all
things full of gods
In this paper I will be looking at the appearance of a
pair of common house flies in the latter section of Comment c’est/How It Is and
show how they, far from being an isolated occurrence, are, like the appearance
of Heraclitus in part 1, a recurring obsession in the works of Samuel Beckett,
first appearing in two poems during the early thirties. But, before tracing
briefly a short history of flies and their appearance as motifs in classical
antiquity, I will then explore their appearance in Ulysses by James Joyce, and
how, similar to Beckett, they would appear to be avatars of demise in affairs
of the heart, unlike in antiquity where they were potent symbols of virility.
This will lead me to explore the poem Alba written by Beckett for Ethna
MacCarthy, with whom Beckett worked alongside of in Trinity College, both
sharing a love of Occitan poetry. Ethna MacCarthy is major figure in Beckett’s
life, his first love, by all accounts, and his lifelong relationship with her,
I will be claiming, has huge significance in the composition of Comment C’est/How
It Is. He started working on the novel only months before she died. This is
an area which is seldom explored by scholars of Beckett, Love, with a capital
L, and Beckett’s own romantic attachments. It is, I will be positing in this
paper, the central theme of Beckett’s most seldom explored and so misunderstood
work Finally, I shall be making reference to the poetry of Arnault Daniel, and
the reference to octosyllables in Commnet c’est/How It Is which will
take us on to Aristophanes, Plato and the idea of sissiparity which features so
significantly in Beckett’s final take on the novel.
The appearance of a pair of houseflies in part two of Comment
c’est/How It Is should come as no surprise, as it is not the first time
that Samuel Beckett was to write of such creatures. As far back as the
composition of Serena I (1932), on a brief stop over in Dublin after a
period of wandering in London[1], the poem, which is based
on Provençal Troubador evening poems according to the notes compiled by the
author and James Knowlson [2], ends with the following
lines.
my
brother the fly
the
common housefly
sidling
out of darkness into light
fastens
on his place in the sun
whets
his six legs
revels
in his planes his poisers
it
is the autumn of his life
he
could not serve typhoid and mammon
Written in French, some years later, just before the
war, Beckett returned again to the theme of the fly, this time writing a whole
poem.
La
Mouche
entre
la scène et moi
la
vitre
vide
sauf elle
ventre
à terre
sanglée
dans ses boyaux noirs
antennes
affolées ailes liées
pattes
crochues bouche suçant à vide
sabrant
l’azur s’écrasant contre l’invisible
sous
mon pouce impuissant elle fait chavirer
la
mer et le ciel serein
The
Fly
enter
the scene and I
the
pane
empty
but for her
belly
to the earth
her
black guts bloody
antenna
crazed wings stuck together
legs
claw-like mouth sucking at the void
slashing
at the azure crushed against the invisible
impotent
upon my thumb she capsizes
the
sea and the sky both serene[3]
The attention to detail, life’s minutiae, is what is
arresting. Knowlson makes the point that during the period when Beckett wrote Serena
I ,for example, he was spending a lot of time in the British museum where
he would have come into contact with numerous exhibits of flies, particularly
coming from ancient Egypt, where they were venerated as symbols of fertility[4].
without
the grand old British Museum
Thales
and the Aretino
on
the backroom of the Regent’s Park the phlox
crackles
under the thunder
scarlet
beauty in our world dead fish adrift
all
things full of gods
pressed
down and bleeding[5]
Curious to see the reference to a creature ‘pressed
down and bleeding’ in the last line which echoes the plight and description of
the fly written some years later.
To return to the flies, and the reference to ‘the gods
in all things’, Pausanias in his Description of Ancient Greece makes two
references to flies when sacrifices were being made to the gods and how sometimes they would kill
a second animal as an offering to what was known as ‘Shoo Fly Zeus’, or
Myiakores, in an attempt to keep the marauding flies away from the principal
sacrifice to Zeus himself, and no doubt their own food. So, already we have
references to both sex and death, in
relation to house flies in classical antiquity. Let us move on now to Joyce and
Ulysses, and particularly in the Lestrygonian chapter in Davey Byrnes pub.
