godot, performance as non- performance becomes central, announcing that the spectacle no longer tells the story, but, rather, the story can only ever insufficiently be told. This article focuses on the significance of silence and language in Beckett’s transition toward the theatre, paying specific attention to possible intertextual relations with Wittgenstein and Blanchot and the significant overlap between their work concerning the impossible role of language and writing the self.
Le premier roman propre de Beckett en français, Mercier et Camier (écrit en 1946 mais publié en 1974) préfigure d’une certaine manière En attendant Godot (1953) et comporte des éléments du style trouvés plus tard dans la trilogie (Molloy 1951, Malone meurt 1951, L’innommable 1953). Mercier et Camier représente la première rencontre radicale de Beckett avec le nihilisme en rapport, spécifiquement, avec le jeu du langage dans un sens de Wittgenstein et Blanchot. Dans son changement stylistique de la forme de Mercier et Camier comme roman au théâtre d’En attendant Godot, le concept de la représentation comme non-représentation devient central, annonçant que le spectacle ne dit plus l’histoire, mais plutôt que l’histoire ne peut qu’être insuffisamment racontée. Cet article se concentre sur l’importance du silence et du langage dans la transition de Beckett au théâtre, en prêtant une grande attention aux relations intertextuelles possibles avec Wittgenstein et Blanchot et le lien considérable entre leurs œuvres, concernant le rôle impossible du langage et l’écriture de soi.
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INDEX
Keywords: philosophy and literature, language games, literary criticism, modern literature, 20th century literature, 20th century theatre, literature in French, translation Mots-clés: philosophie et littérature, jeux de langue, critique littéraire, littérature moderne, littérature du xxe siècle, théâtre du xxe siècle, littérature en français, traduction
AUTHORS
KATY MASUGA PhD University of Paris-III : La Sorbonne Nouvelle
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Samuel Beckett : Drama as philosophical endgame?
Samuel Beckett : Drama as philosophical endgame ? L'épreuve du théâtre dans l'oeuvre de Samuel Beckett : fin de partie philosophique ?
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“No one that ever lived ever thought so crooked as we”: Endgame According to Adorno
Philippe Birgy
1 Adorno’s essay “Trying to Understand Endgame” deals with the limits of rational understanding. According to the philosopher, explaining the unexplainable was more or less the project of the Enlightenment. It rested on the belief that all phenomena could be neatly circumscribed as a series of objects lending themselves to inquiry and that the knowledge thus obtained would constantly reinforce one’s sense of mastery over them. In the process, pure reason had to sever itself from nature and forcefully dispel the obscurity around it in order to assert itself, erasing in the process the many shades of blackness and grayness that lay out there, the many nuances that were so important to Beckett. In other words, a great deal was thus left in ignorance since the world was thereby reduced to what could be rationally thought about it: Enlightenment, understood in the widest sense as the advance of thought, has always aimed at liberating human beings from fear and installing them as masters. Yet the wholly enlightened earth radiates under the sign of triumphant calamity (Adorno 2002, 1).
2 This “calamity” or “disaster” (an alternative translation of the German term) is obviously a reference to a historical predicament. The Second World War was a threshold in modernity, and in Adorno’s work, the name “Auschwitz” stands as a metonymy for this threshold. It designates the crumbling of the whole edifice of knowledge predicated upon reason that had been erected throughout the past centuries. By the same token, it also precluded any artistic project that aimed at aesthetic perfection. Consequently, “Understanding Endgame” would be playing into the hands of the Enlightenment thinkers―that we all are, somehow. It would just be the same recipe for “disaster”.
3 On the face of it, these very general notions, which may be derived from Adorno’s more theoretical works, The Dialectics of Enlightenment and Negative Dialectics, seem to justify the systematic rejection of any philosophical discourse on Beckett’s play. They hold
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that the project of the Enlightenment has encountered a major setback with the great upsurge of irrationality of the Second World War which has forced us to reconsider its “grand narrative”. Or so reads the vulgarized digest of Adorno’s argumentation, as exposed in these theoretical pieces of work. And indeed there is much, in Adorno’s essay “Trying to Understand Endgame” that reminds us of these general statements.1 It must be noted that adopting that premise brings us into alignment with a supposedly coherent post-modern strand of criticism vaguely understood as the practice of universal suspicion towards “meta-narratives” Yet Adorno and Hockheimer’s point in The Dialectics of Enlightenment is that it is rationality itself, the triumph of reason, which is irrational. And Clov and Hamm seem to bring grist to Adorno’s mill when they try to comment on their own predicament: CLOV (sadly): No one that ever lived ever thought so crooked as we. HAMM: We do what we can. CLOV: We shouldn’t. (Pause.) HAMM: You’re a bit of all right, aren’t you? CLOV: A smithereen. (Pause.) HAMM: This is slow work. (11)
4 Certainly, the explicit content of their exchange is the admission of their own senselessness. But insofar as theatricality is concerned, the flaw that evidently undermines the characters’ attempt at reasoning, the inconclusiveness of their exchange of lines, is in inverse proportion to their talent for repartee. As Adorno puts it, “The drama attends carefully to what kind of sentence might follow another. Given the accessible spontaneity of such questions, the absurdity of content is all the more strongly felt” (Adorno 1982, 140). Idiomatism seems to be the rule of their verbal exchange. The lines, when added up, do not constitute any sort of argument. Hamm and Clov are “empty personae through which the world truly can only resonate”. What remains of the mind, which “originated in mimesis” is “only ridiculous imitation” so that the characters react ”behaviouristically“ (Adorno 1982, 128). It is the ”universal law of clichés“2 which applies, that is: the fossilization of language into a culture that after having been turned into a commodity, has eventually become residual. The protagonists’ dialogue is indeed a series of conventional phrases, one programmatically calling for the other, a play on language that valorizes the letter rather than the meaning, yet one whose ceaseless rebounding produces puzzling results. And these in turn inevitably foster the temptation to interpret them. HAMM: Nature has forgotten us. CLOV: There’s no more nature. HAMM: No more nature! You exaggerate. CLOV: In the vicinity. HAMM: But we breathe, we change! We lose our hair, our teeth! Our bloom! Our ideals! CLOV: Then she hasn’t forgotten us. HAMM: But you say there is none. (10)
5 Here, the only function of Clov’s first rejoinder seems to be the invalidation of the preceding statement. After which he retreats with a caveat which substantially reduces the bearing of what he has just affirmed. For his part, Hamm eloquently retorts with the empirical evidence of tangible physicality. But the short list of body parts and functions he cites as examples is prolonged by the vaguer and more aesthetic “bloom” and eventually the very abstract “ideals.” So that, implicitly, these notions are set on the same plane as the biological organs. And as these “ideals” materialize, they
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necessarily lose much of their notional or conceptual tenor. After all, the artistic idiom is supposed to supply a more visceral expression of whatever cannot be set out in plain and accurate technical language, so as to make it more palpable. According to common sense, Art supplements the language of Science, allowing Man to complete his exploration of the world. But in Hamm’s answer, the spirituality of “bloom” and “ideals” has evaporated and there is not much left of this enterprise of clarification. Besides, the seemingly optimistic tone of Hamm aimed at relativizing and correcting Clov’s affirmation eventually becomes a dysphoric assessment of bodily decay, although the tone remains celebratory, deepening the gap between form and content. All content of subjectivity, which necessarily hypostatizes itself, is trace and shadow of the world, from which it withdraws in order not to serve that semblance and conformity the world demands (Adorno 1982, 127).
6 Eventually, in the two last lines of the excerpt quoted above, contradiction closes upon itself at both ends, so to speak, in the sense that the antithetical formulations of the characters are both negations of the respective statements they have so learnedly pronounced before. The logical figure of the absurd, which makes the claim of stringency for stringency’s contradictory opposite, denies every context of meaning apparently guaranteed by logic, in order to prove logic’s own absurdity. (Adorno 1982, 141)
7 The possibility of meaningful statements fleetingly becomes a subject of comedy, but the fun is not much fun. Psychoanalysis explains clownish humor as a regression back to a primordial ontogenetic level, and Beckett’s regressive play descends to that level. But the laughter it inspires ought to suffocate the laughter. That is what happened to humour after it became―as an aesthetic medium―obsolete, repulsive, devoid of any canon of what can be laughed at; without any place for reconciliation, where one could laugh. (Adorno 1982, 134)
8 Again, in the following series of lines, a distinction is made between meaning and interpretation: HAMM: Clov! CLOV (impatiently): What is it? HAMM: We’re not beginning to... to... mean something? CLOV: Mean something! You and I, mean something! (Brief laugh.) Ah that’s a good one! HAMM: I wonder. (Pause.) Imagine if a rational being came back to earth, wouldn’t he be liable to get ideas into his head if he observed us long enough. (Voice of rational being.) Ah, good, now I see what it is, yes, now I understand what they’re at! (Clov starts, drops the telescope and begins to scratch his belly with both hands. Normal voice.) And without going so far as that, we ourselves... (with emotion)...we ourselves... at certain moments... (Vehemently.) To think perhaps it won’t all have been for nothing! (22)
9 Hamm cannot go as far as positing an interpreter who would regulate and impart significance to his verbal exchanges with Clov. Such a return to rationality cannot be conceived of, for it would constitute a future, and that is definitely far too presumptuous and frightening for the character. But at least he may entertain the possibility that their own words might just have some immanent meaning, that is: some significance in themselves in spite of their apparent platitude and inanity for those who utter them. The evocation of that second possibility seems enough to comfort Hamm.
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10 As for the hypothesis that a “rational being”might decipher their gibberish, thus conferring meaning on it, that is surely a flight of fancy, and it is treated in the parodic mode, parody being, according to E. Angel-Perez and A. Poulain, one of the only available options if one wants to “reinstate the concepts of the humanistic world of yore” (119).
11 Now, for Adorno, if an updated humanistic project may still be envisaged, it must be redesigned from the ground up. One can definitely not resume the enterprise of clarification and exhaustive description of the universe that safely dissociated the knowing subject from the known world. Or else, it must certainly be a joke. Already, in the preceding quote, the brief laughter of Hamm is dissociated from any idea of enjoyment or exultation, not to mention the plenitude of happiness. Hamm’s laughter resembles the compulsory and self-serving “fun” of anomic societies. “[E]ven the remaining trace of silly, sophistic rationality is wiped away. The only comical thing remaining is that along with the sense of the punchline, comedy itself has evaporated” (Adorno 1982, 135).
12 As we have repeatedly stressed, the whole Enlightenment enterprise was disastrous, according to Adorno, because its triumph was achieved at the cost of our separation from the natural world. Our scientific detachment has excluded us from it. And, having alienated ourselves from Nature, the latter escaped us even more, becoming in the process a source of fears and anxieties.
13 Certainly, this description connects well with the formulae of despair or insignificance which are brandished triumphantly by Hamm and Clov, with their insistence that there must be nothing outside because whatever appears on the horizon is a threat, their affirmation that the worst is the best, and that, entrenched as they are and secured against any irruption of nature, hope would be dangerous. CLOV (anguished, scratching himself): I have a flea! HAMM: A flea! Are there still fleas? CLOV: On me there’s one. (Scratching.) Unless it’s a crab louse. HAMM (very perturbed): But humanity might start from there all over again! Catch him, for the love of God! (22)
14 The shortened line of reasoning that Hamm offers as a justification for the extermination of the flea (“Humanity might start from there...”) does not explain why he takes it upon himself to prevent the development of natural life. It is soon contradicted by another exchange, where Clov has appropriated his master’s argument (“A potential creator?”) while Hamm seems to have renounced it. Yet again he exposes a logical counter-argument which proves equally faulty and leaves Clov’s proposition unaltered (“And if he doesn’t...”). Let’s see. (He moves the telescope.) Nothing... nothing... good... good... nothing... goo— (He starts, lowers the telescope, examines it, turns it again on the without. Pause.) Bad luck to it! HAMM: More complications! (Clov gets down.) Not an underplot, I trust. (Clov moves ladder nearer window, gets up on it, turns telescope on the without.) CLOV (dismayed): Looks like a small boy! HAMM (sarcastic): A small... boy! CLOV: I’ll go and see. (He gets down, drops the telescope, goes towards door, turns.) I’ll take the gaff. (He looks for the gaff, sees it, picks it up, hastens towards door.) HAMM: No! (Clov halts.) CLOV: No? A potential procreator?
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HAMM: If he exists he’ll die there or he’ll come here. And if he doesn’t... (Pause.) CLOV: You don’t believe me? You think I’m inventing? (Pause.) (46)
15 On the one hand, as Adorno notes, such permutations prevent us from grasping Hamm and Clov as individuals but rather encourage us to view them as the parts of a same dramatic entity. “Even the outlines of Hamm and Clov are one line, they are denied the individuation of a tidily independent monad. They cannot live without each other” (Adorno 1982, 144).
16 On the other hand, the anthropomorphic illusion of independent characters is dispelled, the coherence and integrity of the individual atomized into isolated repartees. The only observable line that circumscribes a locus of identity is the contour of the body which is neither the seat of organized thoughts nor the site of intentional action. For the time being, the historical crisis of the individual runs up against the single biological being, its arena. The succession of situations in Beckett, gliding along without resistance from individuals, thus ends with those obstinate bodies which have regressed. (Adorno 1982, 134)
17 It must be added that the said bodies, identifiable as a conglomerate of matter, a functional system of organ or machinery, are in a process of decay, their internal connections partly dismantled. As soon as the subject is no longer doubtlessly self-identical, no longer a closed structure of meaning, the line of demarcation with the exterior becomes blurred, and the situations of inwardness become at the same time a physical one. (Adorno 1982, 129)
18 Of course, whether the characters can be said to comment “explicitly” or “deliberately” on their predicament, once we have interpreted their speech through the lens of some philosophical system, is mere psychologizing. As a general rule, ascribing any measure of deliberation to characters is certainly a dubious critical move. But crediting the play or the author with any illustrative intention is even more suspicious for it would either imply a case of prophetic or intuitive reconstitution of Beckett’s line of thought (by Adorno, in this case), or else two concurrent formulations of the same condition of the world.3 However, Adorno insists that Beckett’s theatre is not the reconstitution of a line of thought. Any attempt at having the characters or the play as a whole expose or enact the beliefs of the author would not satisfy Adorno’s conditions for a genuinely critical literature.
19 Tentatively acknowledging his debt to Hegel, the philosopher practices a form of dialectic which refutes the secondary, purely illustrative, nature of the example and argues that it is not the playwright’s role to make a stand. The artwork must mimetically conform to and confuse itself with what it is about, what it “presents”4 to the spectator. For it is only by being like what it imitates that art can object to it.
20 Those who find fault with the vulgarized form of anti-foundationalism which is said to serve as a culture in postwar Europe, may indeed conclude that Endgame exactly exposes the untenable consequences of a hypothetical disappearance of meaning in a supposedly post-modern regime where anything goes, where one thing is just as good as another, where nothing holds and there is nothing to choose from, because nothing has any worth. Consequently, it is all the same, it is all one, it is worthless.5 Again, the characters’ words, or lack of them, seem to reflect that post-war condition: HAMM (violently): Wait till you’re spoken to! (Normal voice.) All is... all is... all is what? (Violently.) All is what?
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CLOV: What all is? In a word? Is that what you want to know? Just a moment. (He turns the telescope on the without, looks, lowers the telescope, turns towards Hamm.) Corpsed. (Pause.) Well? Content? HAMM: Look at the sea. CLOV: It’s the same. (20)
21 Now, the absurdity of generalization is certainly enacted in such passages of the play, but it is impossible to tell whether the scene disqualifies it as an untenable premise or confirms the impossibility of such generalizations. If anyone had the final word on the state of the universe, that word would be “corpsed”. But Clov’s comment is “just a moment” in a dynamic theatrical sequence. His histrionic behaviour is plainly a parody of scientific observation, involving deduction and induction. After scrutinizing the objects that constitute the external world, he pretends to derive a universal statement from this study. Yet the rhetorical function of his answer is apparent from his preoccupation with Hamm’s reaction (“Well? Content?”). Indeed, Hamm does not rest content. And his unrest precisely manifests what remains of life within him. And the same is also true of his companion. Conversely, content or contentedness would precisely describe that quality of the objects whose life has been extinguished. As for the rest, observation and deduction are just a variation, a phase or phrase in a composition that spans a wider range of tones and intensities. Hamm presses on with his questions, and Clov’s affirmation on similitude or identity proves inconclusive for it relies on comparison. And comparison requires a reference point to assess and measure the resemblance between one thing and another and eventually prove them to be the same: it calls for a second term which is conspicuously absent in the passage.
22 All in all, Clov’s and Hamm’s pessimism is only raised by the force of a solipsistic enthusiasm.6 But mostly, Endgame is nothing but that presentation of the habitual. The situations that Beckett dramatizes do not detract or add anything to the presentation of a modern condition, and least of all do they comment upon such a state of things. It may be that Beckett pushes the situation to its reasonable “conclusion”, which is that it is inconclusive. Perhaps he even does it with a measure of exaggeration. But mostly, the playwright lets the situation speak for itself. Yet in the final analysis, there is more to it than strict presentation because this mimesis appears to us as untenable, it compromises, unsettles and harms what it presents. For Adorno insists on the necessity of a commitment to the world in the artistic process. This commitment cannot assume the form of a didactic or expository discourse―the illustration or dramatization of an idea. Neither can art subscribe to the dictates of realism, the “pure” or “accurate” representation of reality. For in both cases, the artist would impose an interpretative order on reality. Yet if Art consequently dissociates itself from reality and exists for its own sake, then what remains of its commitment? Art, then, is unavoidably caught in this double bind (Adorno 1980).
23 The historicist hypothesis from which we started, that of a breaking point which would make it impossible to narrate a story after the Second World War does not summarize the practical import of Adorno’s approach. The philosopher recommends a method which is far removed from any generalization based on the systematic application of a theory. It equally denies that Beckett’s play might have any illustrative function and refutes the so-called antinomy between theory and practice. The elements of Hegelian dialectics that still obtain in Adorno’s line of thought imply quite precisely that a particular example never ceases to be an example just because it exemplifies something else: its exemplary nature belongs with it. This singularity may be understood as a
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postmodern trait in the sense that it posits an irreducible pluralism, a pure difference that does not lend itself to any of the categorizations induced by language. Thus it does not allow any game of substitution. Indeed, partial objects in Endgame blatantly fail to replace what they stand for. The unfinished toy-dog fulfils no function as a substitute. The same comment applies to the last child which could presumably symbolize a hope for mankind, or even the last flea or the last rat. The seeds that have not sprouted are also offered as experimental proof that no renewal is possible. In all these cases, the possibility of generalizing a particular experience to a whole class of comparable objects remains unconvincing.
24 We may also hear in the characters’ absurd retorts the avowal that such generalizations do not tell us anything about the world (“All is, all is...”), and that what is iterated and repeats itself is language, exclusively. It is always the same story, the same play that plays itself out. The characters cannot leave the scenic enclosure for they only exist in this restricted perimeter. The singular presence of objects, the physical evidence of the body and the limited movements of the characters, all this raw dramatic material is detached from the language of the stage.7 And their passive existence is all there is to them.
25 Adorno’s declarations on this subject are unambiguous. He rarely discusses at length any possible interpretation of this or that symbol (say, the dustbin or the wheelchair) but restricts his observations to what there is on stage: a couple of dustbins, two windows that do not open on any imaginable beyond, a painting that may represent an identifiable personage, although we can’t see it. In short, nothing that could contribute to an overall “theoretical” perception of the play. The objection that Adorno interprets facts through the prism of the theory of “the end of history” simply does not take into account the details of his essay, and this against Adorno’s own suggestion that in Beckett’s work, it is the persistence of the details that counts most.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Adorno, Theodor. “Commitment.” Aesthetics and Politics. Trans Francis McDonagh. London: Verso, 1980, 177-195.
Adorno, Theodor and Michael T. Jones. “Trying to Understand Endgame.” New German Critique: An Interdisciplinary Journal of German Studies 26 (Spring-Summer 1982) 119-150.
Adorno, Theodor and Max Horkeimer. The dialectic of Enlightenment. Trans. Edmund Jephcott. Standford: 2002, Stanford University Press.
Angel-Perez, Elizabeth. Voyages au bout du possible. Les théâtres du traumatisme de Samuel Beckett à Sarah Kane. Paris : Klincksieck, 2006.
Angel-Perez, Elizabeth et Alexandra Poulain. Endgame ou le théâtre mis en pièces. Paris, PUF/CNED, 2009.
Badiou, Alain. L’être et l’événement. Paris : Seuil, 1988.
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---. Beckett, l’increvable désir. Paris : Hachette, 1995.
---. Ethics: an Essay on the Understanding of Evil. Trans P. Hallward. London: Verso, 2001.
---. “De la dialectique négative dans sa connexion à un certain bilan de Wagner.” Séminaire de l’école Normale Supérieure, séance du samedi 22 janvier, 2005 http://www.lacan.com/ badwagnerone.htm
---. L’Etre et l’événement : Tome 2, Logiques des mondes. Paris: Seuil, 2006.
Beckett, Samuel. Endgame. London: Faber, 2009.
Begam, Richard. Samuel Beckett and the End of Modernity. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1996.
Ben-Zvi, Linda and Angela Moorjani (eds). Beckett at 100. Revolving It All, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.
Butler, Lance St John and Robert Davis (eds). Rethinking Beckett: A Collection of Critical Essays. New York: Saint Martin’s P, 1990.
Conor, Steven. Samuel Beckett: Repetition, Theory and Text. Oxford: Blackwell, 1998.
Dowd, Garin. Abstract Machines. Samuel Beckett and Philosophy after Deleuze and Guattari. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2007.
Gendron, Sarah. “‘A Cogito for the Dissolved Self’: Writing, Presence, and the Subject in the Work of Samuel Beckett, Jacques Derrida, and Gilles Deleuze.”Journal of Modern Literature 28: 1 (Fall 2004) 47-64.
Geulen, Eva.“Endgames: Reconstructing Adorno’s ‘end of art.’”New German Critique, 81 (2000) 153-68.
Hallward, Peter. Badiou: A Subject to Truth. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003.
Haney, William S. “Beckett Out of His Mind: the Theatre of the Absurd.” Studies in the Literary Imagination. 34:2 (2001) 39-53
Lane, Richard. Beckett and Philosophy. Basingstoke: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2009.
McMillan, Douglas and Marta Fehsenfeld. Beckett in the Theatre: the Author as Practical Playwright and Director. London: John Calder, 1988.
Steiner, George. Language and Silence. New Haven: Yale UP, 1999.
Trezise, Thomas. Into the Breach: Samuel Beckett and the Ends of Literature. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1990.
Uhlmann, Anthony. Beckett and Poststructuralism. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1999.
---. Samuel Beckett and the Philosophical Image. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2006.
Wilson, Ross. Theodor Adorno, New York Routledge, 2007.
NOTES
1. For instance: “In Endgame, a historical moment is revealed, the experience which was cited in the title of the culture industry’s rubbish book Corpsed. After the Second War, everything is destroyed, even resurrected culture, without knowing it; humanity vegetates along, crawling, after events which even the survivors cannot really survive, on a pile of ruins which renders futile self-reflection of one’s own battered state” (Adorno 1982, 122).
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2. “Communication, the universal law of clichés, proclaims that there is no more communication. The absurdity of all speaking is not unrelated to realism but rather develops from it. For communicative language postulates―already in its syntactic form, through logic, the nature of conclusions, and stable concepts―the principle of sufficient reason.” Adorno 1982, 139. 3. This position corresponds to the first of the three options proposed in the introduction to this volume. 4. Bearing in mind the particular meaning that Badiou ascribes to the word (Badiou 1988, 193-211.) 5. Badiou offers a description of that ideological consensus : “La cible d’Adorno est donc la fonction du principe d’identité dans le rationalisme occidental et, par conséquent, la suspicion à l’égard de l’universalisme en ce que ce dernier est justement l’imposition de l’Un, soit une imposition identitaire selon laquelle une chose peut valoir pour tous ou, en d’autres termes, la réduction de tous au semblable en tant que le semblable est cette prescription universelle. À ce titre, Adorno anticipe avec vingt ans d’avance des thèmes devenus absolument ordinaires de l’idéologie contemporaine. On trouve des passages d’Adorno à vrai dire un peu sophistiqués (ce n’est pas un écrivain léger…) mais qui aujourd’hui sont omniprésents dans les journaux, comme en témoigne cet extrait : ‘c’est justement l’insatiable principe d’identité qui éternise l’antagonisme en opprimant ce qui est contradictoire. Ce qui ne tolère rien qui ne soit pareil à lui-même, contrecarre une réconciliation pour laquelle il se prend faussement. La violence du rendre-semblable reproduit la contradiction qu’elle élimine’. Les thèmes conjoints de la nécessité de l’évaluation des différences, du respect de l’altérité, du caractère criminel de la non- considération de l’identité, de la volonté nécessairement violente de la similitude universelle, etc., sont des thèmes fondamentaux dans toute la Dialectique négative d’Adorno” (Badiou 2005). 6. To be more accurate, the "state of affairs" affecting the modern world having reached the critical moment of its modernity, its untenable climax would be the demise of all claims to universality (except the universality of relativism). Conversely, we should reserve the term post- modernism to describe its joyous embrace of everything fragmentary, its affectation of effortless mastery in the face of uncontrollable events. In Halward’s words, Badiou’s Beckett “reduces the function of joy to its breathless affirmation” (Hall 201). 7. This language is not only made up of the speeches of the characters, but it also includes the text of the play, with its supposed intentionality, its organization and the stylistic traits or principles that can be derived from its observation.
ABSTRACTS
Adorno’s essay “Trying to Understand Endgame” has had a large and enduring influence in the field of Beckettian study. Yet because of its banalization, it is now often assumed that Adorno’s historical argument is an interpretative grid applied to the play from without and that it consequently fails to account for Endgame’s essentially theatrical nature. The purpose of this article is to retrace the philosopher’s line of thought in the above-mentioned essay, trying to show that, contrary to a very common opinion, Adorno proves himself to be particularly conscious of the physical, oral, visual and, more generally, perceptive dimension of the play.
L’essai d’Adorno “Pour comprendre Fin de partie” a eu un impact considérable et durable dans le champ des études beckettiennes. Mais en raison de sa banalisation, on tient souvent pour acquis
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aujourd’hui que l’argument historiciste d’Adorno est une grille interprétative appliquée sur la pièce de l’extérieur, et qu’en conséquence, il ne rend pas compte de la nature essentiellement théâtrale de Fin de partie. Dans cet article, nous nous proposons de retracer les grandes lignes de la pensée du philosophe dans l’essai cité plus haut, afin de montrer que contrairement à une opinion fort répandue, Adorno s’attache tout particulièrement aux dimensions physiques, orales, visuelles, et plus généralement perceptives de la pièce.
INDEX
Mots-clés: fin de partie, historicisme, philosophie, postmoderne, réalité, représentation, théâtralité Keywords: endgame, historicism, philosophy, post-modern, reality, representation, theatricality
AUTHORS
PHILIPPE BIRGY Professeur Université Toulouse 2 – Le Mirail [email protected]
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Eleutheria―Notes on Freedom between Offstage and Self-reference
Shimon Levy
1 Samuel Beckett’s works have long and profoundly been massaged by numerous philosophical and semi-philosophical views, methods and “isms”, ranging from Descartes, Geulincx and Malebranche to existentialism à la Sartre and Camus, to logical positivism following Frege, Wittgenstein and others―to name but a few. P. J. Murphy rightly maintains that “the whole question of Beckett’s relationship to the philosophers is pretty obviously in need of a major critical assessment”.1 In many, if not most studies, “a philosophy” has been superimposed on the piece in an attempt to prove that the work behaves in accordance with, or at least follows, some main notions of “the philosophy”. Beckett was well versed in the philosophies of his time; indeed, he inserted quite a number of real and mock philosophical odds and ends in his writing, but finally, rather than follow Wittgenstein’s famous “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.” ( “Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen.”)2 Beckett seems to have made meticulous and consequent efforts to write [about] the un-writeable. This is clearly evident in his later prose, such as Stirrings Still or Worstward Ho, where the piece ends in an obvious paradox: “Whence no farther. Best worse no farther. Nowhow less. Nowhow worse. Nowhow naught. Nohow on. Said nowhow on.”3
2 Whereas Beckett’s prose sometimes gains from the intervention of an external theory―literary or philosophical―his drama, since it was initially intended for performance (live in the theatre, preserved as six radio plays, five television plays, and one film4), is less receptive to non-medium oriented notions of interpretation, since performing the piece, first and foremost, exposes it to practical rather than theoretical factors.
3 In the following notes I therefore contend that Beckett’s drama is better explored with the help of interpretative notions ensuing from the particular performance factors of the piece itself, and only then, more generally, from the entire volume of Beckett’s dramatic corpus. I intend to rely on what for me at least, but also for many other Beckett directors, proved to be the playwright’s superb sensitivity, originality and
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profound understanding of “theatricality”. Whereas many of Beckett’s philosophical critics prefer to avoid his stage instructions, Xerxes Mehta, director and theoretician in the “practical” sense of having experienced the subject of his theatrical enquiries, says that in Beckett’s plays “stage directions, which solicit the images, are the play.”5.
4 Having already tried an organic approach to Beckett’s plays6, here I relate mainly to Beckett’s first play, Eleutheria. The reasons for this are both practical and theoretical. My way to understanding Beckett’s plays has been paved, first of all, through translating all of them into Hebrew7, thus forcing myself to touch each and every word while rendering them into a language for which I relatively rarely need a dictionary. I translated Eleutheria last―and was pleasantly surprised to realize to what degree and how exquisitely Beckett inserted stylistic, thematic and “medium-oriented” fractals, dramatic and theatrical seeds that developed and transformed in many of his later plays. The two main notions I shall address are self-reference and offstage. They ensue from Beckett’s works rather than being imposed on them.
5 As late as the summer of 1951 Beckett was still interested in mounting a production of Eleutheria, “as one of the plays that ushered in a new era in avant-garde French theatre”. Knowlson relates to a number of details that exorcise episodes from Beckett’s life as well as profound attitudes to life and its meaning in Eleutheria, adding that Beckett had considered the piece “seriously flawed”, and had acknowledged that “Ionesco, Adamov and Genet have moved on in the meantime”8. Retrospectively, Eleutheria can be considered a wonderful theatre workshop in which many motifs, and more importantly, typical Beckettian dramatic techniques used in his later plays, can clearly be detected.
6 While working on the original French as well as taking a look at the American English version by Michael Brodsky and the British English one by Barbara Wright9, I realized, to begin with, how fascinating this first Beckett play is, especially regarding his highly innovative self-referential devices. In this respect at least I disagree with Mel Gussow, who thought that if “Waiting for Godot is revolutionary; Eleutheria is evolutionary” [Theatre Review, 25-06-95]. Eleutheria may at times be overly explicit or even somewhat laborious, as Beckett himself probably thought, but its dramatic text nevertheless offers a surprising, indeed revolutionary number of highly coherent meta-theatrical devices harnessed to the main theme - freedom.
7 Rather than adding a few more secondary insights to the intra-Beckettian allusions found by Knowlson, Buning and others about pre-figurations in Eleutheria, of motifs developed in his later works (and “post-figurations” of his older ones in his novels and novellas), I focus on his revealing stage instructions, which primarily relate to space. Consequently, I also connect the notion of offstage with a hermeneutical circle of Author, Actors, and Audience in their self-referential aspect, in which (I argue) Beckett designed a delicate balance between Creator, Medium and Recipient, as the very foundation of the theatrical situation.
8 Space is the main non-verbal theatrical element of Eleutheria. Beckett, in more than three pages, describes: …a split set, with two very different decors juxtaposed. Hence there are two simultaneous actions: the main action and the marginal action. The latter is silent, apart from a few short phrases, the stage business there being confined to the vague attitudes and movement of a single character. In fact it is not so much a place of action as a site, which is often empty. The text in Eleutheria is almost exclusively concerned with the main action. The
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marginal action is for the actor to determine, within the limits of the indications in the following note. […] The two rooms share the whole width of the rear wall as well as the same floor, but when they pass from Victor to his family they become domesticated and respectable. Like the water from the open sea becoming the water in the harbour. The theatrical effect of this dualistic space, then, should be produced less by the transition than by the fact that Victor’s room takes up three quarters of the stage, and by the flagrant discrepancy between the furniture on either side.10
9 The two spaces obviously represent two different modes of life, and the dramatic action of the play is well activated through the change of setting. However, this set is neither a symbol nor even a “stage metaphor”. In his first full-length play, Beckett, retrospectively, prepares his individual usage of offstage for his plays to come.
10 Offstage in many, especially modern, plays is both a technique and a “content”, a medium as well as a message, a theatrically active element that manages to escape the paradox of “expressing the inexpressible”, and to present void, nothingness and emptiness (not to mention vaguer and more emotionally charged notions such as “seclusion”, “loneliness”, “being there” etc.) without refuting them, since after all, there’s an audience sitting there watching, listening and somehow taking part in the action. As a shadowy doppelgänger, offstage in Eleutheria is clearly designed to function as a major rather than “a marginal” partner. Indeed, as we learn throughout the three- act action, marginality itself (with or without quotation marks) turns out to be the dominant “message”.
11 Moreover, in response to Marius Buning’s perception of Via Negativa in Beckett’s writing11, some of Beckett’s works reveal a unique brinkmanship between an intellectually skeptical rejection of religiosity and an equally present yearning for the “beyond”, whatever “it” may be―spirituality, perhaps12. Notions of the “beyond” hover in and above Beckett’s drama like a restlessly reappearing Godot, or rather the child in the play, about whom Beckett told his friend Gottfried Büttner: “He is not from here”13. The frequent appearances of many dramatic characters and phenomena no less than their central quality in the plays, indicate that Beckett was greatly interested in exploring what may be “out there”, or alternatively and equally unattainably, “deep inside”. This asymptotic tendency towards the “divine” is already manifest in Eleutheria. If, in many of his future plays, “holy” may mean a numinous attitude towards divine beings14, then Beckett’s drama is not really “holy”. But if “holy” is at least allowed to mean an artistic attempt to grasp essences that are neither physical nor even mental, then some of Beckett’s plays come fairly close to “holy”.
