Classics and the Western Canon discussion

Just one episode this week, but it's a doozy.

Circe warns Odysseus in Book 12 of the Odyssey “to keep away from the magical Sirens and their singing and their flowery meadow,” but Odysseus is able to listen to them after his crew have tied him to the mast. The Sirens call to Odysseus, and “they sang, in sweet utterance, and the heart within me desired to listen, and I signaled my companions to set me free, nodding with my brows, but they leaned on and rowed hard...”

The action in this episode is obscured by the musical technique that Joyce employed. He referred to the episode as a "fuga per canonem," but scholars have searched for the fugue without much success. The section begins with more than a page of disconnected phrases, sometimes called an “overture,” but I think it is better seen as a list of leitmotifs, phrases of ‘song’ that recur and are used in a somewhat Wagnerian fashion throughout the section. Each phrase will appear and sometimes reappear in the order listed, but with a context that makes the meaning clearer.

The scene is continued from sections 15 and 19 of “Wandering Rocks,” where the barmaids are seen peering above the crossblinds of the Ormond Hotel as the viceregal cavalcade passes by. They are Mina Kennedy and Lydia Douce, the sirens who work the reef of the Ormond Bar. They are distinguished by their hair and personality: Lydia (suggesting the lydian mode, a major mode in music) is sweet (Douce) and bronze and brazen. She flirts with the customers and snaps her garter “sonnez la cloche!” to great effect. Mina (minor) “sadly saunters,” is golden-haired and less playful. She ignores Lenehan’s advances by reading her book.

Lydia has returned from vacation and is sunburnt, and the thought of buying lotion reminds her of the greasy “old fogey” who works at the pharmacy. Bloom is passing nearby, bearing the “Sweets of Sin” close to his breast, and the narrator conflates the greasy old fogey with “greaseabloom.” (“Gray-sea” or “gracey” is the typically Irish pronunciation.) Bloom is on his way to buy paper at Daly’s so he can write to Martha.

Simon Dedalus enters the bar, flirts a bit with Lydia, blows through his pipe and fills it. He is followed by Lenehan, who tries to flirt with MIna (“Peep... who’s in the peepofgold?”) and then asks after Boylan, who has not yet arrived. Simon notices the piano has been moved, and Lydia explains that the blind piano-tuner (earlier helped across the street by Bloom) has been in.

As Bloom is paying for the paper in Daly’s he sees Boylan, for the third time this day, crossing the Essex (Yes - sex) bridge in his jingling jauntingcar. But this time instead of avoiding him Bloom decides to “risk it. Go quick. At four.”

Boylan, “conquering hero,” enters the bar and Bloom, “unconquered hero”, follows Richie Goulding into the adjacent diningroom. “Best value in Dublin,” Bloom tells Goulding. Pat the deaf waiter waits on them -- the word “waiting” appears repetitively in this episode. Boylan’s entrance and exit is marked by Simon singing “Goodbye, Sweetheart, Goodbye.” Lenehan leaves after him, as Ben “base barreltone” Dollard and Fr. Cowley arrive.

Dollard, Dedalus, and Cowley reminisce about the time Dollard had to borrow comically tight trousers from the Blooms (“Mrs Marion Bloom has left off clothes of all descriptions”). In the diningroom next door, Bloom hears Dollard singing “Love and War,” and remembers the same story about Dollard and Molly’s delight at all his “belongings on show”.

The solicitor George Lidwell arrives and joins the rest. Richie remarks on the “lyrical tenor” Joe Maas and his rendition of “Tutto e sciolto” (All is Lost) from Bellini’s La somnambula (the Sleepwalker). Bloom thinks, “Jingle jaunty. Too late. She longed to go. That’s why. Woman. As easy stop the sea. Yes: all is lost.”

