Beckett and Sade PDF
Preview Beckett and Sade
R A Much has been written on Beckett and Sade, yet nothing B A systematic has been produced. This Element is systematic by T É adopting a chronological order, which is necessary given the complexity of Beckett’s varying assessments of Sade. Beckett mentioned Sade early in his career, with Proust as a first guide. His other sources were Guillaume Apollinaire, and Mario Praz’s Beckett book, La carne, la morte e il diavolo nella letteratura romantica (1930), from which he took notes about sadism for his Dream Notebook. Dante’s meditation on the absurdity of justice provides closure, facing Beckett’s wonder at the pervasive presence of sadism in humans. B Beckett and e c k e t t a n d Sade S a d e About the Series Series Editors This series presents cutting-edge research Dirk Van Hulle by distinguished and emerging scholars, University of providing space for the most relevant Oxford Jean-Michel Rabaté debates informing Beckett studies as well Mark Nixon as neglected aspects of his work. In times University of of technological development, religious Reading radicalism, unprecedented migration, gender fluidity, environmental and social crisis, Beckett’s works find increased resonance. Cambridge Elements in Beckett Studies is a key resource for readers interested in the current state of the field. Cover image: Keystone Press / Alamy Stock Photo ElementsinBeckettStudies editedby DirkVanHulle UniversityofOxford MarkNixon UniversityofReading BECKETT AND SADE Jean-Michel Rabaté University of Pennsylvania UniversityPrintingHouse,CambridgeCB28BS,UnitedKingdom OneLibertyPlaza,20thFloor,NewYork,NY10006,USA 477WilliamstownRoad,PortMelbourne,VIC3207,Australia 314–321,3rdFloor,Plot3,SplendorForum,JasolaDistrictCentre, NewDelhi–110025,India 79AnsonRoad,#06–04/06,Singapore079906 CambridgeUniversityPressispartoftheUniversityofCambridge. ItfurtherstheUniversity’smissionbydisseminatingknowledgeinthepursuitof education,learning,andresearchatthehighestinternationallevelsofexcellence. www.cambridge.org Informationonthistitle:www.cambridge.org/9781108726832 DOI:10.1017/9781108771085 ©Jean-MichelRabaté2020 Thispublicationisincopyright.Subjecttostatutoryexception andtotheprovisionsofrelevantcollectivelicensingagreements, noreproductionofanypartmaytakeplacewithoutthewritten permissionofCambridgeUniversityPress. Firstpublished2020 AcataloguerecordforthispublicationisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary. ISBN978-1-108-72683-2Paperback ISSN2632–0746(online) ISSN2632–0738(print) CambridgeUniversityPresshasnoresponsibilityforthepersistenceoraccuracyof URLsforexternalorthird-partyinternetwebsitesreferredtointhispublication anddoesnotguaranteethatanycontentonsuchwebsitesis,orwillremain, accurateorappropriate. Beckett and Sade ElementsinBeckettStudies DOI:10.1017/9781108771085 Firstpublishedonline:October2020 Jean-MichelRabaté UniversityofPennsylvania Authorforcorrespondence:Jean-MichelRabaté,[email protected] Abstract:MuchhasbeenwrittenonBeckettandSade,yetnothing systematichasbeenproduced.ThisElementissystematicbyadopting achronologicalorder,whichisnecessarygiventhecomplexityof Beckett’svaryingassessmentsofSade.BeckettmentionedSadeearlyin hiscareer,withProustasafirstguide.HisothersourceswereGuillaume Apollinaire,andMarioPraz’sbook,Lacarne,lamorteeildiavolonella letteraturaromantica(1930),fromwhichhetooknotesaboutsadism forhisDreamNotebook.Dante’smeditationontheabsurdityofjustice providesclosure,facingBeckett’swonderatthepervasivepresenceof sadisminhumans. Keywords:sadism,torture,theRevolution,ethics,politics ©Jean-MichelRabaté2020 