12 Eleutheria, not least because of the “freedom” of its name (an almost blatant giveaway), and the ardent, lonely (and only semi-ironically referred to as “decrepit”) quest that Victor sets out on towards his spiritual freedom, is primarily expressed through and by offstage. Side by side with his snide rejection of theological, mostly Christian clichés of the Holy, it should be noted that many of the theologies known to Beckett accept that “The Path” (here obviously the theatrical path) can be regarded as “spiritual”, namely, not satisfyingly explicable (to Beckett) by means of material, psychological or other purely rational theories.
13 *Beckett seems to achieve a considerable degree of Victor’s (and quite likely his own) freedom through the very creative theatrical process itself. Despite the fact that Victor never says a word about God, God’s various angels or saints or any religious experience whatsoever, his quest should nevertheless still be regarded as spiritual. This quest for
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spiritual freedom is not only dearly paid for by severing family, society and romantic ties, but also totally misunderstood by the other characters. Perhaps Beckett did not want to fall into the simplistic trap of explaining what spirituality “is”. Spiritual freedom, he might imply, must come from within (like Winnie’s song in Happy Days), it is never negotiable. It cannot be talked about, because as soon as one tries to it risks losing its uncompromising individuality. Since, as we have seen, words in Beckett’s play are sometimes likely to betray their meaning, offstage does the work for Victor, absent yet very much there―like freedom.
14 In Eleutheria text and space as such―rather than what the text says or what space signifies―are often presented as dramatic opposites. Whereas the verbal text in Eleutheria is often witty, and at times even overtly funny though sometimes intentionally trivial, so as to underline Victor’s space, inner and external, offstage is strongly juxtaposed with the verbal text and is always somber and severe. Victor’s space, a wonderfully theatrical metaphor for his character, is beautifully described, “Like the water from the open sea becoming the water in the harbour.”15 In this image Beckett reveals his “positive” treatment of Victor’s quest more than he conceals it in what the “others” say about him and, perhaps, suggests how difficult spiritual freedom is when one cannot differentiate between “waters of the [clean] open sea” and “waters in the harbour” of family, bourgeois being and a love life.
15 Beckett maintains a particularly delicate balance between his explicit demand for the “unobtrusive” quality of the marginal action on the one hand, and its obviously contrary effect on the other. “Most of the time it is only a question of a site and of a person in stasis”, he specifies, but whoever in the audience pays attention to exactly this will surely be overwhelmed by the “negative” power of a passive-aggressive theatricality, according to Buning’s description of Beckett’s “negative theology”16, or indeed, by the active, intensive employment of offstage. Because offstage too needs theatrical means to draw attention to itself, Beckett asks of his Victor character to pace, to look at the audience, “to be lying down and motionless” etc., “but most of the time he stays where he is, either motionless or restless”17. Victor’s minimal movement is certainly meant to underline his space as “not so much a place of action as a site, which is often empty.”
16 According to the hermeneutical circle of author, actor and audience, Beckett the person/author is strongly implied through Victor and even explicitly so in the text: “Samuel Beke, Beke… he must be a cross between a Jew from Greenland and a peasant from the Auvergne” [136]. Victor/Beckett’s refusal to disclose his reasons for his reclusive behavior, or rather for maintaining his quest for spiritual freedom, often recurs as a main motif in Beckett’s later plays, beginning with Godot himself, on to the “mole” (the same term used in Eleutheria) in Radio II. Is it probably Beckett himself who is represented as C in Theatre II. In Cascando the “story” motif is connected with the “extrication” process and with life itself: “he opens nothing, he has nothing to open, it’s in his head”.18 More explicitly the Victor theme appears in Cascando in: They say, That is not his life, he does not live on that. They don’t see me, they don’t see what my life is, they don’t see what I live on, and they say, That is not his life, he does not live on that. [Pause.] I have lived on it… till I’m old. Old enough.19
17 Moreover, the torturer Chouchi in Eleutheria, perhaps representing the audience or an academic or a theatre critic, is the persona who tries throughout Beckett’s plays to extricate some truth from the fugitive, freedom-seeking protagonist. Only in Ohio
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Impromptu and perhaps in What Where, reader and listener, torturer and tortured finally become one.20 In Eleutheria, though, Victor manages to barely escape his torturer(s) by telling them: “I told you a story to get you to leave me in peace”21―which is likely to be what Beckett does to his readers and audiences, although on the other hand: “You may prattle away to your last breath and still the one… thing remaining unsaid that can give you back your darling solitude, we know. But this much is sure: the more you say the greater your chances”.22
18 This last line may well be ironical, of course, but it is meta-theatrical and self- referential just the same. Billy Whitelaw, in her autobiography says: “this short play proved to be the most telling event of my professional life”23. As a director of some of Beckett’s plays, strongly supported by the biographies and memories of actors who worked with Beckett, like, David Warrilow, Billie Whitelaw and others, I learned that without truly putting one’s self into Beckett’s often very open and vacant characters, in themselves proxies of himself and “his people”, as he called his characters, no really successful acting can take place in Beckett’s roles. Mehta too supports this rational as well as highly intuitive notion: “the performer does not know whether he or she is an actor, a character or some form of transparency for an unknowable other”24. Beckett, as Mehta rightly claims, locks the spectator to his own consciousness (175). This may be ascribed to Beckett’s consistently repeated references to freedom, Eleutheria, Freedom, as an un-re-presentable urge, because it must come as a thrust “from the inmost”25. It can therefore only be presented.
19 A few Beckett actors deal relatively peacefully with their confinement to urns, ashbins, rocking chairs etc., and to playing blind, paralyzed, strapped or prostate-suffering characters―physically. Fewer still manage to keep Beckett’s humor and courage in their staged agonies, probably so designed by the author to help them feel the role physically. Fewer, however, manage to convey to the audience or to their onstage partners, the all important sense that whatever happens to their lines and stage instructions, really happens to them. If they do, such a production has a fair chance of being enriched with an aura of a spiritual quest. This aura always hovers in this unique presence in absentia, offstage, always there, hardly noticeable unless intensive attention is paid to it.
20 Whether the audience, to briefly relate to the third element in the hermeneutical circle in Beckett’s plays, is aware of this, is another question. In Eleutheria, however, its representative is actually invited onstage as “spectator”, in a role often more serious than his entertaining remarks might seem to the audience. The “audience” becomes an implied character in Beckett’s later plays. Didi and Gogo are also Lucky and Pozzo’s audience, and vice versa. A similar on-stage audience-actors device is used for Hamm and Clov in Endgame, as well as for Winnie and Willie in Happy Days, including Winnie’s story about the two people who looked at her stuck in her mound. Some Beckett plays end with an almost explicit gesture to the audience: the handkerchief in Theatre II, Willie’s hand stretched toward Winnie, the auditor in Not I, whose “four brief movements”26 show a helpless compassion, thus inviting the audience to feel as outsiders regarding what goes on inside “Not I”.
21 Finally Victor, a distant kin of Melville’s Bartleby, Dostoyevsky’s Prince Mishkin, and other passive dramatic and literary characters, perhaps Michel, the glazier’s son, will follow in his footsteps, turning his “emaciated back on humanity”27. If we are to believe him, Victor’s problem is that Freedom is to see yourself dead, an impossibility in life,
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therefore called here “histrionics”, as he also says (151). In a brilliant stage instruction, following the ones about Victor’s movements in the marginal action, Beckett foreshadows Victor’s turning his back on humanity and describes a passage as coming to an abrupt end, “as if overcome by a feeling of fatigue and fatuity” (140), in line with the opening note of Act III: “Krap family side swallowed up by orchestra pit” (118), where both space and acting-style/action fall into offstage, inertia, passivity and nothingness, in fact hypostatizing this very issue.
22 Freedom can hardly be forced even on oneself, though Victor tries hard enough and not at all on others. All that Beckett can do, and does in Eleutheria, is to deal with this most important theme in his creative life through meta-theatricality and offstage, leaving people free to respond as they wish, freely. Perhaps only theatre can “say” and “not say” important things. Perhaps Eleutheria is not Beckett’s best play, but it certainly is one of his most interesting ones. Its “flaws”, even more than some of its revolutionary achievements, are highly revealing, at least insofar as to how Beckett was coping with his creative if not personal freedom.
NOTES
1. Murphy, P.J. “Beckett and the Philosophers.” In John Pilling (ed.). The Cambridge Companion to Beckett. Cambridge: CUP, 1994, 222. 2. Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. London: Harcourt/Kegan Paul, 1922, 75. 3. Beckett, Samuel. Nohow On, NY: Grove Press, 1996, 116. 4. Produced by the BBC, 1957-1976. Distributed by the British Library. Also, by Voices International, 1986-89, distributed by Evergreen Review. 5. Mehta, Xerxes. “Ghosts.” In Lois Oppenheimer (ed.) Directing Beckett. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan, 1994, 184. 6. Levy, Shimon. Samuel Beckett’s Self-Referential Drama―The Sensitive Chaos. Brighton & Portland: Sussex Academic Press, 2002. 7. Levy, Shimon. Translation and introduction. Samuel Beckett, The Complete Dramatic Works [Hebrew]. Tel Aviv: Safra & Assaph/Plays, 2009. 8. Knowlson, James. Damned to Fame. London: Bloomsbury, 1996, 364. 9. Beckett, Samuel. Eleutheria. Translated by Barbara Wright. London: Faber & Faber, 1996. 10. Eleutheria 5. 11. Buning, Marius. “The 'Via Negativa' and its First Stirrings in Eleutheria.” In Marius Buning, Matthijs Engelberts and Onno Kosters (eds.) Samuel Beckett Today/Aujourd’hui 9, 43-54.
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12. Levy, Shimon. “On and Offstage, Spiritual Performatives in Beckett’s Drama.” In Marius Buning, Matthijs Engelberts & Onno Kosters (eds.) Samuel Beckett Today/ Aujourd’hui 9, 17. 13. Büttner, Gottfried. Samuel Beckett’s Novel Watt. Philadelphia: University of Pensilvania, 1984, 153. 14. Ruby Cohn, Xerxes Mehta and others relate to Beckett’s “ghosts.” E.G. Xerxes Mehta, “Ghosts.” in Lois Oppenheimer (ed.) Directing Beckett. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan, 1994, 184. 15. Eleutheria, 5. 16. Buning, 47. 17. Eleutheria, 7. 18. Beckett, Samuel. The Complete Dramatic Works. London: Faber & Faber, 1986, 300. 19. Beckett 1986, 300. 20. Beckett 1986, 446. 21. Eleutheria, 150. 22. Beckett 1986, 281. 23. Whitelaw, Billy …Who He? London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1995 132. 24. Mehta, 179. 25. Beckett 1986, 155. 26. Beckett 1986, 376. 27. Eleutheria, 70.
ABSTRACTS
In this article, Shimon Levy argues that the critical concepts used in the interpretation of Beckett's writings for the stage should emanate from the experience of the performance rather than be imposed, ready-made, from the outside. Thus, he opposes theatricality to theoretical extrapolations on the text. Relying on his experience as a stage director and translator of Beckett, he proposes to observe two determining factors in the constitution of Beckett's playwrighting: self-reference and the off-stage. For that purpose, he concentrates on Beckett's first play: Eleutheria.
Dans cet article, Shimon Levy suggère que les concepts critiques propices à l'approche de l'œuvre dramatique de Beckett doivent être tirés de l'expérience de sa représentation sur scène et non empruntés à des systèmes de réflexion déjà construits. Il oppose ainsi la théâtralité aux extrapolations théoriques. En s'appuyant sur son expérience de la mise en scène et de la traduction de l'auteur, il se propose d'étudier deux facteurs déterminants dans la constitution de la dramaturgie Beckettienne : l'auto-référence et le hors-scène. Il en démontrera l'importance en s'appuyant sur la première pièce de Beckett : Eleutheria.
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INDEX
Mots-clés: sacré, hors-scène, espace, auto-référence, liberté, Eleutheria, Oh les beaux jours, fin de partie, Cascando Keywords: dramatic techniques, holy, Off-Stage, space, self-reference, freedom, Eleutheria, Happy Days, endgame, Cascando
AUTHORS
SHIMON LEVY Professor, Translator and Director University of Tel Aviv
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Occasional papers Articles hors-thème
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Charles du Bos, lecteur de Thomas Hardy
Bénédicte Coste
1 C’est à tort que la postérité tend à ignorer Charles du Bos (1882-1939). Rédacteur d’un journal intime admiré par Gide1, il a consacré de nombreux textes critiques à ses contemporains et aux auteurs victoriens, dont un essai sur Thomas Hardy, « la plus grande sans contredit des figures vivantes que les lettres offrent à notre admiration » (Du Bos 2000, 830), que Gide lui avait fait découvrir durant la Grande Guerre. Très bref, ce texte est issu d’une série de 4 cours dispensés aux étudiants de l’Union catholique entre janvier et décembre 1925. Du Bos fait ainsi office de passeur, contribuant à raviver l'intérêt pour Hardy en France, mais il impose aussi Hardy comme point de passage obligé pour penser la modernité, ce qui implique un mode de lecture à la fois empathique et agonistique : pour Du Bos, Hardy est aussi un moyen d’évaluer sa propre situation spirituelle, par le truchement d’un auteur défini comme incroyant ou plus précisément « inespérant »2. L'hommage à Hardy tient donc du paradoxe, puisque la lecture fonctionne à la fois comme catalyseur et comme contre-modèle. Relire la lecture que Du Bos fait de Hardy, c'est donc mettre en évidence l'importance de la pensée de Hardy dans les années vingt, au sein du débat intellectuel et religieux en Angleterre mais aussi en France.
2 Pour Du Bos, la lecture de Hardy n'est pas ponctuelle, elle est le fruit d'un dialogue de longue haleine. Le lundi 14 décembre 1925, dans son journal, avant la dernière leçon, il dresse un constat amer sur une année passée à lire, relire et méditer Hardy, écrit dans un mélange de français et d’anglais qui lui est propre : « [I] have forfeited my opportunity » car « quelque chose en moi s’est refusé à lire [Hardy] » (Du Bos 1948, 402)3. Pourquoi cette inhibition ? Elle semble naître paradoxalement d'une lecture empathique : « [I]l se pourrait que mon apathie provînt d’une sorte de refus organique d’assimiler un univers trop voisin de celui dans lequel – for my inner welfare and the welfare of those around me – je baigne déjà à l’excès. » (402) La vérité approchée d’une connivence inconsciente se voit aussitôt repoussée : l’explication reste incomplète et le ratage résiderait « dans la monotonie avec laquelle le génie de Hardy regarde la vie, à une période où je n’éprouve plus le désir de la regarder » (402)4. Qu’a donc écrit Hardy,
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qualifié quelques mois plus tôt de « de beaucoup le plus grand des écrivains vivants de tous pays »5 pour susciter cette hargne ? C'est qu'il devient aux yeux de Du Bos, qui se sentait au début revigoré6 par « cette salutaire purification de toutes choses par la vigueur » (260), « le déprimé, le déprimé type » qui instille sa dépression à ses personnages, ou plutôt le tenant d'une aporie éthique qui déclenche le rejet : Hardy désigne une faille que son exégète ne suturera que par le retour explicite au catholicisme.
3 Dans le numéro de janvier-février 1928 de la Revue Nouvelle, l’Hommage à Thomas Hardy d'écrivains français au lendemain de sa mort, Du Bos publie un essai, qui, comme toute sa critique, a « sa source, non pas dans l’intelligence analytique, mais dans une expérience intérieure d’espèce métaphysique, dans cet événement vécu que le chrétien nomme l’attouchement de la grâce, le mystique, l’illumination, l’artiste, la vision, le philosophe, l’intuition »7, Le vocabulaire trahit le besoin de réconcilier Hardy et le sacré, par le biais d'une lecture qui se veut épiphanique ; les modalités spécifiques d'actualisation du texte décrites par la théorie de la réception apparaissent nettement. Du Bos s’attache à situer Hardy dans l’histoire intellectuelle et spirituelle de son temps, et en fait un homme à la recherche d’un principe pour lui introuvable, ce qui lui donne tout son sens dans une époque qui négocie le traumatisme de la première guerre mondiale. C'est cette absence de causalité originaire qui détermine chez l’architecte devenu écrivain et poète sa position affirmée et maintenue de fidélité à l’expérience du monde dans ce qu’elle a de plus sombre. Hardy apparaît comme un désespéré qui part de son « inespoir » (« unhope ») pour contempler la condition humaine avec laquelle il est en sympathie. Du Bos insiste sur la distinction que fait Hardy lui-même, « mélioriste » plutôt que « pessimiste », pénétré d'un sens de la vie qui constitue une éthique possible pour un monde désenchanté, alors que l’expérience de ce même monde conduit Du Bos à une autre position en 1927. Son texte, dépourvu de jargon et pourtant admirable de précision et complexité, montre le regard lucide d’un enfant du victorianisme qui s’est achevé avec la Grande Guerre8. Du Bos souligne la modernité de Hardy, qui transparaît dans ses personnages, à travers la dissociation de l’amour et de la sexualité dont sont victimes Jude et Tess9, ou à travers Clym Yeobright, figure de l’homme moderne en proie à l’irréversible, l’altérité ou plus précisément « l’altérisation » qui caractérise l’homme moderne.
4 Commentant l’incipit de The Return of the Native10, Du Bos assimile la lande d’Egdon Heath au « visage d’Hardy lui-même », visage de « l’homme, lésé et endurant » (828), visage « colossal et mystérieux », comme une bosse, un tumulus. Imposant et solitaire, son génie, lui aussi assimilé à un tumulus, indique « l’importance dévolue à la position d’où l’on regarde, ce sens de l’éternel relatif de toutes choses » (828). La formule est paradoxale et le paradoxe se révèle la figure utilisée par Du Bos pour rendre compte de l’écartèlement ontologique hardien. Hardy est l’auteur qui éprouve l’impossibilité d'embellir les choses, fidèle à « ce point de vue cosmique […] qui fut le sien dès l’origine » (828). Ce point de vue est peut-être assimilable à des procédés romanesques comme l’omniscience auctoriale, mais il est également à comprendre comme position de l’écrivain face au monde. Hardy est « notre univers se pensant lui-même » (829) ; sa position procède d’un refus de créer un autre monde, d’une acceptation de notre univers tel qu’il est.
5 Peut-être sa formation initiale explique-t-elle que Hardy reste avant tout pour Du Bos un architecte, « face à face avec un monde […] si monstrueusement déconcertant, – un
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monde qui […] indigne l’esprit tout autant qu’il serre le cœur » (829). Confronté au non- sens de l’univers abordé à partir d’un point de vue global ou « cosmique », il recherche en vain un principe ou une cause première, « l’arrière-pensée architecturale d’un monde sous ce rapport si dénué », « abouti[ssant] au concept d’une cécité totale dans la force première […] qui est opératoire dans tous les phénomènes de l’univers » (829). Cette absence génère ce que Du Bos appelle la « métaphysique tristesse d’Hardy » (829), dont il précise qu’il la ressent « avec une pureté radicale », sans adoucissement ni consolation. Il est, écrit Du Bos, un architecte, avec ce que cet art implique de rigueur et de cohérence, de volonté endurante, qui ne peut comprendre de façon « totale, […] un univers architecturalement manqué » (830), qui se confronte à l’« impossibilité de situer la responsabilité où que ce soit » (829).
6 Pour Du Bos, Hardy est donc l’homme d’un art reposant sur la cohérence et la solidité, affrontant l’absence de cohérence. Il est l’un de ces Victoriens confrontés à ce bouleversement épistémologique exploré par Michel Serre ou, concernant Hardy, par Annie Escuret. Il est également, et c’est le propos de notre lecture, l’enfant d’un bouleversement historico-philosophique au sens de Marcel Gauchet (Gauchet 2005, 251-92). Gauchet oppose les sociétés hétéronomes définies par la stabilité des pratiques, des croyances et des identités, l’observance des traditions et l’obéissance à la loi délivrée par dieu ou les Ancêtres, et les sociétés en voie d’autonomisation – l’autonomie est un horizon – où les identités, les pratiques, sont fluctuantes, contradictoires et font l’objet d’une invention inscrite dans une dimension historique11, où l’altérité autrefois pensée extérieure vient se nicher au cœur du sujet pour en fissurer l’unité, pour le produire comme sujet divisé à travers un processus que nous qualifierons d’altérisation. Dans La Condition historique, Gauchet rappelle que le dix-neuvième siècle est l’époque où l’autonomisation, dont les fondements sont antérieurs, devient sensible sous la forme d’une intériorisation de l’altérité, d’un écart de soi à soi, d’une faille dont Hardy est l'exemple par excellence, si nous suivons la minutieuse lecture qu'en fait Dubos. Hardy est l’un de ceux qui vivaient à l’époque qualifiée par Matthew Arnold de transition entre deux mondes : « two worlds, one dead / the other powerless to be born. » (Arnold 280) Il a un pied dans le passé où régnait le principe organisateur du monde mais l’autre dans le présent de sa disparition. Pour le dire dans les termes de Gauchet, il s'agit d’un moment particulier de l’autonomisation qui voit l’hétéronomie faire retour sous la forme d’une tentation, d’une nostalgie. La « crise du libéralisme » qui clôt le dix-neuvième siècle12 est le moment où l’hétéronomie livre son dernier combat et où les hommes choisissent difficilement la démocratie, comme en témoignent les soubresauts politiques du dernier tiers du siècle. Ce basculement transparaît dans les œuvres littéraires, notamment celle de Hardy, très conscient de vivre sous son ombre portée. C’est cet écartèlement subjectif entre hétéronomie et autonomie qu’il va explorer, c’est à partir de la faille ontologique hardienne qu’il organise sa lecture après avoir, comme en témoigne son journal, recherché un angle d’approche qui lui eût permis de saisir une improbable unité hardienne13.
7 C'est pourquoi Du Bos s'attache à définir le rapport au temps hardien à partir du titre du chapitre introductif de The Return, « A face on which time makes but little impression ». Ce visage échappant aux effets du temps, c’est pour Du Bos la figure même de Hardy, « une figure tout empreinte, tout imbibée d’une désolation qui ne le cède en rien à celle d’Edgon Heath » (830). Dans une note infrapaginale quelques pages plus loin, Du Bos compare Hardy à « un Lear dont la douleur serait d’ordre général et métaphysique » (835). Par contraste avec la douleur personnelle du roi shakespearien,
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Hardy éprouve une douleur qui est celle de son époque et qu’il va choisir d’endurer ; Hardy ne refuse pas le temps, il le contemple, il en subit le passage. Au bout de l'expérience, le temps est saisi dans, et comme écoulement, à travers lequel Hardy voit se révéler ce que Du Bos appelle l’intemporel, « la notion limite du temps lui-même, lorsque des accumulations quasi indéfinies du temps écoulé sont appréhendées par la méditation d’un homme qui possède le sens de la valeur cumulative » (831). La valeur cumulative permet de lire sur les choses et les hommes la dignité qui leur est octroyée par le fait « d’avoir subi l’assaut des flots toujours renouvelé du temps, de l’avoir subi et d’être là et de ne témoigner de leur passage que par la noblesse des sillons dont ils sont creusés » (831). Certains écrivains affrontent un temps cyclique, un Platon est capable de penser l’éternité, d’autres encore évoquent des instants ou des moments, mais Hardy affronte le passage du temps en tant que tel, un temps purement historique, qui n’inscrit que la permanence de son passage au point de la cristalliser sur la lande d’Egdon Heath, et Du Bos commente : « Cette rencontre, cette perpétuelle cohabitation de l’ancien, du très ancien, de celui qui remonte dans les profondeurs jusqu’à la préhistoire, et du nouveau dans les profondeurs de l’être même de Hardy » est le « sous-jacent sujet de son œuvre » (832). Si le temps perçu est le temps géologique, c’est-à-dire pleinement historique, sa perception est nouvelle et l’on peut dire qu’en s’y confrontant, en l’endurant, Hardy fait littérairement l’« histoire de l’historicité » de la fin du dix-neuvième siècle réclamée par Gauchet (Gauchet 2007 67). Tel est le sens de l’agon permanent de l’ancien14 et du nouveau chez lui. Cette scission au sein du même sujet, cette division, qu’il ne cherche pas à suturer, fait d’Hardy « le plus immuable et le plus moderne des êtres » (Du Bos 833). La référence à Platon n’est pas incidente : Hardy est l’auteur du devenir, celui que la découverte du temps qualifié de géologique (mais que nous devons comprendre avant tout comme pleinement historique) place dans une position dynamique dont la contemplation lui procure paradoxalement une stabilité ou l’endurance repérée par Du Bos. La modernité ici se définit non comme mode ou culte du nouveau qui emporte les hommes et les choses, mais bien comme saisie et volonté d’enregistrer l’écoulement irréversible du temps et de fonder sa précaire stabilité sur cet écoulement même. L’écrivain ne s’abstrait pas de l’irréversible pour le juger ou l’analyser — ce qui fut une position victorienne classique — il s’y inscrit, endurant la « disjonction » évoquée par Gauchet (Gauchet 2007, 107)15 « du temps historique d’avec le temps cosmique, mais aussi d’avec le temps biologique », sans oublier le temps personnel et psychologique.
8 La modernité est une position où le sujet fait l’expérience d’une temporalité nouvelle et d’un univers que ne guide plus aucun principe, sans chercher à l’adoucir ou à l’obérer par quelque stratégie qui relèverait de la posture16. Elle conduit à un nouvel « héroïsme » (834) différent de toute pompe ancienne qui permet à Du Bos de différencier « le moderne authentique et sa contrefaçon » (835). Hardy n’est pas un héros grec, chargé de qualités ou de pouvoirs surhumains, mais un héros singulier, endurant sa condition avec une « adamantine honnêteté d’âme qui tien[t] compte de la totalité de l’expérience » (833) — Du Bos traduit ici les propos de John Middleton Murry, à l’époque rédacteur de l’Athenaeum, dans un article de 191917—, et il l'exprime auprès d’une génération sans doute plus prête à l’entendre que ne l’étaient les Victoriens. Telle est la raison du succès de la parution de ses poèmes, au sortir de la Grande Guerre (1919), salués et reconnus par ceux qui l’avaient vécue, explique Du Bos. D’ailleurs Hardy lui-même n’affirme-t-il pas dans l’une de ses préfaces que « la tragédie a trouvé sa voix » ? Mais pour Du Bos, il s’agit de la tragédie de la modernité, non de la
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tragédie grecque. Fruits de ce rapport à la désarticulation du monde, les poèmes de Hardy sont « le tonique du vrai sans plus » (834). Le poète est compris du public qui n’a pas à faire des « allowances » (sic) c’est-à-dire ces « mises au point » indispensables pour comprendre des génies plus anciens. Le lecteur contemporain n’a nul effort à faire pour s’ajuster à une position ontologique qui est devenue la sienne. La poésie hardienne n’exige donc aucune suspension de l’incrédulité (pour reprendre la référence explicite que font Du Bos et Hardy à Coleridge) et ce trait constitue sa « plus foncière originalité » (836). Elle est vraie, et le « vrai sans plus devient poésie » (836). Hardy apparaît comme le poète anticipant l’expérience moderne, le précurseur d’un rapport nouveau à l’expérience que Du Bos va expliciter.
9 Sa fidélité à l'expérience de la modernité produit un autre mode de transcendance dont Hardy n’a pas eu totalement conscience, selon Du Bos, mais qui s’exprime à travers des « moments of vision » dont l’exégète fait une pénétrante et brève analyse. C’est ainsi qu’il convient de comprendre le « vrai sans plus » devenant poésie : Hardy part d’une perception intérieure et l’analyse sans rien en masquer et sans rien y ajouter, pas plus qu’il n’en dissimule l’âpreté par l'ajout d'une explication ou d'une justification, et c’est à travers cette analyse quasi-clinique que les sentiments se voient élevés à la dignité poétique sans être altérés par des procédés rhétoriques. En l’absence d’un principe transcendant, la perception intérieure hardienne sert de fondement à l’état brut. À l’inverse des écrivains naturalistes qui ont élevé la sensation brute à l’état d’objet poétique, à l’inverse d’une littérature sensualiste18, Hardy accueille la sensation mais se met en devoir de l’analyser, de la décomposer, de la soumettre à la réflexion. Tel est le sens de sa fidélité au vrai sans plus, qui lui permet de nous parler quelle que soit l’époque et qui représente, pour Du Bos, la part d’intemporel qu’il porte en lui, noyau intime qui se heurte, sans s’y affronter, à l’écoulement du temps. Si la condition historique est celle d’une altérité intime, d’une intériorisation de l’Autre, Hardy la montre à travers ses poèmes.
10 Si la poésie ou, plus généralement, l’acte littéraire, ne relèvent que d’eux-mêmes, alors la vie, et la littérature qui en dit l’écartèlement, deviennent tragiques, et Du Bos qualifie l’œuvre de Hardy de « tragédie à voix basse » (851) mettant en mots l’affrontement de l’homme et du destin. Cet affrontement n’est tempéré par nulle providence, nul dieu antique qui en rendraient compte. L’homme se trouve jeté dans un monde où le sens n’est ni prédéterminé, ni donné par autrui, ce qui le place dans une dimension historique dont Du Bos remarque subtilement qu’elle s’inscrit sur le visage des personnages, comme dans cet extrait de The Return of the Native qu'il traduit : « L’âge d’un homme moderne se mesure à l’intensité de son histoire » (838). Paradigme de cette inscription dans le temps historique, le visage de Clym Yeobright vu pour la première fois par Eustacia Vye représente à ses yeux « l’invariant » (837) paradoxal de la nature hardienne. Il n’est plus permis à Clym de connaître l’homéostasie caractéristique de l’hétéronomie : il est inscrit dans, pris, ridé par le temps parce qu’il appartient à un monde pleinement historicisé, à l’instar de son créateur dont Du Bos remarquait « le visage lésé et endurant ». Les références artistiques dubosiennes ne sont jamais gratuites et il compare ce visage au « Rembrandt littéraire le plus concentré que je sache » (839), soit à une œuvre qui prend l’homme pour objet et non des scènes bibliques ou des événements historiques appelés à fonctionner comme exempla de l’action terrestre des vivants. Selon Gauchet, l’autonomisation théologico-juridique du dix-septième siècle produit des individus via le droit naturel19, et c’est la naissance de tels individus qu’a saisie le peintre, alors que ce sont des sujets que saisit l’écrivain
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victoriens en leur adjoignant ce qui faisait défaut à l’œuvre de Rembrandt : la dimension historique marquée par l’usure lisible sur tous les visages.
11 Or replacer Hardy dans une époque d’autonomisation, même si Du Bos n’utilise pas le terme, c’est poser avec lui la question de la croyance. Car si (les) dieu(x), les Ancêtres ou l’Autre tout-puissant ne déterminent plus l’homme, pas plus qu’ils n’en garantissent le sort, nous quittons le domaine de la foi et de l’inconditionnel pour celui de la croyance, qui est une discours fonctionnant sur le mode d’un démenti toujours possible, d’une incertitude. Notre thèse est que le dix-neuvième siècle a été le moment clé de cette transformation, elle-même induite par l’autonomisation, qui a connu des manifestations variées dont la position de Hardy n’est pas la moins singulière.
12 Ainsi, Hardy fait l’expérience de l'impossibilité de croire en quelque chose (dieu, principe transcendant, cause première) qui fut celle de nombreux Victoriens, mais il apporte une réponse particulière, que l'analyse de Du Bos éclaire. La question de la croyance était sous-jacente dès lors que Du Bos commençait son essai par l’analyse du monde désenchanté de Hardy, elle se déploie lorsqu’il traduit quelques vers du poème « To Life » (1902) : « et peut-être que ce que je ne feins qu’en guise d’interlude, je pourrais arriver à le croire » (841). Rappelons que le poème s'adresse à la vie, et que l’énonciateur lui demande de feindre d’être seule pour créer ainsi un paradis sur terre, ce qui lui permettrait de feindre de concert. Pour énoncer cette demande, il faut relever d’un temps où ni le paradis, ni l’enfer ne sont des réalités, ce qui comporte quand même certaines conséquences ontologiques : « Mais ‘le croire’, c’est à cela justement que Hardy n’a jamais pu arriver » (841). L’incroyance du poète se marque par le préfixe négatif dont il frappe ce qui désigne l’horizon de toute croyance, l’espoir. En témoigne la citation d’« In Tenebris » (1895-6): « …death will not appal/ One who, past doubting all,/Waits in unhope ». L’inespoir (unhope) n’est pas donné d’emblée, il est le résultat d’une série de doutes portant sur toutes les croyances, d’une négativation de leur ensemble. Du Bos remarque que ce n’est pas la première fois que Hardy forme des mots par préfixation négative (comme, par exemple, « unsight ») qui témoignent d’une « positivité du négatif » qui lui permet de légitimer la sensation per se, c’est-à-dire de l’analyser. Il est significatif que Du Bos ait utilisé l’expression au sujet d’un autre auteur du dix-neuvième siècle, Flaubert, lui aussi confronté à l’évanouissement de la transcendance soutenue par la figure divine. Comme nombre de ses contemporains, Flaubert a résolu la question de l’absence divine par le culte de l’art et de la littérature : Pour que Flaubert puisse croire à l’art, et s’il ne croit pas, il n’a plus [...] ˈni boussole ˈ, ni ˈbutˈ — il faut que cet art lui pose des exigences aussi sévères que la plus stricte des religions [...]. À ce prix, l’art lui devient une religion complète, intime par l’âpreté, mystique par l’exaltation que lui versent les chefs-d’œuvre, platonicienne par la satisfaction apportée par son besoin d’absolu. (Du Bos 2000, 167)
13 La croyance flaubertienne remplace la croyance devenue impossible en dieu, mais elle en garde les modalités et la valeur. Elle change d’objet, non de fonction, et le culte de l’art désigne cette substitution. Telle n’est pas la position hardienne : l’« inespoir » est le résultat d’un doute généralisé, sans apaisement ni démenti, et il produit la « posture de l’homme qui attend et qui pourtant n’attend rien, de l’homme qui depuis plus de cinquante ans s’est retiré far from the madding crowd » (841-2). Hardy n’est pas un croyant qui s’ignorerait, ou un croyant qui aurait remplacé dieu ou la cause première par l’art ou, autre possibilité, par la science, il est celui qui fait l’expérience d’un doute radical et qui a de surcroît « cette poignante inaptitude à un reniement quel qu’il soit » (842). Il ne peut nier le savoir d’un ciel vide, d’un principe évanoui. Or cette position
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que Du Bos analyse avec une très grande justesse, va bientôt cesser d’être tout à fait la sienne. Examinons-là à travers une autre comparaison qui nous replace à un moment de doute ontologique.