As Simon begins to sing “M’Appari” from the opera Martha by Friedrich von Flotow, Bloom asks the waiter to prop the door so he can hear in the room next door. Bloom is caught up in the emotion of the song, which is sung in the opera by the character Lionel. The climax of the song becomes for Bloom a union of Simon, Lionel, and himself: “Siopold!”

As Richie drones on, Bloom decides to write his letter to Martha and asks Pat the waiter to bring ink and blotting pad. He hides what he is doing from Richie, telling him he is answering an ad. He questions what he is doing: “Folly am I writing? Husbands don’t. That’s marriage does, their wives...No, not tell all. Useless pain. If they don’t see. Women. Sauce for the gander. “ He closes by writing, “ I feel so sad today...So lonely.” (This echoes what Stephen says on the strand in Proteus, “I am lonely here... sad too.”) This is followed by a “telepathic’ flashback to Stephen’s conversation in the previous episode: “Music hath charms Shakespeare said...In Gerard’s rosery of Fetter lane he walks, greyedauburn. One life all. One body.”

Fr. Cowley is playing the minuet from Don Giovanni in the Ormond as Boylan arrives at 7 Eccles St. and knocks on the door with “a loud proud knocker, with a cock carracarracarra cock. Cockcock.” Fr. Cowley wants Ben to sing “Qui sdegno” (“Here indignation”) but Tom Kernan presses for “The Croppy Boy.” The phrases of this song of betrayal echo throughout the remainder of the chapter. As Dollard sings the line, “At the siege of Ross did my father fall, And at Gorey my loving brothers all, I alone am left of my name and race...” Bloom is reminded: “I too, last my race. Milly young student. Well, my fault, perhaps. No son. Rudy. Too late now. Or if not? If not? If still?” And after a line break: “He bore no hate,” a reference to the Croppy Boy (and Bloom as well?)

Bloom resists the final seductions of Lydia Douce as she plays with the beerpull. He prepares to leave for his appointment with Martin Cunningham to discuss the fund for the Dignam orphans. The blind piano tuner is getting closer, tap tap tap.

The piano tuner finally passes Bloom, as he feels the need to break wind. He sees the “whore of the lane,” off her beat. He avoids her by staring into the window of an antiques shop.

“Knew Molly. Had me decked....That appointment we made. Knowing we’d never, well hardly ever. Too dear too near to home sweet home.”

The final song of the episode is Bloom’s flatulence, produced while he is looking at a portrait of Irish patriot Robert Emmett in the window of the shop. On the picture are printed the words of Emmett’s speech to the court that condemned him to death:

“Let no man write my epitaph; for as no man knows my motives dares now vindicate them, let not prejudice or ignorance asperse them. When my country takes her place among the nations of the earth then and not till then, let my epitaph be written. I have done.”

M'appari / Martha / Luciano Pavarotti

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnQCD...

From the Opera Martha

When first I saw that form endearing,
Sorrow from me seem'd to depart:
Each graceful look, each word so cheering,
Charm'd my eye and won my heart.
Full of hope, and all delighted,
None could feel more blest than I;
All on earth I then could wish for,
Was near her to live and die:
But alas! 'twas idle dreaming,
And the dream too soon hath flown;
Not one ray of hope is gleaming;
I am lost, yes I am lost, for she is gone.
When first I saw that form endearing,
Sorrow from me seem'd to depart:
Each graceful look, each word so cheering,
Charm'd my eye and won my heart.
Martha, Martha, I am sighing,
I am weeping still for thee;
Come thou lost one, come though dear one,
Thou alone can'st comfort me:
Ah! Martha return! Come to me.

LA SONNAMBULA (2013-14), "Tutto è sciolto... Ah! Perché non posso odiarti"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bx0x2...

SCENA TERZA
Elvino, e dette in disparte.

AMINA
Vedi, o madre... è afflitto e mesto...
Forse... ah! forse ei m'ama ancor.

ELVINO
Tutto è sciolto:
Più per me non v'ha conforto.
Il mio cor per sempre è morto
Alla gioia ed all'amor.