ISBNs:9781108726832(PB),9781108771085(OC) ISSNs:2632-0746(online),2632-0738(print) Contents Introduction:TheSadeBoom 1 1 TheGuides:Apollinaire,ProustandPraz 10 2 FromMurphytoWatt:KnottingPathologyandTheology 22 3 Sade’sUnreason 32 4 CommentSade:TheSadeanPedagogyofLove inHowItIs 41 5 Sade’sDarkRevolution 50 6 EternallyReversibleCatastrophes 58 Conclusion:Play,PleasureandJouissance 65 WorksCited 68 BeckettandSade 1 Introduction:TheSadeBoom BeckettkeptakeeninterestintheworksandpersonoftheMarquisdeSadeall his life. Quite late, he became conscious that he had participated in a ‘Sade boom’, dating from the inception of French Surrealism, from Guillaume Apollinaire, André Breton and Georges Bataille to the explosion of Sadean scholarshipinthe1950s.EvenifBeckettrealizedthathehadbeencaughtupin a Sade cult, he never abjured his faith in the importance of the outcast and scandalouswriter,andkeptrereadingSade(ashedidDante)acrosstheyears.1 IwillbeginbysurveyingBeckett’sletterstofindthetracesofhisreadingsand pointouthowanumberofhypothesesconcerningthe‘divineMarquis’evolved overtime.BeckettrevisitedSadeseveraltimes,andheprogressivelyreshaped andrefinedhisinterpretationofwhatSademeantforhimacrossfivedecades. Followingtheevolutionoftheseepistolarymarkersthatculminatedinamore politicalreading,IwilldistinguishfourmomentsinBeckett’sapproach. BeckettknewthedetailsofSade’sexceptionallife,alifethatwasnotahappy one but was certainly a long one, for his career spanned the Old Regime, the French Revolution and almost all of the First Empire. Sade was jailed for debaucheryfrom1777to1790,thenimprisonedforashorttimeattheheight oftheTerrorin1793–4,whichallowedhimtowitnessthemassslaughter;he was freed just before the date set for his execution, thanks to Robespierre’s downfall;hewasjailedagainforhispornographicwritingsundertheConsulate andtheEmpireunderdirectordersfromapuritanicalNapoleon,between1801 and 1814. He died in the Charenton asylum, where he was kept under the pretence that he was insane. The authorities knew very well that he was asubversivewriterbutconsideredhimapornographereventhoughhiswritings weremoreemeticthantitillatingorerotic.AltogetherSadespenttwenty-seven yearsinprison,quitearecordforanoblemanfromanancientanddistinguished family who had never killed anyone. Sade was aware that the imposition of forceonhispassionshadnotrestrainedthem butonthecontrary exacerbated their violence. Indeed, Sade’s scandalous reiterations of perverse fantasies go beyond the limits of what is considered as sayable. Feeling sympathy for this accused martyr who had produced a radical formofliterature, Beckett recog- nizedtheimportanceofthedirelessonsonlove,sexualityandpowercontained inSade’ssulphurousworks. ThefirstmentionofSadecomesfroma1934letterrevealingBeckett’ssense that the Marquis de Sade’s influence had permeated the cultural world of the Dublin intelligentsia, a world in which eccentrics and perverts were hard to 1 SeeEricMarty’scriticalandperceptivebook,PourquoileXXesièclea-t-ilprisSadeausérieux? (2011).ForacomprehensiveassessmentofBeckett’sinterestinSade’sworks,seePilling(2014). 2 ElementsinBeckettStudies distinguish.ThissatiricalmomentcorrespondstotheunpublishednovelDream of Fair to Middling Women, Beckett’s farewell to his student years in Dublin andParis.Itbringsustothemomentofintenseruminationprecedingthewriting of Murphy, when he was elaborating an aesthetic of non-anthropomorphic values.ThiscomestotheforeinalettertoMacGreevyfromSeptember1934; Beckett praises Cézanne for his paintings of Montagne Sainte Victoire, a landscape rendered ‘incommensurable with all human expressions whatso- ever’(2009,222),adding: Could there be any more ludicrous rationalisation of the itch to animise thantheétatd’âmeballs,banquets&parties.Or–afterXerxesbeatingthe sea,theLexicographerkickingthestone&thePenmanunderthebedduring thethunder–anyirritationmoremièvrethanthatofSadeattheimpossibilité d’outragerlanature.A.E.’sGullywouldhavethrilledhim.