14 Nombre de textes romanesques victoriens ont fait d’un moment de doute absolu chez un personnage, un seuil de renversement le conduisant à adopter une position différente face à ses croyances passées, qu’il s’agisse de conversion, d’adhésion au scepticisme, ou à l’agnosticisme, d’affirmation de l’athéisme, à moins que le doute ne le conduise au renforcement de la croyance. Il s’agit d’un topos de la littérature victorienne largement exploré et commenté où résonnent les enjeux de l’autonomisation : si la loi ne vient plus des Ancêtres ou de dieu, c'est-à-dire de l’extérieur, comment vivre ? Si la transcendance absolue a disparu, est-elle remplacée par la pure immanence et comment l’homme peut-il s’y inscrire ? Comment peut-il assumer un destin qui ne dépend plus que de lui et des autres, de ses semblables et non d’un dieu, quelles qu’en soient les qualités ? De ces questions témoigne exemplairement le célèbre roman à succès de Mrs Ward, Robert Elsmere (1888), qui reste à nos yeux l’un des meilleurs témoignages de la diversité des positions au regard de la croyance chez les Victoriens, entre autres par la variété des croyants qui s’y côtoient. Robert Elsmere met en scène l'hésitation du héros éponyme qui commence par douter de la vérité de l’histoire sacrée (et donc du dieu qui l’organise), mais tait ses craintes jusqu’à se voir défait lors d’une de ces crises dont abondent les romans de conversion : « Do you think nothing is true because something may be false ? Did not — did not — Jesus still live and die, and rise again? can you doubt — do you doubt — that He rose — that He is God — that He is in Heaven — that we shall see him? » demande Catherine Elsmere à un Robert qui ne peut qu’avouer: « I can believe no longer in an Incarnation and a Resurrection … Miracle is a natural product of human feeling and imagination » (Ward 353).
15 Elsmere, qui doute de la réalité des miracles, retrouve une forme de croyance en se tournant vers les œuvres terrestres et ne tarde pas à fonder sa propre chapelle, « The New Brotherhood », avant de mourir en saint, laissant à sa femme, de bout en bout épargnée par le doute, le soin de continuer son œuvre. Ici, il s’agit de remplacer une croyance inconditionnelle par une croyance raisonnée, de se détourner de la figure d’un dieu lointain pour rejoindre la communauté des hommes et l’on peut dire que son doute conduit Elsmere à maintenir sa croyance en en changeant simplement l’objet. Flaubert remplaçait la foi par l’art, Elsmere par l’action humaine. Toute autre est la position de Hardy20.
16 Pour Du Bos, Hardy se caractérise par le refus de remplacer l’« inespoir », de le suturer par une quelconque croyance substitutive fonctionnant comme béquille d’un monde désarticulé. Dieu est mort et la religion a été mise au rang de ces tumuli bientôt effacés sous les pas des hommes, mais l’écrivain ne la remplace par nul culte, fût-il celui de l’art, par nulle croyance en l’efficacité des œuvres mondaines en lieu et place du service divin. Il endure l’absence de responsabilité dont parle Du Bos en introït, et cette endurance lui confère paradoxalement la capacité de transformer la dépression née de cette absence en tonique. Tel est le sens de l’« inespoir hardien » : se tenir en un lieu où se révèle l’absence de principe divin, l’endurer comme la condition humaine, sans chercher à l’amoindrir par quelque objet substitutif, pour en sonder les possibilités d’ouverture à l’avenir, à l’histoire, pour en exprimer le nouveau tragique où, selon Du Bos, les événements élèvent parfois la voix, jamais les personnages que leur destin assomme. Et c’est sans doute un autre aspect de Hardy que Du Bos semble évacuer dans
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l’instant où il l’énonce : aussitôt posé, l’avenir suscité par l’advenue et la prise en compte de la dimension historique se voit anéanti, réduit à n’être que la mortification qui attend les hommes et les personnages hardiens.
17 L’« inespoir » n’est toutefois pas le dernier mot et Du Bos cite un autre vers d’« In Tenebris » exigeant la considération du pire pour arriver au meilleur : « if way to the Better there be, it exacts a full look at the Worst ». Certes, l’exigence hardienne de regarder le pire en face, qui est le corollaire de son incroyance, est difficilement soutenable auprès des hommes et Hardy apparaît comme l’un des « perturbateurs du monde » (843) aux côtés de Pascal, Nietszche, Tolstoï et Ruskin, ce qui, comme le souligne Du Bos, peut conduire à la réaction politique ou au soutien de l’ordre existant. Les exemples cités montrent en effet toute l’ambiguïté qui s’attache à la découverte d’un monde dépourvu de grâce. Pascal se retirera, Ruskin et Nietzsche21 sombrent dans la folie, et Tolstoï est classé comme réactionnaire. Hardy ne suit nullement cette pente en maintenant son « inespoir ». Certes, il « prend congé avant l’heure d’un monde qui ne veut ni entendre ni recevoir son message » (842), écrit Du Bos pour souligner la difficile marginalité d’une position qui prend comme seul principe l’absence de toute providence, de cause, de dieu. Hardy survit « au milieu de nous » (842), en se repliant sur son Wessex natal et romancé, peut-être pour échapper aux illusions de la modernité. Et là consiste sans doute une autre forme d’héroïsme que Du Bos ne dénierait pas à Hardy, et qu’il va inscrire dans le champ de « la religion de la souffrance humaine » (845). Hardy apparaît donc comme le sujet d’un moment de l’autonomisation radicale qui défère aux hommes le soin de mener leurs affaires sans plus de ligne directrice que leur vouloir ou leur désir ... au risque de la solitude mais tout en acceptant les questions éthiques de cette condition.
18 Hardy a le « sens de l’incurable […] inné en son être même » (844). Mais il s’interdit de désespérer, refuse de se couper d’un avenir possible… à condition que l’homme regarde le Pire en face. Il est incroyant, si l’on attache un objet ou un contenu à la croyance, mais Du Bos souligne que Hardy proteste contre la notion de « pessimisme » dans son Apology (1922), car elle a le défaut de réduire une position ontologique à une qualité, voire à une posture. Du Bos a raison de souligner que le pessimisme (en tant que courant intellectuel de la fin de siècle) ou l’optimisme (qui recouvre le culte naïf de la science et du progrès) sont « inhumains » car ils méconnaissent tous deux la nouvelle condition humaine. L’« inespoir » est une condition qui fait souhaiter à Hardy « une série de très graduels efforts » (844) pour améliorer l’humanité (« le méliorisme par voie d’évolution » des Late Lyrics and Earlier 844), retrouvant, nous dit Du Bos, G. Eliot dont tout le sépare. Tous deux ont pour « religion » « la religion de la souffrance humaine » (845), fondée sur un authentique amour de l’humanité. Eliot et Hardy font l’expérience du désenchantement victorien et y répondent par une éthique qui sera celle de la sympathie dans le cas d’Eliot22, et l’exigence de connaissance et de fidélité à toute la réalité dans celui de Hardy.
19 L’éthique de la condition moderne n’est pas dissociable d’une esthétique. L’amour de l’humanité hardien s’exprime par la typologisation destinée à énoncer les vérités essentielles de l’homme plongé dans l’histoire qu’il doit inventer et réaliser et que Proust, rappelle Du Bos, avait repérée sous la forme des ouvrages « superposables » car unis par une construction similaire. Les ouvrages d’Hardy sont ceux d’un architecte, ils évoquent la taille de pierre médiévale qui fonctionne principalement sur l’allégorisation et la typologisation pour exprimer des vérités religieuses. Leur
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dimension typologique est un procédé littéraire servant à exprimer la nouvelle condition humaine en créant une communauté fonctionnant sur la reconnaissance et en gommant la différenciation des œuvres entre elles, tandis que l’impression globale qui s’en dégage excède l’impression des textes individuels. L’« inespoir » irrigue chacun et confère une paradoxale (et très autonome) unité à un monde aprincipiel et tragique.
20 Dès lors qu’elle n’est plus soumise à une cause extérieure, la tragédie naît du « choc entre la conjoncture particulière et l’écrasante pesée qu’exerce la vie en général » (846), entre le sujet et ce qui le dépasse sans pour autant lui être radicalement extérieur et qui peut prendre en l’occasion le visage de la société. Nous avons vu que cette pensée ne relevait de nul principe et que c’est en étant fidèle à ce « point de vue cosmique », que l’œuvre hardienne trouvait sa paradoxale unité en permettant à la tragédie de s’y déployer intégralement. Mais la tragédie de l’ère de l’autonomisation n’est pas la tragédie grecque qui mettait l’homme aux prises avec les dieux. Elle déplace la question éthique au cœur du sujet. Du Bos examine deux personnages qui incarnent la condition humaine dans l’univers désarticulé : Tess et Jude. Tous deux, pourrait-on dire, illustrent ce que Lacan appellera la « jouissance de l’idiot »23 à entendre comme idiotès, la jouissance du sujet singulier, isolé, divisé, soit du sujet de l’autonomisation. À travers l’examen de leurs destins croisés, Du Bos, lui, montre que la dissociation de l’amour et de la sexualité dont ils sont victimes provoque la tragédie qui les voue à une fin précoce. L’altérisation qui frappe le sujet de l’autonomisation détermine la scission entre sexualité et amour, autre effet de ce monde désenchanté.
21 De sorte que la sensualité, si présente chez Hardy, est problématisée. Du Bos remarque la qualité plastique du verbe hardien en évoquant l’une des plus belles « idylles »24 de la littérature anglaise lorsque Tess se promène avec Angel à Talbothays. Cette plasticité lui sert à évoquer la persistance du premier âge de la Création où le sens de la terre est le « sens primordial » (848), un sens très sincère chez Hardy, dira-t-il. L’être humain est sain et sauf dans la mesure où il se conforme à ses origines et qu’il se meut comme la nature, en harmonie avec elle. C’est cette innocence, qui est également celle des sens, que Tess a perdue en étant violée par Alec mais qui ne demande qu’à faire retour sous la forme d’une véritable pulsion de vie lorsqu’elle vit à Talbothays. Tel est pour Du Bos le trait de génie de Hardy psychologue et il cite un passage de Tess illustrant le « naturalisme » hardien, « au grand sens antique et cosmique » de Lucrèce et de Maurice de Guérin, où l’être humain est tenu « pour innocent et pour valide » (849). Toutefois, cette pulsion de vie apparaît au titre de rémanence d’un état quasi-mythique qui ne peut être intégralement retrouvé, principalement chez les femmes hardiennes « qui font un bel, instructif et pathétique contraste avec les personnages masculins, — avec ces hommes presque toujours déprimés, débilités, mais si noblement parce que l’usure qu’ils laissent voir est l’usure de la pensée » (849). Si la pulsion de vie féminine est plus affirmée, il n’en demeure pas moins que chez les deux sexes, l’être originel est refoulé et qu’il ne peut réapparaître qu’à la faveur de l’amour « naissant, indécis » dont la « lumière spectrale, aqueuse et presque informe » où Tess et Angel se promènent, fait métaphore (849). Hardy confère à ses personnages la touche d’un Breughel ou d’un Scorel, tandis que les paysages où ils évoluent correspondent à sa « prédilection pour l’espace, pour l’étendue illimitée » où l’être s’éprouve chose parmi les choses. De nouveau, les références picturales désignent une époque dépassée, qui ne subsiste qu’à l’état de survivance car si l’être est naturel, s’il garde en lui cet autre noyau d’altérité, il
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est aussi plongé dans une histoire où sexualité et amour sont antagonistes, où la division intérieure engendre la tragédie.
22 Jude et Tess constituent « le plus significatif diptyque » (850) du destin de sujets que l’Autre sexe conduit à la ruine. Chez un Hardy ignorant la division chrétienne de la chair et de l’esprit au profit d’une réduction de la pensée à une « maladie de la chair » (849), la vie est d’ordre physiologique et la sexualité joue un grand rôle sans pour autant épuiser l’être et c’est l’amour qui vient bouleverser l’ordre naturel. Les relations érotiques qu’il dépeint ne sont jamais duelles, c’est-à-dire mettant en jeu des sujets distincts et entiers, justifiables de leur conscience ou d’une ligne d’action définies. À l’inverse d’un Ibsen dont les personnages revendiquent des droits, les héros hardiens ne se dirigent pas vers une autonomie que Du Bos qualifie de « plus dérisoire des mythes » car la loi qui régit tout individu est celle de « l’inextricable enroulement des choses » (850) évoqué par Clim Yeobright, à entendre comme loi qui assujettit chacun à chercher dans l’autre ce qui lui manque ou le moyen de résorber sa faille intérieure. Et c’est en ce point que l’amour s’oppose à la sexualité.
23 Ainsi, Jude est un homme « moyen » doué d’une « intégrité morale plus répandue qu’on ne le croit » qui se double d’une faiblesse de caractère (851) qui pourrait bien, précise Du Bos, être « le nom dont, pour se débarrasser de celle-ci, on se plaît à affubler la bonté » (851). Il n’aspire qu’à s’instruire pour s’élever socialement mais se fait sexuellement prendre au piège par Arabella. Cet épisode « négligeable en soi » commande pourtant toute sa destinée. Le jeune homme a été surpris par « l’instinct sexuel » (852) distinct de l’amour, tandis que son intégrité morale le contraint « au devoir de réparation » (852). Tout comme Tess partagée entre Alec et Angel, il a involontairement dissocié sexualité et amour au profit de la première en oubliant la seconde. Il essaiera de se rattraper avec Sue mais en vain : il retombe sous le joug d’Arabella, « l’insignifiante et méprisable artisane de tout son destin » (853). Angel a refusé de sauver Tess, se refusant à l’amour et le lui refusant, mais Sue ne peut sauver Jude car elle n’est ni libre ni capable de s’affranchir. Elle est la femme idéalisée, à laquelle il adresse son amour, mais elle est aussi la femme défaillante selon Du Bos : « une organisation plus complexe, plus évoluée, à ses yeux plus élevée, dont les scrupules et les remords font eux aussi partie intégrante » (853). Sue est la femme moderne, aux prises avec une culpabilité d’autant plus insidieuse et puissante qu’elle est inconsciente. Jude meurt victime d’un écartèlement entre la sexualité insatisfaisante avec Arabella et l’amour raté avec Sue, d’une scission dont ses deux partenaires représentent les pôles antagonistes. Sexualité et amour : telle est l’expression ultime de la division chez Hardy, en lieu et place de la division chrétienne entre corps et esprit. Figures de l’altérisation subjective, Tess et Jude « sont victimes du même principe initial : la dissociation entre les deux temps où opèrent l’instinct sexuel et l’instinct amoureux » (853) Les héros hardiens montrent la scission à la place d’une unité subjective frappée d’obsolescence. C’est aussi par ce réagencement, lui-même marque de l’autonomisation, que Hardy est moderne, d’une modernité banale à nos yeux, mais qui ne l’était peut-être pas en 1925, car la condition du salut humain est que les instincts sexuel et amoureux ne fassent qu’un, souligne Du Bos. Pour ce faire, il faudrait détisser les effets de l’autonomisation, retrouver l’hétéronomie qui les conjoint et les met sous la garde d’une loi de reproduction où chacun connaît sa place parce qu’elle est fixe. C’est ici qu’apparaît en filigrane, le détournement qu’exprime son journal : Hardy semble trop moderne pour son lecteur.
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24 Dans sa conclusion, Du Bos revient sur la position ontologique de Hardy. Celui-ci est « tout pénétré, habité par le sens de la vie en général » (854) déclaré supérieur au sens de la vie de ses personnages pris individuellement. Ce sens se perçoit immédiatement, lorsque le lecteur s’identifie à la situation et aux sentiments présentés, comme il le fait avec Tolstoï, Eliot, Tchekhov. Tel est le sens de la comparaison que fait Du Bos entre les personnages de J. Austen et de Hardy : les premiers ne suscitent pas la reconnaissance d’un sort commun comme les seconds. Hardy a donc l’art de créer sinon la « communauté inavouable » de Blanchot, du moins, la communauté des lecteurs de l’œuvre, appelée à prendre la relève d’une communauté religieuse frappée de désuétude. Le sens de la vie se transmet par sympathie, capacité identificatoire à autrui et chez Hardy, il est « tonifiant, salubre et comme chargé de sel » (854), dernier paradoxe de la part d’un auteur n’ayant jamais aimé la vie, si l’on se fie à ce vers cité in fine : « For Life I had never cared greatly » (854). Hardy est salubre par compassion avec les hommes tels qu’ils sont, non par amour de la vie, écrit Du Bos, de la vie à entendre dans une dimension transcendante ou naïve. Son amour des hommes de papier ou de chair est résumé par les vers de Shakespeare en épigraphe de Tess : « Poor wounded name ! My bosom as a bed Shall lodge thee ». Ce que le langage (mais bien plutôt la modernité soumise à l’« inespoir ») mutile, trouvera un abri chez l’écrivain, dernier gage de la compassion qu’il éprouve et qui est appelée à prendre le relais de la caritas chrétienne et à fonder l’éthique des temps de l’autonomisation. Si les contemporains de Hardy furent quelque peu récalcitrants ou incrédules, ceux de Du Bos étaient intellectuellement plus équipés sinon pour la pratiquer, du moins pour la concevoir.
25 En dépit de ses réserves et avec une très grande honnêteté intellectuelle au vu du choix qu'il est sur le point de faire, Du Bos situe Hardy dans la modernité induite par l’autonomisation des hommes et des sociétés, lorsque l’observation de la règle des Anciens cède la place à l’invention de soi et de la société. De nombreuses études ont placé Hardy dans les bouleversements épistémologiques de son temps, Du Bos nous rappelle qu’il s’inscrit aussi dans un processus qui représente la véritable modernité à ses yeux, qu’il y occupe la place lucide d’un auteur qui se met en devoir de l’analyser, d’y prendre place comme sujet, grâce à une écriture elle-même autonomisée des effets de manche rhétoriques.
26 Aussi lucide, mais plus personnel, son journal témoigne de l’irritation née de la lecture des écrits de Hardy et, quelques mois plus tard, Du Bos apportera à l’expérience hardienne de la mort de dieu, la réponse de son propre retour au catholicisme. Toutefois, au regard de notre analyse, cette réponse peut également s’appréhender comme l’un des effets ou des moments de l’autonomisation : son rejet assorti de la tentative d’en revenir à une improbable hétéronomie. Sans être le seul, Hardy désigne sans doute avec trop d’intensité la condition moderne qui suscite l’échappatoire du retour dubosien au catholicisme. La question qui se pose alors est celle-ci : en 1928, Du Bos fait-il l’expérience dont Robert Elsmere a fixé les lignes ? Rappelons-nous que les conversions dites modernes au catholicisme, commencées en 1845 par celle de J. H. Newman, se poursuivent tout au long du siècle et débordent sur le vingtième siècle, en particulier dans les années 1920. Outre-Manche, songeons à E. Waugh et à G. Greene. Pour M. Crépu, qui lui consacre un excellent essai, Du Bos revenu dans le giron catholique « donne au lecteur l’impression que si pour lui, croyant, tout a changé, rien au fond n’a changé. C’est un même homme qui parle, s’affrontant toujours à la même nuit, aux mêmes questions. [...] il est probable, patent même, que le retour à la foi pour
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Du Bos est beaucoup plus l’occasion d’un obscurcissement, d’une augmentation d’épreuve qu’une résolution, la sortie d’une impasse. » (Crépu 88) Selon Crépu, il s’agit d’une « reconversion », d’« un mode approprié à une situation devenue intenable » (149) et de la « résolution d’un problème d’esthète » (149), ce qui apparente Du Bos plus à Flaubert qu’à Newman, et qui, au vingtième siècle, va le marginaliser en le situant dans le camp restreint des écrivains catholiques. Là encore les analyses de Gauchet sont éclairantes : une bonne part du vingtième siècle s’est employée à rejeter l’autonomisation sous une forme politique qui a pris le visage des totalitarismes25. Il reste à explorer sa forme esthétique qui a le mérite d’être pacifique et de donner lieu à des analyses pénétrantes d’un mouvement dont tout la séparait. Du Bos est l’un des auteurs clés pour comprendre les déchirements du vingtième siècle entre autonomisation et nostalgie de l’hétéronomie.
BIBLIOGRAPHIE
Arnold, Matthew, « The Scholar-Gipsy »(1853). Poetical Works. London: Macmillan, 1895.
Crépu, Michel. Charles Du Bos ou la tentation de l’irréprochable. Paris : Éd. du Félin, 1990.
Du Bos, Charles. Dialogue avec André Gide. Paris : Sans Pareil, 1929.
---. Approximation. Paris : Syrtes, 2000.
---. Journal II 1924-1925. Paris : Corréa, 1948.
---. Journal III 1926-1927. Paris : Corréa, 1949.
Escuret, Annie. Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) : l’œuvre romanesque. Thèse de doctorat, Montpellier, 1982.
Gauchet, Marcel. Le Désenchantement du monde. Une histoire politique de la religion. Paris : Gallimard, 1983.
---. La Condition historique. Coll. Folio. Paris : Gallimard, 2005.
---. L’Avènement de la démocratie II. La Crise du libéralisme. Paris : Gallimard, 2007.
Humphry Ward, Mary Augusta. Robert Elsmere. London : Nelson, 1888.
Serres, Michel. Feux et signaux de brume. Zola. Paris : Grasset, 1975.
Verdier, Yves. Coutume et destin. Thomas Hardy et autres essais. Paris : Gallimard, 1995.
NOTES
1. Francophone, anglophone, et germanophone, il a enseigné et eu une activité éditoriale considérable, mais aussi fréquenté les grands écrivains et les penseurs du début du siècle (Proust, Curtius, Simmel, Bergson, Gide). Du Bos rencontre Gide en 1917 et leurs échanges intellectuels donneront lieu au Dialogue avec André Gide. Du Bos a traduit entre autres The House of Mirth d’E. Wharton et Dubliners de Joyce.
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2. Elevé dans le catholicisme, Du Bos se déclare agnostique entre 1918 et 1927 avant de revenir au catholicisme sous la houlette de l’Abbé Mugnier, artisan de nombre de conversions retentissantes dont celle d’Huysmans. Du Bos écrit donc sur Hardy juste avant de se convertir, ce qui suggère que Hardy fait office de catalyseur, a contrario, pour ainsi dire. 3. Du Bos a commencé à rédiger son journal le 1er janvier 1902 et c’est encouragé par Gide qu’il continuera jusqu’à sa mort en 1939. Ce journal est un document de première valeur pour les études dubosiennes et l’histoire de l’édition et des idées. 4. Du Bos préfère voir la vie à travers Tolstoï, Tchekhov et G. Eliot dont la réflexion morale ne le lasse jamais ; il reproche à Hardy « son biais, son invective, son sarcasme voilé », qui suscitent chez lui l’envie de lui rétorquer que l’on connaît ce dont il parle et que toute protestation est vaine. 5. Samedi 24 janvier 1925, Journal II, 260. Dès 1922, Du Bos aide une amie à réécrire un article sur la poésie de Hardy pour la Revue hebdomadaire. En 1924, il décide d’évoquer l’écrivain dès la fin de l’année après avoir lu les poèmes du Wessex et avoir été de nouveau frappé par la faculté de Hardy « de mettre le cosmos tout entier derrière l’événement le plus fortuit. », Il s’intéresse à « Neutral Tones » et il ébauche une série de cours sur Hardy et ses œuvres. Dans son journal, il souligne « le caractère d’arc-boutant, de contrefort qu’il y a toujours dans la puissance et la vigueur de Hardy. » (Journal III 226). Il évoque un plus tard « the grey stone and majestic sadness of certain poems of Hardy. » (297). 6. « c’est comme si je respirais l’odeur même de la mer, un air fort chargé de sel, et aussi la salubrité d’un grand vent », Journal II 259. 7. Chronique des lettres françaises, 23-24 (septembre-décembre 1926) 785-786. 8. Il est intéressant de noter que dans ses cours, Du Bos souhaite évoquer The Dynasts qui est à ses yeux :« une anticipation de la vue contemporaine de la guerre, – non point celle du début, [...] Mais celle qui finit par s’infiltrer dans l’esprit à partir de 1917 grâce à la durée des événements. » (Journal III 212) 9. C’est le 28 novembre 1925 que Du Bos a l’idée d’établir un dyptique Jude/Tess. Mais déjà, il s’en veut de son « cunning » (sic) qui lui « permet d’improviser à partir de n’importe quel passage donné. » (Journal II, 402) 10. Du Bos relit The Return of the Native le 27 janvier 1925 et avoue se laisser gagner par le roman. 11. « L’autonomie, en pratique, c’est l’historicité, c’est la quête de soi au travers du changement conscient et délibéré. » (Gauchet 2005, 257) 12. Gauchet signale que l’expression, employée à l’époque, pour désigner le « changement de climat consécutif à l’entrée dans l’ère des masses » est liée à « l’avènement de la démocratie » (Gauchet 2007, 15). Cette crise est à ses yeux une « remise en question des modalités de l’être-ensemble », une crise de la « conjonction du neuf avec le vieux « lorsque » L’Un sacral ne parvient plus à contenir les vecteurs de l’autonomie. » (15) Il retrace les vicissitudes du libéralisme politique au XIX siècle en montrant que la dimension du social-historique suscite des crises liées à la persistance de l’Un religieux ou de l’hétéronomie comme cadre de l’autonomisation naissante. 13. Le samedi 24 janvier 1925, alors qu’il a prononcé sa première leçon, il avoue chercher encore une ligne directrice et un petit nombre de thèmes afin de composer un « morceau symphonique » Journal II 258. 14. Du Bos définit l’ancien ainsi : ce qui est immobile et « toujours identique à soi-même » (833), comme la brume de la lande d’Egdon en donne l’image. 15. Voir le chapitre III, « Passé, présent, avenir : le devenir écartelé » (100-39), où Gauchet consacre des pages inspirées à la fracture qui s’établit entre les trois dimensions temporelles (passé, présent, futur) mais également entre différentes temporalités. Il cite d’ailleurs l’ouvrage d’Yves Verdier consacré en partie à Hardy, Coutume et destin. Thomas Hardy et autres essais. C’est dans ce sens-là que peut se comprendre l’analyse dubosienne.
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16. Sans en donner d’exemple, Du Bos qui rédige son essai à une époque qui glorifiait les mutations, lui dénie toute valeur réelle. 17. Du Bos collabore à la revue de 1921 à 1923. 18. « Il existe chez Flaubert comme une intensité de la stupeur, et en général, une prodigieuse intensité de tous les états dits négatifs. Il part, si l’on peut ainsi s’exprimer, de la positivité du négatif. La pesanteur de la sensation, et l’absorption que cette pesanteur engendre, telle me paraît sa « constante » ; c’est par le degré même de la prostration et par la durée de celle-ci que la sensation finit par acquérir la dignité d’un sentiment. » (Du Bos 2000, 158) Dans l’essai sur Hardy, il reprend son analyse et ajoute en distinguant Flaubert de Hardy : chez Flaubert cette positivité du négatif est peut-être plus centrale encore, mais surtout elle est plus importante, elle a plus de classe, parce que le tempérament y joue un rôle initial indéniable tout l’effort de pensée lucide, et le point de vue auquel cet effort aboutit, confirment, légitiment la sensation et lui confèrent son rang. Par là aussi sans doute s’explique que chez Hardy « la dépression ». , [...] puisse être à ce degré « tonique ». (841) 19. Gauchet distingue trois moments dans l’autonomisation : un moment théologico-politique de 1500 à 1650, un moment théologico-juridique qui produit le droit naturel moderne des individus de 1650 à 1800, puis, le passage à l’historicité à partir de 1800. (Gauchet 2005 293). Voir également Le Désenchantement du monde. Une histoire politique de la religion. 20. L’incroyance ou l’« inespoir » hardien n’est pas sans évoquer un autre auteur auquel Du Bos a consacré une des meilleures analyses qui soient, Walter Pater. De Marius, personnage principal de Marius the Epicurean (1885), il écrit : « Marius est la figure idéale de ceux chez qui le besoin de religion est absolu, mais pour qui il ne saurait y avoir dignité de la personne si l’on impose silence au besoin de lumière de l’esprit ; qui admirent la foi, la saluent, l’appellent, sans pouvoir l’empêcher de toujours obscurément sentir que la foi ne viendra pas tout à fait à eux, et qu’eux n’ont pas tout à fait le droit d’aller jusqu’à elle. » (Du Bos 2000, 758) 21. Du Bos a lu Nietszche dès 1900, et continue de le lire quand il verra en lui « le plus grand adversaire de ma religion » , Journal VI 1928 (Paris : Corréa, 1950) 122. Il connaît les écrits de Charles Andler, germaniste qui publie son Nietszche, sa vie et sa pensée (4 vols.) à partir de 1920. 22. Dans son essai de 1856, « The Natural History of German Life », G. Eliot écrit : « The greatest benefit we owe to the artist, whether painter, poet, or novelist, is the extension of our sympathies [...]. Art is the nearest thing to life; it is a mode of amplifying experience and extending our contact with our fellow-men beyond the bounds of our personal lot. », The Essays of George Eliot, ed. Thomas Pinney (New York: Columbia UP, 1963) 270-1. Sur l’éthique de la compassion eliotienne, voir J. Hillis Miller, The Ethics of Reading: Kant, de Man, Eliot, Trollope, James and Benjamin (New York: Columbia UP, 1987). 23. J. Lacan, Séminaire XX. Encore (1975 ; Paris : Seuil, coll. Points, 1990) 103. 24. A entendre au sens étymologique. 25. « Les totalitarismes cherchent à marier l’hétéronomie et l’autonomie […] Le totalitarisme d’extrême gauche prétend faire entrer un contenu autonome dans une forme hétéronome ; le totalitarisme d’extrême droite veut obtenir un contenu hétéronome au travers d’une forme autonome. », Gauchet 2005 335.
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RÉSUMÉS
Le critique français Charles du Bos a consacré des essais à de nombreux écrivains anglais, victoriens ou contemporains, notamment Thomas Hardy. Pour Du Bos, Hardy est avant tout un architecte en quête d'un principe qui rendrait compte de l'ordre des choses. L'échec de cette quête le conduit à n'avoir foi qu'en l'expérience, même celle des aspects les plus sombres du monde. Du Bos voit en Hardy un écrivain dépourvu d'espoir, exprimant sa sympathie pour la condition humaine à partir de l'« inespoir » défini dans sa poésie. On peut rapprocher le monde désenchanté qu'il dépeint à travers Jude et Tess de l'autonomisation des sociétés modernes au sens de Gauchet. Hardy évalue froidement ce processus d'autonomisation, tandis que Du Bos se détache de cette posture philosophique.
The French critic Charles du Bos devoted many essays to the writings of Victorian and contemporary English authors including Thomas Hardy. For Du Bos, Hardy is an architect seeking a principle which would account for the order of things. The failure of this quest produces his faith in his experience of the world, including its gloomiest aspects. Du Bos sees Hardy as devoid of hope, starting from the « unhope » expressed in his poetry in order to sympathize with the human condition. The disenchanted world that he depicts through Jude and Tess can be related to the empowerment of modern societies as analyzed by M. Gauchet. Such autonomy gives rise to Hardy’s dispassionate appraisal whereas, Du Bos’s essay evidences mixed feelings towards Hardy's philosophical stance.
INDEX
Keywords : reception, poetry, modernity, unhope, Jude the Obscure, Tess of the d’Urbervilles, subjectivity Mots-clés : réception, poésie, modernité, inespoir, subjectivité
AUTEURS
BÉNÉDICTE COSTE Professeur [email protected]
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Circulations de l’écrit : la construction de la communauté catholique anglaise dans les écrits jésuites de 1580 à 1610
Gaëlle Serena
1 L’accession d’Elisabeth Tudor au trône d’Angleterre en 1559 sonne la fin du catholicisme comme religion d’état. Si la reine se défend de stigmatiser son peuple pour sa foi, déclarant qu’elle n’a nullement le désir de sonder l’âme de ses sujets1, le lien unissant les catholiques aux puissances étrangères que sont l’Espagne et Rome fait néanmoins problème. L’excommunication de la reine en 1570 ainsi que les rumeurs d’invasion par l’Armada espagnole dès le début des années 1580 placent les catholiques dans une situation délicate. L’arrivée des premiers missionnaires jésuites sur le territoire vient renforcer la méfiance du pouvoir envers ces sujets dont la loyauté est nécessairement partagée entre leur reine et le pape. Les jésuites stigmatisent en effet les peurs d’un gouvernement qui craint de ne pouvoir contrôler l’ensemble de son territoire. Il se crée progressivement deux géographies au sein d’un même royaume : l’une officielle, répressive, craignant le développement d’une force antagoniste en son sein, l’autre clandestine, éclatée et menacée d’effacement.
2 Si cette géographie catholique est encore difficile à cartographier historiquement, cette étude a pour but de montrer que les jésuites ont entrepris sa construction à travers leurs écritures — autobiographies, correspondances mais aussi inscriptions, marginalia et graffiti. Ce sont les modalités de cette construction qui nous intéressent, et plus particulièrement, l’importance de la circulation de ces textes dans la matérialisation d’une communauté que l’on définit à mesure qu’on l’écrit. Mais si le geste d’écrire est indispensable à la survie des catholiques, il en est aussi, à bien des égards, leur arrêt de mort. La circulation de l’écrit est à la fois vitale et mortifère et c’est cette tension contenue dans l’idée même de trace que cette étude se propose d’interroger.