Stuck
on the pane the two flies buzzed, stuck.[6]
Leopold Bloom is contemplating his entire relationship
with his wife Molly, who unknown to him is having an affair with Blazes Boylan.
The scene that Joyce depicts is particularly poignant, as while the two flies
are making love on the wing, in front of the solitary and despondent Bloom, the
entire pub is aware of his predicament and some of the patrons are cruelly
mocking him. It is a form of crucifixion, in that the principal character is
being ridiculed so publicly. It must have resonated particularly with Beckett,
at the time, as during the nineteen twenties, after the books publication (
1922), Beckett was a young student completely ‘besotted’ ( Knowlson ) by a
young woman called Ethna MacCarthy. The year is 1930-1, Knowlson has the
following to say on Beckett’s relations with her at this time.
Occasionally
he saw Con Leventhal with whom he became increasingly
friendly
with at the time. He also saw Ethna MacCarthy. But seeing her
becoming
emotionally involved with Con inflicted sharp stabs of pain on
his
bruised and still tender ego. In August 1931, he wrote two of his most
beautiful
poems, inspired by his love for Ethna. [7]
One of the poems in question is Alba, which
means dawn in Italian. I shall quote it in full.
before
morning you shall be here
and
Dante and the Logos and all strata and mysteries
and
the branded moon
beyond
the white plain of music
that
you shall establish here before morning
grave
suave singing silk
stoop
to the black firmament of areca
rain
on the bamboos flower of smoke alley of willows
who
though you stoop with fingers of compassion
to
endorse the dust
shall
not add to your bounty
whose
beauty shall be the sheet before me
a
statement of itself drawn across the tempest of emblems
so
that there is no sun and no unveiling
and
no host
only
I and then the sheet
and
bulk dead
The notes to the poem, made with the authorisation of
the author, state first that the poem, like Serena I is based on a
Provencal model, and secondly it explains that alba is the dawn which lovers
dread, ‘as they must separate when it breaks.[8]’ The correspondence with
Provencal poetry is the next subject which I should like to treat here, as it
is something which Beckett shared with Ethna MacCarthy, both of them having
studied the subject at Trinity College together. So, to see a reference to
octosyllables some thirty years later, as with the reference to Heraclitus, in
part 2 of Comment C’est/How It Is is surely a point of interest, yet
particularly when we see a similar returning to the subject, and even in
stylistic treatment, of the flies. But firstly to the octosyllables.
moi
rien seulement dis ceci dis cela ta vie là-haut TA VIE un temps ma
vie
LA-HAUT un temps long là-haut DANS LA dans la LUMIERE un temps
lumière
sa vie là-haut dans la lumière octosyllable presque à tout pren-
dre
un hasard[9]
I
nothing only say this say that your life above YOUR LIFE pause my
life
ABOVE long pause above IN THE in the LIGHT pause light his life
above
in the light almost an octosyllable come to think of it a coinci-
dence
What is the significance of this, the reference to the
octosyllable?
Octosyllabic verse is most immediately identified with Provencal poetry of the 11th and 12th centuries in the south of France in what was/is known as Occitania, and whose poetry is referred to as Occitan/Ocitan or simply Langue d’Oc, or language of Oc Interestingly, when Beckett was on the run from the Gestapo, for his involvement with the Gloria cell of the French resistance in 1941, it was to the region known as Languedoc- Rousillon, still known today as Occitanie. Coincidence?
Octosyllabic verse is most immediately identified with Provencal poetry of the 11th and 12th centuries in the south of France in what was/is known as Occitania, and whose poetry is referred to as Occitan/Ocitan or simply Langue d’Oc, or language of Oc Interestingly, when Beckett was on the run from the Gestapo, for his involvement with the Gloria cell of the French resistance in 1941, it was to the region known as Languedoc- Rousillon, still known today as Occitanie. Coincidence?
Provencal poetry, Langue d'Oc if you will, is associated with courtly love, and
the love poetry written by the Troubadours who were given sanctuary by the
local Princes, many of whom had associations with the crusades. Arnault Daniel
is one of the most famous of them, the one who is famously mentioned by Dante
in Canto 26 of Purgatorio. Here is an example of an octosyllabic verse
by Arnault Daniel, as might have been heard in the court at the time, typically
it speaks of a great love.
