Beckett and Aesthetics - The Fugal Figure - Watt

Beckett
and Aesthetics: Image and Power

The Fugal Figure: Watt

Maximilian Frederick Herbert
330611901
3145 Words

‘…then silence again, broken only by the sound,

intricate and faint, of the body on its way.’

Samuel Beckett, Watt

In several of Samuel Beckett’s novels the text intermittently enters
patterned sequences that deviate from quotidian linear narrative development
and orderly syntactic construction into repetitious clause sequences that are
turned manifold reflexively upon themselves in interwoven patterns,
demonstrating compositional characteristics similar to fugal musical
progressions or leitmotifs. In Watt (1953) such motifs recur periodically
throughout the novel as if to echo their earlier iterations. This essay examines
discourse concerning the musicality of Beckett’s writing, focussing particularly
on the novel Watt and questioning the extent to which the narrative tends
toward the musical with comparisons to Marcel Proust’s Du côté de chez Swann
from À La Recherché de Temps Perdu1 (1913). Comparison is drawn between
Beckett and Proust’s respective approaches to themes of memory, musicality and
identity. Departure from traditional narrative convention towards pseudo-‐
musicological prosody is suggested as a nascent characteristic typifying
historical passage toward postmodernity, with resulting texts exemplifying
increased inter-‐referentiality; wherein emergent narrative contexts shift in
relevance, affecting characters’ processes of associative identification.
According to Vilhelm Flusser, ‘in the course of the second millennium
B.C… some men tried to recall the original intention behind [images, by tearing]
the image elements out from the surface and [aligning] them [to invent] linear

1 Reynolds, Siân. “Marcel Proust: In Search of Lost Time, general editor Christopher Prendergast.”
(2008).

writing. In doing so, they transcoded the circular time of magic into the linear
time of history [creating] “historical consciousness.”’2 Linear chronology became
the customary order of time. In traditional literature events transpired
sequentially until memories became a feature of the narrated content,
interrupting direct narrative linearity. Memory as a function of narratives
evolved, augmenting presently occurring action with reference to past events.
Linear time came to incorporate elements of cyclic time. Temporality was further
complicated by embedded memory, which added layers of inter-‐referentiality to
narratives in the recollections had by characters within stories. Human facility
for recursive embedding led to meta-‐internalisations, exemplified for example in
the Shakespearean instantiation of the “play within a play” and “dream within a
dream”. Such recursive structures were emphatically stressed in Proust’s epic À
La Recherché de Temps Perdu (1913), about which Beckett wrote his famous
monograph Proust in 1930, which comprises an analysis of the novel in which
‘local disruptions to the linear form of narrative’3 organise the storyline such that
‘the past constantly enters the present, in an interaction whereby each is made
the subject of theoretically infinite revision.’4 The process of past entering
present incorporates memories within memories, lending the narrative
unprecedented discursivity and temporal flexibility. A linguistic capacity for
recursive embedding also enables chronology to be reordered: in English the
perfect tenses allow clause constructions to imply time jumping back and forth
within a sentence. These factors contribute to a language form capable of
incorporating multiple implied temporalities: polychronia tempered by the left-‐
to-‐right reading order, which adheres to chronologically linear conventions.

2 Flusser, Vilhelm. Towards a Philosophy of Photography. p.2
3 Proust, Marcel. In Search of Lost Time, ed. Prendergast. Trans. Lydia Davis, Preface xvii
4 (Ibid.)
Grammatical rules create invisible frameworks that underlie linguistic meaning
construction. Although music has no strict grammar its parameters remain
limited by notational indices that are cursorily denotative; framing sound
according to fixed spacing: notes provide not only annotative points of reference
but also structure that keeps musical sounds apart, without which they collapse
into shapeless noise. Daniel Barenboim asserts that music ‘promises its
development only in order to better hold open the instant’5, while Jean-‐Jacues
Nattiez states in his Towards a Semiology of Music (1990) that ‘there are no
musico-‐harmonic phenomena per se; they are accessible to us only because they
have become the object of a process of symbolization that organizes them,
rendering them intelligible.’6 The scaffolds underlying music and language allow
what Beckett referred to as the ‘text-‐music tandem’,7 where compositional rules
underpinning literature parallel their musical equivalent.
Walter Horatio Pater famously claimed that ‘all art constantly aspires to
the condition of music’,8 arguing that music is ‘a principle towards which ‘the
[other] arts may be represented as continually struggling after’.9 In 1981 Beckett
expressed the comparable belief that music is ‘the highest art form, since it is
never condemned to explicitness’.10 Jean-‐Luc Nancy’s À L’écoute, (2007) features
the statement: ‘the ineffable does not constitute an oversignification, but on the
contrary, a beyond-‐significance… that is not possible to enter and analyze under
any kind of code (except under musical codes, which, precisely, are not semantic,