"all is lost, there is no solace left to me, my heart is dead forever to joy and love”

MARTHA - The Last Rose of Summer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rl2_...

'Tis the last rose of summer,
Left blooming alone;
All her lovely companions
Are faded and gone;
No flower of her kindred,
No rosebud is nigh,
To reflect back her blushes,
Or give sigh for sigh.
I'll not leave thee, thou lone one!
To pine on the stem;
Since the lovely are sleeping,
Go, sleep thou with them.
Thus kindly I scatter,
Thy leaves o'er the bed,
Where thy mates of the garden
Lie scentless and dead.
So soon may I follow,
When friendships decay,
And from Love's shining circle
The gems drop away.
When true hearts lie withered,
And fond ones are flown,
Oh! who would inhabit
This bleak world alone?


John McCormack - Goodbye, Sweetheart, Goodbye

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60M-i...

The bright stars fade, the morn is breaking,
The dewdrops pearl each bud and leaf,
And I from thee my leave am taking,
with bliss too brief, with bliss, with bliss too brief.
How sinks my hear with fond alarms,
the tear is hiding in mine eye,
For time doth tear me from thine arms,
Goodbye, Sweetheart, Goodbye...

The sun is up, the lark is soaring,
Loud swells the song of Chanticleer,
yet I am here, yet i, yet I am here.
For since night's gems from heav'n do fade,
And morn to floral lips doth hie,
I could not leave thee though I said
Goodbye, Sweetheart, Goodbye...


The Croppy Boy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8dTj...

The Croppy Boy
It was early, early in the spring
The birds did whistle and sweetly sing,
Changing their notes from tree to tree
And the song they sang was Old Ireland free.
It was early early in the night,
The yeoman cavalry gave me a fright;
The yeoman cavalry was my downfall
And I was taken by Lord Cornwall.
'Twas in the guard-house where I was laid,
And in a parlour where I was tried;
My sentence passed and my courage low
When to Dungannon I was forced to go.
As I was passing my father's door
My brother William stood at the door;
My aged father stood at the door
And my tender mother her hair she tore.
As I was going up Wexford Street
My own first cousin I chanced to meet;
My own first cousin did me betray
And for one bare guinea swore my life away.
As I was walking up Wexford Hill
Who could blame me to cry my fill?
I looked behind, and I looked before
But my aged mother I shall see no more.
And as I mounted the platform high
My aged father was standing by;
My aged father did me deny
And the name he gave me was the Croppy Boy.
It was in Dungannon this young man died
And in Dungannon his body lies.
And you good people that do pass by
Oh shed a tear for the Croppy Boy.

Evan Williams - My Pretty Jane

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfVha...

The Bloom Is on the Rye
(or, "My Pretty Jane")

Music by Sir Henry Bishop;
words by Edward Fitzball
Song Lyrics*

My pretty Jane! my pretty Jane!
Ah! never, never look so shy.
But meet me, meet me in the Ev'ning,
While the bloom is on the Rye.
The Spring is waning fast, my Love,
The corn is in the ear.
The Summer nights are coming, Love,
The moon shines bright and clear;
Then pretty Jane, my dearest Jane,
Ah! never look so shy,
But meet me, meet me in the Ev'ning,
While the bloom is on the Rye.
But name the day, the wedding day,
And I will buy the ring,
The Lads and Maids in favours white,
And village bells, the village bells shall ring.
The Spring is waning fast, my Love,
The corn is in the ear.
The Summer nights are coming, Love,
The moon shines bright and clear;
Then pretty Jane, my dearest Jane,
Ah! never look so shy,
But meet me, meet me in the Ev'ning,
While the bloom is on the Rye

