Chronology 1906–1929

Image not available in HTML version

James JoyceParis

Here is the latest insertion. I think it might follow the passage which treats of form as a concretion of content. I have succeeded in combining the three points in a more or less reasonable paragraph.¹

I tried a bookshop to-day for Grimm, but found nothing that would please you.² However there are plenty more.

Will you remember me to M^rs Joyce and Giorgio & Lucia?³

ALS; 1 leaf, 1 side; NjP, Sylvia Beach Papers, C0108/138/1.

1 SB refers to “Dante . . . Bruno. Vico . . Joyce,” an essay commissioned by James Joyce* (1882–1941) on his Work in Progress (published in 1939 as Finnegans Wake); SB’s essay was prepared for Our Exagmination Round His Factification for Incamination of Work in Progress, a collection of essays intended to suggest the fundamental design of Work in Progress, which was then appearing only in extracts ([Paris: Shakespeare and Company, 1929] 1–22; hereafter Our Exagmination).

Although SB’s essay first appeared in transition (16–17 [June 1929] 242–253), it was set from proofs of the book. On 25 April 1929, Eugene Jolas* (1894–1952), founder and Editor of transition* (April 1927–1938), wrote to Sylvia Beach* (née Nancy Woodbridge Beach, 1887–1962), the publisher of Our Exagmination, to request the proof of SB’s essay: “Mr. Joyce would like to have it published in the next number of Transition. It is a very brilliant exegesis” (NjP, Sylvia Beach Papers, C0108/138/1; discussion of the dating: Maria Jolas to James Knowlson, BIF, UoR, MS 1277/1/2/28, and Records of Expenses for Our Exagmination, NjP, Sylvia Beach Papers, C0108/138/3).

No manuscript showing the additional paragraph has been found; this paragraph may well have been inserted before a proof copy was given to transition. Comparison between the essay as published by transition and by Shakespeare and Company shows

2 Although Joyce alludes to Grimm’s Fairy Tales and Grimm’s Law in Finnegans Wake, it is not known which of the works of the German mythologists and philologists Jakob Ludwig Carl Grimm (1785–1863) and his brother Wilhelm Carl Grimm (1786–1859) Joyce had requested.

3 James Joyce’s wife Nora (née Barnacle, 1884–1951), son Giorgio* (1905–1976) and daughter Lucia* (1907–1982).

James JoyceParis

The text is:

ἐκπορεύομενον [for ἐκπορευόμενον]

παρα πατρος¹

The infinitive:

ἐκπορεύεσθαι²

The substantive

το + Infinitive³

ALS (pneu); 1 leaf, 2 sides; to James Joyce, Rue de Grenelle 19 (Square Robiac), Paris VII; pm 12:55, 26-4-29, Paris; pm received 13:00, 26-4-29, Paris; NBuU; previous publication: Patricia Hutchins, James Joyce’s World (London: Methuen and Co., 1957) 169 (facsimile), and Hugh Kenner, The Pound Era (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971; rpt. London: Pimlico, 1991) 102. Dating: from pm on pneumatique.

1 Beckett wrote to Patricia Hutchins Graecen (1911–1985) on 25 April 1954: “I fear I have no recollection of that note to Joyce and can shed no light on it” (TCD, MS 4098/11).

The source of the text that SB sends to Joyce is not certain. The Greek phrase “ἐκπορευόμενον παρα πατρος” (ekporeuomenon para patros [proceeding from the Father]) alludes to John 15:26, and is central to the Filioque debate that divided

2 “ἐκπορεύεσθαι” (ekporeuesthai [to proceed]).

3 “τo” (to: [the]).

Ernest Vessiot, Ecole Normale Supérieure Paris

Je vous écris dans l’espoir que vous voudrez bien ratifier mon désir de passer l’année scolaire prochaine à l’Ecole comme lecteur d’Anglais.²

Mon travail personnel sera la préparation d’une thèse pour le Doctorat de l’Université de Paris.³

Veuillez agréer, Monsieur le Directeur, l’expression de mes sentiments respectueux.

ALS; 1 leaf, 1 side; AN 61AJ/202. Displayed in an exhibition at the Archives Nationales (1994).

I am writing to you in the hope that you will ratify my wish to spend the next academic year at the Ecole as Lecteur in English.²

My private work will be the preparation of a thesis for the Doctorate of the University of Paris.³

1 Ernest Vessiot (1865–1952), Directeur, Ecole Normale Supérieure,* from 1927 to 1935.

2 SB was nominated to be the Lecteur d’anglais (English language assistant) for 1927–1928 in the exchange program between Trinity College Dublin and the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris by his mentor Thomas Brown Rudmose-Brown* (known as Ruddy, 1878–1942), Professor of Romance Languages at Trinity College Dublin. Without prejudice to SB’s nomination, the administration of the ENS decided to renew the appointment of the current Lecteur, Thomas McGreevy* (1893–1967), who was also a graduate of TCD (Gustave Lanson, Directeur, Ecole Normale Supérieure [1919–1927] to Rudmose-Brown, 31 July 1927, AN: 61AJ/ 202). SB was offered the appointment for 1928–1929.

SB’s request to be retained for a second year was subject to the approval of both institutions; Ernest Vessiot wrote to Alfred Blanche, Consul Général de France en Irlande, 14 May 1929, that he was inclined to grant this request (AN: 61AJ/ 202).

3 As the subject for his thesis, SB proposed Joyce and Marcel Proust (1871–1922), but he was discouraged from this by Professor Célestin Bouglé (1870–1940), Directeur-adjoint, Lettres (Assistant Director, Arts), Ecole Normale Supérieure (James Knowlson, Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett [New York: Grove Press, 2004] 107, and notes of an interview with SB by Lawrence Harvey in the early 1960s [NhD, Lawrence Harvey Collection, MS 661, Notes for Samuel Beckett: Poet and Critic, 16]).