5 Barenboim, Daniel, Everything is Connected, p.65
6 Nattiez, Jean-‐Jacques. Music and Discourse: Towards a Semiology of Music. Trans Carolyn Abbate,
p.217
7 Bryden, Mary. Samuel Beckett and Music. Clarendon Press Oxford, p.10
8 Pater, Walter. The Renaissance: studies in art and poetry: the 1893 text. Univ of California Press,
1980. p.135
9 (Ibid.), p.139
10 Bryden, Mary. Samuel Beckett and Music: Beckett and The Sound of Silence, Clarendon Press
Oxford. p.30 // ‘Exorcising Beckett,’ Paris Review 29/104 (Fall 1987), 100-‐36 (p.116)
not linguistic, and… not determinable as a “language of affects”)’.11 Nattiez
argued that ‘music cannot be narrative… [that the] idea of musical narrative is a
metaphor’12, whilst for Catherine Laws it is ‘without designative meaning’13.
Literature customarily utilizes semantic linguistic codes to signify scenarios in
which explicit meaning is conjured from narrative descriptions. Beckett and
Nancy’s statements intimate that there remain states beyond linguistic
expression better approached in music. Beckett was known to avoid giving
explanation of his texts, ‘expressing… reluctance to discuss his works or their
meaning’.14 Mary Bryden wrote that ‘in championing the ‘intimate and ineffable
nature’… of music, Beckett [was] implicitly aligning his own compositional art
with that same dynamic of inexplicability’.15
For Jean-‐Luc Nancy the ‘self [is a point of] infinite referral’16: the locus in
relation to which all things are contemplated for an individual, whose identity is
constructed through associative relationships. Proust acknowledges a similar
theory when his semi-‐autobiographical protagonist Marcel asserts that ‘none of
us constitutes a material whole… our social personality is a creation of the minds
of others… in the total picture that we form for ourselves… notions… have the
greater part.’17 Character identity is an essential element of narratives that both
authors contemplate as malleable. As with music, which exists in a ‘permanent

11 Nancy, Jean-‐Luc, À L’écoute, 2007, p.58
12 Robinson, Jennifer. Music and Meaning, Treitler, Leo, Language and the Interpretation of Music.
p.53
13 Laws, Catherine. Headaches Among the Overtones: Music in Beckett/Beckett in Music. Vol.391.
Rodopi, 2013. p.49

14 (Ibid.), p.9
Oxford. p.30 // ‘Exorcising Beckett,’ Paris Review 29/104 (Fall 1987), 100-‐36, p.34
16 Nancy, Jean-‐Luc. A L’écoute, 2007 p.9
17 Proust, Marcel. “Swann’s Way, trans Lydia Davis.” (1913). p.22