Anc
iev non l’aic mes elha m’a
Totz
temps en son poder amors
e
fai’m irat let, savi fol
cum
selhui qu’en re nos torna,
I
never held it but it holds me
All
the time in its bail, Love,
And
makes me glad in anger, fool in wisdom
as
one who never can fight back [10]
In an amazing example of such Love, Beckett would
remain friends with Con Leventhal and Ethna MacCarthy, who eventually married,
throughout their lives and he would visit Ethna in her flat on Lower Bagott
Street at her request only eighteen months from her death. She died on May 25th
1959. He was in deep distress. Incidentally, some months before she died, he
was already at work on Comment C’est/How It Is. There is no question in my mind that the
reference to Arnault Daniel and the langue d’Oc is an evocation of his first
love.
Now, before I return to Arnault Daniel, and the other
side to his writings, I should first like to revisit the flies, as I should
like to compare a fragment from Comment C’est/How It Is with the poems
referencing the flies already treated. As I am going to treat all five
fragments, I shall only give them in English here.
E
then good and deep sick of light quick now the end above last thing
last
sky that fly perhaps gliding on the pane the counterpane all sum-
mer
before it or noonday glory of colours behind the pane in the
mouth
of the cave and the approaching veils[11]
The reference to a cave is interesting, particularly
in the context of Vico, and the further reference to Homer which appears nine
fragments later ‘homer mauve light of evening’ (p.115). For Vico, as for Plato,
the cave is synonymous with the giant Polyphemus who is the Cyclops whom
Odysseus had blinded in order to escape from the cannibalistic giant, along
with his men, caves being places of refuge for the giants where they used to
sleep and store their stolen hordes.
two
veils from left to right they approach come together or one
down
the other up or aslant diagonal from left or right top corner right
or
left bottom corner one two three and four they approach come
together
Notice the flies, as with the humans, in Comment
C’est/How It Is appear in fours, and would appear to suffer similar
geometric logistical patterns of movement/behaviour. Is it any wonder than that
three fragments before the appearance of the flies the theme of madness is
evoked. ‘the essential nay folly I hear it murmur it to the mud folly folly
stop your drivel draw the mud about your face children do it in the sand’ (
p.113)
a
first pair then others on top as many times as necessary or a first one
two
three or four a second two three four or one a third three four one
or
two a fourth four one two or three as many times as necessary
for
what for to be happy eyes starting pupils starting night in the midst
of
day better the fly at break of morn four o’ clock five o’ clock the sun
rises
its day begins the fly we’re talking of a fly its day its summer on
the
pane the counterpane its life last thing last sky
And this last fragment then in French.
pour
quoi pour être heureux pour que les yeux dilate les prunelles il
fasse
en plein jour nuit plutôt la mouche de bon matin quatres heures
cinq
heures le soleil se lève sa journée commence la mouche on parle
d’une
mouche sa jounée son étè sur la vitre le drap sa vie dernière
chose
dernier ciel
It is particularly in the last three lines.
la
mouche on parle
d’une
mouche sa jounée son étè sur la vitre le drap sa vie dernière
chose
dernier ciel
we’re
talking of a fly its day its summer on
the
pane the counterpane its life last thing last sky
If we return to the poem La Mouche we are revisiting
very old ground, yet again. The death of a life, a flie’s, the death of a love,
a human’s. For the gods, it would appear to be the very same thing. Is this not
a profoundly Greek idea, on mortality, and the poignancy of life that was
further echoed in the fly text by Joyce in Ulysses?
Glowing
wine on his palete lingered swallowed. Crushing in the
winepress
grapes of Burgundy. Sun’s heat it is. Seems to a secret touch
telling
me memory. Touched his sense moistened remembered. Hidden
under
wild ferns on Howth below us bay sleeping: sky. No sound. The Sky.