3 Dès leur arrivée, les jésuites sont la cible des propagandistes protestants, Thomas Bell en particulier :
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Note heere Gentle reader, these important obseruations. First, that all Iesuited persons must vow to become traytors. Secondly, that all Iesuites seeke nothing els indeede out their owne lucre and gaine. Thirdlie, that all Iesuited persons must depend vpon the deuill, who as you see heere, inspireth guideth, directeth, and ruleth the Iesuites. From such religion, good Lord deliuer vs. Amen (Bell 68)
4 Ce sont des chenilles, des parasites qui contaminent le royaume et qu’il convient d’éradiquer2. Un certain nombre de textes sont ainsi promulgués à cet effet3. Mais la méfiance suscitée par les missionnaires se propage vite à l’ensemble de la communauté. En 1593 est ainsi promulguée une nouvelle loi, The Act against the Recusants, imposant de nouvelles restrictions aux réfractaires, ces catholiques qui refusent de se rendre au service protestant, qui n’ont dès lors plus le droit de circuler librement à l’intérieur du royaume4.
5 Mais il ne s’agit pas seulement de confiner les catholiques dans un espace contrôlé, il faut aussi effacer les traces d’une identité commune. Les premières injonctions de 1559 interdisaient déjà les signes catholiques: [The clergy is to] take away, utterly extinct and destroy all shrines, covering of shrines, all tables and candlesticks, trundles or rolls of ware, pictures, paintings and all other monuments of feigned miracles, pilgrimages, idolatry and superstition, so that there remain no memory of the same in walls, glasses, windows or elsewhere within their churches or houses. And they shall exhort all their parishioners to do the like within their several houses5.
6 A partir des années 1580, la situation des catholiques s’aggrave. Toute la paraphernalia papiste, jusque-là tournée en dérision6, devient offense sérieuse, la marque tant recherchée d’une adhésion coupable au culte papiste, comme l’indique la remarque d’Edward Hastings à Lord Burghley, « A reconciled papist may be known by refusing to go to church and wearing a crucifixe, Agnus Dei, or grana benedicta which are not given until reconciliation7. » Les archives révèlent par ailleurs que les fouilles des maisons catholiques ont été plus nombreuses à partir des années 1580 et les inventaires, listant les objets catholiques trouvés sur place, bien plus fréquents8. Il semble donc bien que ce soit la religion catholique dans son ensemble, et non les seuls missionnaires, à laquelle s’attaque à présent le pouvoir. Dans de nombreux comptes-rendus d’interrogatoires, la seule présence de ces objets suffit à incriminer son détenteur. Le 26 janvier 1601-2, Richard Barret est arrêté et interrogé pour la seule possession d’un crucifix en cuivre9. S’il est par la suite relâché, son arrestation confirme le rapport étroit qu’établit l’autorité entre catholicisme et sédition.
7 Etre catholique n’est plus une conviction religieuse mais une soumission délibérée à des puissances étrangères et donc un acte de trahison aux yeux des autorités qui cherchent à imposer ce discours en marquant les catholiques jusque dans leur chair. Un jeune étudiant est en effet marqué au fer rouge, sort réservé aux criminels, pour avoir refusé d’abjurer sa foi: « When even so there was no conquering him, they branded him10 – that is to say, pierced his ear with a hot iron, and so let him go » (Hicks 77). Les récusants sont dès lors relégués au rang de hors-la-loi. Edmond Campion doit lui aussi porter la marque de l’infamie sur le trajet qui l’amène à Londres après son arrestation. Les gardes fixent en effet sur son chapeau un morceau de papier sur lequel est écrit « Campion, the seditious Jesuit ». Lors des exécutions, il devient primordial pour les autorités de contrôler l’image du condamné. C’est pourquoi le bourreau placarde des affiches sur l’échafaud rappelant les crimes du supplicié : No Priests are suffred to speak at their deathes, but so soone as they are dead, Topcliff, in an oration unto the people, faineth the cause to be for assisting the
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intended invasion of the realme; and to that extent he fixeth also papers upon the gallows or gibbett. (Verstergan 40)
8 La communauté catholique est donc menacée d’éclatement, voire d’effacement. Sans lieux où vivre ensemble, cette communauté est condamnée à la dissolution. Il devient alors vital pour les catholiques de laisser une trace sur cette table rase afin que d’autres puissent la lire et se reconnaître en elle.
9 Ecrire, c’est tout d’abord poser la présence du sujet. Dans un contexte où l’identité catholique est sans cesse niée, l’enjeu n’est pas des moindres. Pour ces hommes que l’on cherche à réduire au silence, l’écriture devient geste ontologique. Elle permet de réaffirmer une identité qui se dérobe. Les autobiographies, écrites par les jésuites John Gerard et William Weston à la demande de leurs supérieurs11, sont autant de mises en scène de leurs auteurs qui construisent ainsi leur personnage en essayant de lui donner une cohérence. L’entreprise autobiographique permet en effet la reconstruction d’un sujet mis à mal par une vie de dissimulation sous des déguisements, des faux noms ou au fond de ces caches creusées au cœur des demeures catholiques12.
10 Les graffiti, encore visibles sur les murs de la Tour de Londres, attestent eux aussi le besoin impérieux des prisonniers à se dire. Les noms et monogrammes qu’ils ont gravés dans la pierre rappellent à nous, lecteurs, la présence spectrale de ces hommes soustraits au regard des autres. Ces graffiti peuvent n’être qu’un simple nom ou un dessin. Certains semblent avoir été gravés à la hâte, d’autres sont plus élaborés mais tous attestent l’importance de laisser une marque sensible dans un lieu censé déposséder le prisonnier de son identité mais qui en devient paradoxalement le dépositaire13.
Figure 1. Inscription de Charles Bailly, Tour Beauchamp, 1571
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11 La trace, qu’elle soit nom, symbole ou récit, contient et fait vivre celui qui la produit. Elle demeure présence, assertion de soi et permet ainsi de lutter contre l’effacement du corps.
12 Ecrire, c’est donc une expérience de soi, on écrit pour se dire mais c’est aussi une expérience de l’autre, expérience vitale dans un contexte où les liens sont usés par l’exil, l’emprisonnement et la mort. Laisser une trace, quelle qu’elle soit, c’est établir une communication dans l’absence, c’est espérer être lu et donc poser la présence de l’autre. C’est en ce sens que l’écriture est vitale aux prisonniers car, sans la possibilité d’un échange, la prison devient sépulcre. Certains cachots étaient d’ailleurs appelés « les limbes ».14 Pour échapper à cet isolement mortifère, les prisonniers ont recours à l’écrit qui n’est plus seulement assertion de soi mais aussi reconnaissance de l’autre comme lecteur potentiel. Le geste d’écrire permet ainsi au prisonnier de s’inscrire dans un circuit, réel ou fantasmé, mais dynamique malgré le confinement et la séparation. Le support importe peu tant que l’écriture reste possible. John Gerard raconte ainsi dans son autobiographie comment l’un de ses amis, privé d’encre et de feuilles, se met à griffonner sur le moindre morceau de papier qu’il trouve : Since he had been closely confined and had been deprived of ink, he had scribbled most of the book in pencil on loose scraps of paper, and as he completed each part he sent it to me to look over and correct any mistakes in doctrine. (Gerard 89)
13 Ces gribouillages permettent au prisonnier de tisser des liens avec le monde extérieur dont il n’est pas encore totalement exclu. Même le graffiti, a priori figé et intime, raconte une histoire destinée à un lecteur futur. Certaines inscriptions ont valeur de maximes adressées aux prochains prisonniers. L’inscription laissée par Philip Howard semble vouloir réconforter ceux qui partageront le sort de son auteur: « The more affliction (we endure) for Christ in this world / The more glory (we shall obtain) with Christ in the world to come. » (Barter 29)
Figure 2. Inscription de Philip Howard, Tour Beauchamp, 1587
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14 Cette même inscription est d’ailleurs commentée par un autre prisonnier, incarcéré après la mort de Philip Howard : « Thou has crowned him with honour and glory, O Lord / The just shall be held in eternal remembrance. » (Barter 29). Cet échange posthume illustre l’idée selon laquelle le graffiti n’est plus seulement un geste intime qui dit la présence du sujet mais qu’il s’agit aussi d’un geste résolument orienté vers l’autre. La trace est en effet lue, interprétée et racontée. Le graffiti circule alors pour réapparaître dans d’autres textes. L’inscription gravée par le jésuite Henry Walpole sur les murs de la Salt Tower15 réapparaît dans le récit de Gerard :
15 The next morning I walked round my cell. In its dim light I found the name of the blessed father Henry Walpole cut with a chisel on the wall (…) It was a great comfort to me to find myself in a place sanctified by this great and holy martyr, and in the room where he had been tortured so many times. (Gerard 104)
16 L’inscription bénéficie donc d’une circulation plus large que prévue. Elle résonne au- delà des simples murs de la cellule. Bien plus qu’un simple sillon, elle devient signe à déchiffrer, élément d’un langage qui met en présence auteur et lecteur. L’écriture représente ainsi un enjeu vital dont l’acte permet de se dire — j’écris donc je suis — mais aussi d’affirmer l’existence de l’autre — j’écris donc tu es.
17 Cette double tension propre à l’écrit trouve sa meilleure expression dans l’échange épistolaire qui réunit émetteur et destinataire au cœur même de l’écriture. Les jésuites font leur le culte humaniste d’une amitié fondée sur l’échange de lettres. Dans l’ouvrage Regulae Societatis Iesu publié en 1561, pas moins de trente-cinq articles sont consacrés au bon usage des lettres16 L’entretien d’une correspondance régulière était une obligation pour les membres de l’ordre dispersés à travers le monde. Les Provinciaux devaient écrire une fois par mois à leurs supérieurs qui devaient écrire tous les trois mois aux Généraux. L’étude de ces lettres montre que les jésuites attachent une réelle importance à ces échanges considérés comme indispensables au maintien d’une réelle amitié. Dans une lettre qu’il écrit à un ami perdu de vue, Robert Southwell souligne le rôle fondamental de l’échange épistolaire dans le tissage et la préservation des liens malgré l’absence et la séparation : I decided (…) to have done with drowsy silence, and to place on a candlestick the light of our friendship so long hidden under a bushel (…) I was proceeding to carry out in deed what I had conceived in thought, when suddenly a letter from you was handed to me, on perusing which I discovered that you had written to me in the very same frame of mind. Regarding this as an interposition of God’s providence, who would not allow the union between us, (…), to be dissolved, but rather willed to see it fostered, revived, strengthened by mutual interchange of letters17.
18 Quand ils ne peuvent pas écrire, les jésuites prennent grand soin à s’en excuser, expliquant précisément pourquoi ils n’ont pu donner de nouvelles plus tôt. Les lettres s’ouvrent souvent sur le rappel d’une lettre passée, ce qui permet d’ancrer la correspondance dans un échange régulier et dynamique. On écrit même parfois pour ne rien dire, seulement pour renforcer le lien avec l’autre. Ce n’est pas tant le contenu que la lettre elle-même qui importe ici. L’écriture devient objet dont la seule circulation permet de nouer des liens entre émetteur et destinataire.
19 L’écriture ainsi réifiée circule de mains en mains et dessine les contours de la communauté. La circulation des lettres ou des textes manuscrits tisse des liens entre plusieurs personnes : l’auteur, le scribe parfois, le messager et les destinataires. Ce sont des objets malléables qui gardent la trace de ceux qui les manipulent. Ils prennent alors
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la forme de véritables palimpsestes, de textes à plusieurs mains, figeant ainsi sur la page les liens qui unissent les différents auteurs. Nombreux sont les textes dont les marges portent la marque d’un intermédiaire qui vient annoter le texte original.
20 Les conditions même de la circulation de ces lettres matérialisent les liens entre les différents membres de la communauté. Une même lettre peut être destinée à des personnes différentes ou redistribuée après sa lecture. Plusieurs lettres sont parfois contenues dans un seul et même paquet bien que pour des destinataires différents. L’échange matériel de ces lettres contribue donc à former ce que Harold Love appelle « a scribal community » (Love 117). La circulation de ces lettres par la copie notamment, ou la lecture à voix haute, permet de tisser des liens solides entre les différents points du cercle ainsi formé. C’est par un échange de lettres entre Edmond Campion et le général Aquaviva que John Gerard connaît son voisin de cellule, Ralph Emerson, qu’il n’a, par ailleurs, jamais rencontré : « Next door to me was Ralph Emerson, the Brother, who was referred to by Father Campion in a letter to Father General as ˈMy little man and Iˈ » (Gerard 78).
21 La circulation de ces textes n’est pas toujours réservée à l’intimité du cercle communautaire. Certains textes étaient destinés à une circulation plus large, comme un défi direct aux autorités. Un catholique qui se faisait appeler Greenlowe, fut arrêté en possession d’une lettre destinée à la reine, lettre qu’il comptait copier en de nombreux exemplaires et placarder dans des endroits publics. John Gerard, accusé d’avoir pris part au Complot des Poudres, rédige lui aussi une lettre qu’il destine, a priori, à un ami mais dont il fait plusieurs copies qu’il disperse dans les rues de Londres. Mais si la lecture publique de ces écrits était ici recherchée, ce n’était évidemment pas toujours le cas et les textes à l’étude témoignent de l’inquiétude qui entoure la production de ces signes dont les lectures sont nécessairement multiples.
22 Cette angoisse est palpable dans la correspondance jésuite. Richard Verstergan conclut la lettre qu’il écrit à Robert Parsons en mars 1592: « Some other things I could signifie, which for want of more secure means of wryting I will omite » (Pollen 208). Un rapide détour par les arcanes du pouvoir élisabéthain nous permet de comprendre l’inquiétude de ces hommes. Les maîtres-espions de la reine, Lord Burghley et Sir Francis Walsingham, ont en effet mis en place un système de surveillance particulièrement redoutable car bien que peu nombreux, les jésuites semblent hanter l’imaginaire des autorités dont la priorité devient le contrôle de ces agents nomades et invisibles envoyés par l’ennemi. William Weston se plaint de cette surveillance renforcée: « Every road, cross-way and port was watched day and night, and sealed off so effectively that no person could pass without the most rigorous examination » (Weston 93). Southwell écrit « Such is the multitude of spies, that we cannot set foot out of doors, nor walk in the streets, without danger to our lives »18.
23 Ces espions infiltrent également la communauté catholique et parasitent le réseau de communication mis en place par les jésuites. Anthony Rivers évoque, dans l’une des ses lettres, le catholique Barwis qui est mystérieusement libéré sur ordre de la reine et sera en fait envoyé comme agent double à l’étranger19. Il mentionne aussi le prêtre Barneby qui a été placé en prison afin d’intercepter les lettres envoyées aux prisonniers20. Dans de telles circonstances, la trace, pourtant vitale, devient extrêmement dangereuse.
24 Une fois tombés entre des mains ennemies, les signes sont en effet soumis à une toute autre lecture. Jusqu’alors signes identitaires ou marques de solidarité, ces écrits deviennent les signes infamants de la trahison. Ce qui était communauté devient un
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ensemble de relations coupables. Les lettres, en particulier, peuvent être extrêmement incriminantes. La seule possession d’une lettre écrite par un catholique peut avoir des conséquences graves et nombreux sont ceux qui refusent cette association sulfureuse, comme l’atteste la lettre qu’écrit Thomas Copley à Lord Burghley: « I send this by the ordinary post, because I see such a terror generally stricken into the hearts both of my friends and servants there, as not one of them writes to me, (…) nor dares deliver any letter I send over. »21
25 Porter une lettre écrite par un catholique était déjà en soi un délit. Si cette lettre comportait quelque information confidentielle, l’interception pouvait alors s’avérer fatale. Dans une lettre à Robert Southwell, le Général Aquaviva22 souligne le danger que pouvait représenter la confiscation de certaines informations: « That the third [letter] which you wrote has gone astray, causes us real sorrow, for we apprehend it was such a character that, supposing it fell into hostile hands, evil results might be feared. » (Pollen 320). Les compte-rendus de procès nous éclairent sur ces conséquences funestes. Les preuves produites au procès de Philip Howard, par exemple, sont les lettres qu’il a écrites au Cardinal Allen et qui démontrent, pour les autorités, les liens coupables que le comte entretient avec les puissances étrangères.
26 Mais le contenu n’est pas le seul enjeu. Le caractère profondément métonymique de la trace, s’il permet de donner vie à son auteur, le met également en danger. La trace matérialise et fige les liens unissant l’objet et celui qui y a apposé sa marque. Elle désigne donc son auteur et l’expose aux yeux des autorités. La culpabilité de Philip Howard est prouvée, non seulement par sa correspondance avec William Allen, mais aussi par un petit bout de papier retrouvé dans ses affaires et qui a servi à protéger les perles d’un chapelet. Sur ce papier est écrit le nom du comte et la seule proximité entre l’objet interdit et le nom suffit à dire la culpabilité de l’accusé.23 De la même façon, John Gerard manque de se faire arrêter lors d’une fouille, car les notes qu’il a laissées derrière lui trahissent sa présence : « They knew now (…) I had been hiding in the same house. They had my notes as proof of it, for there was no doubt they were mine. » (Gerard 155). Un de ses serviteurs se dénonce à sa place, car il n’a pas d’autre choix s’il veut sauver le prêtre: « There’s no one to own the books and papers in the room, for they’re after you. If there’s no owner, they won’t stop till they’ve found you. » (Gerard 153).
27 L’écriture, comme prolongement du corps, devient donc signe accablant d’une présence illicite. Les mots s’empressent de trahir la main qui les a formés. John Gerard explique comment il a floué Richard Topcliffe, le tortionnaire de la reine, en modifiant son écriture : He was hoping to trip me up in what I wrote, or at least, to get a sample of my handwriting. If he had this he could prove that certain papers found in the search of the houses belonged to me. I saw the trap and wrote in a feigned hand. (Gerard 69)
28 Les deux hommes se livrent alors un combat féroce pour contrôler ce qui va finalement apparaître sur la page. John Gerard explique qu’il ne laisse pas d’espace entre le corps de la lettre et sa signature afin que Topcliffe ne puisse rien rajouter. L’espace de la page doit être absolument maîtrisé sous peine d’être envahi par l’autre : ˈI’ll write the truth or nothing,ˈ I said. ˈNo,ˈ he snarled, ˈwrite such and such, and I will make a fresh copy of what you write.ˈ ˈI shall write what I want and not what you want. If you like, you can show what I’ve written to the Council. All I am going to add is my signature.ˈ Then I signed very close up to the line so that he had no
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space to add anything. He saw he was beaten and in his frustration he blurted out threats and blasphemies. (Gerard 70)
29 Ces exemples nous montrent à quel point il devient vital pour les catholiques de contrôler cette trace qui, à peine créée, ne leur appartient déjà plus. Conscients de cet enjeu, les jésuites développent une véritable culture du secret qui vient nourrir l’image pour le moins interlope de l’ordre. Si cette image est évidemment exagérée dans les discours de propagande, il n’en reste pas moins que les jésuites, fervents partisans de l’équivocation, maîtrisent à merveille l’art de la dissimulation.
30 Une des premières règles est de contrôler la circulation du texte, de le cacher aux yeux de l’ennemi. Pour ce faire, les jésuites ont recours à des stratagèmes toujours plus ingénieux, dissimulant des lettres compromettantes dans des boutons ou des cachettes spécialement prévues à cet effet. John Gerard explique comment il fait circuler des messages depuis sa cellule: « Then I wrapped the paper round one or two collars to make it look as if it was being used to keep the collars clean. » (Gerard 92) Il écrit aussi sur des papiers dont il se sert pour envelopper les chapelets qu’il a confectionnés à partir de pelures d’orange et qu’il offre à d’autres prisonniers. On note d’ailleurs chez Gerard un certain plaisir à raconter comment il parvient à déjouer la vigilance de son gardien. On s’aperçoit en lisant son autobiographie que ce n’est pas tant le message en lui-même qui importe que la possibilité de cette circulation, de cet échange entre l’espace soi-disant clos de la cellule et le monde extérieur.
31 Une autre technique consistait à dissimuler un message écrit à l’encre invisible entre les lignes d’un texte qui n’était alors qu’un leurre. John Gerard explique que le jus de citron permet de créer une trace qui ne se révèle qu’aux yeux des initiés : « I had written in lemon juice, so that no writing should appear on the paper » (Gerard 93). Il suffisait ensuite de passer le papier près d’une source de chaleur pour faire apparaître le message. Il précise néanmoins que le jus d’orange est préférable dans la mesure où, une fois révélé, le texte écrit ne s’efface plus et permet donc au véritable destinataire de savoir s’il a déjà été lu : A letter in orange juice cannot be delivered without the recipient knowing whether or not it has been read […] and in this way I got all the information I needed from them, and they received the spiritual help they sought from me. (Gerard 119)
32 Toutes ces techniques, et bien d’autres, comme le recours à de faux frontispices pour éviter la censure ou de fausses adresses, permettaient d’assurer la bonne circulation du texte et d’éviter son interception.
33 Mais si le texte était effectivement intercepté, il fallait faire en sorte qu’il reste illisible. Dans sa lettre au jeune et impétueux Robert Southwell, le Général Aquaviva rappelle à son élève les rudiments de l’écriture secrète. Il lui demande d’être plus prudent: « your Mastership should be warned that if in the dispatch of letters you cannot exercise greater caution (as we readily believe to be the case), you should at least in writing them be more on your guard » (Pollen 320). Il y préconise l’utilisation d’un langage allégorique permettant de dissimuler le véritable sens du texte : Do not say so much in plain and open terms, lest (if what you write fall into others’ hands) danger should thence arise either to others or to yourself; […] Things, especially when of importance, should be somewhat veiled in allegory (for the receiver will grasp the sense) and when persons are in question, they should be merely alluded to indirectly. (Pollen 320)
34 Le reste de la lettre est une mise en pratique de ces conseils. Seuls les prénoms sont donnés, « persecutors » devient « creditors », Pound et Metham deviennent « Weight »
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et « Winning-post », les calices ne sont plus que des « cups » et la mission est évoquée sous le terme de « trade ».
35 Les jésuites développent donc une série de tropes leur permettant d’évoquer sans crainte les affaires en cours. Ils ont souvent recours aux métaphores agricoles pour parler de leur mission. Dans une de ses lettres à Richard Verstergan, Henry Garnet écrit « We are lyke to have heare a plentifull yeare, so that we may make great comoditie of corne, yf we be secret in our course », « corn » signifiant ici « conversions ». (Verstergan 67) Ils utilisent aussi des codes comme dans cette lettre de Verstergan à Persons datée du 6 août 1592 : Whereby it may please God that some good opportunity may fall oute for 208 yf the occasion be taken on; and in my slender judgment, it were good that the 7m 14 p me 20 that cometh from 38 having delivered their charge in 20 might foorthwith come into 54 which may fall oute to especiall good purpose, yf some thinges do succede in 25 that I shall not nede to name. I beseech you to consider hereof. (Verstergan 63)
36 Ces codes permettent de protéger le secret de l’information et l’identité des correspondants. La lettre ainsi chiffrée reste lettre morte aux yeux du lecteur intrusif. L’écriture est bien visible mais elle reste illisible. Le partage de ces codes permet de renforcer la communauté autour d’un savoir connu idéalement d’eux seuls. L’espion Thomas Rogers écrit ainsi à Walsingham: « The enclosed is the last from Rome. I do not know the contents of the cipher, but I have set it down verbatim. » L’espion se situe donc résolument à l’extérieur du cercle communautaire dont la limite est le langage codé. Le secret joue un rôle important dans la cohésion du groupe ici. Il permet aussi, dans une certaine mesure, de déstabiliser l’ennemi. Samuel Harsnett écrit, en parlant des pseudonymes qu’utilisaient les jésuites : Or else it may seeme that our vagrant deuils heere did take theyr fashion of new names from our wandring Iesuits, who to dissemble themselues, haue alwaies three, or foure odde conceited names in their budget: […] Or else there is a confederation between our wandring Exorcists, and these walking deuils, and they are agreed of certaine vncouth non-significant names, which goe currant amongst themselues, as the Gipsies are of gibridge, which none but themselues can spell without a paire of spectacles. (Harsnet 46)
37 Le recours à ces stratégies de dissimulation est donc nécessaire, bien souvent salutaire mais aussi périlleux. Ces stratégies peuvent en effet être découvertes et détournées, les catholiques devenant alors les artisans de leur propre ruine. Car les autorités ne font pas qu’intercepter les lettres, elles intègrent le circuit et le détournent afin de piéger émetteurs et destinataires. Dans son récit du Complot des Poudres, le jésuite Oswald Tesimond relate comment son ami Henri Garnet, alors accusé d’avoir fomenté le complot, s’est fait piéger à son propre jeu : Father Garnet now wrote a letter to a priest. […] Garnet asked him for certain necessary items which he needed. In the margin of the letter, which was written in ordinary ink, he wrote with orange or lemon juice what had passed at his frequent examinations. […] [The gaoler] took it to the lieutenant of the Tower. He warmed it at the fire and read all that was written in the margin. But the letter was now scorched and discoloured by the fire so that it could not be sent on. They therefore wrote it out again, counterfeiting the original hand, so that when Garnet received his reply he would be more convinced of the pretended fidelity of his gaoler. (Tesimond 185)
38 Les lettres codées attirent nécessairement l’attention et sont bien souvent déchiffrées24, elles deviennent alors preuves à conviction. L’affaire Babington est sans doute la plus
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célèbre. En 1585, Marie Stuart est placée sous la garde de Sir Amias Paulet. Tout échange épistolaire est apparemment interrompu mais Walsingham encourage la circulation clandestine de lettres entre Marie, Babington et Thomas Morgan. Ses lettres sont bien sûr interceptées et déchiffrées avant d’être portées aux destinataires. Persuadés que le moyen d’acheminement des lettres est sûr, les catholiques sont en fait en train d’écrire les preuves qui les mèneront à l’échafaud. Marie scelle son destin, le 17 juillet 1586, lorsqu’elle donne son accord au plan de Babington visant à la libérer.
39 Au cœur des textes jésuites repose ainsi le paradoxe indépassable d’une écriture qui est à la fois vitale, essentielle à la construction d’une communauté que l’on cherche à faire disparaître mais aussi profondément mortifère dans la mesure où la circulation de cette trace n’est jamais totalement contrôlée, la lecture des signes nécessairement multiple.
40 Une fois découverts, les condamnés évoluent sur une scène contrôlée par les protestants. Pourtant, ils n’en cessent pas moins d’écrire malgré les efforts des autorités pour les réduire au silence. L’échafaud devient espace agonistique que les catholiques, privés de parole, cherchent à investir. L’écrit se fait alors relais de la voix. Certains condamnés sachant qu’ils seront interrompus par le bourreau écrivent en effet leur défense sur des feuilles qu’ils jettent dans la foule : As it was impossible now to give a complete and detailed explanation of his conduct, he took out a sheaf of papers from his jacket. These contained a full statement of his case, and he scattered them among the crowd so that they would have the chance to snatch and read for themselves all they had been prevented from hearing. (Weston 103)
41 Et c’est peut-être sur l’échafaud que naît la possibilité d’une trace enfin univoque car figée dans le sang des martyres. C’est ce que semble dire John Boste qui, avant de mourir, lance aux autorités : Although I am now to be deprived of liberty, my blood withal and death and innocence, shall preach in the hearts of those whom God will call and gather to his Holy Catholic Church. My head and quarters will preach every day on your gates and walls the truth of the Catholic faith. (Pollen 286)
BIBLIOGRAPHIE
Calendar of the Manuscripts of the Most Hon. the Marquis of Salisbury. Preserved at Hatfield House, Hertfordshire. R. A. Roberts (ed.). vol. 12. 1602. London: His Majesty's Stationery Office, 1910.
Barter, Sarah. Treasures of the Tower: Inscriptions. London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1976.
Bell, Thomas. The Anatomie of Popish tyrannie … of Secular Priests and English hispanized Iesuites, with their Iesuited Arch-Priest. London: [Iohn Harison] Richard Bankworth, 1603.
Boswell, Grant. « Letter Writing among the Jesuits: Antonio Possevino’s Advice in the ‘Bibliotheca Selecta’« Studies in the Cultural History of Letter Writing, Huntington Library Quarterly, 66:3/4 (2003): 247-262.
Foley, Henry. Records of the English Province of the Society of Jesus, London: Burns and Oates, 1875.
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Gerard, John. The Autobiography of an Elizabethan, 1609. Philip Caraman trans. London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1951.
Harsnett, Samuel. A Declaration of egregious popish impostures, London: James Roberts, 1603.
Hicks, Leo. Letters and Memorials of Fr. Persons. London: Catholic Record Society, 1942.
Love, Harold. Scribal Publication in Seventeenth-Century England. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977.
Pollen, John Hungerford. Unpublished Documents relating to the English Martyrs. Series v. 5, 2. London: Catholic Record Society, 1908.
Tesimond, Oswald. The Gunpowder Plot, The Narrative of Oswald Tesimond alias Greenway, Francis Edwards trans. London: The Folio Society, 1973.
Verstergan, Richard. The Letters and Despatches of Richard Verstergan. Anthony G. Petti (ed.). Series LII. London: Catholic Record Society, 1959.
Weston, William. The Autobiography of an Elizabethan, 1611. Philip Caraman trans. London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1955.
NOTES
1. La phrase restée célèbre est issue d’un pamphlet de Francis Bacon, Certain Observations upon a libel (1592), dans lequel il écrit « her majesty not liking to make windows into men’s hearts and secret thoughts (…) tampered her law », The Works of Francis Bacon. London: 1824, Vol. 3. 73. 2. William Vaughan écrit une lettre au Conseil dans laquelle il compare les jésuites à des chenilles : « I thought it the part of her Majesty’s loyal subject in these my travels to forewarn the Council of certain caterpillars, I mean Jesuits and seminary priests, who […] are to be sent from the English seminary at Valladolid », Calendar of the Manuscripts of the Most Hon. the Marquis of Salisbury, Preserved at Hatfield House, Hertfordshire. Ed. R. A. Roberts. Vol. 12: 1602, London: His Majesty's Stationery Office, 1910, 211. 3. En 1585, est promulgué The Act against Jesuits and Seminarists : « It shall not be lawful to or for any Jesuit, seminary priest, (…) to come into, be, or remain in any part of this realm, (…) ; and if he do, that then every such offence shall be taken and adjudged to be high treason; and every person so offending shall for his offence be adjudged a traitor, and shall suffer, lose, and forfeit, as in case of high treason ». (27 Elizabeth, Cap. 2, March 1585). La proclamation royale de 1591 vient réaffirmer la méfiance du pouvoir à l’égard de ces agents envoyés par Rome. 4. The Act Against Recusants, 35 Elizabeth, Cap. 2, 1593: « For the better discovering and avoiding of all such traitorous and most dangerous conspiracies (…) by sundry wicked and seditious persons, who, terming themselves Catholics, and being indeed spies and intelligencers, (…) do secretly wander and shift from place to place within this realm, to corrupt and seduce her majesty's subjects, and to stir them to sedition and rebellion: Be it ordained and enacted (…) that every person above the age of sixteen years, born within any of the queen's majesty's realms and dominions, or made denizen, being a popish recusant, (…) shall within forty days (…) repair to their place of dwelling where they usually heretofore made their common abode, and shall not, any time after, pass or remove above five miles from thence. »
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5. Henry Gee and W.H. Hardy (eds.). Documents Illustrative of English Church History, New York: 1896, 428. 6. Le Vice-Chancelier Byng qualifie ces objets de « popish trinkets », CSP, Elizabeth, Lansdowne. Dec 14 (1572). 64. Vice–Chancellor Byng to Lord Burghley, 30. 7. CSP, Elizabeth, Domestic, 1591-1594. April 20 (1591). 126. Edward Hastings to Lord Treas. Burghley, 27. 8. Pour des exemples d’inventaires, voir CSP, Elizabeth, Domestic, 1581-1590. Dec 10 (1583). 14. The Bishop and Mayor of Winchester, and others of the city, to Walsyngham, 135 ou CSP, Elizabeth, Domestic, 1581-1590, Jan 26 (1584).47. An inventory of the Books and other Popish relies found in the house of Mistress Hampden of Stoke in the county of Buckingham, 155. 9. CSP, Elizabeth, Hatfield, Jan 26 (1601-2). 58. William Bramble, Mayor of Poole, and William Hiley, Preacher of the Word, to Sir Robert Cecil, 32. 10. Je souligne. 11. Gerard, John, The Autobiography of an Elizabethan, 1609 et Weston, William, The Autobiography of an Elizabethan, 1611. 12. Les catholiques aménageaient en effet des caches au cœur même de leurs maisons, derrière des panneaux de bois ou dans des cheminées, pour permettre aux prêtres qu’ils accueillaient, de se cacher pendant les fouilles des poursuivants. Nicholas Owen, principal architecte de ces caches, fut d’ailleurs l’un des seuls laïcs, avec George Gilbert, à être admis dans la Société de Jésus à cette époque, en raison des services rendus à l’ordre. Voir Peter Davidson, « Recusant Catholic Spaces in Early Modern England », in Catholic Culture in Early Modern England. Ronald Corthell, Frances E. Dolan, Christopher Highley and Arthur Marotti (eds.). Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007. 13. Voir à ce sujet les articles de Véronique Plesch, « Memory on the wall: graffiti on religious wall paintings » , Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies. Vol. 32: n°1 (Winter 2002) 167-197, et Jason Scott Warren, « Reading Graffiti in the Early Modern Book », The Huntington Library Quarterly. vol.73: n°3. (2010) 363-381. Pour une analyse des graffiti dans la Tour de Londres sous le règne d’Henri VIII, voir l’article de Ruth Ahnert, « Writing in the Tower of London during the Reformation, ca. 1530-1558 », Huntington Library Quarterly. Vol.72 : n°2 (2009) 168-192. 14. Southwell écrit dans une de ses lettres au général de la Société Claudio Aquaviva, datée du 31 août 1588 : « Felton too was flogged at Bridewell ; and afterwards he was thrust into that most darksome Dungeon at Newgate called Limbo, and kept there in chains and shackles for 15 weeks. » (Pollen, 326). 15. http://collections.royalarmouries.org/viewItem.php?i=346632 visité le 29 mai 2011. 16. Boswell, 247-262. 17. Lettre de Robert Southwell à John Deckers, octobre 1580 (Pollen, 294). 18. Lettre de Southwell à Claudio Aquaviva datée du 21 décembre 1586 (Pollen, 314). 19. Anthony Rivers écrit à Ridolfo Perino, alias Parsons, « Barwis hath liberty for three months by the express command of Her Majesty, it is thought he hath promised some special service », Foley, 1875, 42. 20. « Barneby lieth at the Clink, and receiveth ordinary packets of letters from Bagshawe by every post, which he carrieth to the Bishop of London. He is in prison, but placed there of purpose to that end » , Foley, 1875, 32.