state of becoming,’18 identities are realised as characters reflect on experiences.
Nancy also described sound as a ‘renvoi’, meaning return or referral, to silence; a
repeated movement from silence reflexively back to itself through vibration.
Bryden affirms this perception, stating that ‘musical silence… expresses a will to
return as soon as possible to [itself]’.19 In this respect the self is analogous to
musical silence as the ultimate point of return, the construction of self-‐identity
imitating the cyclic cosmogony of sound. It is the point of departure for reflective
thought, as well as the ends to which that thought is directed, seeking self-‐
affirmation. Nancy wrote: ‘a self is nothing other than a form or function of
referral… made up of a relationship to self… [it is] the resonance of a return.’20
Identity and sound are accordingly closely related concepts. Pater argued that
‘music seems to be always approaching to figure’.21 In its ‘perfect identification of
matter and form’22 it offers transcendence, but suggests its realisation as an
unfulfilled arrival at an abstract ideal. In the same way the ‘essential but
differential self’23 constantly changes whilst paradoxically remaining a fixed
point; self as process is a ‘permanent transient’24 comprised of relational
responses, which allude to core identity.
‘Structural analogies have been asserted between musical forms… and the
composition of [Proust’s] vast novel.’25 Proust’s major work represents a treatise
on the position that: ‘only in recollection does an experience become fully

Rodopi, 2013. p.52

Oxford. p.175
20 Nancy, Jean-‐Luc. À L’écoute 2007, p8, p.58
21 Pater, Walter. The Renaissance: studies in art and poetry: the 1893 text. Univ of California Press,
1980. p.134
22 (ibid.),. p.139
Rodopi, 2013., p.59

24 Albee, Edward, Mark Richman and William Daniels. The Zoo Story, Spoken Arts, 1983. p.11
Rodopi, 2013. p.29

significant, as we arrange it in a meaningful pattern’.26 Marcel is attached to
formative childhood experiences that continue to exert influence on him.
Memories provide context that lends significance to the present, developing with
the culmination of information over time. In science this process is known as
‘time-‐dilation’; whereby occurrences are judged against a shifting frame of
reference, modifying their perceived outcome.
According to Francis Ponge, ‘any text at all – whatever it is – carries… a
mental speaking and listening’,27 with an innate bi-‐temporality, as the
accompanying “inner voice” corresponds to the rhythms of text. Memory
connects the present to past experiences, facilitating cyclic orders within a linear
progression. Recurrence of memory generates rhythm and tempo: the pulse at
the heart of music. As such, even written language that is not vocalised has the
beginnings of musicality if its narrative incorporates memory. Proust’s
‘contemporaries… insisted that he wrote the way he spoke’28; elements of verbal
language expressive of reflective experience featuring prominently in his writing.
Catherine Laws posits that ‘many of Proust’s themes follow a… pattern of
development by means of repetition.’29 In her translation of Proust’s Du côté de
chez Swann (1913) Lydia Davis asserted that he was ‘often lavish in his aural
effects… word choice, word order, syntax, repetition of words, punctuation-‐
even, when possible, his handling of sounds, the rhythms of a sentence and the
alliteration and assonance within it.’30 Whilst writing is a fundamentally silent
form of language there is accepted musicality in its suggested sounds. Robert
Frost wrote of the sentence that it is ‘a sound in itself on which other sounds

26 Proust, Marcel. In Search of Lost Time, ed. Prendergast. Trans. Lydia Davis, Preface xxvi
27 Nancy, Jean-‐Luc. A L’écoute, 2007 p.35
28 Proust, Marcel. In Search of Lost Time, ed. Prendergast. Trans. Lydia Davis, Preface xxix
Rodopi, 2013. p.30

30 Proust, Marcel. In Search of Lost Time, ed. Prendergast. Trans. Lydia Davis, Preface xxi
called words may be strung’.31 In Samuel Beckett and Music (1998) Mary Bryden
writes that ‘all of Beckett’s texts… are the product of one who, by his own
account, heard them in advance of writing them’32, while Yoshiki Tajiri states in
Beckett and Synaesthesia (2001) that Beckett ‘thinks of language and literature in
close relation to the… auditory dimensions.’33
Both Beckett and Proust describe efforts at recapturing self-‐identity,
sought through interpretive memory. Like Proust’s Marcel, Beckett’s characters
engage in processes of ‘increasingly solipsistic… obsessive self-‐examination …
[their] obsessive behaviour turning increasingly inward, with external
circumstances gradually stripped down, leaving solitary beings in barren
landscapes’.34 Although Proust ‘devalues dialogue… as worthless alongside the
abundance of the interior life,’35 and was described by Beckett as operating
under an ‘insane inward necessity,’36 their respective introversions work to
contrasting ends; remembrance in Proust and amnesia in Beckett.
In Du côté de chez Swann (1913), meaning derived from memory bolsters
Marcel’s identity with an increasingly strong sense of narrative coherence. This
chimes with Søren Kierkegaard’s famous aphorism that “life has to be lived
forwards in order to be understood backwards”, however Beckett; who in his
dialogues with Georges Duthuit famously argued that ‘there is nothing to
express, nothing with which to express, nothing from which to express, no power
to express, no desire to express, together with the obligation to express’;37
sought rather to suggest culminating meaninglessness. His characters