Love and War

Lover (tenor):
When Love absorbs my ardent soul,
I think not of the morrow;
Beneath his sway years swiftly roll,
True lovers banish sorrow,
By softest kisses, warm'd to blisses,
Lovers banish sorrow,
By softest kisses, warm'd to blisses,
Lovers banish sorrow.
Soldier (bass):
While war absorbs my ardent soul,
I think not of the morrow;
Beneath his sway years swiftly roll,
True Soldiers banish sorrow,
By cannon's rattle, rous'd to battle,
Soldiers banish sorrow,
By cannon's rattle, rous'd to battle,
Soldiers banish sorrow.
Together:
Since Mars lov'd Venus, Venus Mars,
Let's blend love's wounds with battle's scars,
And call in Bacchus all divine,
To cure both pains with rosy wine,
To cure both pains with rosy, rosy wine.
And thus, beneath his social sway,
We'll sing and laugh the hours away.

Patrice wrote: "But for my second read I am listening to it as I read and for anyone who is having trouble with the chapter I strongly suggest this method. Listening to it, that's the way to go. It's music. The singing is beautiful and everything is just much clearer."

Great idea. Joyce does his best to make his prose mimic music, but it's much easier to hear in a really good reading of the chapter (with the songs being sung) how the episode is orchestrated.

Patrice wrote: "One more thing....did anyone notice a mention of "middle earth"? I thought that was Tolkien's invention."

As in 257 (253):

"Low in dark middle earth. Embedded ore."

?

I had thought that a suggestion of Molly's most female part.

Thomas wrote: "M'appari / Martha / Luciano Pavarotti

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnQCD...

From the Opera Martha

When first I saw that form endearing,
Sorrow from me seem'd to depart:
Each graceful loo..."

Many thanks, Thomas, for the many music links. Beyond lovely. Beautiful.

Patrice wrote: "One more thing....did anyone notice a mention of "middle earth"? I thought that was Tolkien's invention."

I think that's a Wagner reference, from Das Rheingold.

Puerile. Inelegant. Base. In a matter of two chapters Joyce's target audience has gone from English Lit majors to 14-year-old boys. Farts, clunky double entendres. Titter titter.

Zippy wrote: "Puerile. Inelegant. Base. In a matter of two chapters Joyce's target audience has gone from English Lit majors to 14-year-old boys. Farts, clunky double entendres. Titter titter."

That is where this chapter is. But with very nice background music.

Zippy wrote: "Puerile. Inelegant. Base. In a matter of two chapters Joyce's target audience has gone from English Lit majors to 14-year-old boys. Farts, clunky double entendres. Titter titter."

Maybe we are a bit like Simon Dedalus here. From Wandering Rocks: "I looked all along the gutter..." for something of value.

And there was that man a chapter or two back. Saved. "Saved." Pulled out of the sewer.

Is that Ulysses?

Perhaps Martha is just an object on which Bloom fixes his memories of the young Molly.
"Martha, Martha, I am sighing,
I am weeping still for thee;
Come thou lost one, come though dear one,
Thou alone can'st comfort me:
Ah! Martha return! Come to me."

I think he is conflating Martha and the young Molly. He wants the Molly of his youth and passion back. The letters are wishful communication and a wishful reunion with Molly. Martha is her standin!

Patrice wrote: "I was googling around and found an article about Joyce and Einstein. I had said earlier that the way he writes makes me think of quantum physics...not that I understand either thing. lol But acc..."

Murray Gell-Mann decided on the name "quark" after finding the word in Finnegans Wake. Joyce borrowed details from every level of human experience to make his "new Irish stew." In this case quantum physics borrowed something from him.

Susan wrote: "I think he is conflating Martha and the young Molly. He wants the Molly of his youth and passion back. The letters are wishful communication and a wishful reunion with Molly. Martha is her standin!

Yes, I think so too. "What perfume does your wife wear?" Martha asks... what a strange question! But it makes sense if that is the sort of thing that Bloom wants her to ask because he wants her to be a surrogate for Molly.