The
bay purple by the Lion’s head. Green by Drumleck. Yellowgreen
towards
Sutton. Fields of undersea, the lines faint brown in grass, buried
cities.
Pillowed on my coat she had her hair, earwigs in the heather scrub
my
hand under her nape, you’ll toss me all. Oh wonder! Cool soft with
ointments
her hand touched me, caressed: her eyes upon me did not turn
away.
Ravished over her I lay, full lips open, kissed her mouth. Yum.
Softly
she gave me in my mouth the seedcake warm and chewed. Mawkish
pulp
her mouth had mumbled sweetsour of her spittle. Joy: I ate it: joy.
Young
life, her lips that gave me pouting. Soft warm sticky gumjelly lips.
Flowers
her eyes were, take me, willing eyes. Pebbles fell. She lay still.
A
goat. No-one. High on Ben Howth rhododendrons a nannygoat walking
surefooted,
dropping currants. Screened under her ferns she laughed
warmfolded.
Wildly I lay on her, kissed her: eyes, her lips, her stretched
neck
beating, woman’s breasts full in her blouse of nun’s veiling, fat nipples
upright.
Hot I tongued her. She kissed me. I was kissed. All yielding she tossed
my
hair. Kisssed, she kissed me.
Me.
And me now.
Stuck,
the flies buzzed. [12]
There is a
fragment in part 2 Comment c’est / How It Is which is almost ekphrastic,
in the sense that it is an image which has been fabricated with the help of a
precedent, although in this case the precedent is not a painted image but
rather an image created from another text written over 2 500 years ago in
ancient Greece. But first, here is the fragment from Comment c’est
followed by the author’s translation from How It Is.
tête contre tête fatalement mon épaule droite
ayant grimpé sur ca gauche à lui j’ai le dessus
partout mais contre comment comme deux vieux
canassons attelés ensemble non mais la mienne ma
téte la face dans la boue la sienna sur la joue droite
sa bouche contre mon oreille nos poils emmêlés
impression que pour nous séparer il aurait fallu
les trancher bon voila pour les corps les bras les
mains les têtes ( p.116 )
heads together necessarily my right shoulder
overriding his left
I’ve the upper everywhere but how together like two
old jades
harnessed together no but mine my head its face in the
mud and
his its right cheek in the mud his mouth against my
ear our hairs
tangled together impression that to separate us one
would have
to sever them good so much the bodies the arms the
hands
the heads ( p.79 )
The violence
of the image, or thought, of severing the bodies, in order to separate them is
very arresting. So much so that it recalls the myth of Otys and Ephialtes as
told by Aristophanes in Plato’s Symposium. The mythical
hermaphroditic giants who were so powerful that they decided to crawl on top of
each other to form a chain and assail the gods in Olympus, so that Zeus, having
finally subdued them, decided to cleave them in two, thus separating the giants
into two beings with two distinct sexes, and hurling them apart into different
places on the earth, so that they were condemned to wander, like us humans,
constantly striving for their ‘other half’[13].
Indeed, the
idea of severing is taken up later on in part 3 apres Pim/after Pim with the
extraordinary turn of phrase ‘latrinal scissiparous frenzy’ (frag. 61, part 3),
or ‘latrine frénésie scissipare’ . Scissiparity, or scissiparous, derive from
the verb scission, meaning to divide or split ( OED). So, this idea of
splitting the couples is quite central in Comment c’est/How It Is, and
it is not asking too much of a stretch of the imagination to think that Plato’s
Symposium is the possible origin of the idea. Interestingly, Ephialtes
and ‘Outis’ pop up also in Finnegans Wake in part 3 of Book 3[14],
which is also given over to reason in Vico’s three ages.
But there is
more. The phrase ‘Dieu sur Dieu’ ( Frag. 139, part 2), ‘God on God’, evokes
Ganymede and Zeus, for example. But in the context of Comment c’est/How It
is, with its grotesque sexual humour, it brings to mind ancient
Greek satyr play which playfully used mythical creatures, such as gods, in
compromising sexual situation. Take Euripides Cyclops, for example, the
only remaining satyr play in existence, in which the god of the satyrs,
Silenus, is caught by Polyphemus, the head of the Cyclops, the famous one-eyed
giants, and a subsequent comic farce ensues in which Odysseus appears, having
supplied the Cyclops with wine, parodying the original story as told by Homer, and
Silenus pleads with Polyphemus to spare him. [15]
God wot! it is a clever stock that bears the grape.