31 Burrow, David. “Sound, Speech and Music.” (1990). p.42
32 Bryden, Mary. Samuel Beckett and Music. Introduction. Clarendon Press Oxford.
33 Moorjani, Angela. B., and Carola Velt, eds. Samuel Beckett, Endlessless in the year 2000. Vol. 11.
Rodolpi 2001 (Yoshiki Tajiri, Beckett and Synaesthesia, p.180)

34 Laws, Catherine. Headaches Among the Overtones, p.28

35 Proust, Marcel. In Search of Lost Time, ed. Prendergast. Trans. Lydia Davis, Preface xvi
36 Beckett, Samuel. Proust and Three Dialogues with Georges Duthuit.
37 (Ibid.), p.103
understand progressively less as they experience more, the significance of events
growing increasingly ambiguous. ‘Distortions of memory are a constant
preoccupations of Beckett’s work’,38 where, reflecting on experiences his figures
become confused and disorientated; lost in the delirium of infinite re-‐
interpretation. Efforts to understand events lead to arrays of possible analyses,
resulting in collapse of the coherent narrative supporting a given circumstance.
In contrast to Proust’s Marcel, this has the effect of destabilizing identity for
Watt.
‘Deleuze relates the concept of difference to that of repetition… No longer
subject to identity and sameness, but rather to difference and variation.39 Nancy
wrote that ‘the “self” is precisely nothing available (substantial or subsistent) to
which one can be “present” but… the resonance of a return [renvoi]’40, construed
through reflection. Arnold Geulincx advocated reflective self-‐inspection;
‘inspectio sui’.41 Like the mechanistic materialism of his antecedent René
Descartes, his philosophy conceptualised the body as machine-‐like. However, for
Geulincx and latterly for Beckett the narrative-‐self was identified as an inner
point of perception. Description of thoughts, embodied experiences and
surrounding ambient sounds suffuse into one narrative continuity in Watt,
alluding to an internal observer perceiving from where mind and matter
coalesce. In their introversion Beckett’s protagonists perceive from a detached
space within their bodies, Geulincx’s ‘spectator of a machine’.42 Bodies are
partially dis-‐associated, comprising of stimuli external to the spectator. Morton

Rodopi, 2013.p.69
39 (Ibid.), p.27
40 Nancy, Jean-‐Luc. À L’écoute, 2007, p.12
41 Tucker, David. Samuel Beckett and Arnold Geulincx: Tracing a Literary Fantasia, Vol. 10.
Bloomsbury Publishing, 2012, p.20

42 Tucker, David. Samuel Beckett and Arnold Geulincx: Tracing a Literary Fantasia, Vol. 10.
Bloomsbury Publishing, 2012, p.64 (p.133 of Ethics)