At #11 Zippy wrote: "Puerile. Inelegant. Base. In a matter of two chapters Joyce's target audience has gone from English Lit majors to 14-year-old boys. Farts, clunky double entendres. Titter titter."

It seems to me there are ... for want of a better term ... high-brow allusions here, too.

* The opening sentence: "Bronze by gold heard the hoofirons, steelyrining imperthnthn thnthnthn."

I thought immediately of The Book of Daniel.

31"You, O king, were looking and behold, there was a single great statue; that statue, which was large and of extraordinary splendor, was standing in front of you, and its appearance was awesome. 32"The head of that statue was made of fine gold, its breast and its arms of silver, its belly and its thighs of bronze, 33its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay.


[People. Feet of clay. Bloom's feet.]



* A little further down on that first page:

"Decoy. Soft word. But look! The bright stars fade. O rose! ... The morn is breaking.":


I thought Shakespeare. "But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief,"






* Bottom of that first page, I thought of Eliot/Shakespeare/The Tempest and Hamlet, and the Bible:

"Pearls when she. Liszt's rhapsodies. Hissss."

Pearls. FIRST, I thought of Eliot's The Waste Land. "Those are pearls that were his eyes."

Which hearkened back to Shakespeare's The Tempest:

"Full fathom five thy father lies.

 Of his bones are coral made.

 Those are pearls that were his eyes.

 Nothing of him that doth fade,

 But doth suffer a sea-change

 Into something rich and strange.

 Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell "

That was nicely done on Joyce's part, I thought.


Liszt. Every since that in-depth "Hamlet" chapter (S&C), all the "lists" remind me of Hamlet's father.

"(But this eternal blazon must not be)
To ears of flesh and blood. List, list, O, list! "

Even makes me think of Blaze Boylan. And is it, in part, Blaze Boylan, that must not be?

Sadness concerning Bloom's father? Sadness concerning Bloom's wife?




* And "Hissss." The Bible. The snake is in the garden.

Referring to "sin" entering Bloom's marriage? (Bloom is after all carrying around the book, "The Sweets of Sin." Pressing "The Sweets of Sin" to his heart. )


Referring, perhaps, to "awareness"? As when Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge and were become aware? Is this Bloom? He's been --- I believe --- trying very hard NOT to have awareness. Can he continue in that state?

Anyway.









(I will admit that the "jingle jingles made me think that Bloom was thinking of that bed from Gibraltar, jingling and jangling... he had thought "really must get that fixed"... or words to that effect.)


(The "Bloo" Made me think that perhaps Bloom is thinking of himself as an incomplete man. He's ... lacking ??)

Zippy wrote: "Puerile. Inelegant. Base. In a matter of two chapters Joyce's target audience has gone from English Lit majors to 14-year-old boys. Farts, clunky double entendres. Titter titter."

Also, I have an excuse. LOL. I wasn't an English Lit major. :-)

Patrice wrote: "Adelle wrote: "At #11 Zippy wrote: "Puerile. Inelegant. Base. In a matter of two chapters Joyce's target audience has gone from English Lit majors to 14-year-old boys. Farts, clunky double entendre..."

Thank you, Patrice. That's nice of you.

Darn darn dastardly darn book!

Worth noting that The Croppy Boy is distinct from the other songs in the episode - especially those sung while Bloom is present. The others touch on some universal aspect of romantic love, and clearly have an effect on Bloom. The Croppy Boy is a sad requiem for a martyr of the Irish Independence movement. Bloom chooses to leave as soon as the song starts. Again - suggesting an otherness about Bloom. Interestingly, Bloom does seem to like listening as he lingers until the very end, but is ultimately glad to be in the hallway by end of the song - when he hears the emotional "growls and roars of bravo, fat back-slapping" from within.

His thoughts during the song also refer to the Irish as "they", and he seems to ponder them as anthropologist might think about an alien society. And for me, his distaste for the emotional outburst calls back his distaste for dining with the masses in Lestrygonians.