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21. Lettre de Thomas Copley à Lord Burghley, CSP, Elizabeth, Domestic, Addenda 1566-1579. Vol. XXIII, 9. Feb. 26 1573. 22. Claudio Aquaviva fut le supérieur général des jésuites de 1581 à 1615. Voir « Claudio Aquaviva. » Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica, 2011. Web. 18 May. 2011.
RÉSUMÉS
Cette étude se propose d’interroger la place de l’écrit et des actes d’écriture dans la construction d’une communauté réduite au silence, la communauté catholique sous le règne d’Elisabeth Tudor. A la fois moyen d’information et geste ontologique, l’écrit représente un enjeu vital pour résister à l’effacement. La circulation des textes permet de tracer les contours d’une communauté dont l’existence est étroitement liée à la production de l’écrit. Mais, si elle détournée, la trace peut alors devenir arrêt de mort, révélant l’identité de celui qui l’a produite aux yeux de l’intrus qui la déchiffre.
The purpose of this study is to analyze to what extent the act of writing helped define the catholic community under Elizabeth I. As both a means of information and an ontological process, writing was vital to the Catholics who were forced underground. By circulating texts throughout the country and in the rest of Europe, the Jesuits shaped a community highly reliant on written material. But writing was also incredibly dangerous as it marked the author as irredeemably catholic.
INDEX
Mots-clés : écrit, catholicisme, jésuite, circulation, communauté, réseau Keywords : writing, Catholicism, Jesuit, circulation, community, network
AUTEURS
GAËLLE SERENA ATER Université Toulouse 2-Le Mirail [email protected]
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Rastafarians in Post-Independence Caribbean Poetry in English (the 1960s and the 1970s): from Pariahs to Cultural Creators
Eric Doumerc
1 The 1960s in the English-speaking Caribbean were a troubled period and a time of change. Independence (in 1962 for Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago, and in 1966 for Barbados and Guyana) raised people’s expectations and meant that a new cultural climate set in. The American Black Power and Civil Rights Movements came to have a certain influence on mentalities, and the Rastafarian movement, a millenerian and messianic movement which first developed in the 1930s, began to exert a major influence on popular culture and particularly on popular music. The 1960s were also characterised by a certain disillusionment with the benefits of independence and with a rediscovery of the African or Afro-Caribbean dimension of Caribbean culture. In the 1960s, Rastafarians began to appear in poems by West Indian poets about social issues, the fragmentation of Caribbean societies and the search for “roots”. Rastafarianism in these poems seemed to function as a symbol of the absurdity of man's condition in the Caribbean and Rastas often appear as outcasts or pariahs who long to escape from Babylon. This view of Rastafarianism was shared by a number of poets who sympathised with the Rastas but who remained detached observers and gave an account of Rastafarianism from the outside. Other poets who were closer to Rastafarianism chose to focus on the role of the Rasta as a cultural agent, the bearer of a new Caribbean culture, a creole culture.
2 The Rastafarians, with their striking hairstyle, Bible-inspired code language and general detachment from “Babylon”, appealed to West Indian writers, who were trying to find their own voice at the time. These writers saw a similarity between the Rastas' status as pariahs and the writer's lone search for a West Indian aesthetics. As the critic Laurence A. Breiner wrote, the most common scene in many poems about Rastafarians is the lone Rastafarian ghetto-dweller smoking his ganja to escape from reality while he
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waits for the arrival of Marcus Garvey's ship to come and take him back to Ethiopia, his Promised Land (Breiner 218). In some of these poems, the Rastafarian is an outsider, an outcast, a pariah and the emphasis is laid on his status as an exile in his adopted homeland.
3 In a number of poems by Anthony Mc Neill, Mervyn Morris and Kendell Hippolyte, Rastafarians are depicted as alienated exiles who take refuge in fantasies and in herb- smoking while the odds are clearly against them. The template for this type of poem may well have been Orlando Patterson's Children of Sisyphus, a 1964 novel which portrayed the Rastas as trapped in an absurd ideology of repatriation to a homeland they never knew. In the novel the Rastas appear as pariahs who are totally cut off from the rest of society and wait for Marcus Garvey's ship to come and take them back to Africa, a “pipe dream” which is denounced as absurd.
4 In these poems, the Rastas appear as losers, as the underdogs who desperately battle against evil and materialistic forces. Anthony Mc Neill's “Straight Seeking” portrays the Rastas as deluded by their fantasies of repatriation, waiting for Marcus Garvey's Black Star Liners to dock in Kingston harbour to take them back to Africa. This is denounced as a “pipe dream” and the Rastas' attitude is clearly associated with escapism and the “spliff”: Many believe one day the ship will drop anchor at Freeport but now it's enough to praise high on the s'liff. The smoke- blackened city wounds instant divines to enter their pipes like dreams. (Anthony Mc Neill, in Brown and McDonald 142)
5 The pun on “pipedreams” is particularly effective and seems to suggest that the Rastas are deluding themselves and are “dreamers”. The reference to marijuana, used as a herb for sacramental purposes, is also denounced as a form of escapism. But the tone of the poem is not wholly negative and could be said to be rather sympathetic to the Rastas as the “tenements” and “blackened cities” where the Rastas live are the roots of such fantasies. Nevertheless the rest of the poem makes it clear that the poet/persona is not “one of them” and distances himself from the Rastas as his ship is “compassed by reason” and is a kind of fragile equilibrium between “Africa” and “heaven”. This poem is ambivalent about the Rastas' ideals and sympathises with them while making it clear that the poet is an outsider.
6 At the time Rastafarianism was emerging as a powerful cultural force in the music industry. The origins of Rastafarianism1 seem to be associated with a prophecy made in 1927 by Marcus Garvey according to which a black king would be crowned in the east: “Look to the east for the crowning of a black king. He shall be the Redeemer” (Barrett 81). In 1930 Ras Tafari, a young Ethiopian prince, was crowned Emperor of Ethiopia and took the name “Haile Selassie”, which means “Power of the Trinity” in ancient Ethiopian. The new Emperor also took the following Christian titles: “King of Kings, Lords of Lords, Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah” as Ethiopia was a Christian country. In Jamaica, a number of Garveyite preachers had interpreted Selassie’s coronation as the fulfilment of Marcus Garvey’s prophecy and started preaching about the coming of a black king who would be the Redeemer. These preachers included Leonard Percival Howell and Nathaniel Hibbert (Barrett 81-82).
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7 In the 1940s, Howell and his followers moved into a vast compound named Pinnacle and started a kind of cultural revolution in Jamaica. Indeed, the Howellites lived communally, smoked marijuana, worshipped their black god and praised all things African. They became known as “Rastafarians” or “dreadlocks” on account of their distinctive hairstyle that struck terror into Jamaicans’ hearts (Barrett 86-89). The Rastas did not pay any taxes and many squatted on government land. They gradually became real figures of fear or outcasts, and most Jamaicans despised them or were frightened of them, warning their children against the Rastaman who would come and take them away if they misbehaved.
8 The Jamaican authorities raided Pinnacle several times, and in 1954, after a particularly violent raid, most Rastas left Pinnacle and moved to the West Kingston slums or to other parts of the country. By the late 1950s, many Rastas lived in West Kingston and clashes with the police were becoming more and more frequent. With the coming of independence, the Jamaican authorities decided to find out who the Rastafarians really were and commissioned a report by three academics from the then University College of the West Indies. By the early 1960s, many Rastas lived in West Kingston and clashes with the police were becoming more and more frequent. One such clash, the Coral Gardens incident, deeply shocked the nation and most Jamaicans grew aware of the existence of the sect at that time. Indeed, in 1963, a group of Rastas killed a petrol station attendant, near Montego Bay, and then looted a motel. To many Jamaicans, Rastafarianism became synonymous with violence, and the government continued to adopt a repressive attitude (for instance jailing the Rastas and cutting off their dreadlocks).
9 Nevertheless, two important developments were to give the Rastafarians an unprecedented degree of legitimacy: Haile Selassie’s visit to Jamaica and the growing popularity of the Rastafarian faith and lifestyle with Jamaica’s poor, and reggae singers. In April 1966, Haile Selassie himself paid a state visit to Jamaica and was welcomed by a crowd of about 100,000 Rastafarians, who invaded the tarmac of the airport. Selassie’s visit to Jamaica did much to make many people aware of the popularity of this movement (Barrett 158-160). This new legitimacy in turn led many musicians and singers to adopt the Rastafarian faith and in the late 1960s artists like the Abyssinians, Burning Spear, and the Wailers (Bunny Livingstone, Bob Marley, and Peter Tosh) all became spokespersons for the movement, spreading its tenets in their songs.
10 The new legitimacy bestowed upon the Rastas by Selassie's visit gave them a special status and some poets saw them as icons of the new nation searching for its identity. This seems to be the case for Tony McNeill's “Saint Ras”. In this poem, the main Rastafarian character is literally lost in Babylon's concrete jungle and cannot even cross the street: Every stance seemed crooked. He had not learned to fall in with the straight queued, capitalistic, for work. He was uneasy in traffic. (Anthony Mc Neill, in Burnett 307)
11 Right from the start, the Rastafarian character is presented as a misfit, as a pariah who cannot “go with the flow” and fit in. This deeply allegorical poem pits the Rastas' spiritualism against the materialism of Babylon, but in the end the Rasta's condition is to be an exile: he is an in-betweener.
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12 The traffic lights which fail to take the exiled Rasta to the “island of Ras” are a metaphor for the codes of modern society that Rastafarians cannot crack. At the end of the poem, “light and doubt” are the two poles which symbolise the Rasta's condition:“[he] returns to harsh temporal streets/whose uncertain crossings reflect/ his true country. Both doubt and light”. So exile is the Rasta's country. This condition may also be said to have reflected the plight of the West Indian writer who had to come to terms with his role in society and his search for an authentic voice.
13 In other poems, the Rastafarians seem to represent the absurdity of man's condition and are shown waiting, endlessly waiting for deliverance. They are depicted as idealists whose battle against Babylon is a losing battle. This theme appears in Tony Mc Neill's “Ode to Brother Joe”, a poem about the kind of harassment the Rastas were subjected to in the 1950s and 1960s. Brother Joe is arrested by the police because he was caught smoking marijuana and then was sent to jail. The poet is clearly on the side of the Rastas as he points out that what is a criminal offence for the police is a religious act for the Rastas: When he lights up a s'liff you can't stop him and the door to God, usually shut gives in a rainbow gust. (McNeill, in Dawes Wheel 136)
14 The poet also insists on the community spirit which characterises the Rastafarian movement. But “Hail / Selassie is far away / and couldn't care less” and the end of the poem emphasises Babylon's superiority as the “door” of the prison remains “shut” and the Rastas's dreams are powerless: Meantime, in the musty cell Joe invokes, almost from habit the magic words: Hail Selassie I Jah Rastafari But the door is real and remains shut. (Mc Neill, in Dawes Wheel 137)
15 The theme of the absurdity of the Rastas' condition is also present in Mervyn Morris's “Rasta Reggae” and in Kendell Hyppolite's “Zoo Story – Ja. '76”. Morris's “Rasta Reggae” cleverly begins as a poem about a reggae band whose message is typically about liberation and the trauma of slavery: out of that pain that bondage heavy heavy sounds. (Mervyn Morris, in Dawes Wheel 146)
16 Then, we are told that music functions as a solace for the Rastas and a “joyful horn” evokes the freedom that came after slavery. The poem also contains allusions to the religious matrix out of which reggae and Rastafarianism emerged (“let my people go”), but in the end, it turns out that the freedom longed for by the Rastas is purely psychological or spiritual as they will go home to “Ethiopia/in the mind”. The last line of the poem, “in the mind”, leads the reader to read the poem again and to reinterpret it in a different way. The poem seems to imply that music and mythologising enable the Rastas to escape from the harsh reality of oppression, but this freedom is purely theoretical. The last line, “in the mind”, is placed at a strategic place and is given added weight by being isolated from the rest of the poem. Take these words out and the poem would have a totally different impact.
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17 A similar theme is treated in Kendell Hippolyte's “Zoo Story – Ja. '76”, which is based on a true story: a Rastafarian jumped into the lions' cage in Kingston Zoo and he was devoured by the lions. This news item was turned by the poet into a poem on the Rastas' desperation and absurd search for freedom. The Rastafarian character in the poem has apparently lost faith and the dire living conditions he has to live under have taken their tolls: spliff used to take him dere before - but wha'? Spliff turn a white bone in him hand rainbow faith bleach down city dry him roots to straw. (Kendell Hippolyte, in Brown, Morris and Rohler 51).
18 The fire and drought imagery deployed in this passage enacts the Rastafarian character's despair, and consequently he comes to see the lions in the zoo as embodiments of his condition. Of course, in Rastafarian mythology, the lion symbolises Africa and the lost homeland, and the Rastafarian's dreadlocks are often said to evoke a lion's mane. So the Rastafarian in the poem confuses mythology and reality, and jumps into the lions' cage to gain his freedom. In this poem, the zoo seems to function as a metonym for Jamaican society which keeps the Rastas captive. So the Rasta in the poem senses an affinity with the captive lion and finds his freedom in death, which shows the absurdity of the Rasta's condition and could be seen as an indictment of Jamaican society. Indeed, a few years after independence, Caribbean societies seemed unable to provide their citizens with a sense of purpose and a shared identity. In the late 1960s, the English-speaking Caribbean was rocked by a series of demonstrations and riots which were partly inspired by the American Black Power movement, the students’ anti- war demonstrations in the USA and the riots in Paris in May 1968. This wave of discontent was also the product of the disappointment felt by many West Indians in the immediate post-Independence period. Indeed it was felt that Independence had not resulted in any visible improvement in West Indians’ daily lives and that the West Indies were still colonial at heart. The historian, poet and critic Edward Kamau Brathwaite wrote that the West Indies were going through a period of “post- Independence depression” (Brathwaite 5-9). One key issue was the education system which was still based on the study of European or American classics. In 1968, the Rodney riots in Jamaica pitted the unemployed, the “youths” and some academics at the University of the West Indies against the government. 1970 saw the occupation of the Creative Arts Centre on the Mona campus, and the “February Revolution” in Trinidad led by the National Joint Action Committee.
19 But some poets saw the Rastafarians in a more positive light and identified them as the bearers of a new culture, a truly original creole culture. This development seems to be linked with the search for a new voice, a new aesthetics. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the key issue debated by West Indian academics, intellectuals and writers was: “Is there a real West Indian literature? If not, what direction would that new literature take?”. Another key issue was that the kind of aesthetics a West Indian literature could be built on. An early Caribbean Artists Movement meeting in 1967 in London was convened around the theme “Is there a West Indian aesthetic?” (Walmsley 51). In fact the Caribbean Artists Movement had been founded in London in late 1967 or early 1968 and had begun to debate these issues. The writers involved in the movement were Edward Kamau Brathwaite himself, Andrew Salkey, Gordon Rohler, Wilson Harris and
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Orlando Patterson. Another important question was that of the West Indian writer and of that function. What function could a writer have in a post-colonial setting where most people looked to Europe for everything that was of value and where everything local was downgraded and rejected? Moreover, many West Indian writers had felt that the writer had no place in the West Indies as there simply was no reading public in such a philistine and materialistic society. V.S.Naipaul, George Lamming and Michael Anthony had all left the West Indies earlier on to launch their career in Britain. Derek Walcott was one of the few West Indian artists who remained in the West Indies and chose to further his career at home.
20 In 1971, there was an important conference at the University of the West Indies where West Indian writers met their audience for the first time. Various positions were taken. George Lamming thought that the West Indian writer could not write in the West Indies. Edward Kamau Brathwaite thought that the function of the West Indian writer was to reach out to the people and to produce a type of poetry which would be based on their culture and traditions. Brathwaite saw the writer as an integral part of the nation’s culture and as the one who would reveal to the people the value of its culture (Walmsley 260-261). Thus, Brathwaite defended the idea of a West Indian aesthetic based on popular traditions and orality.
21 This movement in favour of a Caribbean aesthetic was led by Brathwaite but was kept alive by critics like Gordon Rohler who published a series of articles on the language of Calypso. Rohler analysed the lyrics of the Mighty Sparrow’s songs and tried to prove that these lyrics had in fact literary qualities and were oral poems. Marina Maxwell started a folk experiment called “Yard Theatre” in Jamaica and this form of popular or “street” theatre reflected the mood of the times which was influenced by the Civil Rights Movement in the USA, Black Power, and by the growing popularity of the Rastafarian movement in Jamaica.
22 These experiments soon triggered a debate about the quality of the new poetry produced by these artists. Things came to a head in 1970 with the publication of an edition of Savacou (initially a journal associated with the Caribbean Artists Movement). This issue of Savacou contained a number of pieces by Rastafarian poets like Ras Dizzy and Bongo Jerry which were unlike anything previously published. The Trinidadian poet and critic Eric Roach published an article in the Trinidad Guardian in which he was very critical of these poems. Roach stressed “craft” and the “civilising” influence of European literature and culture: “One must erect one’s own bungalow by the sea out of the full knowledge of the architecture of the English places and cottages”. Roach dismissed the new poems as “Air on a nigger string ” and said that reading these poems reminded him of listening to a “mad Shango drummer” (Walmsley 263-265). Gordon Rohler defended the new poetry in an article which took Roach to task for failing to replace these pieces in their proper cultural context (popular music, Rastafarianism) and wrote that West Indian critics would have to listen to the way West Indian people talk and to learn more about their culture before they can assess their poetry. Leavis’s great tradition would be of little help. This debate became gradually known as the “Walcott/Brathwaite debate”. In her 1970 article on that debate, Patricia Ismond quoted Edward Lucie-Smith as saying: “We must choose between Walcott and Brathwaite” (Ismond 54-70).
23 In 1967 Edward Kamau Brathwaite’s Rights of Passage was published. This book of poems was the first part of a trilogy entitled The Arrivants and which was published in 1973.
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The other two installments of the trilogy were entitled Masks and Islands. The Arrivants can be seen as an epic account of black people’s voyage from Africa to the Caribbean, of their uprooting from the land of their fathers and of their subsequent adaptation to a new world. The Arrivants can be viewed as an epic inasmuch as it is not concerned with the poet’s own musings or neurosis, but with a people’s predicament.
24 Brathwaite’s work revolutionised Caribbean poetry by laying the emphasis on orality, performance and popular traditions both in Africa and in the West Indies. Brathwaite had lived in Ghana for a number of years and when coming back home had come to see the Caribbean as a continuation of African cultures. In his poems, he used repetition, snatches of famous Caribbean songs, proverbs, references to jazz, the Rastafarian movement, etc. Brathwaite also gave several readings of his poetry both in London and in the West Indies and that was a revelation for many people. His insistence on the need for a new poetry rooted in the West Indian experience led him to focus on the Rastafarians.
25 Brathwaite's “Wings of a Dove” (named after Psalm 55 and the famous West Indian folk song of the same name) appeared in 1967 in Rights of Passage and embodied that search for a new aesthetics. In this poem Brathwaite portrays the Rastafarian as a frightening ghetto dweller who lives in a shanty town and shares his hut with “mice”: Brother Man the Rasta man, beard full of lichens brain full of lice watched the mice come up through the floor- boards of his down- town, shanty-town kitchen and smiled. Blessed are the poor in health, he mumbled that they should inherit this wealth. Blessed are the meek hearted, he grumbled for theirs is this stealth. (Brathwaite, www.courses.edu/Brathwaite)
26 The “beard full of lichens/brain full of lice”, with their binary rhythm, insist on the negative stereotypes circulating about Rastas at the time. Brathwaite also alludes to the Rastas' knowledge of the Bible and uses it ironically to point out their plight. The Rastafarians' reinterpretation of the Bible is constantly alluded to together with their African drum patterns, possibly referring to the creole or syncretic nature of the Rastafarian cult. The mice in the Rasta's hovel are a symbol of the Rastafarians' status in Jamaican society (unwanted outcasts, pests) and also of the Rastas' invisibility.
27 In this type of poem about Rastafarians, the Rastas' esoteric code language2, made up of I-words and new coinages, is emphasised. The Rastafarians devised a new language to suit their own world view and ideology. The main characteristics of this new language are the predominance of “I-Words” and the constant coining of new words tailored to achieve a greater adequacy between signifier and signified.
28 The predominance of “I-words” in the Rastafarian code language is a consequence of the Rastafarians’ desire to be in communion with their god, that is Haile Selassie. It must be said that the Rastafarians pronounce the Roman numeral “I” in “Haile Selassie I” as if it was the first person personal pronoun. Thus an identity is established between the person who speaks and his Creator. That identity provides the basis for countless
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new phrases that pepper the Rastafarian code language such as “I-ses” (=praises), “I- tal” (=vital), “I-rie” (=free), and “I-ssembly” (= assembly ). Other phrases common in Rastafarian talk are “Yes-I” (=yes indeed) and “Jah-I” (= Myself and Jah).
29 The words tailored to achieve a greater adequacy between signifier and signified are words whose first or second syllable has been replaced by a more “appropriate” one. This linguistic manipulation is based both on sound and meaning. For instance, the word “oppressor” is said to fail to convey the negative connotations of its meaning because of the positive associations of the syllable “op”. Thus its opposite, “down”, is substituted and the end product is “downpressor”.
30 Another example is the word “everlasting”, whose third syllable is burdened with the negative connotations of the word “last”. Thus the verb “to live” will replace “last”, and the new coinage is “everliving”. Here are a few examples of the Rastafarians’ search for a less arbitrary relationship between signifier and signified: “deity – livity”, “dialect – livalek”, “destroy – downstroy”, “understand – overstand”. The Rastafarian's “dread talk” is a key element in Brathwaite's “Wings of a Dove”: “And I Rastafar-I in Babylon's boom town, crazed by the moon and the peace of this chalice, I prophet and singer, scourge of the gutter” (Brathwaite www.courses.edu)
31 In the passage quoted above, the repetition of the diphthong [ai] together with the use of a specifically Rastafarian vocabulary (“Babylon”, “chalice”) create a vivid portrait of a Rasta living on the streets. The Rastafarian ghetto-dweller appears as a slightly menacing figure (“crazed by the moon”) ready to take his revenge on Babylon (“scourge”). The Rastafarian is also a “prophet”, which refers to the Rastas' appropriation of the Bible. The Rastas' constant reference to the Bible is also alluded to.
32 This characteristic of the Rastas' code language is also emphasised in Bongo Jerry's “Mabrak” which resorts to Rastafarian rhetoric to create a vivid portrait of a Rastafarian. In this poem capital letters, verticality, fragmentation, a semi-phonetic spelling and the Rastas' own language create the voice of a persona who is a pariah, an outsider. The idea is to give a voice to the exiled Rastafarian and to give the Rastas' language access to the world of poetry. The Rastas' search for a language which would reflect their own world view is emphasised in this poem: Cramp all double meaning an' all that hiding behind language bar for that crossword speaking when expressing feeling is just English language contribution to increase confusion in Babel-land tower (Bongo Jerry, in Burnett 70)
33 As the passage quoted above suggests, the spacing of words on the printed page and the use of accumulation are meant to create an effect of “defamiliarisation” as the reader is shocked into acknowledging a new “reality” or a new language. Defamiliarisation is also illustrated by the phonetic spelling in “mostofthestraighteningisinthetongue” which evokes a continuous flow of words. The poem also refers to the old biblical idea of language as power. In oral cultures language is said to have magical powers and to
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create a new reality (Ong 32). For the Rastafarians “wordsound have power” is more than a popular catchphrase and language is a powerful weapon: Every tongue confess Every language express W O R D W O R K S ( Bongo Jerry, in Burnett 69-70)
34 The Rastafarians' own language can also be heard in many of the late Michael Smith's poems in which the main persona is a lone Rasta, or a Rasta sympathiser living on his own and cut off from society. Poems by Smith like “I and I Alone” are monologues. Indeed the personae of many Smith poems use this Rastafarian way of speaking, with its reliance on the Roman numeral/personal pronoun “I”. The poem entitled “I an I alone” is a case in point: I an I alone ah trod tru creation Babylon on I right Babylon on I left Babylon in front of I and Babylon behine I an I an I alone inna de middle like a Goliath with a sling shot ( Michael Smith, in Mordecai 228)
35 The phrase “I and I” refers to a Rastafarian and his “brethren” but could also be paraphrased as “I and God” as the personal pronoun “I” is sometimes read as the Roman numeral “I” which in this particular case would send us back to Haile Selassie I, whom the Rastafarians consider as God.
36 The Rastafarians also use “I” for “my”, that is the personal pronoun subject for the possessive adjective. In this excerpt the Rastafarian persona is a lone “I” in the middle of a crowd. The poem relies on a contrast between the Rasta's language and the patois or creole to be found further down: “me calaloo”, “Jesus, me blessed Saviour”. The whole poem is based on a contrast between the lone “dread” and the rest of society and the market is of course a metonym for Jamaican society. The reappropriation of the Bible is very visible in the words “like a Goliath with a sling shot”.
37 Generally these poems are written by poets who are very close to the Rastafarian movement, though not Rastafarians themselves and tend to foreground language and diction. They are monologues in which the idea is to create an authentic-sounding voice which can give the reader or listener access to a particular and complex aspect of West Indian culture.
38 The complexity of Caribbean culture appears in a poem by Opal Palmer's “Ethiopia under a Jamaican Mango Tree”. In Opal Palmer Adisa's “Ethiopia Unda a Jamaican Mango Tree”, the Rastafarian appears as a peaceful loner trying to avoid any resort to violence although Babylon refuses to give him a job because “him is dreadlocks”. The
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mango tree has a metonymic function and symbolises the return to a mythical Africa. In this poem, which is divided into three sections, one in Creole, the second in Standard English, and the third in Creole again we get to hear the Rasta's own voice with its I- words and new coinings like “deadas” for “dead flesh” or “meat”: 'Me nah wuk fi nuh babylon. Babylon will meet fire. I man is son of Jah. I man is Jah. I man a guh satter and meditate and plough de land and I man a guh eat fresh vegetable, no deadas. I man a guh make disyah mango tree I temple. I man a guh hook yah till Jah come fi I'. (Opal Palmer Adise, in Dawes Wheel 150)
39 In this passage, the Rastafarian code language is deployed to full effect with the use of I-words and the resort to “I” as a possessive adjective ( “I temple”). The use of Rastafarian new coinages like “deadas” (= dead meat) and 'to satter“ (= to sit down) is also designed to create a voice portrait of a Rasta, but we also get to hear the poet's own voice. The Rasta is not the main persona here and the second section gives us the persona's point of view, which is sympathetic to the Rastas' dream of escape from Babylon. The Rastas' escapism is here presented as an alternative to violence and confrontation, and the final section in Creole makes it clear that in the end the Rastas are the ones who win. In this poem, the persona is a detached observer who is not a Rasta but who sympathises with their plight.
40 The poem is based on a well-known West Indian practice which is known as code- switching, that is the switch from Standard English to Creole or vice-versa, sometimes in the middle of a sentence. Code-switching was first identified as a characteristic of West Indian culture by the linguist David De Camp, who developed the concept of a language continuum (De Camp 349-370), but literary critics soon used that concept to analyse West Indian poetry:” Unlike most of his European counterparts, the West Indian who speaks “BBC” English is probably also master of a local vernacular, and can draw on any point of the language range between market dialect and courtroom English (Burnett XXV). In Palmer's poem, there are at least three different versions of English which are used: Standard English, Rasta talk/ dread talk, and Jamaican Creole or “patois” as it is called in Jamaica. In this poem the Rasta wins in the end because he refuses to resort to violence and his mythology is presented as a positive force for change, not as escapism. His ganja-induced reverie led him to accept his fate in Jamaica and the title of the poem alludes to the complexity of West Indian culture. That complexity is enacted by the very structure of the poem, with the three sections succeeding each other and introducing the reader to various language registers.
41 The Rastas gradually provided West Indian poets with new images, new motifs and this is visible in Dennis Scott's “Squatter's Rites”. This poem features the character of an “old Ras” who had led a pastoral life in the hills and had planted ”peas, corn and potatoes“, thus maintaining his dignity by living apart from society: Peas, corn, potatoes; he had planted himself king of a drowsy hill; no one cared how he came to
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such green dignity scratching his majesty among the placid chickens. ( Dennis Scott, in Mordecai 205)
42 The old farmer is said to have the same kind of dignity as the Emperor of Ethiopia and to lead a simple, frugal life in the hills. “King of a drowsy hill”, apart from the reference to Selassie's royal lineage, may also refer to the sturdy independence traditionally maintained by Jamaican hill farmers. But we learn that after the old farmer's “deposition”, his death, his farmhouse and the hen coops fell into disrepair and his Rastafarian way of life went with him (“The parliament of dreams dissolved”). The second stanza of the poem is reminiscent of Derek Walcott's “Ruins of a Great House” (Walcott 19-21), with “senatorial lizards” taking over the old man's “chair” and “spiders” locking the door. But all is not lost and a line of continuity exists between the old Ras and the new reggae subculture, embodied by the old man's son who “blows reggae” in town.
43 The poem is a kind of elegy written to the dying peasant culture of Jamaica which is here represented by the lone Rastafarian farmer. The Rastafarian here is a kind of pastoralist, a ”mystic farmer“ in touch with Nature and associated with a purely rural background. The main contrast in the poem is between the old Rasta and his son who left the countryside, went to town, played in a reggae band, and thus became divorced from the land. But the son is redeemed in the end and composes a reggae-jazz number for his father, thus becoming reunited with the land. The old Rasta farmer's plight is said to reflect that of the late Emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie, who was crowned in 1930 and then deposed in 1975: “after his deposition / the uncivil wind / snarled anarchy through that small kingdom” and “like a scepter.” The references to Selassie's reign and to his downfall are meant to draw a parallel between the humble farmer's life in the Jamaican hills and the Emperor's life in Ethiopia, with the inference that the old farmer tried to maintain his “dignity” in dire circumstances. Dennis Scott's poem seems to present Rastafarianism as a continuation of Jamaican peasant culture, as a cultural movement which revitalised Jamaican society in the same way as Rastafarian culture provided Caribbean poetry with new images and new motifs.
44 Thus Rastafarians proved to be a pervasive influence on Caribbean poetry in English in the 1960s and 1970s and their sonorous diction, creole mythology and defiant stance became part of the Caribbean literary tradition. In the two decades which followed independence, they elicited various reactions from West Indian poets, from sympathetic portrayals of their way of life to recreations of their sonorous language and diction, to sceptic assessments of their beliefs. The Rastafarians became icons for a generation of poets and writers who were searching for a new voice, a new aesthetics, new symbols. The Rastafarian, with his “pipe dream” and his fantasies about a mythical Africa, may have become, like Derek Walcott's castaway, a Caribbean archetype about fashioning a new culture in the Caribbean out of the jetsam and flotsam of History3.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Augier, Roy, Rex Nettleford and M.G.Smith. Report on the Rastafari Movement in Kingston, Jamaica. 1960. Kingston, Jamaica: Department of Extra-Mural Studies, University of the West Indies, Mona, 1978.
Barrett, Leonard. The Rastafarians: The Dreadlocks of Jamaica. London: Heinemann, 1977.
Brathwaite, Edward Kamau. Foreword to Savacou 3 and 4 (1970 and 1971):5-9.
---. The Arrivants, A New World Trilogy: Rights of Passage, Islands and Masks. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973.
Breiner, Laurence A. An Introduction to West Indian Poetry. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Brown, Stewart, Mervyn Morris and Gordon Rohler (eds). Voiceprint: An Anthology of Oral and Related Poetry from the Caribbean. Harlow: Longman, 1989.
Brown, Stewart and Ian McDonald (eds.). The Heinemann Book of Caribbean Poetry. Oxford: Heinemann, 1992.
Burnett, Paula(ed.). The Penguin Book of Caribbean Verse in English. London: Penguin, 1986.
Dawes, Kwame (ed.). Wheel and Come Again: An Anthology of Reggae Poetry. Leeds: Peepal Tree Press, 1998.
---. Natural Mysticism: Towards a Reggae Aesthetic. Leeds: Peepal Tree Press, 1999.
De Camp, David, “Towards a Generative Analysis of a Post-Creole Continuum”, Pidginization and Creolization, ed, D.Hymes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971.
Donnell, Alison and Sarah Lawson Welsh (eds). The Routledge Reader in Caribbean Literature. London: Routledge, 1996.
Ismond, Patricia. “Walcott v. Brathwaite.” Caribbean Quarterly 17.3 and 4 (1971):54-70.
Mordecai, Pamela (ed.). From Our Yard: Jamaican Poetry Since Independence. Kingston, Jamaica: Institute of Jamaica Publications, 1987.
Ong, Walter J. Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word. London and new York: Methuen, 1982.
Patterson, Orlando. The Children of Sisyphus. 1964. Harlow: Longman, 1986.
Pollard, Velma. Dread Talk: The Language of Rastafari. Kingston, Jamaica: Canoe Press, 1994.
Rohler, Gordon. My Strangled City and Other Essays. Port-of-Spain: Longman Trinidad Limited, 1992.
Walcott, Derek. Collected Poems, 1948-1984. London: Faber and Faber, 1992.
Walmsley, Anne. The Caribbean Artists Movement. London: New Beacon Books, 1992. www.courses.edu/Brathwaite
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NOTES
1. The following summary of the rise of the Rastafarian movement is heavily indebted to Leonard E. Barrett's The Rastafarians: The Dreadlocks of Jamaica (London: Heinemann, 1977). 2. Velma Pollard's Dread Talk: The Language of Rastafari (Kingston, Jamaica: Canoe Press, 1994) is a masterful introduction to the intricacies of the Rastafarians' distinctive language. 3. Derek Walcott elaborated on these themes in poems like “The Castaway”, “Crusoe's Journal” and “Crusoe's Island” which initially appeared in his 1965 collection The Castaway.