Feldman described the ‘unself’43 in reference to his collaboration with Beckett on
Neither (1977), stating that he ‘had to invent… a… detached, impersonal, perfect
type of machinery’44. Although Bryden asserted ‘the importance of music in…
Beckett’s writing, and, in particular [the] ability of the Beckettian mind to think,
play, and hear music at multiple levels within the inner and outer realms of
experience’;45 the customary “inner-‐outer” distinction to which she referred is a
remnant of what Beckett sought to remove. For Beckett, whose novels in part
constituted a ‘comic attack on Cartesian rationality’,46 distinctions between mind
and matter resulted from ill-‐founded adherence to conventional assumptions of
substance dualism, leading him to inscribe a ‘radical revision of subject-‐object
relations’47; a Subjectivism. Similarly, ‘the metaphor of immanent difference
and… analogy with the self [allowed] Proust to develop… the idea of music as an
idealised mode of subjectivity.’48
As memory links present to past, sound relates inner voice to outer
environment. In Samuel Beckett and Music (1998) Bryden quoted Anthony Storr
stating that: ‘Music can penetrate the core of our physical being’49. In Speech,
Sound and Music (1990) Burrows wrote that ‘sound… goes beyond touch with
respect to the perimeter of our skin, and beyond its degree of intimacy… to reach
inside… to attenuate… the biologically still more basic one between within and
without.’50 Bryden asserted that ‘a peculiarly rich role [is] allocated to silence in

43 Bryden, Mary and Catherine Laws. Samuel Beckett and Music: Morton Feldman’s Neither.
Clarendon Press Oxford. p.30 // ‘Exorcising Beckett,’ Paris Review 29/104 (Fall 1987), 100-‐36
p.64
44 (Ibid.)
45 (Ibid.), p.24
46 Beckett, Samuel. Watt, Faber & Faber, 2012. Preface vii Ackerley, C. J
Rodopi, 2013. p.68

48 (Ibid.), p.52
Oxford. p.29
50 Burrow, David L. “Sound, Speech and Music.” (1990). p.21
Beckett’s writing’,51 arguing that ‘musical silence […] is not nothingness; and
indeed it is not only ‘cessation,’ but ‘attenuation’… [it] toys with near
nothingness, on the threshold of inaudibility.’52 Similarly, dis-‐identification of the
body brings about a self-‐construct on the threshold of non-‐existence; a point of
referral that consists of nothing but shifting relations to external stimuli,
embedded within a dis-‐associated form. David Burrows describes ‘an
atmosphere opening out around the moment and around the space occupied by
the body [that] goes where we go, changing with circumstances. At its centre is
the process of integration we call the self.’53
The amnesic decline of self-‐identity corresponds to progressive
disassociation from experience. In the field of psychiatry the term fugue refers
to an episodic loss of awareness of one’s identity in a condition of dissociative
amnesia. In musicology a fugue is a contrapuntal composition in which a phrase
is played by one instrument or part before being taken up by others, repeated
and re-‐patterned; ‘each musical parameter… established within a limited range
of articulations, and… treated as a variable for organisation into different
permutations’54.Beckett constructs fugue-‐like passages according to a similar
procedure of augmented repetition of an initial motif, for example when Watt
attempts to enter Mr Knott’s house:
‘Finding the front door locked, Watt went to the back door... Finding the back door
locked also, Watt returned to the front door. Finding the front door locked still,

Oxford. p.
Oxford. p.175
53 Burrows, David. “Sound, Speech, Music.” p.45
Rodopi, 2013.p.71
Watt returned to the back door. Finding the back door now open… Watt was able
to enter the house. Watt was surprised to find the back door, so lately locked, now
open. Two explanations of this occurred to him... that the back door, when he had
found it locked, had not been locked, but open. And… that the back door, when he
had found it locked, had in effect been locked, but had subsequently been opened,
from within, or without… while he Watt had been… going, to and fro, from the back
door to the front door, and from the front door to the back door… The result of this
was that Watt never knew how he got into Mr Knott's house.’55
The locked door motif becomes a unitary element of text describing a binary
variable of action, before reiterations of the account portray Watt’s reflections on
the sequence of events in which added elaboration does nothing to recover his
lost memory of entering the house. ‘As we hear… formulaic interchanges being
repeated, we become aware that having nothing to say, the characters fall on
what they said before’56. Fugal musical forms that develop from an initial motif
into a pattern of variating elements no longer resembling their original
correspond to a fugal psychiatric state of loss of self and the unsuccessful search
for its retrieval in increasingly speculative reflection.
On page twenty-‐six of Watt the protagonist hears ‘from without… the
voices, indifferent in quality, of a mixed choir.’ Followed by the footnote, ‘1What,
it may be inquired, was the music of this threne?’57 A threnody or threne is a
song of lamentation for the dead. The subsequent text format resembles a
deconstructed musical score; absent of conventional stave or indications of
pitch; annotated with lyrics and musical notes that indicate rhythm. The passage

