Samuel Beckett and the Second World War: Politics, Propaganda and a 'Universe Become Provisional'

207 Pages·2020·2.53 MB·English

by  William Davies

Samuel Beckett and the Second World War
Historicizing Modernism
Series Editors
Matthew Feldman, Professorial Fellow, Norwegian Study Centre, University of York; and
Erik Tonning, Professor of British Literature and Culture, University of Bergen, Norway

Assistant Editor: David Tucker, Associate Lecturer, Goldsmiths College, University of
London, UK

Editorial Board
Professor Chris Ackerley, Department of English, University of Otago, New Zealand;
Professor Ron Bush, St. John’s College, University of Oxford, UK; Dr Finn Fordham,
Department of English, Royal Holloway, UK; Professor Steven Matthews, Department of
English, University of Reading, UK; Dr Mark Nixon, Department of English, University of
Reading, UK; Professor Shane Weller, Reader in Comparative Literature, University of Kent,
UK; and Professor Janet Wilson, University of Northampton, UK.
Historicizing Modernism challenges traditional literary interpretations by taking an empirical
approach to modernist writing: a direct response to new documentary sources made available
over the last decade.
Informed by archival research, and working beyond the usual European/American avant-
garde 1900–45 parameters, this series reassesses established readings of modernist writers by
developing fresh views of intellectual contexts and working methods.

Series titles
Arun Kolatkar and Literary Modernism in India, Laetitia Zecchini
British Literature and Classical Music, David Deutsch
Broadcasting in the Modernist Era, Matthew Feldman, Henry Mead and Erik Tonning
Charles Henri Ford, Alexander Howard
Chicago and the Making of American Modernism, Michelle E. Moore
Ezra Pound’s Adams Cantos, David Ten Eyck
Ezra Pound’s Eriugena, Mark Byron
Great War Modernisms and The New Age Magazine, Paul Jackson
James Joyce and Absolute Music, Michelle Witen
James Joyce and Catholicism, Chrissie van Mierlo
John Kasper and Ezra Pound, Alec Marsh
Katherine Mansfield and Literary Modernism, Edited by Janet Wilson, Gerri Kimber and
Susan Reid
Late Modernism and the English Intelligencer, Alex Latter
The Life and Work of Thomas MacGreevy, Susan Schreibman
Literary Impressionism, Rebecca Bowler
Modern Manuscripts, Dirk Van Hulle
Modernism at the Microphone, Melissa Dinsman
Modernist Lives, Claire Battershill
The Politics of 1930s British Literature, Natasha Periyan
Reading Mina Loy’s Autobiographies, Sandeep Parmar
Reframing Yeats, Charles Ivan Armstrong
Samuel Beckett and Arnold Geulincx, David Tucker
Samuel Beckett and the Bible, Iain Bailey
Samuel Beckett and Cinema, Anthony Paraskeva
Samuel Beckett’s ‘More Pricks than Kicks’, John Pilling
Samuel Beckett’s German Diaries 1936-1937, Mark Nixon
T. E. Hulme and the Ideological Politics of Early Modernism, Henry Mead
Virginia Woolf’s Late Cultural Criticism, Alice Wood
Christian Modernism in an Age of Totalitarianism, Jonas Kurlberg
Samuel Beckett and Experimental Psychology, Joshua Powell
Samuel Beckett in Confinement, James Little
Katherine Mansfield: New Directions, Edited by Aimée Gasston, Gerri Kimber and Janet
Wilson
Modernist Wastes, Caroline Knighton
The Many Drafts of D. H. Lawrence, Elliott Morsia

