1. BR - Othello

-- That bitch, that English whore, did for him, the shebeen proprietor commented. She put the first nail in his coffin.

-- Fine lump of a woman, all the same, the soi-disant town-clerk, Henry Campbell remarked, and plenty of her. I seen her picture in a barber's. Her husband was a captain or an officer.

-- Ay, Skin-the-Goat amusingly added. He was, and a cottonball one.

This gratuitous contribution of a humorous character occasioned a fair amount of laughter among his entourage. As regards Bloom, he, without the faintest suspicion of a smile, merely gazed in the direction of the door and reflected upon the historic story which had aroused extraordinary interest at the time when the facts, to make matters worse, were made public with the usual affectionate letters that passed between them, full of sweet nothings. First, it was strictly platonic till nature intervened and an attachment sprang up between them, till bit by bit matters came to a climax and the matter became the talk of the town till the staggering blow came as a welcome intelligence to not a few evil disposed however, who were resolved upon encouraging his downfall though the thing was public property all along though not to anything like the sensational extent that it subsequently blossomed into. Sino their names were coupled, though, since he was her declared favourite, where was the particular necessity to proclaim it to the rank and file from the housetops, the fact namely, that he had shared her bedroom, which came out in the witnessbox on oath when a thrill went through the packed court literally electrifying everybody in the shape of witnesses' swearing to having witnessed him on such and such a particular date in the act of scrambling out of an upstairs apartment with the assistance of a ladder in night apparel, having gained admittance in the same fashion, a fact that the weeklies, addicted to the lubric a little, simply coined shoals of money out of. Whereas the simple fact of the case was it was simply a case of the husband not being up to the scratch with nothing in common between them beyond the name and then a real man arriving on the scene, strong to the verge of weakness, falling a victim to her siren charms and forgetting home ties. The usual sequel, to bask in the loved one's smiles. The eternal question of the life connubial, needless to say, cropped up. Can real love, supposing there happens to be another chap in the case, sexist between married folk? Though it was no concern of theirs absolutely if he regarded her with affection carried away by a wave of folly. A magnificent specimen of manhood he was truly, augmented obviously by gifts of a high order as compared with the other military supernumerary, that is (who was just the usual everyday farewell, my gallant captain kind of an individual in the light dragoons, the 18th hussars to be accurate), and inflammable doubtless (the fallen leader, that is, not the other) in his own peculiar way which she of course, woman, quickly perceived as highly likely to carve his way to fame, which he almost bid fair to do till the priests and ministers of the gospel as a whole, his erstwhile staunch adherents and his beloved evicted tenants for whom he had done yeoman service in the rural parts of the country by taking up the cudgels on their behalf in a way that exceeded their most sanguine expectations, very effectually cooked his matrimonial goose, thereby heaping coals of fire on his head, much in the same way as the fabled ass's kick. Looking back now in a retrospective kind of arrangement, all seemed a kind of dream. And the coming back was the worst thing you ever did because it went without saying you would feel out of place as things always moved with the times. Why, as he reflected, Irishtown Strand, a locality he had not been in for quite a number of years, looked different somehow since, as it happened, he went to reside on the north side. 'North or south however, it was just the wellknown case of hot passion, pure and simple, upsetting the applecart with a vengeance and just bore out the very thing he was saying, as she also was Spanish or half so, types that wouldn't do things by halves, passionate abandon of the south, casting every shred of decency to the winds.

-- Just bears out what I was saying, he with glowing bosom said to Stephen. And, if I don't greatly mistake, she was Spanish too.

-- The king of Spain's daughter, Stephen answered, adding something or other rather muddled about farewell and adieu to you Spanish onions and the first land called the Deadman and from Ramhead to Scilly was so and so many.
 
 

In keeping with the Shakespeare theme I established in "Scylla and Charbydis", the text above seems to be Joyce's attempt to question both Penelope and Odysseus and Hamlet's parents and the truth to their relationships. He asks through Bloom's internal thoughts whether a wife can be faithful and if passion can exist once two people are married. Bloom seems to think more along the lines of Hamlet's parents-that the woman will stray with the slightest temptation. This would then make Penelope an unrealistic literary ideal for women to live up to. The other works we have read this semester would seem to follow this thinking as well. Clytemnestra and Helen were both unfaithful to their husbands and most of the men were unfaithful as well, making marriage more of a business arrangement than an act of love and sacrifice. Even faithful Penelope had an unfaithful husband who shared the bed of at least two women while away from Ithaca on his journey.

Also with the assertion in "S & C" that Shakespeare inserts some of his own life and self into Hamlet also means that Joyce inserts some of his self into Ulysses, then Joyce's voice through both Stephen and Bloom would mean

That Joyce does not often see marriage as a faithful institution. Was he hurt by a woman in his life? Did she leave him for another man?

ITHAKA

What qualifying considerations allayed his perturbations?

The difficulties of interpretation since the significance of any event followed its occurrence as variably as the acoustic report followed the electrical discharge and of counterestimating against an actual loss by failure to interpret the total sum of possible losses proceeding originally from a successful interpretation.

With what sensations did Bloom contemplate in rotation these objects?

With strain, elevating a candlestick: with pain, feeling on his right temple a contused tumescence: with attention, focusing his gaze on a large dull passive and slender bright active: with solicitation, bending and downturning the upturned rugfringe: with amusement, remembering Dr Malachi Mulligan's scheme of colour containing the gradation of green: with pleasure, repeating the words and antecedent act and perceiving through various channels of internal sensibility the consequent and concomitant tepid pleasant diffusion of gradual discolouration.

His next proceeding?

From an open box on the majolicatopped table he extracted a black diminutive cone, one inch in height, placed it on its circular base on a small tin plate, placed his candlestick on the right corner of the mantelpiece, produced from his waistcoat a folded page of prospectus (illustrated) entitled Agendath Netaim, unfolded the same, examined it superficially, rolled it into a thin cylinder, ignited it in the candleflame, applied it when ignited to the apex

of the cone till the latter reached the stage of rutilance, placed the cylinder in the basin of the candlestick disposing its unconsumed part in such a manner as to facilitate total combustion.

What followed this operation?

That truncated conical crater summit of the diminutive volcano emitted a vertical and serpentine fume redolent of aromatic oriental incense.

What homothetic objects, other than the candlestick, stood on the mantelpiece?

A timepiece of striated Connemara marble, stopped at the hour of 4.46 a.m. on the 21 March 1896, matrimonial gift of Matthew Dillon: a dwarf tree of glacial arborescence under a transparent bellshade, matrimonial gift of Luke and

Caroline Doyle: an embalmed owl, matrimonial gift of Alderman John Hooper.

What interchanges of looks took place between these three objects and Bloom?

In the mirror of the giltbordered pierglass the undecorated back of the dwarf tree regarded the upright back of the embalmed owl. Before the mirror the matrimonial gift of Alderman John Hooper with a clear melancholy wise bright motionless compassionate gaze regarded Bloom while Bloom with obscure tranquil profound motionless compassionated gaze regarded the matrimonial gift of Luke and Caroline Doyle.

What composite asymmetrical image in the mirror then attracted his attention?

The image of a solitary (ipsorelative) mutable (aliorelative) man.

Why solitary (ipsorelative)?

Brothers and sisters had he none, Yet that man's father was his grandfather's son.

Why mutable (aliorelative)?

From infancy to maturity he had resembled his maternal procreatrix. From maturity to senility he would increasingly resemble his paternal creator.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What first reminiscence had he of Rudolph Bloom (deceased)?

Rudolph Bloom (deceased) narrated to his son Leopold Bloom (aged 6) a retrospective arrangement of migrations and settlements in and between Dublin, London, Florence, Milan, Vienna, Budapest, Szombathely, with statements of satisfaction (his grandfather having seen Maria Theresa, empress of Austria, queen of Hungary), with commercial advice (having taken care of pence, the pounds having taken care of themselves). Leopold Bloom (aged 6) had accompanied these narrations by constant consultation of a geographical map of Europe (political) and by suggestions for the establishment of affiliated business premises in the various centres mentioned.

Had time equally but differently obliterated the memory of these migrations in narrator and listener?

In narrator by the access of years and in consequence of the use of narcotic toxin: in listener by the access of years and in consequence of the action of distraction upon vicarious experiences.

What idiosyncrasies of the narrator were concomitant products of amnesia?