55 Beckett, Samuel. Watt, Faber & Faber, 2012. (1953), p.26
56 Connor, Steven. Beckett p.283
57 (Ibid.), p.28
juxtaposes dismantled musical convention, implied sound and inferred rhythm,
exemplifying the inability of written language to directly communicate sonic
properties. Shortly thereafter Watt attempts to enter the house. In a subsequent
passage the words ‘mother’ and ‘father’ repeat in binary order shown in Figure.1.
This contemplation of lineage alludes to the earlier threnody in that it makes
reference to generations passed in a regretful lamentation to the dead. It
suggests rhythm and memory, recalling the earlier score as a morbid, jeremiad
remembrance. The implied musicality of the earlier threnody carries through
into the subsequent motifs as if continuing to exert influence, returning to the
protagonist as a rhythmically repetitious template in new contexts. In this way
the text plays upon the innate musical property of resonance: repetitious
resounding sound. Beckett writes that ‘music recalled and adopted in the
auditory imagination does not merely accompany physical action: it has a part in
prompting or determining its nature.’58 The influence of the threne, both on the
protagonist and the narrative, returns periodically as an invisible underlying
framework throughout the novel. Through repetition and variation the fugal
motif allies the text to music in its manner of generating ‘sublime, literally
endless procession… where the future unfurls and is… destined to expand…
indefinitely and to feed on its own exaltation’.59 Cycles of recursive memory are
comparable to the oscillatory propagation of sound: ‘meaning and sound share
the space of referral.’60 The relational self, whilst psychiatrically fugal, exists as a
particulate element of its infinite context.
The pseudo-‐auditory inner voice and auditory memory customarily
correlated to sound are not actively heard in the present; their experiential

Oxford. p.30 // ‘Exorcising Beckett,’ Paris Review 29/104 (Fall 1987), 100-‐36 p.23
59 Nancy, Jean-‐Luc. À L’écoute 2007, p.50
60 (Ibid.), p.8-‐12
temporalities are ambiguous. Music; once referred to by Beckett as ‘perfectly
intelligible and perfectly inexplicable’61, provided an exemplar of a medium in
which the temporal dynamics of a constant state of becoming are emphasized,
suggesting a condition existing ‘ideally outside of space and time.’62 Bryden
writes that ‘there is a sense in which sound… can dissolve all before and after
it.’63 When Beckett writes in his essay Proust that ‘the most successful evocative
experiment can only project the echo of a past sensation’64, he laments the
inability of reflection to access memory in such a way as to restore it to the
present. Lost time remains lost, accessible only as mirage. Yet in Beckett’s
revision of Cartesian dualism, mind and matter are not necessarily distinct;
delineation of stream of consciousness apart from physical action is often
unclear. ‘If by some miracle of analogy the central impression of a past sensation
recurs as an immediate stimulus… then the total past sensation, not its echo nor
its copy, but the sensation itself, annihilating every spatial and temporal
restriction, comes in a rush to engulf the subject.’65 In a world of pure
subjectivity, reflection is no less real than immediate physical reality. Memory
and music can be thoroughly transportive.