ABSTRACTS
This article proposes to look at the way Rastafarians were portrayed in various ways by West Indian poets in the 1960s and 1970s. After paying attention to the historical and cultural context, the article focuses on three main strands in the portrayal of Rastafarians at the time. In a number of poems, Rastas emerged as pariahs and idealists who based their life on a fantasy. Other poets saw the Rastafarians as the symbols of the absurdity of man’s condition, patiently waiting for some kind of deliverance. Lastly, another tradition in West Indian poetry in English tends to look at the Rastafarians as the bearers of a new, creole culture and the emphasis is laid on their contribution to Caribbean culture in terms of language and symbolism.
L’objectif de cet article est d’examiner plusieurs modes de représentation des Rastafariens dans la poésie antillaise anglophone des années 1960 et 1970. Après s’être attardé sur le contexte historique et culturel, il sera question de trois tendances générales dans la représentation des Rastafariens pendant cette période. Dans certains poèmes, les Rastas apparaissent comme des parias et des idéalistes qui ont fondé leur vie entière sur un rêve absurde. D’autres poètes ont vu chez les Rastas le symbole de l’absurdité de la vie de l’homme, qui attend une certaine délivrance avec patience. Enfin, il existe une autre tradition dans la poésie antillaise anglophone qui a tendance à considérer le Rasta comme le vecteur d’une nouvelle culture créole et donc on mettra l’accent sur l’apport culturel des Rastas, par exemple en ce qui concerne les codes linguistiques et symboliques.
INDEX
Mots-clés: absurde, Bible, créole, culture populaire, patois, esthétique, exil, langage, oralité, rastafarisme, reggae, tradition orale Keywords: the absurd, aesthetic, the Bible, creole, exile, popular culture, orality, oral tradition, patois, Rastafarianism, reggae
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AUTHORS
ERIC DOUMERC Maître de conférences Université Toulouse 2 – Le Mirail [email protected]
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« Bad neighbors make good fencers » : esthétique des liens de voisinage dans les premiers poèmes de Robert Frost
Candice Lemaire
Introduction
1 Le vers « Bad neighbors make good fencers » du poète Richard Eberhart,1 (Lyman, 1995, 133) contemporain de Robert Frost, par le contre-pied ironique qu'il prend vis-à-vis du célèbre vers de « Mending Wall », met au jour la dimension agonistique des relations humaines et nous amène à reconsidérer la question des liens et des rapports de voisinage au sein de la poésie frostienne. Ce voisinage, entendu comme l'ensemble des rapports existant entre les personae habitant à proximité les unes des autres dans les recueils, et également comme leurs rapports avec leur environnement direct, est un espace ambivalent au sein duquel s'explore la dialectique du proche et du lointain, un va-et-vient, une affinité-affrontement poétique au sein d'une communauté qui tour à tour s'éloigne et tente de se rapprocher, chaque individu faisant varier l'écart temporel, géographique, spatial et humain qui le relie à l'altérité, ce « someone else additional to him » que mentionne le poème « The Most of It ».2 C'est cette grande diversité de liens humains et des tentatives de contact au sein des quatre premiers recueils de Frost3 que nous souhaiterions interroger, à travers les différentes formes de violence qu'ils engendrent entre les êtres et à travers leur emblématisation sous forme d'objets tels que les barrières, les fenêtres, les pierres et surtout les murs. Quels que soient les lieux de Nouvelle-Angleterre choisis, le sentiment de communauté est partout en construction dans les poèmes, fragilisé et mis à rude épreuve par de nombreuses occasions manquées, mais toujours mû par l'espoir et la promesse d'un partage possible.
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1. « Meeting and Passing » : une poésie du lien
2 Les liens entre les personae qui se tendent et se détendent au fil des recueils frostiens sont souvent formés de paires, l'un agissant sur l'autre selon un certain rapport, une dynamique particulière. Ainsi, de nombreux liens sont des liens du sang : des familles (dans les poèmes sur la généalogie, qui passionnait Frost, comme « Brown's Descent »), des paires parents / enfants, des ancêtres, des couples en rupture (par exemple « Home Burial » où un couple vient d'enterrer son enfant mort en bas âge, ou dans « The Housekeeper » où la femme a fugué du foyer conjugal). Les liens d'affection, ou de respect poli, sont représentés par les poèmes mettant en scène des amis (« A Time to Talk »), des pairs ou des voisins (« Mending Wall »). Mais de manière plus fréquente, et parce que le rapport à l'Autre est assez souvent problématique chez Frost, les liens décrits sont des liens socialement hiérarchiques ou économiquement inégaux, des liens de pouvoir, de dépendance, de domination et d'asservissement, entre un maître et son serviteur (« A Servant to Servants »), un riche et un pauvre, un citadin et un campagnard. Le type de contrat lié entre eux est le plus souvent non-écrit et tacite, car financier et garant de leur survie mutuelle, et donc créateur d'une certaine violence et cruauté dans leur rapports, par opposition à un simple contrat de confiance.
3 Le long poème narratif « The Death of the Hired Man », qui indique dans son titre même la valeur commerciale de l'humain, semble un exemple probant de la dureté des relations humaines, dans les « dramas of home » frostiens (Faggen, 2008, 26). A travers le long dialogue (sur le perron) du couple Mary-Warren à propos de leur ouvrier Silas qui a déserté son travail, et qui est revenu ce jour par surprise à la ferme, très affaibli, le caractère agonistique du dialogue conjugue proximité physique et affrontement. Mary sat musing on the lamp-flame at the table Waiting for Warren. When she heard his step She ran on tip-toe down the darkened passage To meet him in the doorway with the news And put him on his guard. « Silas is back. » She pushed him outward with her through the door And shut it after her. « Be kind, » she said. She took the market things from Warren’s arms And set them on the porch, then drew him down To sit beside her on the wooden steps. […] « When was I ever anything but kind to him? But I’ll not have the fellow back, » he said. « I told him so last haying, didn’t I? ˈIf he left then,ˈ I said, ˈthat ended it.ˈ What good is he? Who else will harbour him At his age for the little he can do? What help he is there’s no depending on. Off he goes always when I need him most. […] »He’s worn out. He’s asleep beside the stove. When I came up from Rowe’s I found him here Huddled against the barn-door fast asleep A miserable sight, and frightening, too— You needn’t smile—I didn’t recognise him— I wasn’t looking for him—and he’s changed. Wait till you see. « Where did you say he’d been? » « He didn’t say. I dragged him to the house
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And gave him tea and tried to make him smoke. I tried to make him talk about his travels. Nothing would do: he just kept nodding off. » […] Poor Silas, so concerned for other folk And nothing to look backward to with pride And nothing to look forward to with hope So now and never any different. Part of a moon was falling down the west Dragging the whole sky with it to the hills. Its light poured softly in her lap. She saw And spread her apron to it. She put out her hand Among the harp-like morning-glory strings Taut with the dew from garden bed to eaves As if she played unheard the tenderness That wrought on him beside her in the night. « Warren, » she said, « he has come home to die: You needn’t be afraid he’ll leave you this time. » « Home, » he mocked gently. « Yes, what else but home? It all depends on what you mean by home. Of course he’s nothing to us, any more Than was the hound that came a stranger to us Out of the woods, worn out upon the trail. » « Home is the place where, when you have to go there They have to take you in. » « I should have called it Something you somehow haven’t to deserve. » […] You must go in and see what you can do. I made the bed up for him there to-night. You’ll be surprised at him—how much he’s broken. His working days are done; I’m sure of it.« […] I’ll sit and see if that small sailing cloud Will hit or miss the moon. » It hit the moon. Then there were three there, making a dim row The moon, the little silver cloud, and she. Warren returned—too soon, it seemed to her Slipped to her side, caught up her hand and waited. « Warren, » she questioned. « Dead, » was all he answered. (Poirier, 1995, 40-45)
4 A l'empathie de Mary (« the poor man, poor Silas »), fait front l'intransigeance cruelle de Warren, excédé par la désertion de son serviteur, qu'il ne nomme jamais par son nom, se contentant de pronoms personnels et de « the fellow », tout emprisonné qu’il est dans cette relation utilitaire et pécuniaire (« earn a little pay, can't afford to pay, pocket money »). Dans cette position réifiante, son serviteur n'a aucune humanité ni valeur mais simplement un rôle à jouer, celui de le servir et de lui être rentable : « What good is he ? What help is he ? ». Explorant la frontière poreuse et rapide vers la réification du tiers (ce « he » dont il est question, ce tiers-absent, ce « third party » en somme), le poème donne à l’ouvrier un statut proche de l’esclave blanc. Evacuant la question de cet être brisé comme on évacue un problème (« I'm done »), il ne sait l'évoquer que par ses manques et défauts, au travers de la martelante répétition des adverbes négatifs : « and nothing to look backwards with pride, / And nothing to look forward with hope, / So now and never any different », « Of course, he's nothing to us
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any more ». La détresse humaine apparaît ici dans tout son violent réalisme, la créature-Silas, animalisée dans ses détails les plus sordides, vaincue par la fatigue, est tour à tour dépréciée, passivée (« I dragged him into the house, / […] make him smoke, […] make him talk »), pour apparaître enfin en un portait terrifiant, fragmentaire et fragmenté, au sein de la strophe 3, où les tirets d'incise de Mary sous le choc reflètent ce corps disséqué, synecdoqué, et au bord de l'affaissement physique (« how much he's broken »). Silas est le serviteur, réduit par ses maîtres à l'état de bête qui revient mourir chez elle, parce qu'elle n'a pas su « mériter » (« deserve ») son foyer et l'honneur d'y être convié, selon Warren qui a ici uniquement recours au persiflage et à la moquerie. La chute du poème rompt le lien infime existant entre les différents partis, le ciel se chargeant, dans une image christique détournée, d'annoncer lui-même la mort du martyr (« the small sailing cloud hit the moon ») et recomposant une sainte trinité moderne, laïque, météorologique et prosaïque : « Then there were three there, making a dim row / The moon, the silver cloud, and she », le vrombissement pénible de l'allitération en /th/ donnant plus de poids encore aux rythmes ternaires présents sur les derniers vers. Et Mary, Pietà de chair du poème, de par son nom et sa capacité à ressentir la souffrance, est impuissante face aux éléments et assiste sous le porche (plutôt que sous la croix) à la silencieuse agonie de ce fils prodigue déchu. La violence des rapports humains naît ainsi dans le poème du faux voisinage qui est instauré, la tierce personne étant si proche qu'elle en devient invisible et méprisable, la promiscuité apparaissant dangereuse et mortelle à cause du lien de domination sociale et financière qui en fait un bien meuble, une possession plutôt qu’un sujet disposant de soi.
5 La mort de l’Autre, du tiers, en devient une mort à la troisième personne, une disparition anodine et neutre de rubrique nécrologique4, une mort décidée depuis la marge (le perron), à l’écart de ce centre, la maison où se trouve Silas, devenu objet de discorde : le théâtre de l’action, recentré sur la marge et la coulisse reçoit ainsi les remous d’un hors-scène paradoxalement central où l’action a réellement lieu. Ce dialogue de couple mis en scène par le poème n’en est donc pas un, mais se perçoit davantage comme une variation conversationnelle sur le reproche et une scène d’adieu entre mari et femme : la logorrhée qui inonde le poème paraît inutile puisque le destin de Silas est déjà scellé au moment où s’ouvre la scène, et la cascade stérile de leurs vers semble avoir pour seul but d’exprimer cette urgence vitale de se faire entendre même lorsqu’il est déjà trop tard, de proférer des paroles qui ne servent à rien mais qu’il faut dire néanmoins. Mary et Warren, Sisyphes poétiques du langage, disent donc le désespoir d’une parole banalisée : de cette scène d’entre-deux (à la fois spatial, vital et conjugal) ne résulte que le silence funèbre et définitif qui clôt le poème, silence interloqué, abasourdi d’un couple qui se brise. Variation sur l’amertume, le poème prouve aussi que les trois substantifs dérivés « commun, communion, communauté » n’ont d’identique que leur racine, car chez Frost ils apparaissent presque antithétiques : la construction du sentiment de communauté dans les poèmes ne semble passer que par des tentatives manquées de mise en commun et de communion. Ainsi, Marie et Warren ne parlent-ils pas de la même chose lorsqu’ils évoquent Silas, l’une questionnant l’humain (se référant à l’être et se sentant responsable d’une vie), tentant d’établir ainsi une communion, une communauté de pensée et de cœur avec celui qui souffre, son mari ne questionnant que le rentable (n’ayant affaire qu’à l’argent et se sentant responsable d’un travailleur), s’intéressant davantage à la mise en commun d’un bien.
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6 Au sein de la réflexion sur le proche et le lointain menée dans les recueils, l'écart entre les personae est souvent matérialisé, emblématisé et spatialisé par des objets, qui se comportent en objets-Janus, à la fois liens et barrières, frontières et passages entre les êtres : chez Frost, ce sont par exemple les clôtures (fences) de Nouvelle-Angleterre, les ruisseaux, les fenêtres, les portes, et surtout les pierres et les murs sur lesquels nous souhaitons nous arrêter brièvement. Les murs sont le cliché frostien le plus connu de ses lecteurs, le poète étant constamment associé à cet objet sur nombre de couvertures de magasines, de photographies, mettant en scène l'artiste et son élément à loisir.5 Précisons que Frost se lassa très vite de cette vision de « l'homme au mur de pierre », et d'être si souvent pétrifié, manipulé, réifié à la place de l'élément lui-même : At least on one occasion Frost remonstrated with some irritation, claiming it was a most uncomfortable perch and he was weary of being invited to sit on it, (Muir, 1995, 52)
7 comme le note son amie l'historienne Helen Muir. Le poème « Mending Wall » (le premier du recueil North of Boston), anthologique-issime poème frostien sur l'objet mur, est intéressant dans l'analyse des relations de voisinage, de par l'importance de l'établissement de traditions, de coutumes, de cadres qu'il développe. Les relations au voisin sont ritualisées, organisées, programmées dans ce long poème où il est question d'un pacte tacite de réparation annuelle d'un mur mitoyen en pierres, entre les terrains de deux fermes de Derry, dans le New Hampshire. Something there is that doesn't love a wall That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it And spills the upper boulders in the sun And makes gaps even two can pass abreast. The work of hunters is another thing: I have come after them and made repair Where they have left not one stone on a stone But they would have the rabbit out of hiding To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean No one has seen them made or heard them made But at spring mending-time we find them there. I let my neighbor know beyond the hill; And on a day we meet to walk the line And set the wall between us once again. We keep the wall between us as we go. To each the boulders that have fallen to each. And some are loaves and some so nearly balls We have to use a spell to make them balance: 'Stay where you are until our backs are turned!' We wear our fingers rough with handling them. Oh, just another kind of out-door game One on a side. It comes to little more: There where it is we do not need the wall: He is all pine and I am apple orchard. My apple trees will never get across And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him. He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors'. Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder If I could put a notion in his head: 'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it Where there are cows? But here there are no cows. Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
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What I was walling in or walling out And to whom I was like to give offence. Something there is that doesn't love a wall That wants it down.' I could say 'Elves' to him But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather He said it for himself. I see him there Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed. He moves in darkness as it seems to me~ Not of woods only and the shade of trees. He will not go behind his father's saying And he likes having thought of it so well He says again, « Good fences make good neighbors. » (Poirier, 1995, 39-40)
8 Dans ce poème en vers blancs, les « gaps », ces espaces laissés par les pierres du mur que les chasseurs ont enlevées ou faites choir, sont la raison majeure du rapprochement entre voisins, pour contrer cette porosité grandissante de l'espace commun. Là où le mur porte le souvenir d’un écart, le poème réintroduit du compact, par une activité commune de colmatage des brèches (« mending ») : le concept de trou, de « gap » est ainsi extrêmement fécond chez Frost car l’écart originel est réduit par la rencontre humaine, et les trous du mur―les espaces non construits et non structurés - deviennent un transfert physique de la parole trouée des voisins colmatant les brèches, de leurs non-dits, leurs conversations inachevées. Le sens profond de cette rencontre annuelle réside donc dans ces espaces vides qu’il faut, socialement et physiquement, combler et colmater : la béquille de pierre se mue donc en béquille sociale et réparation de relations humaines abîmées, dans une opération fondamentale de bouche-trous. Il est aussi intéressant de constater que cette réunion annuelle des deux voisins, qui communiquent très peu habituellement, semble se faire sous l'impulsion de l'habitude, de la règle établie, par principe de tradition (« at spring mending-time ») et non après simple observation de l'état véritable de détérioration du mur. Cette rencontre forcée trouve ainsi un aspect presque ludique et bon enfant (« just another kind of outdoor game »), les deux acteurs profitant de ce « mending-time » (et la création de ce mot composé est assez révélatrice de la ritualisation de cette réparation partagée) pour franchir la ligne qui les sépare (« walk the line », « between us ») et se rencontrer. Chacun reconnaît le caractère inutile d'une telle tradition, les pommiers et le pin de part et d'autre du mur jouant déjà le rôle de délimitation naturelle, mais le voisin ne semble pas vouloir démordre de la sagesse proverbiale héritée de ses ancêtres (« his father's saying »). Il justifie la réparation automatique du mur par la répétition de ce vers au présent de vérité générale, devenu presque un adage manichéen et globalisant (et ainsi réutilisable hors contexte, détournable comme l'a montré Richard Eberhart, exploitable en tant que fragment) : « Good fences make good neighbors ». L’utilisation du présent gnomique dans le vers fait de plus du locuteur un représentant de la sagesse populaire, de l’opinion populaire dans ce qu’elle a de plus littéralement conservateur. La voix poétique, voulant se démarquer de son voisin, finit pourtant par lui ressembler et se superposer à lui dans sa capacité à se laisser convaincre, non par le poids de l'adage populaire, mais par l'importance du maintien d'un cadre, d'un rituel relationnel avec son voisin, comme le note Marion Montgomery : Both men know that good fences make good neighbors, but only one of them [= the narrator] knows why–because barriers serve as framework for mutual understanding and respect. (Montgomery, 1958, 339-53)
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9 La voix poétique remet donc en question cette consolidation de frontière terrestre, dans le sens où aucune raison valable ne la justifie (« Something there is that doesn't love a wall » - sans que l'objet de ce rejet soit clairement identifié, rendant le vers extrêmement sibyllin de par sa formulation inversée). La particularité stylistique d’un tel vers, dont le bouleversement de l’ordre des mots sonne comme une sorte de « poetic diction » datée et presque étrangère, creuse encore davantage la thématique de la fausse séparation. La surprise de la formule « something there is that », oscillant entre écrit et oral, se perçoit comme une sentence supérieure, un principe divin posant le mur non comme un objet de séparation mais comme lien et élément pacificateur. Le flottement sémantique rend possible une sortie de conflit : parce que le « je » ne sait plus si cette consolidation annuelle signifie son propre emmurement ou celui de son voisin (« What i was walling in or walling out »), leur relation de voisinage aboutit, par le jeu des prépositions, à un continuel « between us », et un équilibre où chacun (« to make them balance, […] / One on a side ») rassemble ses propres pierres de son côté (« to each the boulders that have fallen to each »). Frost disait ainsi de ce poème qu'il était un poème de la séparation : « a poem about separateness. We have boundaries though there's no immediate reason for them », le mur gardant en mémoire le souvenir d’un écart colmaté, réduit par ces voisins que Richard Eberhart fait duellistes (« fencers »), ennemis silencieux s’escrimant à ne pas vouloir voir leurs points communs, s’affrontant par à-coups verbaux et constamment en garde. La cohabitation forcée se fait ici sans nécessaire communauté affective, le mur représentant pour les personae une façon parmi d’autres de ne pas être ensemble.
10 Si elle ne saurait se laisser convaincre par aucun adage populaire, tout en ne se prononçant jamais vraiment pour ou contre la rénovation de ce mur, la voix poétique semble cependant trouver une grande vérité dans ces pierres agglomérées. Nous en voulons pour preuve la description qu'elle en fait dans cet extrait du poème « A Star in a Stoneboat » : Never tell me that not one star of all That slip from heaven at night and softly fall Has been picked up with stones to build a wall […] Some may know what they seek in school and church And why they seek it there; for what I search I must go measuring stone walls, perch on perch; (Francis, 1981, 4)
11 L'image du « poète du mur » en désaccord avec son voisin se modifie ainsi quelque peu sous l'influence de cette image de la pierre-étoile, où s'intéresser aux murs et aux pierres signifie également chercher une métonymie des constellations disparues, reconquérir l'au-delà par l'ici-bas, et briser par ce mouvement vertical la simple dialectique horizontale de la séparation de deux terrains. La chute de la pierre est ici, contrairement à « Mending Wall », douce et positive, pierre-météorite cosmique tombée sur terre pour servir à la reconstruction du lien social.
12 Au travers de ces liens humains symbolisés par les objets et spatialement mis en scène au fil des recueils, la poésie de Frost tisse l'image d'une communauté fragile, une « fédération fabulée de l'humanité » (« the fabled Federation of Mankind ») comme le dit « The Courage to Be New ».6 Le sentiment même de communauté est en construction, en élaboration, rendu friable par la tragique foule d'occasions manquées qui parsèment les poèmes, dans le ballet des personae qui constamment se cherchent mais jamais ne se trouvent.
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2. « The fabled Federation of Mankind »:7 une communauté en construction
13 De manière ironique, le court poème choisi traditionnellement comme ouverture et préambule aux Complete Poems de Frost, « The Pasture », clôt ses deux quatrains par le même vers I sha'n't be gone long. - You come too.
14 dont le tiret est autant une invitation lancée à l'Autre qu'un engagement à rassembler, à créer du lien, une volonté de pacification. Ce désir de briser l'écart typographique et géographique entre les deux sujets n'est cependant pas programmatique et ne tient plus sa promesse dès lors que l'on franchit le seuil des recueils. Un certain nombre de poèmes explorent en effet ces relations humaines avortées, s’épuisant en croisements malchanceux et stériles, et dont les dialogues difficiles ne parviennent pas à briser la tragique partie de cache-cache qu'elles ont entamée.
15 Le poème « Revelation », dans A Boy's Will utilise ce jeu d'enfant pour dénoncer un voisinage ardemment souhaité mais que l'acte de parole rend presque redondant : We make ourselves a place apart Behind light words that tease and flout But oh, the agitated heart Till someone really find us out. 'Tis pity if the case require (Or so we say) that in the end We speak the literal to inspire The understanding of a friend. But so with all, from babes that play At hide-and-seek to God afar So all who hide too well away Must speak and tell us where they are. (Poirier, 1995, 27-28)
16 Selon Frost, les liens humains ne devraient jamais s'embarrasser de la communication verbale, qui ici noie le poème au travers du champ lexical de la parole (« words, tease, flout, say, speak, literal, tell »), et exposent au jour et au danger la place confortable, à l'écart, que la persona s'était trouvée. La vie consiste ici en un grand jeu de cache-cache sous le regard de Dieu, où la cachette de chacun dans le monde est verbalisée, découverte, rendant évident ce voisinage que l'on voulait taire, ce lien que l'on ne souhaitait créer qu'en silence, sans passer par une parole (ici enfantine, pour faciliter la comparaison) moqueuse et taquine (« words that tease and flout »). A cette peur mêlée de plaisir qu'ont les enfants qui attendent qu'on découvre leur cachette, le poème compare l'espoir des personae de pouvoir nouer une véritable relation à l'autre, une compréhension mutuelle (« the understanding of a friend ») qui passerait uniquement par le silence : parler littéralement, « speak the literal », c'est tuer dans l’œuf l'espoir de compréhension tacite et magique auquel aspirent tous les joueurs de cet immense cache-cache avec leurs pairs. Dans sa mise en cause de l'inutilité de la parole humaine dans la création d'un lien, d'une proximité, « Revelation » rejoint et prépare un autre poème, « The Tuft of Flowers », dans lequel la « révélation » du titre a bel et bien lieu, non plus simple mise au jour mais véritable épiphanie.
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17 Si le sentiment de communauté chez Frost ne paraît pouvoir se créer que sous le sceau du silence, c'est aussi parce que les personae souffrent de ne jamais pouvoir se rencontrer vraiment. Une telle gangrène de l’incommunicabilité intéresse Frost au premier chef, d’une manière presque malsaine tant elle semble implacable et récurrente dans les volumes, comme le note Radcliffe Squires : « Frost is appreciative of the New England disease of incommunication. He has some devastatingly lonely poems » (Squires, 1981, 11). Le poème narratif « The Housekeeper », dans North of Boston, met ainsi en scène ces voisins se rendant les uns chez les autres, mais se manquant irrémédiablement, pris dans un filet où tous se croisent mais où l'échange rêvé et attendu est toujours avorté, toujours indéfiniment différé, dans une stratégie de retardement de la rencontre. C'est sous les yeux de la gouvernante de la maison, sujet intermédiaire et entre-deux réceptacle des confidences que l'on n'a pas pu faire à la bonne personne, que Frost place son prisme d'analyse. I let myself in at the kitchen door. « It’s you, » she said. « I can’t get up. Forgive me Not answering your knock. I can no more Let people in than I can keep them out. I’m getting too old for my size, I tell them. My fingers are about all I’ve the use of So to take any comfort. I can sew: I help out with this beadwork what I can. » […] « And where’s John? » « Haven’t you seen him? Strange what set you off To come to his house when he’s gone to yours. You can’t have passed each other. I know what: He must have changed his mind and gone to Garland's. […] » « Where is Estelle? Couldn’t one talk to her? What does she say? You say you don’t know where she is. » […] (Poirier, 1995, 82-89)
18 Auprès de cette gouvernante qui tisse et rassemble les messages des uns et des autres de la même façon qu'elle enfile les perles sur son ouvrage (« this beadwork »), la voix poétique (voisin et visiteur du couple qui vit dans cette ferme)8 vient s'enquérir : il cherche Estelle, la fille de la gouvernante, qui a fui le domicile conjugal. Les trajectoires parallèles des personae dans le poème ne se fondent jamais et n'aboutissent qu'à l'erreur et l'absence, comme sous l'étrange coup d'une fatalité mécanique : « strange what set you off / To come to his house when he's gone to yours ». Il ne résulte de ces errements que des questions, nombreuses dans le poème, et toutes rhétoriques : « And where's John ? […] Where is Estelle? / Couldn't one talk to her? What does she say ? » auxquelles la gouvernante ne répond que par des doutes, des paroles rapportées au discours indirect, qui accentuent cet échange avec une tierce personne qui n'est pas celle que l'on pensait voir - « You say you don't know where she is ».
19 Enfin, c'est par la perfection métrique d'un sonnet en pentamètres, « Meeting and Passing » (dans Moutain Interval) que Frost choisit d'illustrer le paroxysme de l'imperfection des échanges entre les êtres, de ces voisinages difficiles et éphémères où tout réside dans le flux continu, le passage, et l'oubli et jamais dans l'arrêt, la pause conversationnelle. As I went down the hill along the wall There was a gate I had leaned at for the view And had just turned from when I first saw you As you came up the hill. We met. But all
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We did that day was mingle great and small Footprints in summer dust as if we drew The figure of our being less than two But more than one as yet. Your parasol Pointed the decimal off with one deep thrust. And all the time we talked you seemed to see Something down there to smile at in the dust. (Oh, it was without prejudice to me!) Afterward I went past what you had passed Before we met and you what I had passed. (Poirier, 1995, 115)
20 Dans ce sonnet assez circulaire, construit sur une séries de parallèles et de répétitions, la rencontre de cette homme et de cette femme (près d'un mur, « along the wall »- rien d'anodin en cela, bien sûr) se résume au vers 4 à la sèche brièveté d'un groupe verbal simple, « We met », qu'entourent les points de ponctuation. La rime « all / small » exprime à elle seule la totalité de cette rencontre qui ne se résume qu'à une petitesse de l'échange. Cette rencontre de deux personnes n'occasionne pas, comme la logique le voudrait, un total chiffré de deux unités, mais une et demie, « plus d'un et moins de deux », dit le poème : « the figure of our being less than two / But more than one as yet ». Les chiffres et les silhouettes (qui sont le double sens de l'anglais « figure ») de cette rencontre s'entrecroisent donc sur le vers sans jamais s'additionner, le résultat de cette addition manquée étant un décimal (un et demie), nombre imparfait et virgule maladroite emblématisant d'une part cette ombrelle, ce parasol qui cache leur visage et les empêche de se voir et de se parler, et d'autre part ce grain de poussière au sol (« dust, footprints in summer dust ») qui reste la seule marque, la seule trace de leur diaphane rencontre. Le basculement constant entre « all / small, less / more, one / two, all the time / down, afterward / before » rééquilibre le tout vers le zéro, la position neutre, rendant possible un éternel recommencement de cette rencontre qui n'a presque pas eu lieu, ou qui n'a eu lieu qu'entre parenthèses, dans la parenthèse du vers 12 (« Oh, it was without prejudice to me ! »). Le zéro, le néant de cette rencontre se dissout à la fin du sonnet dans la répétition entêtante et la rime pauvre de la structure verbale : « Afterward I went past what you had passed / Before we met and you what I had passed ». Dans ce distique final, cette communauté en germe, ce couple, est amputé de parole et de mots, de la même façon que le sujet « you »du vers 14 est amputé de son verbe (« went past »), passé sous ellipse (« and you // what I had passed »). Le « you » désignant la jeune femme croisée devient un pronom presque trop précis pour qualifier cette belle lointaine, cette présence absente que son parasol transforme en un vivant cadran solaire par effet d’ombre portée. La rencontre n’est donc plus ici co-présence, voisinage physique de deux êtres, mais l’impossible communion (amoureuse ?) de deux corps anonymes, où la présence féminine « s’absente à l’intérieur de [leur] rencontre »9.
21 Au fil des volumes, dans cette dialectique du proche et du lointain où le sentiment de communauté est toujours à construire, et où les êtres choisissent de s'éviter, d'entrer facilement en conflit, de répliquer par la loi du talion à ce que leurs pairs leur font subir, quelques poèmes offrent cependant la vision d'un espoir exaucé, d'une harmonie perdue entre les êtres que l'on aurait regagnée : au sein de ces voisinages frostiens douloureux, tout n'est pas « closed for good » (titre d'un poème de An Afterword)10, mais sont bâties des promesses de partage et de communion entre les êtres, qui trouvent au hasard de leur chemin, un frère d'arme et un frère d'âme, « a spirit kindred to [their] own ».
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3. »A spirit kindred to my own« : à la recherche d'une harmonie perdue
22 Robert Frost, davantage admiratif de prédécesseurs de Nouvelle-Angleterre comme Emerson, Thoreau et Emily Dickinson, s'entendit assez tièdement avec ses contemporains poètes, les évitant (les Modernistes, les Imagistes), les critiquant (Wallace Stevens) ou se fâchant avec eux (T.S. Eliot), mais en de rares occasions il confesse avoir ressenti cette fraternité d'arme et d'âme, notamment lors de sa rencontre en Angleterre, où il vécut de 1912 à 1915, avec le poète britannique Edward Thomas (1878-1917).11 Ce poète de la Première Guerre Mondiale fut tué au combat lors de la bataille d'Arras. Le poème en cinq quatrains, « To E.T. » (1920) que Frost écrivit pour son ami défunt, à son retour aux Etats-Unis, est un des rares poèmes du canon frostien à envisager la première Guerre Mondiale dont il fut pourtant le témoin lors de son séjour dans le Gloucestershire. I slumbered with your poems on my breast Spread open as I dropped them half-read through Like dove wings on a figure on a tomb To see, if in a dream they brought of you I might not have the chance I missed in life Through some delay, and call you to your face First soldier, and then poet, and then both Who died a soldier-poet of your race. I meant, you meant, that nothing should remain Unsaid between us, brother, and this remained— And one thing more that was not then to say: The Victory for what it lost and gained. You went to meet the shell's embrace of fire On Vimy Ridge; and when you fell that day The war seemed over more for you than me But now for me than you--the other way. How over, though, for even me who knew The foe thrust back unsafe beyond the Rhine If I was not to speak of it to you And see you pleased once more with words of mine? (Poirier, 1995, 205)
23 Le lien envisagé par cet hommage est multiple, la voix poétique s'adressant tour à tour au soldat, au poète, au poète-soldat (dans la droite ligne de ceux de l'Angleterre élisabéthaine), à l'homme, au créateur, et surtout au frère. Le balancement constant entre les pronoms personnels et les polyptotes « I / me / mine et you / yours » et la comparaison établie entre la mort et l'endormissement au cours de la lecture, disent cette circulation, cette transmission, ce legs humain et littéraire entre deux hommes, d'un poète à un autre, d'un recueil (celui de Thomas, au vers 1) à un autre (les « words of mine » de la voix poétique), d'un rêveur à un autre, qui n'ont jamais cesser de se parler parce que tout pouvait être silencieusement suggéré (« I meant, you meant »). Le battement de cœur de cette compréhension muette, de cette union de deux esprits, est rendu par le rythme des vers 9 et 10, où « I » et « you » se fondent en « us » et où l'étreinte physique donnée au frère d'âme, « brother », se matérialise par une étreinte stylistique du mot au sein du vers, en incise entre les virgules, à la césure parfaite du vers et sur un iambe complet–étreinte fraternelle que le tiret de fin de vers prolonge. Si
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le terme « brother » se trouve au centre névralgique et thématique du poème, et ordonne les quatrains autour de lui, c’est pour signifier le centre de gravité poétique qu’était devenu Thomas dans la vie de Frost : ami élu, frère d’âme et frère d’art, au sein de cette parnassienne amitié où la poésie prima toujours.12 « He was the only brother I ever had », écrit Frost dans une lettre à Edward Garnett peu après la mort de son ami (Spencer, 2004, xviii introduction). Dans ce songe prolongé (la voix poétique s’endort au début du poème mais ne se réveille pas), le frère-cible reçoit l’étreinte de la mort, l’étreinte du feu de l’obus « the shell’s embrace of fire », seule étreinte véritablement nommée, alors que l’étreinte de la vie n’apparaît que sous forme purement stylistique et effet d’embrassement sur le vers. Le voisinage dans ce poème est ainsi celui du corps, où le contact littéral entre le corps et le papier (vers 1), le corps et l’obus (vers 13) fait écho et encadre le rêve d’un contact par échange de paroles ( »call you to your face« ) et de regards (« to speak of it to you / And see you pleased »). L’étreinte poétique recherchée par le « je » devient une manière de voisiner deux êtres tout en thématisant une absence sur le mode élégiaque.