Occasionally he ate without having previously removed his hat. Occasionally he drank voraciously the juice of gooseberry fool from an inclined plate. Occasionally he removed from his lips the traces of food by means of a lacerated envelope or other accessible fragment of paper.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

HAMLET
 
 

In Ithaka, I chose two passages that intrigued me and also seem to tie together. In the first Bloom is examining himself in a mirror and his surroundings in what seems to be an attempt to discover himself and his relation to the world and the people around him, especially Stephen. He later attempts to recall some of his earliest childhood memories concerning his father. It would seem Joyce (through Bloom) is attempting to reconnect with himself and his world as well as gain a sense of self by understanding his father. It is here, on his journey home i.e. Odysseus's journey to Ithaka, that Bloom attempts to understand who he is and through Bloom, Joyce attempts to understand who he is.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

2. MN to JP

---Man delights him not nor woman neither, Stephen said. He returns

after a life of absence to that spot of earth where he was born, where

he has always been, man and boy, a silent witness and there, his journey

of life ended, he plants his mulberrytree in the earth. Then dies. The

motion is ended. Gravediggers bury Hamlet pére and Hamlet fils. A king

and a prince at last in death, with incidental music. And, what though

murdered and betrayed, bewept by all frail tender hearts for, Dane or

Dubliner, sorrow for the dead is the only husband from whom they refuse

to be divorced. If you like the epilogue look long on it: prosperous

Prospero, the good man rewarded, Lizzie, grandpa's lump of love, and

nuncle Richie, the bad man taken off by poetic justice to the place

where the bad niggers go. Strong curtain. He found in the world without

as actual what was in his world within as possible. Maeterlinck says: If

Socrates leave his house today he will find the sage seated on his

doorstep. If Judas goes tonight it is to Judas his steps will tend.

Every life is many days, day after day. We walk through ourselves,

meeting robbers, ghosts, giants, old men, young men, wives, widows,

brothers-in-love. But always meeting ourselves. The playwright who wrote

the folio of this world and wrote it badly (He gave us light first and

the sun two days later), the lord of things as they are whom the most

Roman of catholics call dio boia, hangman god, is doubtless all in all

in all of us, ostler and butcher, and would be bawd and cuckold too but

that in the economy of heaven, foretold by Hamlet, there are no more

marriages, glorified man, an androgynous angel, being a wife unto

himself.

-- Eureka! Buck Mulligan cried. Eureka!

Suddenly happied he jumped up and reached in a stride John

Eglinton's desk.

-- May I? he said. The Lord has spoken to Malachi.

He began to scribble on a slip of paper.

Take some slips from the counter going out.

-- Those who are married, Mr Best, douce herald, said, all

save one, shall live. The rest shall keep as they are.

He laughed, unmarried, at Eglinton Johannes, of arts a

bachelor.

Unwed, unfancied, ware of wiles, they fingerponder nightly

each his variorum edition of The Taming of the Shrew.

-- You are a delusion, said roundly John Eglinton to Stephen. You have

brought us all this way to show us a French triangle. Do you believe

your own theory?

-- No, Stephen said promptly.
 
 

While reading the chapter, Scylla and Charybdis, I found myself

alternating between moments of comprehension and those of utter

confusion. The above passage is actually one of the clearer portions of the chapter.

Throughout the chapter, Stephen pitches a new theory about Shakespeare to fellow academics. Stephen argues that Shakespeare was not Hamlet, but King Hamlet, the father. It follows that Shakespeare's wife, Anne, is the deceitful wife of the murdered king (previously in the chapter, Stephen even compares Anne to a not so virtuous Penelope). John Eglinton has a hard time accepting this theory and continually challenges Stephen throughout the chapter.

Macbeth

The above excerpt appears near the very end of Scylla and Charybdis and proposes an interesting idea about the nature of life and the

individual. Stephen is reaching the conclusion to his Shakespeare

argument. The argument does not just apply to Shakespeare, but it

appears to be a theory of life itself. As Hamlet pere and fils,

Shakespeare is both characters. Life is "many days, day after day" and

one encounters different characters along the way. These characters are the different manifestations of the self. Each day presents a new

version of the self. It follows then that the individual is not in

isolation, but absorbs and reflects the surrounding world.

Additionally, Joyce, through Stephen's monologue, also seems to be

making quite a claim as to the nature of God. It can be argued that

Stephen is claiming that nothing (or very little) separates us from God. Describing God as "The playwright who wrote the folio of this world and wrote it badly," (a most amusing yet unsettling tag), He is "all in all in all of us" and would be "cuckolded" except that there's no need for marriage in (an apparently hermaphroditic) heaven. This claim undoubtedly leaves those aghast who expound the power and superiority of "God." However, Stephen's theory is also a symbiotic, empowering paradigm for the nature of the individual.

****this is just an aside note--the Groden Ulysses hypertext project is

quite the project--now I see the great potential of hypermedia for

making texts accessible

Stephen denies his belief in his own theory (!). Interesting point on God in this selection too, the light then 2 days later the sun—is this "hypertextualizing" the bible, eliding creation narratives? (this is my gut impression for some reason). Shakespeare as the Hamlets, Shakespeare as Pericles, Prospero, Jaques: the author for truth can use himself as source material. Is Joyce given voice through Dedalus in this chapter? Or is he Eglinton? Maybe he’s Bloom and Molly and Best all at once. As Megan says, "Each day presents a new version of the self." The bitter Shakespeare of tragedy, the content Shakespeare of romances, the lunatic the lover the poet all of imagination compact, passing through his own ages of man. Devalued deity and evolving personae.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

3. JP Scylla and Charybdis

-- If that were the birthmark of genius, he said, genius would be a drug in the market. The plays of Shakespeare's later years which Renan admired so much breathe another spirit.

-- The spirit of reconciliation, the quaker librarian breathed.

-- There can be no reconciliation, Stephen said, if there has not been a sundering.

Said that.

-- If you want to know what are the events which cast their shadow over the hell of time of King Lear, Othello, Hamlet, Troilus and Cressida, look to see when and how the shadow lifts. What softens the heart of a man, Shipwrecked in storms dire, Tried, like another Ulysses, Pericles, prince of Tyre?

Head, redconecapped, buffeted, brineblinded.

-- A child, a girl placed in his arms, Marina.

-- The leaning of sophists towards the bypaths of apocrypha is a constant quantity, John Eglinton detected. The highroads are dreary but they lead to the town.

Pericles

Bloom and Dedalus, with Buck Mulligan, Mr Best and John (insert adjective) Eglinton, debate literature, Shakespeare in the main—from Hamlet to the apocryphal (i.e. Pericles, Cymbeline)—through "Scylla and Charybdis." Specifically, they try to tie in Shakespeare’s life, at New Place, with Ann[e] Hathaway, in "lunnun," with his work (always the task of the Shakespeare scholar, determining facets of the author’s elusive biography through textual hints). Cleverly, the text is largely dialectic, with a portion as an outright "script" replete with stage directions.

Here, the case is made (illuminated later in the chapter by the posit of Judith/ Suzanne Shakes. as Marina) that Pericles is an autobiographical type of tale, the "shadow lifting" from Will’s life and art.

I must confess a strain of sophistry—Pericles is indeed my favorite Shakespeare work. This though is not the prime reason for this passage’s selection; it is the casual use of the name "Ulysses" that fills this shoe. By connecting Shakespeare and Pericles through that "shadow lifting" (P. has a happy ending, all sorts of miracles and deus ex) and then Ulysses and Pericles (Pericles has quite the lengthy shipwreckin’ voyage) Joyce links Shakespeare to Ulysses / Odysseus.

Shakespeare left New Place & Ann for London and the stage, but he eventually came back. Was he faithful or she? The Joyce characters seemingly deny it; Lord knows our Ody wasn’t. There’s reconciliation, a sundering first according to Stephen (between the Shakespeares). In this is Shakespeare another Ulysses.
 
 

I also love this bit of dialogue:
 
 

Buck Mulligan thought, puzzled:

-- Shakespeare? he said. I seem to know the name.

A flying sunny smile rayed in his loose features.

-- To be sure, he said, remembering brightly. The chap that writes like Synge.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Eumaeus

Carefully avoiding a book in his pocket Sweets of, which reminded him by the by of that Capel street library book out of date, he took out his pocketbook and, turning over the various contents rapidly, finally he.

-- Do you consider, by the by, he said, thoughtfully selecting a fades photo which he laid on the table, that a Spanish type?

Stephen, obviously addressed, looked down on the photo showing a large sized lady, with her fleshy charms on evidence in an open fashion, as she was in the full bloom of womanhood, In evening dress cut ostentatiously low for the occasion to give a liberal display of bosom, with more than vision of breasts, her full lips parted, and some perfect teeth, standing near, ostensibly with gravity, a piano, on the rest of which was In old Madrid, a ballad, pretty in its way, which was then all the vogue. Her (the lady's) eyes, dark, large, looked at Stephen, about to smile about something to be admired, Lafayette of Westmoreland street, Dublin's premier photographic artist, being responsible for the esthetic execution.

Mrs Bloom, my wife the prima donna, Madam Marion Tweedy, Bloom indicated. Taken a few years since. In or about '96. Very like her then.