Upcoming titles
Samuel Beckett and Science, Chris Ackerley
For Alan Railton Wells, in memory.
Samuel Beckett and the Second World War
Politics, Propaganda and a ‘Universe Become Provisional’
William Davies
Contents
List of Figures
Editorial Preface to Historicizing Modernism
Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
1 Beckett and the Second World War
2 Beckett, War and the Everyday
3 Revolution and Revulsion: Beckett and Vichy France
4 Beckett and Irish Neutrality
5 The Language of Recovery: Beckett and France after the Liberation
6 Beckett and War Writing
Epilogue
Bibliography
Index
Figures
1‘Le Juif et la France’, September 1941
2Beckett’s sauf-conduit provisoire, 1942
3Beckett’s maquis identity card, 1944
4‘Marche Noir’, 1943
5Révolution nationale, R. Vachet. n.d., c. 1940
6‘Image d’Épinal’, artist unknown, n.d., c. 1941
7‘Laissez-nous tranquilles!’ (Leave us in peace!), G. Mazeyrie, Té, 1941
8‘Saint-Lô: Bombardement de 1944’
All effort has been made to contact copyright holders where necessary. In some cases, no
copyright holder was found. If this information becomes available, the author would be
happy to acknowledge copyright in future editions of this book.
Editorial Preface to Historicizing Modernism
This book series is devoted to the analysis of late nineteenth- to twentieth-century literary
modernism within its historical contexts. Historicizing Modernism therefore stresses
empirical accuracy and the value of primary sources (such as letters, diaries, notes, drafts,
marginalia and other archival materials) in developing monographs and edited collections on
modernist literature. This may take a number of forms, such as manuscript study and genetic
criticism, documenting interrelated historical contexts and ideas, and exploring biographical
information. To date, no book series has fully laid claim to this interdisciplinary, source-
based territory for modern literature. While the series addresses itself to a range of key
authors, it also highlights the importance of non-canonical writers with a view to establishing
broader intellectual genealogies of modernism. Furthermore, while the series is weighted
towards the English-speaking world, studies of non-Anglophone modernists whose writings
are open to fresh historical exploration are also included.
A key aim of the series is to reach beyond the familiar rhetoric of intellectual and artistic
‘autonomy’ employed by many modernists and their critical commentators. Such rhetorical
moves can and should themselves be historically situated and reintegrated into the complex
continuum of individual literary practices. It is our intent that the series’ emphasis upon the
contested self-definitions of modernist writers, thinkers and critics may, in turn, prompt
various reconsiderations of the boundaries delimiting the concept ‘modernism’ itself. Indeed,
the concept of ‘historicizing’ is itself debated across its volumes, and the series by no means
discourages more theoretically informed approaches. On the contrary, the editors hope that
the historical specificity encouraged by Historicizing Modernism may inspire a range of
fundamental critiques along the way.
Matthew Feldman
Erik Tonning
Acknowledgements
This book would not have been possible without the friends, family and colleagues who have
endured my preoccupation with Beckett’s war years for so long. I am profoundly grateful to
Steven Matthews, who guided the early version of this project as a doctoral thesis and has
provided boundless support for my work on Beckett and beyond. For their encouragement
and kindness, I thank Jim Knowlson, Mark Nixon and John Pilling, from whom I have learnt
so much as Beckett scholars and as friends. I thank Jim too for his permission to reproduce
documents from the Knowlson Collection at the University of Reading and for his help in all
things related to Beckett and the war. I am fortunate to be surrounded by many fine scholars
and Beckett enthusiasts at the University of Reading. My thanks to all of them. I thank
Hannah Simpson, who read the manuscript cover to cover, gave tremendously helpful
feedback and has seen me through its writing with emotional and scholarly support. The
book would also not have been possible without the warmth and friendship of Doug
Atkinson, James Brophy, Gareth Mills, Michela Bariselli, Helen Bailey and Zoe Gosling.
There are countless more people I am lucky to have come to know through Beckett, and I
thank them all.
I thank Stephen Thompson, David Brauner, Conor Carville and Paddy Bullard for their
helpful comments on parts of the book, and Mark Nixon and Andrew Gibson in their
capacity as examiners on the doctoral version of the project. Thanks to those who have
participated in discussions at conferences and seminars over the years where several parts of
this book have been presented. In particular, I am grateful to Mark Nixon and Anna
McMullan for the invitation to speak at the 2019 Beckett International Foundation seminar; a
good portion of Chapter 2 benefited from being aired there. For their assistance on the topic
of Beckett and Saint-Lô, I thank Phyllis Gaffney, the staff at the Royal College of Surgeons
in Ireland, Eoin O’Brien, James Little and Stan Gontarski. For his assistance with Francis
Stuart’s war years, I am grateful to Geoffrey Elborn for his time and kindness. Mark Nixon
and Dirk Van Hulle oversaw the publication of an early version of part of Chapter 4 in the
Journal of Beckett Studies. I thank them for permission to reprint the work. Thanks to
Hannah Simpson in her capacity as co-editor with Megan Girdwood of two special issues in
which parts of this book have appeared in earlier forms: part of Chapter 3 appeared in the
‘Writing Bodily Resistance in World War II’ issue of Twentieth-Century Literature, and a
section of Chapter 6 is derived from an article published in the ‘Global Perspectives on the
Body and World War II’ issue of the Journal of War and Culture Studies. My thanks to the
editors of these journals for their permission to reprint my work here. I thank Edward Beckett
for taking an interest in my research. Excerpts from Samuel Beckett’s manuscript of Watt are
reproduced by kind permission of the Estate of Samuel Beckett c/o Rosica Colin Limited,