61 Beckett, Samuel. Proust and Three Dialogues with Georges Duthuit. P.92
Rodopi, 2013.p.71
Oxford. p.31
64 Beckett, Samuel. Proust and Three Dialogues with Georges Duthuit. p.71
65 (Ibid), p.71
Figure.1
And the poor old lousy earth,

my earth
and my father’s -‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐1
and my mother’s -‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐0
and my father’s father’s -‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐11
and my mother’s mother’s -‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐00
and my father’s mother’s -‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐10
and my mother’s father’s -‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐01
and my father’s mother’s father’s -‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐101
and my mother’s father’s mother’s -‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐010
and my father’s mother’s mothers’ -‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐100
and my mother’s father’s fathers’-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐011
and my father’s father’s mother’s -‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐110
and my mother’s mother’s father’s -‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐001
and my father’s father’s father’s -‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐111
and my mother’s mother’s mother’s -‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐000
and other people’s fathers’ -‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐1
and mothers’ -‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐0
and fathers’ fathers’ -‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐11
and mothers’ mothers’ -‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐00
and fathers’ mothers’ -‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐10
and mothers’ fathers’ -‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐01
and fathers’ mothers’ fathers’ -‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐101
and mothers’ fathers’ mothers’ -‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐010
and fathers’ mothers’ mothers’ -‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐100
and mothers’ fathers’ fathers’-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐011
and fathers’ fathers’ mothers’ -‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐110
and mothers’ mothers’ fathers’ -‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐001
and fathers’ fathers’ fathers’ -‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐111
and mothers’ mothers’ mothers’. -‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐000

Bibliography
Albee, Edward, Mark Richman and William Daniels. The Zoo Story, Spoken Arts,
1983.
Beckett, Samuel. Proust and Three Dialogues with Georges Duthuit.
Beckett, Samuel. The Trilogy: Molloy, Gove Press. 1955
Beckett, Samuel. Watt. 1953,
Beckett, Samuel. Watt. Faber & Faber, 2012.
Bryden, Mary. Samuel Beckett and Music: Beckett and The Sound of Silence,
Clarendon Press Oxford. p.31
Burrows, David. “Sound, Speech, Music.” p.45
Campbell, Edward. Music after Deleuze. A&C Black, 2013
Laws, Catherine. Headaches Among the Overtones: Music in Beckett/Beckett in
Music. Vol.391. Rodopi, 2013.
Moorjani, Angela. B., and Carola Velt, eds. Samuel Beckett, Endlessless in the year
2000. Vol. 11. Rodolpi 2001 (Yoshiki Tajiri, Beckett and Synaesthesia,)

Nancy, Jean-‐Luc. À L’écoute 2007, p.8-‐12
Pater, Walter. The Renaissance: studies in art and poetry: the 1893 text. Univ of
California Press, 1980.
Proust, Marcel. “Swann’s Way, trans Lydia Davis.” (1913).
Proust, Marcel. In Search of Lost Time, ed. Prendergast. Trans. Lydia Davis,
(2008). Preface xxvi
Reybrouk, Mark. “Deixis, pointing and categorization as operational tools for
musical semantics.” In Lecture delivered at the Sixth International Conference on
Musical Signification, Aix-en-Provence (to appear). 1998.
Reynolds, Siân. “Marcel Proust: In Search of Lost Time, general editor
Christopher Prendergast.”
Robinson, Jennifer. Music and Meaning, Treitler, Leo, Language and the
Interpretation of Music.
Tucker, David. Samuel Beckett and Arnold Geulincx: Tracing a Literary Fantasia,
Vol. 10. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2012,

Beckett and Aesthetics - The Fugal Figure - Watt

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Beckett

and Aesthetics: Image and Power

In several of Samuel Beckett’s novels the text intermittently enters

patterned sequences that deviate from quotidian linear narrative development

turned manifold reflexively upon themselves in interwoven patterns,

demonstrating compositional characteristics similar to fugal musical

discourse concerning the musicality of Beckett’s writing, focussing particularly

identity. Departure from traditional narrative convention towards pseudo-­‐

musicological prosody is suggested as a nascent characteristic typifying

historical passage toward postmodernity, with resulting texts exemplifying

increased inter-­‐referentiality; wherein emergent narrative contexts shift in

relevance, affecting characters’ processes of associative identification.