____________________________________________________________________________________

Measure for Measure

In The Odyssey, Eumaeus is the loyal swineherd who recognizes and aids his returned master. Throughout the chapter in Ulysses, Bloom and Dedalus converse on recognition, be it from the sailor who’d seen Simon Dedalus shoot two eggs off two bottles from fifty yards or the local account of Dignam’s funeral services (attended by Stephen Dedalus B.A. and L. Boom, according to the printer). Close to going home, Bloom takes out a picture of Molly in full bloom (pun intended) of youth and ponders as Stephen does likewise the woman. This is how we recognize people, the seeming implication—the associations, the company one keeps. Father, friend, wife, these are the marks which identify us all, make each man woman child unique. Discovery of a person is a matter of discovering who they know or love; thus discovering Bloom is recognizing his relationships. In this same manner is Shakespeare largely defined, as a maddeningly enigmatic historical persona, by what we know of Anne Hathaway, his children, and the man’s last will and testament. The subject of "soiling" comes up a few times as well, but Bloom definitely loves Molly/finds her attractive. One wonders, did Shakespeare have a portrait of his wife in London? If he did, might things be different then?

Love/Loss. Sundering and Reconciliation. Molly’s a picture right now, but the reconciliation after a long day apart feels nearer in Bloom’s "longing." The day goes on, later and later, and he’s changing into the person he will be the next day perhaps.

ITHAKA
 
 

What composite asymmetrical image in the mirror then attracted his attention?

The image of a solitary (ipsorelative) mutable (aliorelative) man.
 
 

Why solitary (ipsorelative)?

From infancy to maturity he had resembled his maternal procreatrix. From maturity to senility he would increasingly resemble his paternal creator.

_______________________________________________________

Ithaka’s a strange chapter indeed. The narrative is "gone," replaced by an EXTENSIVE q&a session. The net effect herein is that the author becomes at a piece more and less involved; Joyce is "answering" (not very clearly, as usual) questions he himself poses. Thus there’s no way to avoid that this is an author’s voice. Yet also, Bloom has a character made much more nonfiction, objective. Bloom is made "realer" by Ithaka.

Hamlet

The passage really stirs in me questions of father/son relationships. This can apply to Shakespeare, as his son Hamnet’s death had measurable, noticeable effects on his writing and life. But more importantly, it applies to me. I look in mirrors now and see more of my father each day, like Bloom. My father would leave his keys in his pockets—perhaps the senility is early in he and Bloom alike. We stand alone (ipso), we change towards another’s form (alio).

In the film Smoke Signals, watched in my 20^th C. II class this semester, the question is posed: "Our fathers were our models for God. If we forgive our fathers, what is left?" Joyce doesn’t forgive God, the erroneous playwright; Bloom’s father seems to be an unwelcome figure to assume –the ends of indignity denote the path; Shakespeare lost his son…so did God. Dedalus has left, rejecting at least slightly the "fatherly" overtures of Bloom. God is the model Father, and he treats his own Son very badly indeed. Can time the universal mutating parent be much kinder to Bloom? To me? Is it a bad thing to become one’s father, and will I?
 
 
 
 

4. DP to MN

From Scylla & Charybdis:

-- The play begins. A player comes on under the shadow, made up in the

castoff mail of a court buck, a

wellset man with a bass voice. It is the ghost,

the king, a king and no king, and the player is Shakespeare

who has studied Hamlet all the years of his life

which were not vanity in order to play the part of the

spectre. He speaks the words to Burbage, the

young player who stands before him beyond the rack of

cerecloth, calling him by a name:

Hamlet, I am thy father's spirit

bidding him list. To a son he speaks, the son of

his soul, the prince, young Hamlet and to the son of his

body, Hamnet Shakespeare, who has died in

Stratford that his namesake may live for ever.

-- Is it possible that that player Shakespeare,

a ghost by absence, and in the vesture of buried Denmark,

a ghost by death, speaking his own words to his

own son's name (had Hamnet Shakespeare lived he

would have been prince Hamlet's twin) is it

possible, I want to know, or probable that he did not draw

or foresee the logical conclusion of those

premises: you are the dispossessed son: I am the murdered

father: your mother is the guilty Hathaway?

Dan's response: Othello

Not only are there parallels queen. Ann Shakespeare, born between Stephen Dedalus and Prince Hamlet, Joyce has Stephen, in his presentation at the library, bring up ties between Shakespeare and his most famous character. Stephen sees a biographical relationship between Shakespeare and the troubled Hamlet.

This clearly mirrors the relationship between James Joyce and Stephen Dedalus.

Now Stephen compares Ann Hathaway (Shakespeare's Wife) to the Queen, mother of Hamlet and wife of the usurper Claudius. Later he challenges his colleagues to prove whether Ann was chaste for 20 years while William was away, invoking plot lines from the Odyssey (William/Odysseus, Ann/Penelope).

The triangle of allusions implies that Ann was not faithful like Queen Gertrude. Perhaps, like Molly Bloom, Penelope is not faithful to Odysseus either.

The entire spin of Ulysses seems to question the traditional

relationships of some of the finest literary works of each period (Homer of the classical period, Shakespeare from the Rennaissance, Joyce from the modern) Hamlet's father's ghost appears with posthumous knowledge of his murder.

Stephen's questioning of Shakespeare's motives for including this supernatural omnipotence implies an autobiographical purpose to his work. In discovering treachery and infidelity concerning his wife, Ann.

What does "Hamlet Shakespeare" do, that is so different, or similar to Hamlet, the prince. Secondly, what does all of this imply for Odysseus and Penelope. Odysseus operates with divine instructions, which act as Homer's omniscient presence within the Odyssey. Odysseus and the reader know what to expect because the author explains it to both.

Where does this leave Joyce and Stephen, and later Joyce and Leopold Bloom. The autobiographical-omniscient presence of Joyce is known to exist in Ulysses and Portrait of an Artist. How does it mirror that of the Odyssey or Hamlet?

More importantly, where am I going with this? Am i being too vague? Do I even understand what I am reading?

Dan

Megan's response to Dan:

I completely agree with Dan in that Joyce challenges the common interpretations of works and artists in the Western Tradition. I in fact discussed the Dedalus' challenge to the character of Penelope in my initial response. It is quite fitting that while undertaking this challenge of the Tradition, Joyce also stretches language to the limit. Like Dan, I've found myself questioning whether or not I am comprehending anything that I'm reading. The language is difficult, but it is Joyce's challenge to the reader to consider a new way of using our linguistic system in Literature.
 
 

From Eumaeus:

From inside information extending over a series of years Mr Bloom was rather inclined to poohpooh the suggestion as egregious balderdash for, pending that consummation devoutly to be or not to be wished for, he was fully cognisant of the fact that their neighbours across the channel, unless they were much bigger fools than he took them for, rather concealed their strength than the opposite. It was quite on a par with the quixotic idea in certain quarters that in a hundred million years the coal seam of the sister island would be played out and if, as time went On, that turned Out to be how the cat jumped all he could personally say on the matter was that as a host of contingencies, equally relevant to the issue, might occur ere then it was highly advisable in the interim to try to make the most of both countries, even though poles apart. Another little interesting point, the amours of whores and chummies, to put it in common parlance, reminded him Irish soldiers had as often fought for England as against her, more so, in fact. And now, why? So the scene between the pair of them, the licensee of the place, rumoured to be or have been Fitzharris, the famous invincible, and the other, obviously bogus, reminded him forcibly as being on all fours with the confidence trick, supposing, that is, it was prearranged, as the lookeron, a student of the human soul, if anything, the others seeing least of the game. And as for the lessee or keeper, who probably wasn't the other person at all, he (Bloom) couldn't help feeling, and most properly, it was better to give people like that the goby unless you were a blithering idiot altogether and refuse to have anything to do with them as a golden rule in private life and their felonsetting, there always being the offchance of a Dannyman coming forward and turning queen's evidence - or king's now - like Denis or Peter Carey, an idea he utterly repudiated. Quite apart from that, he disliked those careers of wrongdoing and crime on principle. Yet, though such criminal propensities had never been an inmate of his bosom in any shape or form, he certainly did feel, and no denying it (while inwardly remaining what

he was), a certain kind of admiration for a man who had actually brandished a knife, cold steel, with the

courage of his political convictions though, personally, he would never be a party to any such thing, off

the same bat as those love vendettas of the south - have her or swing for her - when the husband

frequently, after some words passed between the two concerning her relations with the other lucky

mortal (the man having had the pair watched), inflicted fatal injuries on

his adored one as a result of an alternative postnuptial liaison by plunging his knife into her until it just

struck him that Fitz, nicknamed Skin-the-Goat, merely drove the car for the actual perpetrators of the

outrage and so was not, if he was reliably informed, actually party to the ambush which, in point of fact,

was the plea some legal luminary saved his skin on. In any case that was very ancient history by now and

as for our friend, the pseudo Skin-the-etcetera, he had transparently outlived his welcome. He ought to

have either died naturally or on the scaffold high. Like actresses, always farewell - positively last

performance then come up smiling again. Generous to a fault, of course, temperamental, no economising

or any idea of the sort, always snapping at the bone for the shadow. So similarly he had a very shrewd

suspicion that Mr Johnny Lever got rid of some #. s. d. in the course of his perambulations round the

docks in the congenial atmosphere of the Old Ireland tavern, come back to Erin and so on. Then as for

the others, he had heard not so long before the same identical lingo, as he told Stephen how he simply

but effectually silenced the offender.