Aye, and if thou but swallow plenty of it after a
plentiful meal, moistening thy belly till its thirst is
gone, it will throw thee into slumber; but if thou leave
aught behind, the Bacchic god will parch thee for it.
Ha! ha! what a trouble it was getting out! This is
pleasure unalloyed; earth and sky seem whirling round
together; I see the throne of Zeus and all the godhead's
majesty. Kiss thee! no! There are the Graces trying to
tempt me. I shall rest well enough with my Ganymede here; yea, by the Graces, right fairly; for I like lads better than the
wenches.
What! Cyclops, am I Ganymede, Zeus's minion?
I am undone, my children; outrageous treatment waits
me.
Dost find fault with thy lover? dost scorn him in his
cups?
Woe is me! most bitter shall I find the wine ere long.
Euripides
wrote The Cyclops in the last years of his life, when the young Plato
would have been in his twenties. For Mark David Usher, ‘An awareness of the
extent of Plato’s use and adaption of Satyr lore in the Symposium is
essential for a full appreciation of his philosophy of love, his technique as writer, and the purpose of the dialogue.’[16] Samuel
Beckett, arguably the twentieth century’s most iconic dramatist, was more than
aware of both the works of Plato and Euripides and the tradition of Satyr play
with its emphasis on the grotesque sexual element which existed in ancient
Greek humour, so it really does not take much stretch of the imagination to
imagine that he was in some way influenced by such literary precedents, though
to what degree we shall probably never be able to ascertain. However, the
altogether modern staging of the couples in the novel, whether it is Pim and
Bom, or Bom and Bim, brings another layer of sophistication to the text, and
there are a number of signs which lead me to believe that on top of the early
Greek insertions, borrowed from Plato ( Aristophanes ) and Euripides are the
further presence of Hegel, and in particular his celebrated Master &
Servant dialectic which appears in The Phenomenology of Mind. Why?
Fragments 283 - 286 in part 3 after Pim, I believe, offer a clue.
if it will kindly be considered that while it is in
our interests as tor-
metors to remain where we are as victims our urge is
to move on
and that of these two aspirations warring in each
heart it would be
normal for the latter to triumph if only narrowly
for as we have seen in the days that word again of
journeys and aban-
dons a most remarkable thing when you come to think of
it only the
victims journeyed
the tormentors as though struck numb with stupor
instead of giving
chase right leg right arm push pull ten yards fifteen
yards lying where
abandoned penalty perhaps of their recent exertions
but effect also of
our justice[17]
So, we can
see that the ‘victim’ in Comment C’est How It Is just like Hegel’s
servant, or Bondsman, in that the ‘Master and Bondsman Dialectic’ is more
dependent, or free, than the ‘ Master’[18]or
‘Tormentor’. Karl Marx famously used Hegel’s dialectic to formulate his ideas
on communism which Beckett watched with a keen curiosity throughout his life.[19]
Indeed, the names Bim & Bom are synonymous with Stalin’s Russia, as they
were well known clowns who were extremely popular in communist Russia during
the nineteen thirties[20].
Of course, the elaborate, to the point of grotesque farce, formulations of
statistics constantly being referred to, particularly in part 3, of Comment
c’est How It Is are particularly apt and mocking when one considers the
fact that Stalin himself wrote his own interpretation of Hegel’s celebrated
dialectic, a fact which would not have
gone unnoticed by the ever attentive Beckett.
Finally, to
return Ethna MacCarthy, provencal poets, and in particular Arnault Daniel. How
did the author of a poem like Alba end up writing a novel like Comment
Cest/How It Is? One might rephrase the question, how does a poet go from
intense romance to vitriolic satire? Let us take the case of Arnault Daniel, as
I have made reference already to his other side. While troubadour poets were
being patronised by wealthy princes to write compositions for them on elevated
subjects such as courtly love, they would also write less elevated pieces for
the ears of the locals down in the local tavern, sometimes deriding their
patrons, toppling them from their elevated positions. Satire, in short. Take
the following octosyllable poem by the illustrious troubadour, adopting like
Beckett, many centuries forward, ‘vast tracts of time’, a scatological
tone.