(Beckett,2009, 223) Here,Sade’s‘irritation’ispresentedasmièvre,whichsuggestssomethingsoft andeffeminate,hardlywhatonewouldexpectfromtheMarquis!In1934,Sade canbecomparedwiththoseIrishartistswhostillappealtoananthropomorph- ized nature, whereas Cézanne’s strength was that he presented it as inhuman. ThisallusiontoSadefollowsanironicalevocationofJamesJoyce,whoseterror of thunderstorms was legendary. Beckett had found in Mario Praz Sade’s statement that ‘L’impossibilité d’outrager la nature est, selon moi, le plus grandsupplicedel’homme[TheimpossibilityofoutragingNatureis,according to me, man’s greatest torment]’ (Sade, 1967b, 281; Praz, 1948, 109).2 This quoteis takenout ofits context; we find it inLa Nouvelle Justine, spoken by Jérome,oneoftheLibertines,theoldestofagroupofferociousmonks.Jérome likesbeingwhippedorsodomizedwhenengaginginhismainactivity,whichis torturingtodeathlittlegirlsandboys.JéromeisoneamongmanySadeananti- heroeswhoallexpressademiurgicurgetocommitcrimessoextravagantthat theywillhavenoequivalentintheannalsofhumandebauchery;theyareready to destroy the whole human race, if not the world. However, here Beckett betrays a second-hand knowledge, for he lifted the sentence from Praz’s The RomanticAgony. Atthetime,Prazwasdevelopingagroundbreakingconceptofdecadencethat tookSadeasthehiddensourcebothofadarkerneo-GothicRomanticismandof an enervated and affected late Symbolism (Praz, 1948, 107).3 Praz finished writing his book in 1930, just when Maurice Heine was publishing the first 2 LaNouvelleJustineisanexpandedversion,publishedin1797,ofJustine,oulesmalheursdela vertufrom1791.Unlessotherwisenoted,alltranslationsaretheauthor’sown. 3 PrazattributesthissentencetoSadeandnottothecharacterwhoutteredit,Jérome. BeckettandSade 3 scholarlyeditionofoneofSade’sworks,Justine.BeckettreadPraz’sbookin Italian,ashisnotesintheDreamNotebookreveal(Beckett,1999,45).4Hewas attractedtoitschapteronSadenotonlybecauseitquotesSadeinFrenchand quiteextensively,butalsobecausePrazestablishesadirectlinkbetweenSade andProust,whichgaveusefultipstoBeckettatthetimewhenhewaswriting his monograph Proust (1970; published 1931). Like Praz, Beckett had been impressedbythenumerouspassagesdevotedto‘sadism’inProust’sRecherche, and his book highlighted the startling absence of moral condemnation of any formof‘perversion’. Intheletter,thetoneismocking,almostsarcastic.Sade’sdestructivefuryis reducedtoaninsanerageatnature,afrustratedwishtobeonewithelemental destructivity.ThislookedimmaturetoBeckettin1934,preciselywhenhewas takingsomedistancebothfromtheDublinaesthetesandfromhismainartistic mentor,Joyce.TheSadeandriveremindshimofthepleasuretakenbyLeonardo da Vinci in disfazione, a term mentioned in his Proust (Beckett, 1970, 31). Disfazioneor‘decreation’impliestheartist’senjoymentofdestruction,whether itbeinNatureorinman-madecatastrophes.Thistendencyappeared,asBeckett found out later, in the works of André Masson and Georges Bataille. Indeed, after World War II, he would mock Bataille’s proclivity for ‘all-purpose disaster’.5 In the 1934 letter, the allusion to Sade segues into an ironical remark on a kitschy painting by George Russell, a.k.a. AE, whose Seascape: The Gully was part of the Hugh Lane bequest in the Dublin museum. If the adjective mièvre(simpering)hardlyqualifieswhendealingwithSade’smurderousfren- ziesinJustine,itismorefittingfacingAE’sdaub,inwhichtwowomenseated