Response: A Midsummer Night's Dream

In my previous response, I commented on how Stephen challenged the idea of a faithful Penelope. In this excerpt from Eumaeus, Joyce contrasts the character of Bloom with that of Odysseus. In the Odyssey, Odysseus returns to slaughter the suitors and reclaim his estate. Odysseus is characterized as strong, smart, and determined to reclaim what is his. Joyce shows Bloom in this episode to be a foil to the Traditional concept of Odysseus.

While at the Cab Shelter, Bloom thinks about the alleged dubious actions of Skin-the-Goat. Bloom ruminates over the respect he has for any man who had "brandished a knife" for political or other convictions. It is clear however, that Bloom holds these men as different from himself as "personally, he would never be a party to any such thing." Bloom clearly is not the Odysseus of the Tradition.

Skin-the-Cat assumes more of the characteristics of a Traditional Odysseus. Bloom even remarks (well, thinks) that Skin-the-Cat is "Like actresses, always farewell - positively last performance then come up smiling again." Not only was Skin-the-Cat proactive, but he also kept appearing. Did not Odysseus keep reappearing: in rumors, in stories, after war and years at sea?
 
 

From Ithaca:

What did his limbs, when gradually extended, encounter?

New clean bedlinen, additional odours, the presence of a human form, female, hers, the imprint of a

human form, male, not his, some crumbs, some flakes of potted meat, recooked, which he removed.
 
 
 
 

If he had smiled why would he have smiled?

To reflect that each one who enters imagines himself to be the first to enter whereas he is always the last

term of a preceding series even if the first term of a succeeding one, each imagining himself to be first,

last, only and alone, whereas he is neither first nor last nor only nor alone in a series originating In and

repeated to infinity.
 
 
 
 

What preceding series?

Assuming Mulvey to be the first term of his series, Penrose, Bartell d'Arcy, professor Goodwin, Julius

Mastiansky, John Henry Menton, Father Bernard Corrigan, a farmer at the Royal Dublin Society's

Horse Show, Maggot O'Reilly, Matthew Dillon, Valentine Blake Dillon (Lord Mayor of Dublin),

Christopher Callinan, Lenehan, an Italian organgrinder, an unknown gentleman in the Gaiety Theatre,

Benjamin Dollard, Simon Dedalus, Andrew (Pisser) Burke, Joseph Cuffe, Wisdom Hely, Alderman

John Hooper, Dr Francis Brady, Father Sebastian of Mount Argus, a bootblack at the General Post

Office, Hugh E. (Blazes) Boylan and so each and so on to nolast term.
 
 
 
 

What were his reflections concerning the last member of this series and late occupant of the bed?

Reflections on his vigour (a bounder), corporal proportion (a billsticker), commercial ability (a bester),

impressionability (a boaster).
 
 
 
 

Why for the observer impressionability in addition to vigour, corporal proportion and commercial

ability?

Because he had observed with augmenting frequency in the preceding members of the same series the

same concupiscence, inflammably transmitted first with alarm, then with understanding, then with desire,

finally with fatigue, with alternating symptoms of epicene comprehension and apprehension.
 
 
 
 

With what antagonistic sentiments were his subsequent reflections affected?

Envy, jealousy, abnegation, equanimity.

Response: Richard III

Bloom has returned to his bedroom to find that another man has left his imprint of the bed. Instead of starting an argument with Molly, Bloom merely accepts the fact that he hasn't been the first, nor will he be the last to share her bed. Bloom even considers the absurdity of anyone believing that they are the first to do something. Bloom experiences feelings attached to his wife's affairs (envy, jealousy….) however he lacks action.

Joyce once again presents Bloom as a foil to the Tradition of Odysseus. Unlike Odysseus, Bloom accepts his fate. Odysseus on the other hand continually fights against what is "destined." Instead of curling up, Odysseus lashes out.

Bloom is a weak, inactive Odysseus who has an unfaithful wife in Molly (Penelope) and a son, Stephen (Telemachus) who deserts him. Bloom's relations to others form a world opposite to that of Odysseus.

But is this world really opposite? Just as Stephen was challenging the Tradition in Scyllas and Charybdis, it is possible that Joyce is challenging the accepted understanding of Odysseus. Was Odysseus actually weak? Did his men do all his dirty work? Could Penelope possibly have been faithful all those years? Did Telemachus really just want to reclaim the estate and overthrow the father? Implicit in the characterizations and (in)anctions of Bloom, Molly, and Stephen is a deconstruction of the Odysseus, Penelope, and Telemachus relationship.

On an ending note. I enjoyed the question and answer format of this chapter. It made the work easier to read.

5. BG to BW

Here he ponders things that were not: what Caesar would have lived to do had

he believed the soothsayer: what might have been: possibilities of the

possible as possible: things not known: what name Achilles bore when he lived

among women.

Coffined thoughts around me, in mummycases, embalmed in spice of words.

Thoth, god of libraries, a birdod, moonycrowned. And I heard the voice of that

Egyptian highpriest. In painted chambers loaded with tilebooks.

They are still. Once quick in the brains of men. Still: but an itch of death

is in them, to tell me in my ear a maudlin tale, urge me to wreak their will.

-- Certainly, John Eglinton mused, of all great men he is the most enigmatic.

We know nothing but that he lived and suffered. Not even so much. Others abide

our question. A shadow hangs over all the rest.

-- But Hamlet is so personal, isn't it? Mr Best pleaded. I mean, a kind of

private paper, don't you know, of his private life. I mean I don't care a

button, don't you know, who is killed or who is guilty...

He rested an innocent book on the edge of the desk, smiling his defiance. His

private papers in the original. Ta an bad ar an tir. Taim imo shagart. Put

beurla on it, littlejohn.

Quoth littlejohn Englinton:

-- I was prepared for paradoxes from what Malachi Mulligan told us but I may

as well warn you that if you want to shake my belief that Shakespeare is

Hamlet you have a stern task before you.

Bear with me.

Stephen withstood the bane of miscreant eyes, glinting stern under wrinkled

brows. A basilisk. E quando vede l'uomo l'attosca. Messer Brunetto, I thank

thee for the word.

 -- As we, or mother Dana, weave and unweave our bodies, Stephen said, from

day to day, their molecules shuttled to and fro, so does the artist weave and

unweave his image. And as the mole on my right breast is where it was when I

was born, though all my body has been woven of new stuff time after time, so

through the ghost of the unquiet father the image of the unliving son looks

forth. In the intense instant of imagination, when the mind, Shelley says, is

a fading coal, that which I was is that which I am and that which in

possibility I may come to be. So in the future, the sister of the past, I may

see myself as I sit here now but by reflection from that which then I shall

be. (Joyce's Ulysses, chapter 9)
 
 

Romeo & Juliet

This passage offers a view of beings or identities as defined in the smaller

moments, moment by moment.  Our consciousness changes as time moves forward, so should we define ourselves as the sum of all that consciousness or as we are conscious in each moment of time.  Is who we are who we believe ourselves to be when we look back and add it all up - is it the sum of our prominent memories, or of our desires.  This does not seem to be a reliable or accurate way of viewing or evaluating ourselves.  In pondering "the possibilities of the possible as possible: things not known…"  our fragile dependence on time

seems to be suggested.  The sum of ourselves might have been very different had another variable been added.  Eglinton mentions that "We know nothing but that he lived and suffered.  Not even so much.  Others abide our question.  A shadow hangs over all the rest."  Is our true identity found in these things that we know or remember as important, or does it lie in the shadows - in the

changing moments rather than their result.  Mr. Best remarks that Hamlet is a sort of insight into such shadows.  It seems that Eglinton and Mr. Best offer the opposing sides to this debate over how to define ourselves, how to determine who we are.  Mr. Best seems to be intrigued by this insight into the small moments of the man, rather than by the conclusive identity of Hamlet, for as he says "I mean I don't care a button, don't you know, who is killed or who is guilty…"  But Eglinton as the opposing side responds that he refuses

to let go of his understanding of who Hamlet is (that he is Shakespeare.)  Stephen intervenes here with what seems to be a harmony of these ideas by using a mole on his chest as an analogy.  In the everchanging, constantly renewing material of his body, the mole that he was born with has remained the same.  We are not just how we see ourselves to be, or how we are at the end of

our lives - we are all of it.  But although who we are may not be able to be pinned to who we have become in the end, there is an enduring self - just as the cells of our bodies die and are replaced by new ones, but still form the same body.  "In the intense instant of imagination… that which I was is that which I am and that which in possibility I may come to be."

Perhaps I can add a little to this. It seemed to me that Mr. Best and Eglinton were on the same side of the argument saying that one could find the persona of Shakespeare in Hamlet. This according to SD is impossible in that artists like the rest of us can not be defined by mere presence, in this case the permanent presence of Hamlet. In order to make sense of SDs view let me borrow what I have learned in a Heidegger course this year. Heidegger describes with excruciating detail what it means to be a human being. The element of the past that is within us he calls throwness. This expresses that what is in our past is their sort of arbitrarily, our past throws us into our present situation with a given set of facts. The present self Heidegger calls fallenness. This expresses how in the present we abandon ourselves to the world around us. And the future is expressed by the word existence, literally ex-"ising" or being outside of oneself. What this means is that for the future we project ourselves upon possibilities. It seems that SD suggests that the image of Shakespeare is much more complex than simply Hamlet and the way he describes what he must have been is done using very heideggerian language.
 