Pro hi agra d’autres assais,
De plus bels e que valgram mais,
E si en Bernartz s’en estrais,
Per Crist, anc no’I fetz que savais
Car l’en pres paors et esglais.
Car, si’ l vengues d’amon lo rais.
Tot, l’escaldera’l col e’l cais,
E no’ l’s cove que dompna bais
Aquel qui cornes corn putnais.[21]
Canello notes, in the
same work, that the anus is compared in the entire poem to a trumpet, akin to
Dante’s celebrated reference in Canto XXI in the Inferno .
ma prima avea ciascun la lingua stretta
coi denti verso lor duca, per cenno,
ed elli avea del cul fatto trombetta.[22]
In this text, I have tried to trace the many complex and
diverse references which act as points of intersection, if you will, to Comment
C’est/How It Is. The more one reads and engages with the text the more one
can see ancient references, particularly ancient Greek which inform the very
specific lexicon of the book, scissiparity and acerbation being but two, and in
particular originating from Plato’s Symposium in which Socrates and
Aristophanes speak on the subject of Love, being asked to define it. Love is
the central theme to Comment C’est/How It Is, I would argue. ‘many is the couple would
be content with it see each other die without a murmur having had their fill’[23] ( Frag. 89, part 2)
Taking Plato as a starting point, the idea of scissiparity which becomes so
central to the novel, the popular notion of the ‘other half’, and reformulating
it into the impossible numerical formulations, in the millions, creating a
Dantesque vision of horror, based also on the Hegelian dialectic, invoking at
the same time communism and fascism, the twentieth century’s two greatest isms,
while at the same time including his own personal experience, his love of Ethna
MacCarthy, recorded in the poem Alba which evokes the figure of Arnault
Daniel and the troubadours of medieval France, and the notion of courtly love,
chivalry, and its counterpoint, satire; all would appear to have their say in
Beckett’s own epic meditation on the four letter theme, making it one of
his most personal accounts, and in screaming capitals, his most violent. Ending
always with the same question, since the origin, of every lover – DO YOU LOVE
ME CUNT[24]. Beckett, in Comment
C’est/How It Is would apparently have an answer. ‘the less you’re there the more you’re
cheerful when you’re there less tears a little less tears a little less words
lacking all lacking’ ( Frag. 12, part 3), which brings us back to the
mathematical formulation, or concept, of 3/4s. Three quarters way there. The
sign of a human. Not quite fully there. The missing quarter.
[1] Knowlson, James: Damned to Fame,
The Life of Samuel Beckett, Bloomsbury, London, First Paperback Edition,
1997, p.162.
[2] Beckett, Samuel: Collected Poems
in English & French, Grove Press, New York, No Date Given of
Publication, p.22.
[3] This translation my own.
[4] For an example of the kind of
exhibits on display in the British Museum at the time, see exhibit number
EA54323, 15 fly amulets, acquired in 1897. See also link to British Museum:
[5] Beckett, Samuel: Collected Poems
in English & French, Grove Press, New York, No Date of Publication
Given, p. 21.
[7] Knowlson, James: Damned to Fame,
Bloomsbury, London, First paperback edition, 1997, p.135.
[8] Beckett, Samuel: Collected Poems
in English & French, Grove Press, New York, No Date of Publication
Given, p. 141.
[9] Beckett, Samuel: Comment C’est
How It Is and / et L’image – A Critical-Genetic Edition Une Édition
Critico-Génétique, Edited by Edouard Magessa O’Reilly, Routledge, New York, First edition in paperback 2016,
pp.92-93.
[11] Beckett,
Samuel: Comment C’est How It Is and / et L’image – A Critical-Genetic
Edition Une Édition Critico-Génétique, Edited by Edouard Magessa O’Reilly,
Routledge, New York, First edition in
paperback 2016,
p.113. This is the edition I will be referring to throughout this paper.
