Angels in the Archive

Abstract

Beckett’s treatment of the “mixed choir of angels” in Watt complicates the relationship between archive and text. While references to this musical source were largely excised by the author, traces left behind in the published text(s) raise questions about whether it should be discounted as detritus. This paper explores how Beckett’s consignment of celestial music to the archive enacts a form of Heideggerian vermeiden, where the ‘spiritual’ potential of music is revealed only by avoiding its expression. From outside the published work, the choir haunts the text, anticipated though never arriving, yet always already present in its genesis.