 

Eumeus

-- Sounds are impostures, Stephen said after a pause of some little time. Like names, Cicero, Podmore,

Napoleon, Mr Goodbody, Jesus, Mr Doyle. Shakespeares were as common as Murphies. What's in a name?

-- Yes, to be sure, Mr Bloom unaffectedly concurred. Of course. Our name was changed too, he added, pushing

the socalled roll across.

The redbearded sailor, who had his weather eye on the newcomers, boarded Stephen, whom he had singled out

for attention in particular, squarely by asking:

In this passage I see a pretty good connection with the previous thoughts. According to Derrida we in the West have been living with certain prejudices since at least Greek antiquity. One of these is the favoring of the present over the absent. If you think back to the Avatars of the Word there was a chapter called speaking and writing or something close to that. It describes how the spoken word has been given a special privilege over the written word for the reason that the written word is severed from its author and is in danger of being misunderstood. Speaking on the other hand promises to be a more direct transfer of meaning and some like Socrates believed it was the way to truth in that any misapprehension could be corrected on the spot by the author. Writing on the other hand is subject to interpretations of any kind without the presence of the author. So SD here seems to be lamenting the fact that he and others can be pinned down by a single name, a single sound.

Heidegger shows conclusively (I think) that there is much more to the human being that goes beyond what could be captured simply by a single name. According to him we are transcendent and full of features untouched by naming.
 
 

Ithaka

What in water did Bloom, waterlover, drawer of water, watercarrier, returning to the range, admire?

Its universality: its democratic equality and constancy to its nature in seeking its own level: its vastness in the ocean

of Mercator's projection: its unplumbed profundity in the Sundam trench of the Pacific exceeding 8000 fathoms:

the restlessness of its waves and surface particles visiting in turn all points of its seaboard: the independence of its

units: the variability of states of sea: its hydrostatic quiescence in calm: its hydrokinetic turgidity in neap and spring

tides: its subsidence after devastation: its sterility in the circumpolar icecaps, arctic and antarctic: its climatic and

commercial significance: its preponderance of 3 to 1 over the dry land of the globe: its indisputable hegemony

extending in square leagues over all the region below the subequatorial tropic of Capricorn: the multisecular

stability of its primeval basin: its luteofulvous bed: its capacity to dissolve and hold in solution all soluble substances

including millions of tons of the most precious metals: its slow erosions of peninsulas and islands, its persistent

formation of homothetic islands, peninsulas and downwardtending promontories: its alluvial deposits: its weight

and volume and density: its imperturbability in lagoons and highland tarns: its gradation of colours in the torrid and

temperate and frigid zones: its vehicular ramifications in continental lakecontained streams and confluent

oceanflowing rivers with their tributaries and transoceanic currents, gulfstream, north and south equatorial courses:

its violence in seaquakes, waterspouts, Artesian wells, eruptions, torrents, eddies, freshets, spates, groundswells,

watersheds, waterpartings, geysers, cataracts, whirlpools, maelstroms, inundations, deluges, cloudbursts: its vast

circumterrestrial ahorizontal curve: its secrecy in springs, and latent humidity, revealed by rhabdomantic or

hygrometric instruments and exemplified by the well by the hole in the wall at Ashtown gate, saturation of air,

distillation of dew: the simplicity of its composition, two constituent parts of hydrogen with one constituent part of

oxygen: its healing virtues: its buoyancy in the waters of the Dead Sea: its persevering penetrativeness in runnels,

gullies, inadequate dams, leaks on shipboard: its properties for cleansing, quenching thirst and fire, nourishing

vegetation: its infallibility as paradigm and paragon: its metamorphoses as vapour, mist, cloud, rain, sleet, snow,

hail: its strength in rigid hydrants: its variety of forms in loughs and bays and gulfs and bights and guts and lagoons

and atolls and archipelagos and sounds and fjords and minches and tidal estuaries and arms of sea: its solidity in

glaciers, icebergs, icefloes: its docility in working hydraulic millwheels, turbines, dynamos, electric power stations,

bleachworks, tanneries, scutchmills: its utility in canals, rivers, if navigable, floating and graving docks: its

potentiality derivable from harnessed tides or watercourses falling from level to level: its submarine fauna and flora

(anacoustic, photophobe) numerically, if not literally, the inhabitants of the globe: its ubiquity as constituting 90%

of the human body: the noxiousness of its effluvia in lacustrine marshes, pestilential fens, faded flowerwater,

stagnant pools in the waning moon.

Twelfth Night

I cannot say that I’m going to take a stab at continuing the thoughts above concerning what it means to be a human or how we in the West have been prejudiced to favor the actual over the possible, presence over absence. I just could not find anything of that nature in "Ithaka." This is just a passage that I really loved. I call myself an environmentalist and this is perhaps the most beautiful ode to water that I have ever encountered. It is also very indicative of LBs ideals, which I see as mild-manneredness, egalitarianess and practicability. I have never seen a more complete documentation of the way that we live with water and of course it’s put in one of Joyce’s great styles in all of Ulysses. A simple question yields a simple, albeit long, answer about the virtues of water. Sorry I don’t have more to say on this one, it’s just really…nice.
 
 
 
 

6. BW to BG

Scylla and Charybdis

Part. The moment is now. Where then? If Socrates leave his house today,

if Judas go forth tonight. Why? That lies in space which I in time must

come to, ineluctably. My will: his will that fronts me. Seas between.
 
 

LN.1203

     A man passed out between them, bowing, greeting"

This occurs very much near the end of the chapter when BM and SD are

walking away from the library (through the library?). The air is very

tense and I'm not entirely sure but from what I have read it seems that

SD hates BM. I think "the moment is now" is all about SD's vengeance

against a usurper, BM. But this moment is not described in the style of

the present but of the possible. Joyce does not write about a fist

clenching up or a vein popping out. He mentions the reflection going on

inside SD's head: --What will Judas and Socrates encounter in the

future? Themselves and that's really all that can be known. SD cannot

act because he cannot know who he will encounter in the future even

though he knows it will be himself. Scary thought.

But what exactly does SD want from BM. His power back by stripping down

the offensive BM I think. Just before the final line when the man breaks

the scene, SD seems to be saying that his will is to have BM's will but

that he recognizes that there is a fat chance of that happening. This

seems very true to me. The essence of man is existence and existence is

really a choosing between possibilities. If this is true than what would

the sadist want of the masochist? His will: his essence. But I believe

therein is an unavoidable frustration that I believe Joyce is addressing

when SD says there is a sea between his will and BM's will. One a

subject another an object with no tangible bridges between for

conquest.
 

BW Tempest

The line which strikes me most in this passage is "seas between." Without always being aware of it, we are so completely isolated from one another, and in small moments we do see it, as if we are look across the ocean to try to see another continent. The lives we live are completely within ourselves. We can only speculate about others, because their lives are locked within themselves to, and we have no access to their consciousness. We can desire to know or to control another's consciousness or will, but we can’t get in there and truly know what their world looks like. We are stuck inside our own consciousness. "The moment is now" resounds with what I was thinking about the passage I chose – about our being defined in small moments or in the sum of them at whatever point we look back to sum them up. I loved what Barabar said – "SD cannot act because he cannot know who he will encounter in the future even though he knows it will be himself. Scary thought." It is a truly terrifying thought! Who are we? How can we answer that question when we only know who we are at this moment and in our somewhat distorted memory of our past. We aren’t sure of who we are, and we certainly don’t know others. There is so much here – isolation from others and lack of self-knowledge – that just leaves you with a feeling of being completely lost.

BG
 
 
 
 

EUMAEUS

At this remark, passed obviously in the spirit of where ignorance is bliss, Mr Bloom and Stephen, each in his own particular way, both instinctively exchanged meaning glances, in a religious silence of the strictly entre nous variety however, towards where Skin-the-Goat, alias the keeper, was drawing spurts of liquid from his boiler affair. His inscrutable face, which was really a work of art, a perfect study in itself, beggaring description, conveyed the impression that he didn’t understand one jot of what was going on. Funny very.

There ensued a somewhat lengthy pause. One man was reading by fits and starts a stained by coffee evening journal; another, the card with the natives choza de; another, the seaman’s discharge. Mr Bloom, so far as he was personally concerned, was just pondering in pensive mood. He vividly recollected when the occurrence alluded to took place as well as yesterday, some score of years previously, in the days of the land troubles when it took the civilized world by storm, figuratively speaking, early in the eighties, eightyone to be correct, when he was just turned fifteen.