[12] Joyce, James: Ulysses,
Edited by Hans Walter Gabler, The Bodley Head, London, Reprint, 1993, p. 144.
[13] Beckett would appear to be alluding
to this idea of Aristophanes when describing the flies crawling on top of each
other in the passage already analysed in part 2, which is further echoed when
he has humans do it in part 3. The term Beckett uses is ‘acervation’, indeed it
is a further theme to explore in Comment C’est/How It Is and which ties
up with Deleuzes’s ideas on Beckett in ‘L’epuiser’. In fragment 152, for
example, in part 3:
‘whether
four then or a million four strangers a million strangers to themselves to one
another but here I quote we do not revolve’ ( p.159) or in the ‘acervation
of sacks’ imagined in a fragment further on, again in part 3, ( fragment 246) in which ‘a mountain of
sacks’ ( fragment 243) are conjured of the million conjured.
[14] Joyce, James: Finnegans Wake,
Wordsworth Classics, London, 2012.
[15] Euripides: The Cyclops,
Translated by E. P. Coleridge.
[16] Usher, M.D: Satyr Play in
Plato’s Symposium, American Journal of Philology, John Hopkins University
Press, Volume 123, Number 2, ( Whole Number 490 ) Summer 2002, pp.205-223.
[17] Beckett, Samuel: Comment C’est
How It Is and / et L’image, A Critical-Genetic Edition Une Édition
Critico-Génétique, Edited by Edourad Magessa O’Reilly, Routledge, New York
& London, First Paperback Edition, 2016, p.187.
[18] “The truth of the independent
consciousness is accordingly the consciousness of the bondsman. This doubtless
appears in the first instance outside itself, and not as the truth of
self-consciousness. But just as lordship showed its essential nature to be the
reverse of what it wants to be, so, too, bondage will, when completed, pass
into the opposite of what it immediately is: being a consciousness repressed
within itself, it will enter into itself, and change round into real and true independence.”
[19] Scott Eric Hamilton: Marxism and
Irish Communism in Beckett’s More Pricks than Kicks, Samuel Beckett Today/
Aujourd’hui, Volume 27, Issue 1, pages 211-223, 2015.
[20] Bim and Bom were founded originally
in 1905, the duo consisting of Semenovich Radunsky as Bim and various
individuals playing Bom. There was a near arrest in 1918, during the Bolshevik
revolution. But, after splitting up Radunsky revived the duo in 1925 with
Nikolai Viltsak playing the new Bom and they both went onto being awarded the
Honoured Artists of the Soviet Union Award in 1939. See-
[21] Lavaud, R: Les Poesies D’arnaut
Daniel, Líbraire de l’université de Tolouse, l’edition critique italienne
donnée en 1883 par A-V Canello ( La vita e le opera del trovatore Arnaldo
Daniello, Halle, 1883), 1910, pp.8-9.
A
modern French version of the above verse is printed alongside in the above
cited work, and which is the following: ‘ Il y aura bien assez d’autres
épreuves, de plus belles et qui veudront d’advantage, et si Seigneur Bernart
s’est soustrait á celle-lá, par le Christ, il n’a pas un instant agi en lâche
pour avoir été pris de peur et d’effroi. Car si le filet d’eau était venu d’en
haut sur lui, il lui aurait échaudé entiérment le cou et le joue, et il ne
convient pas ensuite qu’une dame baise celui qui aurait corné dans une tropette
puante.’
[23] ‘bien des couples s’en
contenteraient se verraient mourir sans une palinte ayant eu leur compte’
There have been many cmmentators who have made reference to Maldoror, in
relation to CC/HII, this aphorism strikes me as being particularly
reminiscent of Lautrémont/ Isidore Ducasses.
[24] Beckett,
Samuel: Comment C’est/How It Is and/ et
L’image, A
Critical-Genetic Edition/ Une Édition Critico-Génétique, Edited by Edouard
Magessa O’Reilly, Routledge, New York, p.125.