24 Le jeu du proche et du lointain prend enfin tout son sens, dans cette recherche d'un voisinage réussi, dans l'un des premiers poèmes de Frost alors jeune élève de Harvard, écrit en 1897, et figurant dans A Boy's Will, intitulé « The Tuft of Flowers », qu'il considèrera par la suite comme la directe filiation poétique de « Mending Wall », dans son traitement du thème du partage permis par l’écart entre les deux personae en présence : In this darkly symbolic way, « Mending Wall », as Frost mentions in his Foreword to North of Boston, « takes up the theme where 'A Tuft of Flowers', in A Boy's Will, leaves off ». In that poem the radiance of a clearing provides a communion between the mower and the raker, and between the playful and practical natures of [the two personae]. In « Mending Wall », [it is] the shade of trees [which] preserves the distinction. (O’Brien, 1986, 150) I went to turn the grass once after one Who mowed it in the dew before the sun. The dew was gone that made his blade so keen Before I came to view the leveled scene. I looked for him behind an isle of trees; I listened for his whetstone on the breeze. But he had gone his way, the grass all mown And I must be, as he had been, —alone ˈAs all must be,ˈ I said within my heart ˈWhether they work together or apart.ˈ But as I said it, swift there passed me by On noiseless wing a bewildered butterfly Seeking with memories grown dim o’er night Some resting flower of yesterday’s delight. And once I marked his flight go round and round As where some flower lay withering on the ground. And then he flew as far as eye could see And then on tremulous wing came back to me. I thought of questions that have no reply And would have turned to toss the grass to dry; But he turned first, and led my eye to look At a tall tuft of flowers beside a brook A leaping tongue of bloom the scythe had spared Beside a reedy brook the scythe had bared. I left my place to know them by their name
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Finding them butterfly weed when I came. The mower in the dew had loved them thus By leaving them to flourish, not for us Nor yet to draw one thought of ours to him. But from sheer morning gladness at the brim. The butterfly and I had lit upon Nevertheless, a message from the dawn That made me hear the wakening birds around And hear his long scythe whispering to the ground And feel a spirit kindred to my own; So that henceforth I worked no more alone; But glad with him, I worked as with his aid And weary, sought at noon with him the shade; And dreaming, as it were, held brotherly speech With one whose thought I had not hoped to reach. ˈMen work together,ˈ I told him from the heart ˈWhether they work together or apart.ˈ (Poirier, 1995, 30-31)
25 Dans ce poème où deux ouvriers agricoles, « the mower and the raker », se rendent seuls sur le même pré à deux moments différents de la matinée, l'objet déclencheur de ce voisinage soudain, de cette communion de pensée, est le papillon hésitant et désorienté du vers 12, dont le vol hasardeux et la trajectoire imprévisible orientent le regard du deuxième homme vers le bouquet de fleurs préservé par celui qui l'a précédé et qu'il ne connaît pas. Le champ de vision du sujet s'élargit à double titre, passant du tremblant papillon au grand bouquet, et de la contemplation d'un pré tondu à l'aletheia de pensée. Ce moment de foudroiement, décrit en terme de langue de feu (« a leaping tongue of the bloom ») est un message de l'aube (« a message from the dawn »), la naissance de l'harmonie et du sentiment fraternel (« brotherly speech ») entre l'ouvrier et son inconnu prédécesseur. Ce lien humain unique naît d'une identique sensibilité à la beauté, d'une communauté esthétique (« a spirit kindred to my own ») permis par le hasard d'un regard. Ce voisinage poétique est d'autant plus précieux qu'il est inattendu, qu'il ne naît d'aucune intentionnalité de part et d'autre (« with one whose thoughts I had not hoped to reach ») et qu'il est placé lui aussi sous le signe du silence. L’espace du poème est structuré par l’horizon d’une rencontre potentielle, un voisinage physique jamais réalisé et qui se mue en proximité relative, une juxtaposition spatiale permise par la coïncidence du partage esthétique. Cette communion de bonheur (« glad with him ») avec cet inconnu artiste permet à la poésie frostienne une réponse possible à sa dialectique du proche et du lointain, puisque l'écart géographique et temporel entre les deux hommes n'annihile pas, comme on l'attendrait, la proximité émotionnelle, mais lui redonne une chance. Ainsi, « je est un autre » et « je est (l’) autre »puisque les lignes parallèles et solitaires des deux hommes (« after one, he had gone his way, alone, apart ») deviennent ici perpendiculaires et se rejoignent en un point, celui du « with » (que la strophe 18 répète trois fois), le secret d'un coeur (« within my heart ») se projetant de toute sa sincérité vers l'autre (« I told him from the heart »).
26 Dans ce poème comme dans celui pour Edward Thomas, la conversation fraternelle se rêve, se fantasme à l’infini : l’effet de voisinage naît du paradoxe d’une parole mentale jamais verbalisée mais produite dans le cadre d’une conversation imaginaire. Les deux poèmes envisagent donc le voisinage verbal non comme une oralité fixe, notée, mais comme la naissance d’une forme d’oralité originale.
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Conclusion
27 Proposer une typologie des liens dans la poésie frostienne permet donc de se rendre compte de l'aspect problématique de la relation à l'altérité pour les personae des poèmes. Moyen de violence et de contrainte sur l'autre, concept emblématisé et spatialisé par le truchement d'objets à double fonction, tels les murs, les barrières, les pierres, le lien est à la base d'une réflexion sur le proche et le lointain, à l’œuvre dans les recueils. Le sentiment de communauté chez Frost, en construction, et constamment fragilisé, est le jouet fréquent du hasard, dans le réseau d'occasions manquées et d'erreurs que les personae commettent en voulant toujours bien faire, paradoxalement libres et liées les unes par rapport aux autres, « bond and free » comme dit leur auteur (Poirier, 1995, 116). L’expression du désir d’être ensemble primera toujours, semble-t-il, sur la réalisation effective de cette communauté, de ce rapprochement, et ce que proposent les recueils ne constitue que des esquisses, des exemples variés, des tentatives de rencontre. Si les trajectoires des personae ne se recoupent que rarement, et s’il n’existe pas vraiment de communauté pleinement incarnée et stabilisée chez Frost, un basculement se produit cependant parfois et donne lieu à une forme de partage fantasmé, impulsant à ce voisinage un nouvel élan, et l'espoir d'obtenir, comme le titre l'un des poèmes, « a time to talk »13.
BIBLIOGRAPHIE
Faggen, Robert. The Cambridge Introduction to Robert Frost. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
Francis, Lesley Lee. « Robert Frost and the Majesty of Stones upon Stones » Journal of Modern Literature, 9 (1981-1982): 3-26.
Lewis Tuten, Nancy and John Zubizarreta (eds). The Robert Frost Encyclopedia. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2001.
Lyman, Henry (ed). After Frost: An Anthology of Poetry from New England. University of Massachusetts Press, 1996.
Montgomery, Marion. « Robert Frost and his Use of Barriers: Man vs Nature Toward God ». South Atlantic Quarterly, 57 (1958): 339-53.
Muir, Helen. Frost in Florida: A Memoir. Miami, FL: Valient, 1995.
Noël, Bernard. Souvenirs du pâle. Ed. Fata Morgana, 1971.
O'Brien, Timothy D., « Archetypal Encounter in 'Mending Wall' », American Notes and Queries, 24 (1986 May-June): 147-151.
Poirier, Richard and Mark Richardson (eds.). Robert Frost: Collected Poems, Prose and Plays. New York: Library of America, 1995.
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Spencer, Matthew (ed.). Elected friends: Robert Frost and Edward Thomas to One Another. Handsel Books, 2004.
Squires, Radcliffe. The Major Themes of Robert Frost. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1981.
NOTES
1. Richard Eberhart (1904-2005), « Spite Fence », v.17. Nous tenons à remercier Madame le Professeur Aurélie Guillain pour sa relecture attentive et ses conseils. 2. Poème du recueil A Witness Tree (Poirier, 1995, 307). 3. Le choix des quatre premiers recueils de Frost (A Boy’s Will, publié en 1913, North of Boston en 1915, Mountain Interval, en 1916 et New Hampshire, en 1923), s’explique par la riche omniprésence de la thématique du voisinage en leur sein. 4. On se reportera à la classification qu’opère le philosophe Vladimir Jankélévitch dans La Mort (Paris : Flammarion, 1977) au chapitre 18, entre la mort à la première personne (celle du sujet- même), la mort à la deuxième personne (celle de celui qui nous est proche), et la mort à la troisième personne (celle de l’inconnu, annoncée par la rubrique nécrologique). 5. La couverture du magasine américain « Time » du 9 octobre 1950 constitue un exemple de cette association constante, et présente la consécration du cliché littéraire poussé à son paroxysme, l'icône Frost étant entourée de tous ses attributs poétiques : the brook, birches, a stone wall, et le vers-proverbe, devenu sagesse populaire, « Good fences make good neighbors », faisant ainsi la propagande de l'image publique de Frost dans tout son éclat.
RÉSUMÉS
Cet article souhaite reconsidérer la question des liens et des rapports de voisinage au sein de la poésie de l’américain Robert Frost. Ce voisinage, entendu comme l’ensemble des rapports existant entre les personae habitant à proximité les unes des autres dans les recueils, et également comme leurs rapports avec leur environnement direct, est un espace au sein duquel les liens de
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pouvoir et de hiérarchie s’expriment. Emblématisés par la présence de barrières, de clôtures, de ruisseaux, mais surtout de murs, ces liens de voisinage chez Frost disent le désir de construction d’une communauté humaine, mais aussi la recherche désespérée d’une harmonie sociale et fraternelle perdue.
This article wishes to reconsider the issue of human bonds and neighborly relationships in American poet Robert Frost’s works. Such neighborly relationships―understood both as geographical vicinity and (good) neighborliness between the personae in the poems―frame up a space ruled by relationships of power and hierarchy. Physically identified through the presence of natural elements of the New England landscape―gates, fences, brooks, and walls―Frostian neighbourly relationships are the expression of a repressed desire for human community, but also the desperate quest for a lost social and brotherly harmony.
INDEX
Keywords : American poetry, neighbors, neighborhood, vicinity, bonds, community, Walls, New England, Florida Mots-clés : poésie américaine, voisins, voisinage, liens, communauté, murs, Nouvelle- Angleterre, Floride
AUTEURS
CANDICE LEMAIRE ATER Université de Toulouse2-Le Mirail [email protected]
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Laurence Talairach-Vielmas (dir.) Reviews Recensions
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Selene Scarsi, Translating Women in Early Modern England: Gender in the Elizabethan Versions of Boiardo, Ariosto and Tasso
Nathalie Rivère de Carles
REFERENCES
Selene Scarsi, Translating Women in Early Modern England: Gender in the Elizabethan Versions of Boiardo, Ariosto and Tasso (Farnham: Ashgate, 2010), 207 p., ISBN 9780754666202
1 The last opus in Ashgate’s collection on Anglo-Italian Renaissance Studies (dir. Michele Marrapodi), Selene Scarsi’s monograph on Translating Women in Early Modern England, is a successful double endeavour: it reveals deliberate early modern male misreading and mistranslation of feminine figures and explores English Renaissance ‘translatorship’ (3) through the perspective of female characterisation. Scarsi’s book revisits Anglo- Italian literary exchanges during the Renaissance by offering both a varied critical analysis of Renaissance translation based on the major and most recent Anglo- American and European critiques on the subject, and new analytical explorations of three major works of Italian epic poetry and their English translations.
2 Scarsi’s chosen corpus comprises Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso, Tasso’s Gerusalemme Liberata and Boiardo’s Orlando Inamorato for all make female characters essential elements of their poetics. However she also points out that the English translators of these three works altered the specific types of feminine figures found in the Italian texts and analyses their translation method as deliberate misogyny (20–23; 187–90). In her introduction, Scarsi starts arguing the “methodical silencing and denigration of Ariosto’s positive heroines” in Harington’s translation. She uses such indictment as a starting point for her analysis of the erasure of female exemplary figures from English
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translations, or rather of the English translation of women into elliptical or male figures.
3 The first part of Scarsi’s book is dedicated to the largely previously ignored Sir John Harington’s “(Mis)translating Women” in his 1591 version of Orlando Furioso. Scarsi reworks the study of Harrington’s translating methods and offers an enriching comparative view of the typology of female characters Harrington mangled and rebuilt to his own misogynistic purpose. She stresses the “proto-feminist” nature of Ariosto’s poem by relying on Anglo-American as well as European criticism (almost systematically translated or glossed into English), and shows how “in Harington the women only manage to complete the journey when they find an easier, alternative option” (27). She reveals how women are denied any peripatetic success and ontological density and development in Harrington’s translation. Their strength, their wit and even their sensuality is toned down almost to the point of complete ellipsis in this English translation (45–9). Interestingly, she adds another layer to the study of fictional and historical feminine figures and raises the question of literary patronesses and women poets in both Ariosto and Harrington. Thus she traces back Harrington’s methodical “silencing of the accomplishments” of literary women to the well- disseminated cliché in early modern England of the problematic speaking woman and of “the traditional Renaissance association between ‘unbridled speech’ and female unchastity” (70).
4 Scarsi decides in her second part to confront the somehow problematic translation of the feminine to Renaissance translation theory. Leaving Harrington’s misogynistic method aside, she is now comparing the rendering of feminine figures contained in Tasso’s Gerusalemme Liberata in two types of English translations. Relying on translation theory and recalling Carew’s use of transliteration (76–7) and Fairfax’s choice of a moralised paraphrase (77–8), she sheds a new light on Harrington’s sometimes misinterpreted moralising intentions. She shows through the choice of Tasso, whose style she defines as “unjudgemental” (109), that translators could sometimes opt for another type of recreation of female characters through the poetic filter of their own English contemporaries.
5 Drawing parallels between certain choices made by Carew and Fairfax and Edmund Spenser’s The Fairie Queene and Samuel Daniel’s Complaint of Rosamond, Scarsi reveals another form of “mediating influence” (111). The only reproach we could make in these truly enlightening chapters is the loss of the initial argument on feminine figures that become suddenly ancillary to the debate on Renaissance translation theory. One could just regret that the specificity of strong feminine figures such as the Amazons (37–40) is mainly confined to the first part, and that Scarsi tones down this really interesting part of her study so as to move to translating and aesthetic issues in the last section of the book.
6 The second part is the touchstone for the third part of the opus dealing more specifically with the core of early modern aesthetics: “adaptations and imitations”. Reducing the corpus to significant partial translations of the two previously explored poems, Scarsi adds another significant instance of translating negotiations with Tofte’s rendering of Boiardo’s Orlando Enamorato as well as Spenser’s specific partial translation of Ariosto in The Fairie Queene. Scarsi distances her argument from her initial study of the specificity of feminine characters so as to show “the attempt to emulate or imitate creatively as the primary aim form most of these partial or casual translators” (187).
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7 Scarsi’s monograph offers both a clear and comprehensive overview of translation theory applied to early modern texts and enlightening analyses of major Italian poems of the period. The choice of a bilingual presentation of the primary sources, and the clear to-and-fro movements between older and new research on Anglo-Italian relations make this opus also available to readers not specialising in early modern Italian poetry or in Renaissance translation. Extending her comparative study to Scottish and French renditions of Italian epic poems, this monograph constitutes a strongly recommended companion for students and researchers in Renaissance translation, comparative literature and early modern gender representations.
INDEX
Keywords: Early Modern translation, Early Modern poetry and prose, gender, Elizabethan era, Italian poetry, translations Mots-clés: traduction à la Renaissance, période élisabéthaine, prose et poésie des xvie et xviie siècles, poésie italienne, traduction
AUTHORS
NATHALIE RIVÈRE DE CARLES Maître de conférences Université Toulouse 2 – Le Mirail [email protected]
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Diane Waggoner (ed.), The Pre- Raphaelite Lens―British Photography and Painting, 1848-1875
Muriel Adrien
REFERENCES
Diane Waggoner (ed.), The Pre-Raphaelite Lens―British Photography and Painting, 1848-1875 (Washington and Farnham: National Gallery of Art and Lund Humphries, 2010), 230p, ISBN 978-I-84822-067-6.
1 This book is the catalogue of the eponymous exhibit which was held at the National Gallery of Art, in Washington from 31 October 2010 to 30 January 2011, and then at the Musée d’Orsay from March 8th to May 29th, 2011. The book deals with the mutual influences of photography and painting from the 1850s to the mid-1870s, during the emergence of photography as a new art form, and reflects on the ways Pre-Raphaelite painting was shaped by the formal and thematic innovations of photography, and vice- versa.
2 Diane Waggoner, the curator of the exhibition, starts by examining how the supposed accurate reproduction of reality by photography contributed to realism as the century’s dominant visual mode. Hunt’s intention was to try and paint outdoors from direct observation of nature, following Ruskin’s exhortation to painters to pay great attention to minutiae and detail―as he did himself in The Stones of Venice, inspired by his collection of daguerreotypes. The crisply detailed botanical picture became a standard motif, to the point that the Pre-Raphaelites were suspected of copying photographs too meticulously, which, even if it was hardly the case most of the time, shows how the two media were related in the public imagination. Other similarities in the features and effects of Pre-Raphaelite pictures and photographs included flattened relief, organised planar recession, lack of modulation between forms, abruptly cropped field of vision, delineated and hard-edged outlines.
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3 The Pre-Raphaelites were personally acquainted with some photographers, for whom they sometimes sat, or whose photos they used to assist them in completing their pictures. However, William Bell Scott was the only Pre-Raphaelite who explicitly acknowledged the seminal influence of photography on the painters’ attention to the “impartial agency of sunlight” (7).
4 Shaped by their antiquarian interests and initial training in painting, the early practitioners of photography looked to Pre-Raphaelite subject matter and visual strategies as a means of legitimising their medium’s status as fine art. Rejlander, Robinson and Cameron often chose their subjects from the same literary sources as the Pre-Raphaelites (Shakespeare, Tennyson, Arthurian lore, religious texts and modern life) and drew on the same range of expressions and poses for their models, who stood out against the same shallow backgrounds. Photographers such as Cameron aimed at greater gradation of tone through manipulation of focus, so as conform to the poetic strain of the second generation of Pre-Raphaelites.
5 Tim Barringer mainly dwells on the ambivalence of Ruskin’s approach to photography. Ruskin commended the faithful rendering of nature, which photography made possible in a radical manner, but deplored in photography the fact that it was too easy and automated, and did not really acknowledge the photographer’s labor, input and creativity. If the camera excelled in the pursuit of sharp and focused detail―“rejecting nothing, selecting nothing, and scorning nothing”―advocated by Ruskin, he accused paradoxically photography of being too fastidious in its verisimilitude. Nevertheless, Ruskin also likened Turner’s works to some photos, admiring the “misty and faint” blurring and overexposed appearance of the sunshine, and saying the medium’s potential went far beyond the focused restitution of minute details. So it seems that Ruskin was very divided, somewhat afraid of this new and unfamiliar medium―which offered what he was looking for, but perhaps in too novel and radical a way.
6 Jennifer L Roberts, in probably the most fertile and richest chapter, examines the rhetoric of the “Sun-as-author” of photography (heliography) and outdoor painting. The sun’s action, she says, was one of formal, emotional, chemical and botanical decomposition.
7 The parcellation and all-over glittering hues of Pre-Raphaelite pictures tended to compromise spatial recession and create forward-thrusting spatial effects―doing away with Claudian formulas. Pre-Raphaelite pictorial fecundity owed to the biological fecundity of shadow in which throve plant life and ecosystems, now fully represented.
8 The sunlight’s effects on all local surfaces, including its physical toll on human skin, produced a shared emotional state that also broke down the social barriers between the viewed and viewer. Indeed, the blemished complexions of the flirtatious shepherd and shepherdess in the Hireling Shepherd made viewers and critics blush alike, mirroring for an instant the sunburnt redness of the shepherd and shepherdess. These sensory responses in the viewer were enhanced by the general glaring overvisibility, the absence of shaded foregrounds, framing coulisses and other protective devices from the depicted space.
9 The actinism of the Sun (literally ray power) also governed organic growth, thereby linking photographic and botanic experiments. In a self-reflexive manner, the innumerable foliage studies of Victorian photographers “developed through the same
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processes of actinic exposure as the images that captured them”, making the photographer a “harvester of the products of the sun’s actinism” (66).
10 This photographic rhetoric of actinism which breaks down chemical compounds both in photography and botany implied metaphorically the destruction of existing forms to make new ones. But more broadly, actinism confronted viewers with a fundamental misalignment between the natural world and its estranged and alien visual image, in that certain wavelengths acted more effectively on the sensitive paper than others, thereby decentring human perception as the organizing principle of visual aesthetics. A number of strategies were devised to reharmonize with familiar perception, creating new viewpoints, with a high or nonexistent horizon line―so that the blues of the sky were removed―, or close studies to reduce tonal discrepancies.
11 Diane Waggoner’s second essay deals with photographic portraits, approached by Wynfield and Cameron with a greater breadth of tone. They manipulated focus in an attempt to create muted, softer images that emulated the old masters. Lady Clementina Hawarden’s pictures, despite their descriptive clarity, also conveyed a general effect of softness.
12 These portraits share a sensibility and formal correspondences with those of Rossetti and Watts, to whom they were personally connected. The cross-fertilisation between Cameron and Watts is testified by the portraits the two made of the actress Ellen Terry in 1864 and 1865, who was also photographed at that time by Dodgson. Watts sometimes was quite critical of the awkward composition or repetition of Cameron’s photos, but he complimented her on the sculptural quality and the tonal range of her portraits, which he believed was comparable to the use of color in painting.
13 In July 1865, Rossetti commissioned the photographer John Robert Parsons to take a series of portraits of Jane Morris at Tudor House, the painter’s London home. He subsequently used the photographs as visual source for Morris’s facial features, hair and body posture for a series of oil paintings. Despite his admiration for Cameron’s allusive work, as aide-mémoire, Rossetti deliberately preferred photographic readability, which was characteristic of Dodgson’s portraits. Dodgson had reservations about Cameron’s photographs, maintaining that clear delineation was essential to successful photographs.
14 Joanne Lukitsh’s mainly focuses on the opinion of the Pre-Raphaelites about Cameron’s art. Cameron probably met members of the Pre-Raphaelite group through Tennyson or through her sister’s (Sara Prinsep) famous Sunday salon. William Michael Rossetti initially lauded Cameron’s ability to transfigure both the subject matter and the reproducing process itself, which he considered as merely transcriptive. Yet later, he disparaged her fallacious images of groups and her contrived practice of literary titles, with which she tried to imitate the double visual and verbal works of the Pre- Raphaelites. Cameron praised Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s works (Found) for being Italian- like, and he praised hers for the same reason and for her skill in staging models and effects of tone. Most of her works depict women with unbound hair and prominent necks (among which Rossetti’s model Marie Spartali), a typical Rossetti physical type starting in 1859.
15 Britt Salvesen focuses on the Victorian voracious taste for didactic narratives, which they considered as the distinguishing characteristic of British art. Pictures either had enough detail and symbolic allusions to allow for the deciphering of an invented narrative or illustrated familiar texts (Edward Moxon’s publication of Tennyson’s
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poetry in 1857 was illustrated with drawings by Rossetti, Hunt and Millais). Literary titles conferred to pictures a higher status than the genre of portraiture, and also had the additional advantage of giving them greater intelligibility. Galleries and museums were also social places where visitors demonstrated and observed viewing behaviour, modelled by the reviews of critics.
16 Even if both photography and painting borrowed from one another, it seemed that photography would later shake traditional painting to the core, much more so than the opposite. As it supplanted the fine arts in its ability to record minute factual detail, it challenged painting to find a different aesthetic niche.
17 This edited collection is quite welcome since little scholarly attention has been paid to the influence of Pre-Raphaelites on contemporary photography practice, apart from a few books. This thought-provoking book is more pioneering in its focus on a subject which had not hitherto been treated for its own sake, than in the content of its reflections.
18 The fact that it groups chapters written by different authors provides for a welcome diversity of thought, but also means there is no overarching structure. Repetitions between chapters are not rare, and some ideas are evoked in certain chapters which would better buttress arguments in other chapters. Moreover, sometimes a statement in a chapter contradicts what is asserted in another chapter, for instance the Pre- Raphaelite’s use of photography as a practical device to aid the completion of a painting. Furthermore, some chapters are a little piecemeal, with a hodgepodge of examples, and lack demonstrative argument and consistency. In addition, the term Pre- Raphaelite encompasses a vast number of painters in this book, but the contours of this corpus―whose scope varies from book to book―is not precisely defined.
19 As for the material aspect of the book, the book provides a short useful glossary of the photographic processes discussed in the volume and has many large high quality reproductions―including works that are seldom viewed. Unfortunately, the pictures or plates described or alluded to are sometimes on the page, but more often in a separate section, which does not always make for easy and smooth reading.
INDEX
Keywords: photography, Pre-Raphaelites, heliography, Actinism, botany, Stones of Venice (The) Mots-clés: photographie, préraphaélites, héliographie, actinisme, botanique, Stones of Venice (The)
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AUTHORS
MURIEL ADRIEN Maître de conférences Université Toulouse 2-Le Mirail [email protected]
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Logie Barrow, François Poirier (eds), A Full-Bodied Society
Fanny Robles
RÉFÉRENCE
Logie Barrow, François Poirier (eds), A Full-Bodied Society, (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010), 142 p, ISBN 978-1-4438-2118-6
1 L’ouvrage collectif A Full-Bodied Society a été élaboré à partir d’un séminaire de l’European Society for the Study of English lors du congrès d’Aarhus en 2008. Il s’agit de l’un des derniers projets de François Poirier, aujourd’hui disparu, et dont la contribution aux études anglophones, en France comme dans le monde, n’est plus à rappeler. Coédité par Logie Barrow, A Full-Bodied Society entend s’inscrire dans le cadre des études sur le corps en développant une approche résolument interdisciplinaire, convoquant historiens, littéraires et linguistes autour de sujets qui vont du Moyen Age à la période contemporaine (avec une prédilection pour le XIXe siècle).
2 Dans « Body and Society in Pré-Norman England », Maria Eliferova constate que la plupart des études sur le corps portent sur la période moderne, des années 1500 à nos jours, et que très peu s’intéressent au Moyen Age tardif, se basant alors exclusivement sur des textes religieux. Elle choisit, quant à elle, de s’intéresser aux Anglo-Saxons ante-chrétiens, élargissant son corpus aux sagas islandaises. Elle se penche également sur des passages des deux Genèses du Codex Junius, ainsi que sur divers textes littéraires de l’époque, s’attachant ainsi à déconstruire, par l’étude textuelle seule, l’image d’une mentalité médiévale uniforme, envisagée sous l’angle anachronique du dogme religieux. Au terme d’une étude linguistique poussée, Eliferova revient sur la dichotomie chrétienne corps/esprit, apparemment absente des textes étudiés, et souligne la valeur essentiellement sociale, et non sexuelle, d’un corps alors public et respectable à l’opposé du corps privé, objet de honte, envisagé par une certaine tradition chrétienne.
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3 Dans « ‘A Compleat Body of Divinity’ : Visions of Sexuality and the Body in Puritan New England », Astrid M. Fellner s’interroge sur le langage érotique caractéristique de la poésie métaphysique puritaine. Il est, selon elle, indissociable d’une certaine vision du corps qu’elle se propose d’étudier à travers le journal épistolaire de la puritaine Esther Edwards Burr, fille d’un théologien calviniste, rédigé de 1754 à 1757. Fellner rappelle que les Puritains, s’ils distinguent des fonctions sociales exclusivement féminines ou masculines, ne basent pas cette différenciation sur des critères biologiques. Sur le plan spirituel, hommes et femmes ne sont pas vus comme fondamentalement différents : leurs expériences religieuses se distinguent simplement par la plus grande implication des femmes qui ont généralement un rapport plus sensuel et émotionnel à la religion. Cette vision du corps et de la spiritualité change dans la deuxième moitié du XVIIIe siècle, sous le poids de la pensée calviniste, quand les réactions physiques consécutives à l’expérience religieuse ne renvoient plus à la présence divine dans le corps, mais à l’essence du sexe féminin.
4 Dans « Child Abuse and White Slavery in Nineteenth Century Britain », Maria Isabel Romero Ruiz démontre que la pédophilie et la prostitution deviennent des questions sociales primordiales pour les Victoriens à la fin du XIXe siècle. Pour ce qui est de la pédophilie, elle rappelle que les enfants sont progressivement envisagés comme l’avenir de la nation, des êtres dont il faut protéger l’innocence. Les préjugés de classe et la division sexuelle de l’espace social ont pour conséquence un certain oubli des victimes masculines et l’idée que les jeunes filles sont naturellement sujettes à la corruption. Romero Ruiz s’intéresse à trois aspects de la pédophilie en particulier : la législation, les discours légaux et médicaux et le travail de prévention et de réforme, à travers les initiatives des Ladies’ Associations for the Care of Friendless Girls. En ce qui concerne la traite des blanches, elle rappelle l’engagement de Josephine Butler et Alfred Dyer et identifie l’article Maiden Tribute de W.T. Stead comme l’élément déclencheur d’une prise de conscience générale de ce problème social.
5 Dans « Feminism versus Femininity : the Significance of Women’s Sporting Dress in Britain (1860-1914) », Richard Sibley s’intéresse au sport pour mettre en évidence le caractère culturel de différences pourtant envisagées sous l’angle biologique par des sociétés patriarcales comme la société victorienne. De manière générale, le discours médical victorien définit le corps féminin comme essentiellement dominé par l’appareil reproducteur et déconseille le sport aux jeunes filles, afin d’éviter toute déformation des organes sexuels. Sibley contraste ces préjugés, qui institueraient les sports masculins et féminins comme des pratiques différentes et séparées, avec la pratique réelle du sport par les femmes victoriennes de la classe moyenne (les activités sportives des ouvrières n’ont, selon lui, pas suffisamment été étudiées). Il remarque ainsi que, de 1850 à 1900, ces femmes ne portent pas de vêtements spécifiques mais se contentent de leur tenue d’extérieur habituelle, l’essentiel étant de souligner leur féminité en dépit, ou peut-être à cause, du caractère essentiellement masculin du terrain de sport.
6 Dans « Body, Size or Dress Matters : Representation of the Dandiacal Male Body in some fashionable 19 th-century Novels », Gilbert Pham-Thanh applique la narratologie des études de genre aux silver forks novels publiés dans la première moitié du XIXe siècle. Il étudie d’abord le corps du dandy comme un corps à la fois littéraire et social, symbole des idéaux d’élégance et de maitrise de la société patriarcale. Il s’attache ensuite à montrer les limites de cette analyse, en soulignant le caractère marginal et indépendant du dandy qui, quand il ne se perd pas dans un narcissisme égocentrique,
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semble apprécier la compagnie masculine bien davantage que celle des femmes. L’intérêt pour la mode n’étant pas considéré comme révélateur de l’homosexualité masculine dans la première moitié du XIXe siècle, le dandy l’assume pleinement. Pham- Thanh précise enfin que seule une lecture queer peut trouver là les signes précurseurs de la culture homosexuelle et qu’on pourrait tout aussi bien déceler dans ces textes les éléments d’une définition asexuée du dandy.
7 Dans « The Non-Human Colonial Subject : The Importance of Animal Bodies to British Imperialism », Sune Borkfelt examine le rôle des « animaux non-humains » dans la justification de la conquête impériale. D’une part, le projet colonial s’appuie sur la nécessité de protéger les populations autochtones face aux féroces animaux indigènes et, d’autre part, la domestication et l’exploitation des animaux est vue par les Européens comme un signe de civilisation que les peuples conquis se doivent d’adopter. Borkfelt souligne l’importance culturelle de la viande pour les sociétés « civilisées » et termine par ce qui est selon lui la continuation postcoloniale d’une pratique victorienne : l’imposition d’une consommation industrielle de viande à des pays aux traditions culinaires végétariennes, une politique aux conséquences écologiques désastreuses.
8 Dans « English Vaccinal Unworthiness of Democracy », Logie Barrow tente de déconstruire le préjugé, qui a perduré à travers les siècles, selon lequel les britanniques qui refusent de se faire vacciner contre la variole (alors que c’est officiellement obligatoire de 1853 à 1947) sont « stupides ». Les pro-vaccinations de l’époque, qui regroupent une grande partie de la classe politique et du monde médical, avancent alors des thèses eugénistes, se consolant du nombre grandissant de réfractaires en prédisant leur élimination lors de la prochaine épidémie. Barrow remarque que c’est paradoxalement au moment où les masses accèdent au droit de vote qu’elles sont réduites au rang d’indésirables par la communauté médicale. Elle rappelle par ailleurs que, tout au long du XIXe siècle, les vaccins posent souvent des problèmes de confiance relatifs à leur contenu et à ceux qui les administrent, des éléments historiques qui, selon elle, font défaut à la classe politique victorienne comme aux dirigeants contemporains.
9 A Full-Bodied Society évite deux écueils majeurs qui menacent le chercheur de manière générale et l’historien des idées relatives au corps en particulier. Logie Barrow identifie le premier dès l’introduction : il s’agit du choix des sources et de leur décryptage, qui peut fausser une analyse trop rapide, oublieuse des discours idéologiques à la base de toute société normée. Le deuxième écueil viendrait d’un excès de zèle inverse consistant à exagérer la norme là où elle est absente ou divergente, et à tomber dans l’anachronisme. L’ouvrage de Logie Barrow et François Poirier a le mérite d’éviter ces pièges et d’explorer la variété d’approches des études sur le corps en ne s’interdisant pas d’en tirer des enseignements pour notre XXIe siècle naissant.