Interesting that the females, who one might think are the Sirens, are not the singers. The men sing. Bloom isn't taken in by the music--"Music. Gets on your nerves....Ben Howth. That rules the world...Crowley, he stuns himself with it; ...Fiddlefaddle about notes." Bloom has his mind's eye firmly on the site of his and Molly's first sexual encounter. That rules the world. No resentment, no self-pity, no anger, lonely, but not diverted.

What's with the gold and bronze besides the hair color of the barmaids? Those words are repeated so many times!

The technique of the episode is the fugue, a composition in five sections with five voices. I'm not sure I can distinguish the five voices, nor the "eight regular parts with subject and counter-subject". What unifies the fugue?--love, coitus, desire, home-coming, loyalty, climax of the senses, harmony of the senses, love triangle?

Adelle wrote: "It seems to me there are ... for want of a better term ... high-brow allusions here, too."

Nice post, Adelle, but for me, alluding to great works does not a great work make.

I wasn't an Eng Lit major either in case there was any question. :-)

I had no idea what a caracara was! "..a handsome bird with peacock legs...breast plumage a fine gleaming blue...When this bird is domesticated, he behaves as if he were the master in the house. Easily tamed, he grows so familiar in his ways that he will tap at the door with his beak to gain admission." Maybe the tap, tap usually assigned to the blind piano tuner's stick is also an echo of the caracara cock knock at Molly's door. Would Joyce really know things like this??
Maybe this sound is also a musical motif that unifies the fugue.

Zippy wrote: "Adelle wrote: "It seems to me there are ... for want of a better term ... high-brow allusions here, too."

Nice post, Adelle, but for me, alluding to great works does not a great work make.

I was..."

Susan wrote: "I had no idea what a caracara was! "..a handsome bird with peacock legs...breast plumage a fine gleaming blue...When this bird is domesticated, he behaves as if he were the master in the house. E..."

Zippy wrote: "Adelle wrote: "It seems to me there are ... for want of a better term ... high-brow allusions here, too."

Nice post, Adelle, but for me, alluding to great works does not a great work make.

I was..."


:-) I have yet to think, "That's wonderful writing." I do like sentences that are well crafted. I do like well-structured arguments.
And yet...the book keeps pulling me back.
I'm interested in SD and Bloom in terms of their souls and in how well I (think) I can make sense of them psychologically.

Kyle wrote: "His thoughts during the song also refer to the Irish as "they", and he seems to ponder them as anthropologist might think about an alien society. And for me, his distaste for the emotional outburst calls back his distaste for dining with the masses in Lestrygonians. "

Nice observations. Bloom doesn't fit in, but it's as if he doesn't realize it. He is forever going on about the "phenomena" without understanding that his objectivity distances him from others, or that others ridicule him for it. Or perhaps he does understand but doesn't see any alternative. He can't not be Bloom... or Bloowho ever he is.

Susan wrote: "Bloom isn't taken in by the music--"Music. Gets on your nerves....Ben Howth. That rules the world...Crowley, he stuns himself with it; ...Fiddlefaddle about notes." Bloom has his mind's eye firmly on the site of his and Molly's first sexual encounter."

That's only partly true. He is certainly taken in by Simon's rendition of "M'Appari." But Bloom hears everything as music -- "sea, wind, leaves, thunder, waters, cows lowing....There's music everywhere." He even hears music in Molly's chamber pot. "Chamber music. Could make a kind of pun on that." Which is a pun itself on Joyce's first book of poems called "Chamber Music."

But as Kyle pointed out, Bloom gets up to leave when Dollard begins "The Croppy Boy." He does so with some difficulty, true to the theme of the chapter, but there is something about that song he doesn't like. "The voice of dark age, of unlove, earth's fatigue made grave approach, and painful, come from afar..."