Much Ado About Nothing

This passage, near the beginning of the chapter, shows a little bit of connection where there hadn’t been any before. Bloom has been attempting to rouse and engage Stephen in conversation not very successfully. But here they have a moment of connectedness in their thoughts, but it is inspired by the ignorance and disconnectedness of another. A connection out of isolation and ignorance. It also struck me the way all of the men are sitting together but doing different things – they are each in their own self-adjusted reality. Bloom’s reality is an example of this adjustment – for he saw himself pondering pensively, as he would like to be seen – an intellect. Bloom’s memory – "his vivid recollection" – of past events is another interesting point, for he speaks so vividly remembering an event but his remembrance is indicated by him knowing precisely when it occurred – "early in the eighties, eightyone to be correct" – is that really remembering? It seems more like filing.

BG
 
 
 
 

ITHACA

If he had smiled why would he have smiled?

To reflect that eacho one who enters imagines himself to be the first to enter whereas he is always the last term of a preceding series even if the first term of a succeeding one, each imagining himself to be firest, last, only and alone, whereas he is neither to first nor last nor only nor alone in a series originating and repeating in infinity.
 
 

The Taming of the Shrew

In this passage he is talking about a particular situation with particular men. It is about how men like to envision themselves and their place with women. But I think it speaks to the larger theme of how we perceive ourselves – what identity and meaning we assign ourselves regardless of how true to reality that assignment may be. In our desire to define ourselves in a certain way – in time or space or whatever – leads often to mistaken images and perceptions of ourselves. This passage also points to our finitude – our smallness in the face of infinity, of all existence. It is important to Bloom to assign himself a certain identity relating to time in his relationship with Molly, but how can the little bit of time he claims mean anything in all of infinitude. Bloom smiles to realize that we all lie to ourselves in order to feel we have some sort of meaning – but we certainly don’t have any meaning in the grand scheme, and so this attempt is useless. Should we smile or cry? We must question – where and what is the meaning? We are so small in such vastness and our existence is indefinite even to ourselves. We know we do exist but we don’t know who we are in reality when ourselves is all we know. How good is that?

BG

7. AH to EC

Here goes nothing...

"Formless spiritual. Father, Word and Holy Breath. Allfather, the heavenly

man. Hiesos Kristos, magician of the beautiful, the Logos who suffers in us at

every moment. This verily is that. I am the fire upon the altar. I am the

sacrificial butter. Dunlop, Judge, the noblest Roman of them all, A.E., Arval,

the Name Ineffable, in heaven hight, K.H., their master, whose identity is no

secret to adepts, Brothers of the great white lodge always watching to see if

they can help. The Christ with the bridesister, moisture of light, born of an

ensouled virgin, repentant sophia, departed to the plane of buddhi. The life

esoteric is not for ordinary person. O.P. must work off bad karma first. Mrs.

Cooper Oakley once glimpsed our very illustrious sister H.P.B.'s elemental.

O fie! Out on't! Pfuiteufel! You naughtn't to look, missus, so you naughtn't

when a lady's showing of her elemental.

King Lear

This section of Scylla and Charybdis confused me, both because the identity of the speaker is unclear and because the passage’s relation to other text around it is hard to understand. After re-reading it about 8 times, I have come to the following tenuous conclusions. I am still uncertain about the speaker, but it seems like an internal monologue, almost a prayer, and its proximity to the discussion on ideas and art leads me to believe that it is a rumination on the same subjects. The passage is more or less a listing of names of supreme beings and great people; following the discourse before it

and including the description of the "Logos who suffers in us at every moment," one would think that this incantation is almost a calling of the muses to help the populace create the art and ideas of which they are capable. Everyone is able to become thinkers and artisans, and the speaker promotes this idea through his own submission to the "eternal wisdom" when he says "I am the fire upon the altar. I am the sacrificial butter." He posits himself as both an inspiration and as a malleable substance, able to be changed and

molded by the supreme thinkers.

The discussion of great people and religious figures proceeds in a long stream of names, and are all jumbled with relation to religion and importance. Everything is set on equal footing by mentioning it in relation to other disparate ideas and deities. However, after promoting the idea of creativity as attainable by all humanity with the power of the Logos, the speaker undermines the importance of the common person and states that "the life esoteric is not for ordinary person." The sentence itself is awkward, and causes the reader to stumble, and simultaneously to realize the reversal in

thought at this point. The next sentence seems to imply that ordinary humans have previous issues that they must resolve before they are able to achieve the clarity of thought needed to produce great art or ideas. The passage deteriorates, to very rudimentary language, to a trivial situation, and shows the inability of even educated people (as the speaker probably is) to be able to sustain the level of thought and creativity needed to be among the great. I’d still like to know the identity of the speaker, since knowing that would allow me to identify their position on the schoolboy discussion and would

clarify some of my confusion.
 
 
 
 

EC Titus Andronicus

Response to above:

The last paragraph here seems to me very valid, especially in light of the main thread of my original comments. I was discussing the (to say it this way) ‘marginalization’ of woman in Scylla & Charybdis, and I think the notion of marginalizing a group of people continues here. In this case, of course, it seems to be contrasting "the great" with the less than great. I agree completely with Anne’s interpretation of "I am the altar upon the fire. I am the sacrificial butter." Here Joyce wants to bring the discussion down from its lofty intellectual heights to reach the common man, but then contradicts himself when he says that "the life esoteric is not for ordinary person." From here, I must say that I myself was thinking while reading that in many ways the novel is extremely frustrating to read, even for those of us who can follow many of the "esoteric" references, etc. I’ve read that Joyce intended his novel for a wider readership of the "common man," but this is hard to believe, especially in light of the above commentary.

Eumeus

Continuing with the notion of ‘marginalization,’ I cite the following passages:

"Nevertheless, without going into the minutiae of business, the eloquent fact remained that the sea was there in all its glory and in the natural course of things somebody or other had to sail on it and fly in the face of providence though it merely went to show how people usually contrived to load that sort of onus on to the other fellow like the hell idea and the lottery and insurance…"

In the passage, Bloom reflects on his conversation with the sailor. It struck me because, like many other passages in this chapter, I saw clear connections to the Odyssey, which I haven’t seen in other chapters. The whole discussion about the sea and going out on adventures to strange lands (e.g.-with Peruvian man-eaters) evokes Odysseus’ many travels. However, in contrast to Odysseus, the sailor in this chapter is just an ordinary, un-heroic person. Again, we observe this idea of the marginalization of the common man. Bloom muses that the sea is there, so the adventurous may as well go out and sail on it, even "in the face of providence." But, he then realizes that most people (the "great"?) wouldn’t risk an adventure at sea, and so "that sort of onus" is thrown onto someone else at all costs. Furthermore, while Bloom describes the necessity to go out to sea as an "eloquent fact," he does not seem to believe that the sailor has really done anything extraordinary, and in fact, he questions the truth in the sailor’s many stories. This all reinforces the idea of the above-cited Scylla & Charybdis passage, juxtaposing the potential of the "great" man with the very limited expectation for the common man.

EC

Ithaka

"One of all, the least of all, is the victim predestined. Once by inadvertence, twice by design he challenges his destiny. It comes when he is abandoned and challenges him reluctant and, as an apparition of hope and youth holds him unresisting. It leads him to a strange habitation, to a secret infidel apartment, and there, implacable, immolates him, consenting."

Richard III

While this passage doesn’t particularly relate to the great man/common man thread, I found it quite interesting. Here Stephen attempts to explain the song he just offered Bloom, but his explanation also applies to the situation in which the two characters presently find themselves. The song itself is both rather amusing, and somewhat disturbing. It tells the story of a little boy who is killed by his neighbor’s daughter. While Stephen sings the song, Joyce intermittently asks and answers questions about how Bloom is receiving it, because the neighbor and the daughter in the song are Jews. It is not terribly clear if Stephen is trying to provoke Bloom in some way, but in fact, in the end it is the Jews who triumph over the Gentiles in the song, recalling Bloom’s depiction of the Jews as "practical" and "proved to be so" from the previous chapter.

The passage is also significant as it relates to Odysseus, "the victim predestined" who "by design he challenges his destiny." As well, this entire chapter brings to mind the Greek tradition of the host/guest relationship. Bloom treats Stephen with much hospitality, offering him cocoa and advice.
 
 
 
 

Lifted.

This passage seemed a good starting point for examine the chapter to me because it is the first formulation of Stephen’s argument and topic of debate for the other intellectuals. Their primary concern appears to be a psychoanalytic reading of Shakespeare and in particular Hamlet. The argument posed by Stephen is that Shakespeare is the ghost of Hamlet’s father, Ann Hathaway the queen, and he tries to convince primarily John Eglinton(the other characters appear to be secondary), who holds that Shakespeare is really Hamlet.