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INDEX
Keywords : body, gender, sexuality, Empire, society, Victorian Mots-clés : corps, genre, sexualité, empire, société, victorien
AUTEURS
FANNY ROBLES ATER Université Toulouse 2 – Le Mirail [email protected]
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Louise Penner, Victorian Medicine and Social Reform: Florence Nightingale among the Novelists
Laurence Talairach-Vielmas
REFERENCES
Louise Penner, Victorian Medicine and Social Reform: Florence Nightingale among the Novelists (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 193 p, ISBN 978–0-230-61595-3
1 Much social activism went on in the Victorian period, and quite a few social reformers were women. These female social reformers were even fictionalized and satirized, as Mrs Jellyby in Bleak House (1854), Dickens’s obsessive philanthropist who focuses so much on Africa that she forgets to look after her house, children and husband. Florence Nightingale was one of these activists. The nurse who became famous for her involvement in the Crimean War was a highly significant Victorian public figure. Yet, the image of the public figure of Nightingale sometimes appears paradoxical. Nightingale may be the heroine of the Crimean War—the self-sacrificing “lady of the lamp”—, she may embody the struggles for the professionalization of nursing or she may be seen as a fame-seeking opportunist. Penner’s Victorian Medicine and Social Reform: Florence Nightingale among the Novelists does not offer a new biography of Nightingale. It focuses on Nightingale’s public and private writings, such as Notes on Nursing (1860) or Notes on Nursing for the Poor (1861) and analyses the relationship between her writings and the social and medical policies in Victorian Britain, examining the potential influences of the rhetorical and narrative strategies of Condition of England novels, sensation novelists or realistic novelists, whose works denounced the medical, social and economic problems which plagued Victorian society. Nightingale was close to George Eliot, Charles Dickens, and Elizabeth Gaskell, and the influence of her writings may be traced in works by Gaskell, Eliot, Dickens, but also Wilkie Collins and Hesba Stretton. As Penner argues, studies looking at the
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development of the Victorian novel have too often contextualised Victorian realism through connecting narratives and rhetorical strategies to social and political writings by male military, political, medical or philosophical figures, from Edwin Chadwick to John Stuart Mill. However, since the publication of MacDonald’s Collected Works of Florence Nightingale, it stands to reason that Nightingale’s writings and close relationships with key literary, social, political or even medical figures of the period must have been far more influential than generally acknowledged.
2 Nightingale’s combat to explain that germs were not devilish creatures from superstitious tales and legends, and her reformist ideas and methods have so far been underappreciated.
3 In Chapter 1, Penner underlines the power of Nightingale’s writing to influence public beliefs and behaviours through using a sensational rhetoric very similar that that found in mid-Victorian popular narratives. To do so, Penner compares Nightingale’s Notes on Nursing with Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White (1859–60). Nightingale’s Notes on Nursing and the third edition of Notes on Hospital coincided with the rise in popularity of sensation fiction, a literary genre aimed at provoking physical reactions in readers. Interestingly enough, these reactions were closely related to contemporary social or medical problems. Penner shows that Nightingale’s exploitation of the fear of contagion in Notes on Nursing is much closer to the style found in sensation novels than to her rhetoric in Notes on Hospitals. Nightingale believed in the training of women in sanitary science and in the advancement of sanitary principles at home. In Notes on Nursing, she offers readers sanitary guidelines for home management: her female readers must not only see household management as heroic work, but also develop neutral and empiricist modes of observation to perform their home duties correctly. Advocating the model of a detached, empirical observation to fight metaphysical presuppositions about disease, Nightingale’s voice is very close to the narrative voice of Wilkie Collins’s detective, Walter Hartright, in The Woman in White. Because sensation novels aimed to fight criminality by developing rational observation, Penner traces Nightingale’s ideas on household management, contagion, or even the care for invalids, in Collins’s novel, focusing on the narrative technique and on revealing characters, such as the hyperchondriac invalid, Frederick (not Arthur, as argued) Fairlie, whose ideas on cleanliness recall Nightingale’s. Dusting off the language of contagion to dismiss popular perceptions of disease, Nightingale’s sensational rhetoric has a view to raising her reader’s awareness of sanitation issues in the same way as sensation novels were often criticized for being novels “with a purpose”.
4 Chapter 2 focuses on Nightingale’s Poor Law writing which she parallels with Dickens’s and Hesba Stretton’s reformist narratives, since Nightingale was known to have distributed Dickens’s and Stretton’s works to nurses and soldiers alongside her own work. To examine Nightingale’s reformist work and her exposure of the flaws in the workhouse system, Penner looks at Nightingale’s engagement in Poor Law reform and philanthropy from the late 1840s through the late 1870s. Though Nightingale was reluctant to use her public image and disliked many pictures of heroic philanthropy in women, she nonetheless endorsed a few fictional and non-fictional narratives of female philanthropy. These narratives, Penner contends, “[reflect] a calculated strategy on her part to move the public to agitate for the poor in the ways she saw as most effective” (40). Dickens’s and Stretton’s works present two types of philanthropy which appealed to Nightingale: successful individual middle-class efforts at philanthropy and portraits
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of the poor fighting for reform in their own communities. Nightingale disliked portraits of self-sacrificing female philanthropists, much satirized in the press and in fiction, as well as sensational stories recording workhouse conditions, which if they raised public awareness, had however no influence upon government officials. More than inciting individuals to fight for workhouse reform, Nightingale asked for government participation, not so much in terms of public spending but in furnishing the means for paupers to work themselves out of poverty. The type of non-fictional books Nightingale donated to nurses, soldiers and charities ranged from biographies of social reformers to works by women advocating housing, educational or penal reforms in Britain and India (Octavia Hill, Mary Carpenter). In the field of fiction, Nightingale turned towards Dickens, whom she admired and with whom she had worked on the Committee of the Association for Improving Workhouse Infirmaries), and Hebba Stretton, whose works were published in Dickens’s Household Words. Penner looks at Bleak House and Bede’s Charity, and examines their portraits of household managers and at the models of charity which Nightingale believed could reform society.
5 Chapter 3 explores Nightingale’s reactions to reformist ideas in intellectual circles, particularly as revealed in George Eliot’s fiction. Penner fights assumptions about Nightingale which generally see her as advocating women’s suffrage and opening medical education for women, and tries to understand Nightingale’s reaction towards George Eliot’s portrait of Dorothea in Middlemarch. In fact, if Nightingale did not believe that the cause in favour of women having access to medical education should be defended, she nevertheless believed that women could influence medicine. Middlemarch reflects nineteenth-century scientific, medical and philosophical issues, and Eliot was known to have thoroughly researched pathological anatomy and medical theories about disease origins and transmissions. However, the principles of Lydgate’s research counteracted those of sanitary science, since Eliot mocks the relevance of statistics in medicine as inefficient ways of gauging health—worse, medical statistics are even connected to issues of contagion. So Penner argues that Nightingale’s reaction might be explained through Eliot’s view of scientific advancement in medicine: Lydgate works from theories and his views on medical research and practice belittle the importance of sanitary science which Nightingale was advocating, jeopardizing therefore Nightingale’s vision of women’s contributions to the health of the nation through their involvement in nursing and midwifery. In Middlemarch, contagion is never a matter of environmental pollutants, even if Eliot’s irony or sarcasm may cast doubt on what she really meant. Lydgate’s microscopical researches may have been influenced by the development of germ theories in the late 1860s, challenging the single-fever theory (crucial to anticontagionist proponents such as Nightingale).
6 Chapter 4, on the 1876 Madras famine, brings to light the way in which Nightingale attempted to raise British sympathies towards Indian natives through changing the rhetorical and narrative strategies of her public writings about famine in India. Nightingale did not merely try to combat sanitary problems; she highlighted the implication of the Indian colonial government in the production of famine conditions through focusing “her writings of the 1870s on issues of irrigation and exploitative land and money-lending policies” (112). Yet, familiarizing British readers with the lives of the Ryots through mental pictures soon proved unsatisfactory and did not ensure sympathetic identification with the Indian natives. This is the reason why, Penner argues, Nightingale turned towards the narrative strategies of the 1840s and 1850s Condition of England novels and the way they represented urban poverty and epidemic
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disease in industrial England. Penner looks at Harriet Martineau’s and Edwin Chadwick’s influence, explains how Nightingale was also perhaps inspired by travel writers to India in the way she represented the Indian peasantry, and offers close looks at Gaskell’s Mary Barton (1848) to underline the parallels between Gaskell’s and Nightingale’s rhetorical and narrative strategies. In particular, she stresses how Nightingale presents self-help as a form of heroism, ideas which Gaskell had developed in her social problem novel.
7 Victorian Medicine and Social Reform: Florence Nightingale among the Novelists is an original addition to the Nightingale scholarship which sees beyond stereotypical representations of the famous Crimean War heroine. Through looking closely at Nightingale’s writings, Penner offers a portrait of the reformist and makes explicit how she addressed health and social problems by recurrently adapting her rhetoric to her reading public. Though readers should not turn to Penner’s work for a biography of Nightingale, the parallels she draws between her writings and sensational rhetoric and themes or her reading of Middlemarch will not fail to captivate students and scholars interested in such a significant Victorian figure. Despite a few misprints or errors, Penner’s work is a well-researched study which demonstrates how literary culture permeated many other discourses in the Victorian period.
INDEX
Keywords: Victorian medicine, health, social reform Mots-clés: médecine, santé
AUTHORS
LAURENCE TALAIRACH-VIELMAS Professeur Université Toulouse 2 – Le Mirail [email protected]
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Tabitha Sparks, The Doctor in the Victorian Novel: Family Practices
Laurence Talairach-Vielmas
REFERENCES
Tabitha Sparks, The Doctor in the Victorian Novel: Family Practices (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2009), 177 p, ISBN 978–0-7546-6802-2
1 Tabitha Sparks’s The Doctor in the Victorian Novel: Family Practices looks at the trajectory of the figure of the doctor in Victorian literature, examining its evolution from the mid-1820s to the turn of the century. For Sparks, the doctor is, indeed, both a barometer of the evolution of the medical profession and of the Victorian novel. It is, in particular, through the variations of the marriage-plot that Spark traces the impact of the medical figure, oscillating between an index of social class and an embodiment of Positivism and gradually becoming, at the end of the century, an individual unable to experience human emotions. The links between professional medicine and the Victorian novel’s central imaginative structure is thus at the heart of Spark’s study. As she shows, the doctor-character participates in the Victorian novel’s marriage-plot— the marriage-plot encapsulating, she contends, the “essence” of Victorian realism. Consequently, by underlining how personal relations are increasingly subjected to the professionalization of (medical) science, Sparks looks at the impact of scientific and medical ideas in literature, not through the lens of the history of science or cultural studies of science, but through a literary approach to Victorian realism and its narrative conventions.
2 Sparks distinguishes two types of doctor-characters—the doctors of the early Victorian period, ie. in pre-scientific years, and the medical figures preceding the mid-century scientific revolution in Victorian medicine. In the mid-1820s and 1830s, for instance, doctors (physicians) most certainly embodied social status and the Victorian novel highlights their marital eligibility above all (hence hardly using the figure to underline the evolution of medical science). However, scientific and medical developments
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changed the representation of the doctor-character at mid-century, the figure little by little destabilizing the marriage-plot and thus strongly impacting the Victorian novel’s structural organization.
3 Chapter 1, on Harriet Martineau’s Deerbrook (1838–39) and George Eliot’s Middlemarch (1877), compares the two medical figures, Hope and Lydgate, to probe their capacity to fit into the domestic plot. If, for Martineau, the medical figure’s social identification functions as a sure index of his marital eligibility, Lydgate’s scientific ambitions lead to a collapse of his marriage relationship. In both cases, the doctor-character allows the author to trace the impact of medicine on romantic and domestic plots, revealing therefore “a dynamic interface between the public and the private spheres” (25). Hope reflects Martineau’s faith in Positivism and its influence on the novel’s romance while Eliot, though setting her novel likewise at the time of pre-scientific medicine, points out the growing divide between an empirical and scientific perspective and the novel’s structural romantic narrative.
4 In Chapter 2, on George MacDonald’s Adela Cathcart (1864), illuminates the conflict between the literary imagination and rising materialism. Sparks recalls MacDonald’s contradictory and ambivalent vision of science and medicine and his uses of the novel to stress the tensions between the medical (or scientific) and the literary at mid- century, eventually praising the curative effects of literature. MacDonald’s play upon fairy-tale structures and motifs, moreover, most particularly since a fairy tale is embedded in Adela Cathcart, provides evidence that happily-ever-after closures typify MacDonald’s dismissal of the scientific and the medical.
5 Chapter 3 surprisingly compares Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s The Doctor’s Wife (1864) and Elizabeth Gaskell’s Wives and Daughters (1866) as two novels which construct the doctor as a foil to domestic success and marital bliss. Once again, Sparks uses the figure of the doctor-character to look at the way in which literary genres compete against each other, most particularly examining the relations between romance and scientific realism. Though the doctor is eclipsed in Wives and Daughters, Gaskell’s defence of science through the figure of a scientist shows how the marriage-plot is nonetheless reconciled with scientific methods of judgment. This, Sparks argues, not only typifies Gaskell’s denunciation of the doctor as a representative of crippling social conventions, but also proposes a new vision of realism.
6 It is most certainly this new vision of realism that sensation novelists capitalized on, their villains and villainesses more often than not finding modern weapons in new drugs, remedies, medical techniques or methods. This is why sensation novelists’ interest in modern scientific issues and figures is furthered in Chapter 4, which deals with two of Wilkie Collins’s novels—Armadale (1864) and Heart and Science (1883). Collins was famous for using the novel as a territory to map out his society’s controversies, and his plots recurrently bring to light a conflict between “heart” and “science”, especially contrasting romance and the medical. Interestingly, by choosing Armadale (set in the early 1850s and thus before the 1858 Medical Amendment Act) and Heart and Science, Sparks highlights the evolution of the conflict between medical science and love, gradually drifting into a debate more focused on medical methods (moral medicine vs. material science). Indeed, because Collins’s doctor-hero in Heart and Science “resolve[s] the medical and marital plots by both fixing [the heroine’s] body and marrying her” (108), Sparks shows how Collins no longer defines medical materialism as incompatible with love. The difficulty of reconciling the medical with love and romance ultimately
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results from the moral decline of materialistic science, as exemplified by the rise of vivisection and the construction of the human subject as an animal at the bottom of the evolutionary scale.
7 This idea paves the way for Chapter 5 which looks at Bram Stoker’s and Arthur Machen’s “Gothic Medicine”. As a matter of fact, Stoker’s and Machen’s novels (Dracula [1897], “The Great God Pan” and “The Inmost Light” [1894]) feature female characters who fall prey to doctors’ punitive medicine. Medically chastised for their immoral sexuality, the New Women of fin-de-siècle Gothic fiction illustrate the doctor’s new meanings and values. Sparks reads Stoker’s and Machen’s novels against the background of the 1864 Contagious Diseases Acts and their repeal in 1869, and associates the medical punishment with a medicalization of romance: as a New Woman, the romantic heroine must inevitably be subjected to a medical verdict—her sexuality medically supervised for the good of the nation.
8 Lastly, Sparks examines female doctors in late-century fictions. As typified by the novels and short stories of Charles Reade (The Woman Hater [1876]), Wilkie Collins (“Fie, Fie; Or, The Fair Physician” [1882]), Arthur Conan Doyle (“The Doctors of Hoyland” [1895]), Charlotte Yonge (Magnum Bonum [1879]), Sarson J. Ingham (“Hilary; Or, The Amateur Surgeon” [1896]) or Anny S. Swan (Elizabeth Glen M.B.: The Experiences of a Lady Doctor [1895] and its sequel, Mrs Keith Hamilton, M.B.: More Experiences of Elizabeth Glen [1897]), the fictionalized woman doctor from the 1870s to the 1890s fails to render marriage compatible with a medical career. These female doctors’ lack of participation in marriage (whether the writers, like Reade, aimed to help the cause of the woman doctor or to denounce it, as in the case of Yonge) showed how professional success clashed with definitions of successful femininity. In most novels, the female doctor and the wife are poles apart, and either the female doctor chooses to marry and ends her career or she renounces marriage to choose her career (except, perhaps, in the case of Margaret Todd’s Mona Maclean, Medical Student).
9 In conclusion, Sparks gives a last example of the relation between the demise of the marriage-plot and the growing scientific professionalism of the doctor through Conan Doyle’s collection of short stories, Round the Red Lamp (1894) in which love and science cannot be reconciled.
10 Sparks’s study never aims to trace the evolution of medical knowledge and practices, and very few (if any) developments are related to medical science and theories. Instead, her book tackles the figure of the doctor from a literary point of view, and her analysis of the impact of the doctor-character on the marriage-plot offers an original insight into Victorian realism. The question of what “Victorian realism” is exactly remains unanswered, however, and even though Sparks approaches realism in her introduction through the doctor and his intimate access to the patient’s “real”, this analysis is unfortunately not furthered. Still, the range of canonical, popular or less known novels and short stories Sparks examines (and which she defines as “Victorian novels” through their marriage-plots), makes it an interesting study of the figure of the “doctor” and its evolution—at least one that will lead scholars to read more closely the multiple facets of the character.
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INDEX
Keywords: Victorian novel, realism, doctor, science Mots-clés: roman victorien, réalisme, médecin, science
AUTHORS
LAURENCE TALAIRACH-VIELMAS Professeur Université de Toulouse 2-Le Mirail [email protected]
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Fay Bound Alberti, Matters of the Heart: History, Medicine and Emotion
Laurence Talairach-Vielmas
REFERENCES
Fay Bound Alberti, Matters of the Heart: History, Medicine and Emotion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 307 p, ISBN 978–0–954097–6
1 Where is the seat of emotions and has it changed through time? This is one of the questions that Fay Bound Alberti’s Matters of the Heart: History, Medicine and Emotion addresses, in a study that traces the trajectory of the meanings of the heart from the symbol of emotions to an organ subject to pathologies, medical theorizing and specialization. Still, as the book makes explicit, it is the enduring presence of the heart as an emotional organ which explains that the heart remains a problematic figure today, even if, or despite the fact that, neuro-physiology has placed the mind at the heart of emotions. Alberti’s book explores the medical and cultural history of the heart from the classical world to the 20th century, analysing the shifting meanings of the heart, from its construction as a pump by scientific discourse to its links with the rhetoric of emotion that still survives in popular culture. As Alberti argues, if emotions have been studied by the mind sciences, the social sciences or the humanities, very little research has been carried out on the relationship between the heart and emotions during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Her study thus offers a contextualization of the heart, the evolution of its definition and pathologies within the history of medicine, and above all proposes a cultural history of the heart, through famous case studies and examination of physician’s papers.
2 The heart has long been seen as an organ of emotion. The image of the heart as a symbol of affect originates from classical ideas about the body and the mind, the Galenic medical tradition having permeated Western conceptions of the body for thousands of years. In her introduction, Alberti recalls how Galenic principles informed stereotypical constructions of the heart (such as “cold hearted” or “cold blooded”
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people) before the heart came to be conceived as a pump. With the rise of mechanical physiology and after William Harvey’s theorizing on blood circulation, the body was understood as a series of pumps of all sorts. Yet, as science redefined the heart, its cultural meaning as an emblem of emotions was paradoxically enhanced. This is why combining a medical and cultural understanding of emotions is a good means to probe the traffic between science and its culture. Thus, Alberti focuses more particularly on the changing meanings of the emotional heart between the seventeenth and the nineteenth centuries, her study charting the “interconnectedness of heart, mind, body and soul”, revealing “the gender- and class- based analyses at core in the construction of the cardiac patient” (13).
3 In Chapter 1, Alberti explains the status of the heart as an emotional symbol between the classical period and the 19th century. She situates the heart within the context of humoral theories, explaining how the rise of mechanistic physiology in the 17th century (marked by William Harvey’s discovery of blood circulation in 1628) impacted constructions of emotions. As emotions were redefined by physiologists “as a product of sensory perception and material processes” (29), physiological research paved the way for the shift from cardio-centric to neuro-centric understandings of emotional experiences which the book traces.
4 Chapter 2 records a case study to highlight the emotional meanings of the heart within an 18th-century materialistic context: John Hunter’s Angina Pectoris. Linked with emotional excesses, angina attacks were believed to result from rapid circulation of blood around the body which could harm the functioning of the heart by provoking strain on the organ. Hunter’s Angina Pectoris was directly related to a particular event in Hunter’s professional life: his fatal attack took place after a board meeting during which Hunter exhibited anger. The example shows that if Angina Pectoris seemed defined as an emotional disease, stressing to some extent the role of the heart in the connection between mind and body, it nevertheless pointed to Angina Pectoris as a structural disease that secularized the heart and its workings. Because the anatomist’s temper was seen as the cause of his heart disease, the mechanistic vision of Angina Pectoris typified how emotions could disrupt the physical body, hence illustrating 18th- century physiology: blood flow and blood pressure replaced humours, the discourse on hydraulics proposing a new version of the mind-body relationship. This evolving construction of the heart as partaking of a whole discourse on hydraulics went hand in hand with the rise of heart disease as a clinical specialism and of techniques of measurement and standardisation in the 19th century, as Chapter 3 explains. The emergence of new diagnostic techniques, such as mediate auscultation, the first diagnostic tool which enabled physicians to measure and assess heart sounds detected through stethoscopes (or later sphygmographs, sphygmomanometers, electrocardiographs and x-rays) evidences the change in diagnoses and classifications of heart diseases—“the technologizing of the heart beat” (85). Medical specialism in the first half of the 19th century typified the ways in which the functions of the heart were then seen as measurable and quantifiable, pointing to emotions as the cause of structural changes in the heart, from lesions to arterial obstruction. Such views of heart diseases were directly related to the rise of anatomical dissection and the development of pathological anatomy which participated in the scientific framing of the heart. Revealingly, unlike their colleagues on the Continent, British medical
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practitioners remained reluctant to use such technological innovations “in the bedside context” (86).
5 This idea is developed in the following chapter which draws upon Peter Mere Latham’s autopsy of Thomas Arnold. Indeed, in his Lectures on Subjects Connected with Clinical Medicine, Comprising Diseases of the Heart (1845), Latham not only provides a good example of how the influence of emotion on the heart prevailed as a medical belief, but his therapeutic strategies also reveal that the physician did not pay much attention to the measurement and objectification of cardiac symptoms. The analysis of Latham’s work in Chapters 4 and 5 furthers the exploration of the centrality of emotions in understandings of the heart and its diseases in 19th-century discourse. As Chapter 4 highlights, the treatment of Thomas Arnold’s cardiac pathology was directly related to the rise of heart diseases in the second half of the 19th century and the connections that were made between cardiac pathologies and the stresses of modern life. Diseases of the heart were increasingly believed to result from emotional strain. Chapter 5 elaborates further on the work of Latham through his own casebooks which provide good examples of how patients’ symptoms and complaints were recorded by physicians. Alberti looks at the way in which physicians emphasized the significance of the pulse, noting the type of treatment Latham prescribed, from bloodletting and purging to vomiting.
6 Chapter 6 moves away from the accounts in the early chapters of the increased materialization of the heart from the classical period to the 19th century and offers a counter-model to the rationalization of the heart. Indeed, as it was becoming framed by medical theorizing, the heart was also “becoming more sanctified than ever before” (120). Because romanticism emphasized the importance of emotion over reason, the “Romantic heart spoke essential truths about some universal human ˈnatureˈ as well as reflecting traditional beliefs about the relationship between emotions and the divine” (122). Harriet Martineau, a famous invalid whose heart (unlike her gynaecological illness) has so far received little attention, offers a significant example of how the heart continued to be promoted as an emotional centre. Indeed, Alberti explains how Martineau rejected the gendered stereotype of the woman suffering from gynaecological disorders (she suffered from an ovarian cyst) in favour of being identified instead as a heart-disease patient. This choice brings to light the political dimension of the cardiac complaint. Alberti examines the correspondence of Martineau’s physicians (Peter Mere Latham and Thomas Watson) related to her heart disease, showing how Martineau “struggled with medical authorities over the interpretation of her own cardiac symptoms” (132), refusing to relate her symptoms to her gynaecological condition (her ovarian cyst was seen as forcing her stomach into the thoracic cavity, explaining how the action of the heart and lungs could be impeded).
7 Predictably, the last chapter deals with the end of the heart as the seat of emotions. With the development of neuro-physiology emotions were more and more linked to brain mechanisms. As a consequence, the brain gradually replaced the heart as the organ linked with emotions. Thus, the study ultimately offers a journey from pathological anatomy’s disenchantment with the heart to the 19th-century focus on the brain and the nervous system and the redefinition of the brain as an emotional centre. Alberti looks at the developments in anatomy and the mind sciences that changed the roles of the heart and brain and “anticipated the decline of the emotional heart” (141), and refers to the work of the most famous physiologists of the second part of the
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19th century (John Hughlings Jackson, William James, Walter Bradford Cannon, David Ferrier), scientists who specialized in cerebral localization and explained how studies in craniology and phrenology ultimately defined the brain as the seat of emotion.
8 Matters of the Heart proposes a cultural history of the heart, always making explicit the image of the heart as an emblem of emotional integrity, truth and honesty, and the renewed emphasis on the symbolical status of the heart in Victorian literary culture. Alberti’s cultural approach reveals how at a time when pathological anatomy and experimental physiology undermined the Romanticization of the heart, the enduring symbolical meanings of the heart permeated the literary field, acting as a trope for female weakness. The book is a useful addition to previous studies of the heart, notably Christie Blair’s literary analysis of the heart in Victorian Poetry and the Culture of the Heart (2006), calling for further research into the connections between the history of neuroscience and cardiology and their impact on culture.
INDEX
Keywords: cardiology, heart, history of medicine Mots-clés: cardiologie, cœur, histoire de la médecine
AUTHORS
LAURENCE TALAIRACH-VIELMAS Professeur Université Toulouse 2 – Le Mirail [email protected]
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Katherine Byrne, Tuberculosis and the Victorian Literary Imagination
Laurence Talairach-Vielmas
REFERENCES
Katherine Byrne, Tuberculosis and the Victorian Literary Imagination (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 223 p, ISBN 978–0–521–76667–8
1 Why was the Victorian feminine ideal emaciated and consumptive, epitomized by Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s wife, Elizabeth Siddal, aestheticized as she was dying in Beata Beatrix? This is one of the questions that Katherine Byrne’s Tuberculosis and the Victorian Literary Imagination addresses, explaining how pulmonary tuberculosis, or phtisis, a disease which was at its height in Europe in the nineteenth century influenced “the construction of the nineteenth-century social body through its pathologising of the gender, class, and economic and aesthetic status of the individual body” (1). Consumption not only killed more people than cholera and smallpox combined, but it was also mysterious as the symptoms associated with consumption were manifold, and the disease was likely to affect indifferently the brain, skin, lungs or stomach. Interestingly, as Byrne highlights, the disease enabled Victorian writers to create textual tropes, whether in relation to purity or sexuality. Through studies of Victorian novels (or American works of the same period written and set in England, such as Henry James’s Portrait of a Lady [1881]), as well as British paintings, Byrne looks at representations of consumption in both Victorian medical writing and cultural representations.
2 Chapter 1 focuses on nineteenth-century medical discourse on tuberculosis and the percentage of the population affected by the disease. Its intention is to understand not only its social significance, but also its cultural significance, particularly manifest in its appearance in the social problem novel of the 1840s and 1850s. As Byrne makes explicit, physicians used cultural representations of the disease in their medical writings, helping to purvey cultural stereotypes and associations of consumption with enduring
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myths. As she argues, this helped link the disease with ways of life, revealing the role of doctors in controlling their patients both morally and physically (from food restriction —ironically enough since consumptives hardly ate—to physical cleanliness). The way in which medical practitioners emphasized the social construction of consumption was reflected in Victorian novels, which very often played with some of the contradictions inherent in medical texts. The consumptive characters, either embodying saintly spirituality or sexual depravation, were in most cases female characters, phtisis being defined as a female disease while figures do not necessarily provide evidence of this. Still, the links between uterine disorders as pre-disposing causes of pulmonary disorders or the connections between the menstrual period and pulmonary haemorrhage, show that consumption was closely connected with the female reproductive system. It is hard to see the point Byrne tries to make, however, through her choice of novels which were published at very different times, Mrs Henry Wood’s East Lynne (1861–and not 1900 as argued), Mrs Ward’s Eleanor (1900) or Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights (1847), or whether she attempts to trace an evolution in the figure of the consumptive (and in this case the non-chronological order in which the works are analysed is confusing).
3 Chapter 2 deals with representations of consumption in Condition of England novels. Byrne looks at Charles Dickens’s Dombey and Son (1846–48) and Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South (1854–55) and underlines the role disease played in the novels written or set in the “hungry forties”. Consumption might seem to result from deprivation, but was also a disease linked to the higher classes’ excess. In both cases, it was politicised in order to reflect the ills of capitalism: Dickens’s denunciation of consumer society in Dombey and Son hinges upon his representation of the consumptive heir of the family. Dickens plays upon the ability of tuberculosis to disrupt the industrial world: Paul Dombey’s angelic nature is brought out by the disease—a pathological force produced by capitalism. In North and South, on the other hand, phtisis is caused by the lower classes’ working conditions (poorly ventilated factories) and is simultaneously associated with the consumption of luxury goods. Standing for capitalist exploitation or over-consumption, used as a trope for luxury and deprivation, Victorian novelists thus capitalized on the polyvalent meanings of tuberculosis, most especially in social problem novels, since the disease could serve as a “powerful leveller of class” (68).
4 In Chapter 3, Byrne analyses the figure of the consumptive in Mrs Ward’s Eleanor (1900), a novel she briefly compares to Henry James’s Wings of the Dove (1902), which also sets a female invalid against an Italian backdrop. The parallel between Ward’s heroine’s journey through Italy and the disease’s progression within her body enables Ward to use consumption to reflect her heroine’s mental state, thus connecting mind and body to represent emotional unhappiness. Comparing Eleanor with Charlotte Brontë’s Caroline Helstone in Shirley (1849), Byrne explains the links or confusions between consumption and anorexia nervosa as both diseases highlighted a denial of bodily appetites and needs.
5 Byrne then turns to artistic representations of the consumptive woman, drawing on Bram Djikstra’s Idols of Perversity, and situates consumption within the cult of invalidism. As she argues, the female invalid epitomized capitalism: unproductive, draining the household finances, the female invalid reflected her husband’s economic power. Byrne looks at Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s aestheticisation of phtisis through his representations of Elizabeth Siddal. Rossetti, Byrne contends, as well as Siddal,
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probably “manipulated and exploited the transforming power of the consumptive aesthetic for social and economic ends” (96). She then compares Siddal to George Du Maurier’s eponymous Trilby, both women showing the close relations between the cult of invalidism and the cult of the dead woman. Mentioning Charles Reade’s A Simpleton (1886), Byrne also recalls how the wearing of corsetry caused consumption and was denounced by the medical profession, medical practitioners raising young women’s awareness on the need to avoid pathological lifestyles.
6 Chapter 5, on Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897), highlights the relationship between consumption and vampirism. Like other diseases, such as anaemia, cholera or porphyria, vampirism has often been associated with different wasting diseases. However, Byrne shows that Victorian literary vampires exhibit symptoms traditionally linked to consumption, a link that could even be found in real life since victims of tuberculosis were sometimes exhumed to exorcise fears of vampirism. Bram Stoker was not only Rossetti’s neighbour and probably influenced by his opening of Siddal’s coffin seven years after her death to exhume his buried poems (and the discovery of her still- perfect corpse) but he was also known to keep newspaper clippings mentioning cases of death by consumption believed to be cases of vampirism. This may explain why in Dracula the description of Lucy’s death is caught within a pathological discourse more than a supernatural one. Byrne sets parallels with Le Fanu’s Carmilla, even drawing on Thomas Beddoes’s 1799 Essay on the Causes Early Signs of, and Prevention of Pulmonary Consumption and the physician’s description of the consumptive, to bring to light the echo between nineteenth-century medical literature and Victorian literary vampires. The link between these consumptive women and the supernatural figure of the vampire points out the disease’s power to act as a metaphor for mystery and the supernatural through its shifty appearance and meanings.
7 Chapter 6 deals with Henry James’s The Portrait of a Lady and shifts the focus to the depiction of the male consumptive. Ralph Touchett, probably inspired by Minny Temple, James’s younger cousin who died of phtisis, is an effeminate and self-sacrificial figure. Though consumption is in no way a means of aestheticizing him, his sickly body nonetheless brings out his pure soul, James thus capitalizing on the construction of consumption as a “spiritualising disease” (172). Because he is not the main character of the novel, Ralph sheds light on the role played by consumptive characters in canonical Victorian novels, such as Helen Burns in Jane Eyre (1847), serving as foils to the main characters and reflecting “the better half of the central character” (171).
8 However, when Robert Koch identified the bacteria at the root of consumption in 1882, tuberculosis lost part of its symbolical power. There was very little mystery left in the bacterial infection which had yet endowed with so much beauty the ethereal wasting women of Victorian art and literature. In the twentieth century, tuberculosis became instead a symbol of war and a consequence of it, novels playing on the image of the sanatorium in twentieth-century “tubercular” novels. If the first and second World Wars revisited the literary consumptive, the male body replacing the female body and becoming an object of medical concern, invalidism was nevertheless not shown as natural, but as resulting, on the contrary, from a pathological society. In the 1950s, the widespread use of streptomycin put an end to the metaphorical power of the disease, leaving the stage free for diseases that still baffled the medical profession: it was time for consumption to swap place with leukaemia and for images of aesthetic illnesses to be revamped.
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9 Byrne’s tracing of the trajectory of a particular disease and its various symbolical meanings enables the reader to make his way through literary and medical writings of the nineteenth century. Even if the grouping of texts may sometimes confuse the reader, Tuberculosis and the Victorian Literary Imagination is a convincing study of tuberculosis, a disease which is recurrently shrouded in mystery in Victorian novels. More significantly still, Byrne’s study underlines the metaphorical power of disease and its cultural impact and will undoubtedly appeal to students and scholars interested in nineteenth-century constructions of the body and in interdisciplinary research.
INDEX
Keywords: Victorian novel, Victorian art, tuberculosis, medicine Mots-clés: roman victorien, art victorien, tuberculose, médecine
AUTHORS
LAURENCE TALAIRACH-VIELMAS Professeur Université Toulouse 2 – Le Mirail [email protected]
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