onarockenjoythewildsurgeofthesurf.Whilethesatiricaltonereappearsin otherevocationsofSadeinDream,inthepassagestowhichIwillreturn,the remarkbetraysBeckett’slackoffamiliaritywithSade’sworks. Inasecondperiod,BeckettbeganconsideringSade’stextsmorecloselyand with the idea of a serious task ahead, which included translation but also scholarlyglosses.Thetaskwasforcedonhimwhenhewasgiventheofferby JackKahanetotranslateSade’smostshockingbook,The120DaysofSodom. Beckett was tempted for many reasons, and in February 1938, he pondered whethertotranslateit,askingGeorgeReaveyforadvice: 4 Beckett quotes ‘Nastàja Filippovna’, a character in Dostoyevsky’s The Idiot, using Praz’s spelling, whereas the English version was ‘Nastasia’. This proves that Beckett read Praz in Italian,inthefirstedition,justpublishedthen. 5 Beckettusestheamusingexpression‘désastreàtoutfaire’inanundatedletterof1950toGeorges Duthuit(2011,186).IhavediscussedtheirgrowingdisagreementinThink,Pig!(Rabaté,2016, 76–91). 4 ElementsinBeckettStudies Iwishverymuchyouwereheretoadvisemeabouttranslation(ofSade’s120 Days for Jack Kahane). I should like very much to do it, & the terms are moderately satisfactory, but don’t know what effect it wd. have on my lit. situationinEnglandorhowitmightprejudicefuturepublicationsofmyown there. The surface is of an unheard of obscenity & not 1 in 100 will find literatureinthepornography,orbeneaththepornography,letaloneoneofthe capitalworksofthe18thcentury,whichitisforme.(Beckett,2009,604) On11February1938,shortlyafterastayinahospitalafterhehadbeenstabbed near the heart, he still hesitated, even if the proposition appealed to him. He mentionshislong-standinginterestinSade:‘ThoughIaminterestedinSade& havebeenforalongtime,andwantthemoneybadly,Iwouldreallyrathernot’ (605,n4).HeproceededtoformulatehismostoriginalstatementaboutSadein anotherletter: [JackKahane]agreedtothefollowingconditions:1.ThatIshallwritethe preface.2.ThatIshouldbepaid150frper1000wordsirrespectiveofrateof £.(...)Ihaveread1st&3rdvols.ofFrenchedition.Theobscenityofsurface isindescribable.Nothingcouldbelesspornographical.Itfillsmewithakind of metaphysical ecstasy. The composition is extraordinary, as rigorous as Dante’s. If the dispassionate statement of 600 ‘passions’ is Puritan and acompleteabsenceofsatirejuvenalesque,thenitis,asyousay,puritanical & juvenalesque. You would loathe it whether or no. (21 February 1938; Beckett,2009,607) BeckettalludestotheplanofSade’sdarkestandmosthauntingnovel,The120 DaysofSodom,afrenziedbookwritteninthirty-sevendaysin1785whilehe wasimprisonedintheBastille.Sadewroteitonpagesgluedtogetherinahuge reelandinaminutescript.Despitetheseprecautions,Sadewasforcedtoleave hiscell,andlostthemanuscript;helamenteditsdisappearanceallhislife.The manuscriptwastoresurfaceonlyin1904,whenitwaspublishedbyaGerman scholar.AfterhavingbeentheobjectofferociouslegalbattlesbetweenFrench and Swiss institutions, it is now kept in Paris, and has been shown several times.6 It was called a bande by Sade, with a pun on bander (to have an erection),whichmayhavesuggestedtheFrenchtitleofKrapp’sLastTape,La dernièrebande. InSade’sGothicdystopia,fourrichlibertinesdecidetospendfourmonthsin a secluded castle in the Black Forest in order to act out their most violent fantasies. The Castle ofSilling resembles Sade’scastle of La Coste, to which IwillreturninthecontextofBeckett’sstayinnearbyRoussillonduringthewar. TheLibertinestakewiththem fouroldbawdswhoactasnarrators forscenes 6 ItwasoneoftheattractionsondisplayattheshowL’EnferdelaBibliothèque:Erosausecret, BibliothèquenationaledeFrance,siteFrançois-Mitterrand,4December2007to31March2008.
The list of books you might like