What strikes me first in this is a question about what Joyce’s comments on the psychoanalytic and biographical elements in Ulysses are? From the Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man we have come to associate Stephen with Joyce. I saw in notes somewhere as I was browsing the Internet Ulysses site that the ghost mentioned in the first paragraph of the selection of above may be a self reference on the part of Stephen. I also seem to remember, in order to give some basis to this association that at the end of A Portrait… that Stephen was leaving for Paris. Is Stephen then being associated with Hamlet and Shakespeare? I don’t think so because of later references in the chapter and perhaps Joyce is referring to himself as a ghost of Stephen or vice versa and thereby linking himself to Shakespeare. Look at the following passage:

Another reason that I would align Stephen with Hamlet is the appearance of Bloom, the illusive father figure that Stephen is searching for to replace his own ineffectual father, when Bloom comes to the library in search of a magazine article and is not seen but described as "A patient silhouette" and "a bowing dark figure" who we don’t really see and appears like a ghost.

It seems fitting that biographical connections to Joyce would appear in this chapter given that it is centered around literature and authors.

One last thing that struck me as ironic was the comment made by Russell as he is leaving:

1. M

. This is, in my view, an excellent commentary on what seems to be an overriding theme in Ulysses, that being the use of Stephen as Joyce and Bloom as a metaphorical father that takes on the persona of Shakespeare, performing as King Hamlet, haunting his son. It seems that Joyce was very consciously aware of the Western Canon and in particular of Shakespeare’s influence upon it. The final quote in A.M.’s commentary is especially telling, not only in the obviously intersting reference to the unheard-from James Stephens, but also in the elucidation and "possibilizing" of the pressing need for a canonical author from Ireland. We see in that very last quote the duty Joyce may very well have felt when first taking up his pen.

His choice of Odysseus as a theme for the book was made, so Joyce says, because Odysseus was the most complete character in the history of literature. It is interesting then that Joyce chooses to interweave, even superimpose-here in the sense of a super imposition-the terrifyingly complex and horrifyingly incomplete character of Hamlet. The reason for his choice, since Joyce seems at least naively to relate to Odysseus and Hamlet on the same level, then might be the fact the The Odyssey lends itself to the narrative form, if we can call Ulysses a narrative, much more so than does Hamlet. There may not have been enough creative space for Joyce, in that Hamlet’s ramblings and ruminations are too well constructed, logical, thought-out, and pathological to be placed in the format of stream of consciousness. We have none of that interiority in Odysseus’, rather, we have a telling adventure-it is the exteriority of his experiences, and his action in the context of those experiences which yield a personality-a character. This, then, is rather like the course Bloom follows-adventure after adventure yielding a personality every bit as complete and devoutly modern as the Hamlet-like Stephen. It is no wonder that Stephen is searching for Bloom and Bloom is searching for Home. Home is simpler.

In continuance with the theme of the relationship between Bloom and Stephen analyzed both in the light of Shakespeare’s relationship with Joyce and Odysseus’ relationship with Telemachus, we have the following quote from the "Eumaeus" chapter of Ulysses:

-O, that, Stephen expostulated, has been proved conclusively by several of the best known passages in Holy Writ, apart from circumstantial evidence.

On this knotty point, however, the view of the pair, poles apart as they were, both in schooling and everything else, with the marked difference in their respective ages, clashed.

-Has been? The more experienced of the two objected, sticking to his original point. I’m not so sure about that. That’s a matter of every man’s opinion and, without dragging in the sectarian side of the business, I beg to differ with you in toto there. My belief is, to tell you the candid truth, that those bits were genuine forgeries all of them put in by monks most probably or it’s the big question of our national poet over again, who precisely wrote them, like Hamlet and Bacon, as you who know your Shakespeare infinitely better than I, of course I needn’t tell you…

Here, quite obviously, Bloom is taking on the role of the cynic. He is the unbeliever in the face of the devoutness expressed by Stephen. Of especial interest is Joyce’s interjection between the two commentaries. He makes special point to state that they had "different schooling and everything else". But why this special mention. Joyce, presumably, was better educated than Shakespeare ever was, but, more to the point, is the difference between Hamlet and King Hamlet. In the case of the elder, we have a pragmatism and an almost anti-mystical bent which prevents far flung speculation. A king must concentrate upon matter of state, not flippant speculation. It is for this reason that the appearance of King Hamlet as a ghost is all the more shocking to Hamlet, almost to the point of skepticism on his own part. This dynamic is clearly revealed in the aforementioned conversation. Here, Bloom speaks of the "candid truth" and of his humble inability to answer or even speculate about such questions. He is rather, more concerned with the affairs of his state.

Bloom’s reference to the national poet begs the question of the reader as to whom he is referring. Does he mean Shakespeare, or is this a veiled reference to Joyce? Certainly, Hamlet is later mentioned, but he also states that Stephen know Shakespeare far better than he. Hamlet is, after all, somewhat, if only psychologically, autobiographical in the same sense that Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man was for Joyce. The reference then seems to be doubly about Joyce as Stephen and Shakespeare as Hamlet. All in all, the speculation, the endless questioning as it were is left to Stephen, whereas the secrets of Odysseus (read here "experience" in Ulysses) are kept from the young Stephen/Telemachus. This then becomes the same coming home as in the Odyssey, where the speculation is left to the unknowing Telemachus.

This theme is then brought to further fruition in the "Ithaka" chapter of Ulysses:

What cerebration accompanied his frequentative act?

Concluding by inspection but erroneously that his silent companion was engaged in mental composition he reflected on the pleasures derived from literature of instruction rather than of amusement as he himself had applied to the works of William Shakespeare more than once for the solution of difficult problems in imaginary or real life.

Had he found their solution?

In spite of careful and repeated reading of certain classical passages, aided by a glossary, he had derived imperfect conviction from the text, the answers not bearing out all points.

Why does Bloom make his conclusion "erroneously" here? A better question is what is Stephen precisely doing here? He is merely thinking about problems for himself. This prompts Bloom to recount the manner in which he had attempted to solve typically difficult life-problems. He reads for instruction and this is his commonality with Stephen, but Bloom reads to learn what to do, whereas Stephen reads to learn how to think for himself.

What, in essence, Joyce is trying to say here is that more needs to be said. There must, in fact, be two national poets-classical and modern. This is precisely the reason why Bloom finds that the answers offered by the Bard are "not bearing out all points." Stephen must have been thinking about what more can be said. Joyce brings this point to bear not only with the words of the text but its novel format. Throughout the chapter Joyce employs a question and answer format, essentially asking the questions for the reader in furtherance of the story. It is a play, a new play much unlike Shakespeare’s classical format, where the reader is a player within the story. It is, in a sense, a more modern adaptation of the Shakespearean canon.

9. AM to CA
 
 

Lifted. 

What strikes me first in this is a question about what Joyce’s comments on the psychoanalytic and biographical elements in Ulysses are? From the Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man we have come to associate Stephen with Joyce. I saw in notes somewhere as I was browsing the Internet Ulysses site that the ghost mentioned in the first paragraph of the selection of above may be a self reference on the part of Stephen. I also seem to remember, in order to give some basis to this association that at the end of A Portrait… that Stephen was leaving for Paris. Is Stephen then being associated with Hamlet and Shakespeare? I don’t think so because of later references in the chapter and perhaps Joyce is referring to himself as a ghost of Stephen or vice versa and thereby linking himself to Shakespeare. Look at the following passage:

Another reason that I would align Stephen with Hamlet is the appearance of Bloom, the illusive father figure that Stephen is searching for to replace his own ineffectual father, when Bloom comes to the library in search of a magazine article and is not seen but described as "A patient silhouette" and "a bowing dark figure" who we don’t really see and appears like a ghost.

It seems fitting that biographical connections to Joyce would appear in this chapter given that it is centered around literature and authors.

One last thing that struck me as ironic was the comment made by Russell as he is leaving:

1. M.

Thoughts by CA on Scylla and Charybdis

Measure for Measure

I am here concerned with the passage beginning with "Piece de

Shakespeare" and ending just before "John Eglinton shifted his spare

body, leaning...". I'm sorry but I don't know how to do this cut and

paste on the e-mail. Anyway, here it is:

The comparison between Stephen and Hamlet is certainly a major sub-theme in the book. Joyce's use of Hamlet begins at the very outset of the book when Buck Mulligan mentions Stephen's algebraic proof of Hamlet and Shakespeare intwined geneology. But the placing of Hamlet in a provincial French town, being not a prince but a poleaxe wielding butcher of sorts. Hamlet is transformed in the context of French corruption, and provincial misunderstanding. He is seen as an absentminded beggar or Le Distrait. Stephen, however, still manages to identify with Hamlet, saying "...Nine lives are taken off for his father's one, Our Father who art in purgatory." Stephen makes many allusions here. The play ends with many deaths occuring in vengeance for his (hamlet's) fathers, but the significance of the number nine is perhaps an allusion to Tybalt's nine lives as the "king of cats". Hamlet is thus placed in the role of antagonist in the frenchversion-the "distrait". "Our Father, who art in purgatory", is a

reference to the Our Father prayer with a substitution of purgatoryfor

heaven. The idea here is that Stephen's father, metaphorically Bloom,

will be stuck in the purgatory of Dublin before being freed into a

beyond with is to come with their meeting and the coming-home. Here the father, Bloom, is placed in an almost God-like situation-though Stephen is later haunted by the idea of King Hamlet's reappearence as a ghost.