time of history [creating] “historical consciousness.”’2 Linear chronology became

sequentially until memories became a feature of the narrated content,

interrupting direct narrative linearity. Memory as a function of narratives

present incorporates memories within memories, lending the narrative

unprecedented discursivity and temporal flexibility. A linguistic capacity for

incorporating multiple implied temporalities: polychronia tempered by the left-­‐

to-­‐right reading order, which adheres to chronologically linear conventions.

underpinning literature parallel their musical equivalent.

never condemned to explicitness’.10 Jean-­‐Luc Nancy’s À L’écoute, (2007) features

Nancy’s statements intimate that there remain states beyond linguistic

with that same dynamic of inexplicability’.15

constructed through associative relationships. Proust acknowledges a similar

Rodopi, 2013. p.49

17 Proust, Marcel. “Swann’s Way, trans Lydia Davis.” (1913). p.22

differential self’23 constantly changes whilst paradoxically remaining a fixed

responses, which allude to core identity.

Rodopi, 2013. p.52

Rodopi, 2013., p.59

Rodopi, 2013. p.29

‘time-­‐dilation’; whereby occurrences are judged against a shifting frame of

reference, modifying their perceived outcome.

beginnings of musicality if its narrative incorporates memory. Proust’s

Rodopi, 2013. p.30

close relation to the… auditory dimensions.’33

Both Beckett and Proust describe efforts at recapturing self-­‐identity,

sought through interpretive memory. Like Proust’s Marcel, Beckett’s characters

engage in processes of ‘increasingly solipsistic… obsessive self-­‐examination …

[their] obsessive behaviour turning increasingly inward, with external

circumstances gradually stripped down, leaving solitary beings in barren

landscapes’.34 Although Proust ‘devalues dialogue… as worthless alongside the

contrasting ends; remembrance in Proust and amnesia in Beckett.

sought rather to suggest culminating meaninglessness. His characters

Rodolpi 2001 (Yoshiki Tajiri, Beckett and Synaesthesia, p.180)

growing increasingly ambiguous. ‘Distortions of memory are a constant

through reflection. Arnold Geulincx advocated reflective self-­‐inspection;

point of perception. Description of thoughts, embodied experiences and

coalesce. In their introversion Beckett’s protagonists perceive from a detached

Bloomsbury Publishing, 2012, p.20

Bloomsbury Publishing, 2012, p.64 (p.133 of Ethics)

constituted a ‘comic attack on Cartesian rationality’,46 distinctions between mind

relations’47; a Subjectivism. Similarly, ‘the metaphor of immanent difference

idealised mode of subjectivity.’48

Rodopi, 2013. p.68

embedded within a dis-­‐associated form. David Burrows describes ‘an

the process of integration we call the self.’53

The amnesic decline of self-­‐identity corresponds to progressive

and re-­‐patterned; ‘each musical parameter… established within a limited range

of articulations, and… treated as a variable for organisation into different

permutations’54.Beckett constructs fugue-­‐like passages according to a similar

attempts to enter Mr Knott’s house:

for its retrieval in increasingly speculative reflection.

identity. Departure from traditional narrative convention towards pseudo-‐

increased inter-‐referentiality; wherein emergent narrative contexts shift in

incorporating multiple implied temporalities: polychronia tempered by the left-‐

to-‐right reading order, which adheres to chronologically linear conventions.

never condemned to explicitness’.10 Jean-‐Luc Nancy’s À L’écoute, (2007) features

‘time-‐dilation’; whereby occurrences are judged against a shifting frame of

Both Beckett and Proust describe efforts at recapturing self-‐identity,

engage in processes of ‘increasingly solipsistic… obsessive self-‐examination …

through reflection. Arnold Geulincx advocated reflective self-‐inspection;

embedded within a dis-‐associated form. David Burrows describes ‘an

The amnesic decline of self-‐identity corresponds to progressive

and re-‐patterned; ‘each musical parameter… established within a limited range

permutations’54.Beckett constructs fugue-‐like passages according to a similar

The pseudo-‐auditory inner voice and auditory memory customarily

Nancy, Jean-‐Luc. À L’écoute 2007, p.8-‐12

Musical Signification, Aix-en-Provence (to appear). 1998.