UC Irvine

In her novel Spring (2019), the third instalment in her seasonal quartet, the Scottish author, Ali Smith weaves Beethoven into the narrative as just one strand in a richly intertextual fabric that she then positions around the critical edges of the global refugee crisis. These novels, which are recognized as belonging to “BrexLit,” provide a critical, artistic, and ethical meditation on our time and our treatment of refugees. They forward the argument of how fiction and the novel today can help us make sense of the human condition. The very act of engaging with the Beethoven song “An die Hoffnung” presented in Spring allows us to consider anew the question of humanity as it relates to Beethoven’s music, and, perhaps more importantly, the degree to which Beethoven’s music can put us in touch with our own humanity. The approach to Beethoven in this article is set against the backdrop of a critique of the dominant ideologies that have been associated with his music since his lifetime, as espoused in the literary novel as just one of many intellectual and literary outlets. I propose that there is a resonance to be found in our engagement with Beethoven in Ali Smith’s Spring in that, by conflating a poem, a song, and a character, she seems to make us more alert, and more alive to the ethical and moral choices put before us in this book.