The idea here is a comparison between Hamlet's relationship to his father, and Stephen's relationship to Bloom. But here also is the

relationship between Joyce and Shakespeare. Stephen, therefore is

doubly a mouthpiece for Joyce's own feelings about his

lineage-Shakespeare as his allegorical father- and a prototype of a

modern day Hamlet. Stephen, speaking later "with tingling energy" is thus affronted by this French blasphemy on the part of Mr. Best. He, as John Eglinton most aptly states, wants to make Hamlet a ghost story. Stephen sees himself as that stagnant exaggeration of murder, but in the metaphorical sense of self-torture through self-reading. This is the significance of the corrupt Mallarme's poem about Hamlet reading the book of himself, like Jesus reading the New Testament. His owninterpretation of himself, his confrontation with his own ghosts (Joyce's or his?). Stephen then fears his own confrontation with Bloom, not wishing to become the spectre that Bloom is in his own mind. He thus says "Who is the ghost from limbo patrum, returning to the world that has forgotten him? Who is king Hamlet?" Stephen is struggling, through Hamlet, with both his own identity and that identity in relation to his metaphorical father. Did Joyce struggle with his identity in relation to Shakespeare? As a modern day Shakespeare? A difficult question that I cannot answer. It must be said though that Stephen is later plainly compelled by the idea of the actor-player Shakespeare as King Hamlet speaking to Burbage at the Rose-Burbage meant to be his own son's twin as Hamlet. The idea of the relationship between Hamlet, Stephen, Joyce and Shakespeare is very compelling and very confusing.

Comments

Interesting to note the connection between Hamlet as Le Distrait and Stephen, whoa at the end of the book finds himself as seemingly homeless and rather down on his luck.

I don’t really understand why Stephen is upset by Mallarmé’s use of Hamlet. Perhaps it is related to the ethereal sentiments of Stephen that appear in the items below….

Eumaeus

-- In this country people sell much more than she ever had and do a roaring trade. Fear not them that sell the body but have not power to buy the soul. She is a bad merchant. She buys dear and sells cheap. 

The elder man, though not by any manner of means an old maid or a prude, said that it was nothing short of a crying scandal that ought to be put a stop to instanter to say that women of that stamp (quite apart from any oldmaidish squeamishness on the subject), a necessary evil, were not licensed and medically inspected by the proper authorities, a thing he could truthfully state he, as a paterfamilias, was a stalwart advocate of from the very first start. Whoever embarked on a policy of that sort, he said, and ventilated the matter thoroughly would confer a lasting boon on everybody concerned. 

-- You, as a good catholic, he observed, talking of body and soul, believe in the soul. Or do you mean the intelligence, the brainpower as such, as distinct from any outside object, the table, let us say, that cup? I believe in that myself because it has been explained by competent men as the convolutions of the grey matter. Otherwise we would never have such inventions as X rays, for instance. Do you? 

Thus cornered, Stephen had to make a superhuman effort of memory to try and concentrate and remember before he could say: 

-- They tell me on the best authority it is a simple substance and therefore incorruptible. It would be immortal, I understand, but for the possibility of its annihilation by its First Cause, Who, from all I can hear, is quite capable of adding that to the number of His other practical jokes, corruptio per se and corruptio per accidens both being excluded by court etiquette. 

Mr Bloom thoroughly acquiesced in the general gist of this though the mystical finesse involved was a bit out of his sublunary depth still he felt bound to enter a demurrer on the head of simple, promptly rejoining:

-- Simple? I shouldn't think that is the proper word. Of course, I grant you, to concede a point, you do knock across a simple soul once in a blue moon. But what I am anxious to arrive at is it is one thing for instance to invent those rays Röntgen did, Or the telescope like Edison, though I believe it was before his time, Galileo was the man I mean. The same applies to the laws, for example, of a farreaching natural phenomenon such as electricity but it's a horse of quite another colour to say you believe in the existence of a supernatural God. 

-- O, that, Stephen expostulated, has been proved conclusively by several of the best known passages in Holy Writ, apart from circumstantial evidence. On this knotty point, however, the views of the pair, poles apart as they were, both in schooling and everything else, with the marked difference in their respective ages, clashed. 

-- Has been? the more experienced of the two objected, sticking to his original point. I'm not so sure about that. That's a matter of every man's opinion and, without dragging in the sectarian side of the business, I beg to differ with you in toto there. My belief is, to tell you the candid truth, that those bits were genuine forgeries all of them put in by monks most probably or it's the big question of our national poet over again, who precisely wrote them, like Hamlet and Bacon, as you who know your Shakespeare infinitely better than I, of course I needn't tell you. Can't you drink that coffee, by the way? Let me stir it and take a piece of that bun. It's like one of our skipper's bricks disguised. Still, no one can give what he hasn't got. Try a bit.

Much Ado About Nothing

Seeing the mention of Hamlet here by Bloom I marked the page in the thought that there was likely to be a link to the earlier presence of Hamlet in regard to the relationship between Bloom and Stephen in S&C. I was rather confused however by the comment regarding Hamlet and Bacon. I ran search in the Internet and discovered the following site: http://www.sirbacon.org/

Apparently there are a number of people who believe that Francis Bacon is Shakespeare and that William Shakespeare is just a pen name. Apparently Edwin Reed wrote a book in 1902 entitled Francis Bacon Our Shakespeare. That piece of information makes the above passage concerning the existence of God and the authority, or lack thereof of the Bible.

However, I am still at a loss as to how to connect this passage to the earlier connections between Hamlet/Shakespeare/Joyce and the father/son relationship between Bloom and Stephen form S&C.

Perhaps some connection can be made between the idea of God and therefore immorality with the existence of the ghost of Hamlet’s father?

Also interesting to note are the rather odd connections present in the passage. First all the talk of the "existence of a supernatural God" that leads to Bloom’s questioning of Shakespeare is sparked by the presence of a whore, with whom Bloom was on the verge of conducting business earlier in the day(maybe noteworthy, maybe not), and the earlier comments in S&C regarding Shakespeare’s promiscuity.

Also, there maybe a pun intended between Bloom’s mention of HAMlet and Bacon and his advice that Stephen eat some solid food on the following page. Bloom seems to dismiss the question concerning Bacon and Shakespeare and may be a comment on the two distinct personalities of Stephen and Bloom (Bloom being more grounded in science, as he notes in Ithaka, and therefore reality, while Stephen is more artistic and perhaps therefore to be considered as driven by more ethereal notions) In fact Bloom later specifically points out the constitutional benefits of bacon as being high in protein and caloric energy.
 
 

Ithaka

What cerebration accompanied his frequentative act? 

Concluding by inspection but erroneously that his silent companion was engaged in mental composition he reflected on the pleasures derived from literature of instruction rather than of amusement as he himself had applied to the works of William Shakespeare more than once for the solution of difficult problems in imaginary or real life. 

Had he found their solution?

In spite of careful and repeated reading of certain classical passages, aided by a glossary, he had derived imperfect conviction from the text, the answers not bearing on all points.
 
 

What lines concluded his first piece of original verse written by him, potential poet, at the age of 11 in 1877 on the occasion of the offering of three prizes at 10/-, 5/- and 2/6 respectively by the Shamrock, a weekly newspaper?

An ambition to squint
At my verses in print
Makes me hope that for these you'll find room.
If you so condescend
Then please place at the end
The name of yours truly, L. Bloom.
 
 

Did he find four separating forces between his temporary guest and him?

Name, age, race, creed.
 
 

What anagrams had he made on his name in youth? 

Leopold Bloom

Ellpodbomool 

Molldopeloob. 

Bollo edoom 

Old Ollebo, M. P. 

What acrostic upon the abbreviation of his first name had he (kinetic poet) sent to Miss Marion Tweedy on the 14 February 1888? 

Poets oft have sung in rhyme
Of music sweet their praise divine.
Let them hymn it nine times nine.
Bearer far than song or wine,
You are mine. The world is mine.

Much Ado About Nothing

In the above section, the idea of the connection between literature and life is approached. Here Bloom’s reflection finds the connection to be insufficient, the "answers not bearing on all points. Thus the more "scientific" temperament of Bloom is pointed out, though I’m not sure that anyone would find the answers "bearing on all points"

What follows is a pair of Bloom literary endeavors, the first being a poem written as a child in for a contest in a local paper, which is seems likely that Bloom did not win, being precisely childish.

Then seemingly a non-sequitur is Bloom’s analysis of the separating forces between himself and Stephen, and whether or not creed is intended to include temperament or simple refers to religion is a question. Then a foolish collection of anagrams and love poem to Milly. Neither of which are appear particularly significant. Perhaps this is a demonstration of Bloom’s failures as a writer

Really found this chapter to be incomprehensible and a whole lot of nothing taking up 70 pages that get across little meaningful info. Perhaps that’s simply frustration talking, but so be it.

MT Macbeth

"-- All these questions are purely academic, Russell oracled out of his

shadow. I mean, whether Hamlet is Shakespeare or James I or Essex.

Clergymen's disc