As we've seen before, Bloom is inconsistent in his thoughts and actions... but I think that inconsistency is an accurate reflection of human nature.

Thomas wrote: "without understanding that his objectivity distances him from others,..."

Yeah, I'm noticing this theme much more this time around. Bloom is in many ways the opposite of Stephen, but they seem very much alike in terms of their social connections. Another common thread is that they both seem to be well educated and intelligent - which feels to me like Joyce himself showing through. Presumably he would have felt similar things growning up in largely lower class and undereducated Dublin. (I found some interesting demographic info on contemporary Dublin that I'm hoping to get around to posting on the Wandering Rocks thread later).

And, without getting into specifics, it will be interesting to see how the "otherness" continues to develop as we move along...

Adelle wrote: "At #11 Zippy wrote: "Puerile. Inelegant. Base. In a matter of two chapters Joyce's target audience has gone from English Lit majors to 14-year-old boys. Farts, clunky double entendres. Titter titte..."


They turned along the left bank in a line;
but before they started, all of them together
had stuck their pointed tongues out as a sign
to their Captain that they wished permission to pass,
and he had made a trumpet of his ass.
—Dante, Inferno, Ciardi translation

Laurel wrote: "...had stuck their pointed tongues out as a sign
to their Captain that they wished permission to pass,
and he had made a trumpet of his ass."

Touché!

LOL

Here is John Ciardi's very interesting note on Dante's (and Chaucer's) use of bodily functions. Today, of course, anything goes. For the record, I don't like it. Most offensive to me are the recent writers who use the same two naughty words over and over. Get a vocabulary!

A GENERAL NOTE ON DANTE’S TREATMENT OF THE GRAFTERS AND THEIR GUARDS (CANTOS XXI and XXII).
Dante has been called “The Master of the Disgusting” with the stress at times on the mastery and at times on the disgust. The occasional coarseness of details in other Cantos (especially in Cantos XVIII and XXVIII) has offended certain delicate readers. It is worth pointing out that the mention of bodily function is likely to be more shocking in a Protestant than in a Catholic culture. It has often seemed to me that the offensive language of Protestantism is obscenity; the offensive language of Catholicism is profanity or blasphemy : one offends on a scale of unmentionable words for bodily function, the other on a scale of disrespect for the sacred. Dante places the Blasphemous in Hell as the worst of the Violent against God and His Works, but he has no category for punishing those who use four- letter words. The difference is not, I think, national, but religious. Chaucer, as a man of Catholic England, took exactly Dante’s view in the matter of what was and what was not shocking language. In “The Pardoner’s Tale,” Chaucer sermonized with great feeling against the rioters for their profanity and blasphemy (for the way they rend Christ’s body with their oaths) but he is quite free himself with “obscenity.” Modern English readers tend to find nothing whatever startling in his profanity, but the schoolboys faithfully continue to underline the marvels of his Anglo- Saxon monosyllables and to make marginal notes on them.

Patrice wrote: " Listening to it, that's the way to go. It's music. The singing is beautiful and everything is just much clearer."

When I saw Thomas's 10 rating, I decided to watch Heffernan's lecture on the section before reading it (up to now, I have read, then watched the lectures). Heffernan says that the section is "a tour de force of musical effects, created in language," that Joyce was trying to write music in words. So your observation that listening to it is magic, music making, is spot on.

I'll be listening to it next, and will see whether I get the same effect you do.

Susan wrote: "I think he is conflating Martha and the young Molly. He wants the Molly of his youth and passion back. The letters are wishful communication and a wishful reunion with Molly. Martha is her standin! "

Nice. He's listening to Martha and writing to Martha. But perhaps wishing for the old Molly?

Adelle wrote: "At #11 Zippy wrote: "Puerile. Inelegant. Base. ...
It seems to me there are ... for want of a better term ... high-brow allusions here, too."

A tour de force. You see so much more here than I do. I'm getting a true education in modernist writing!

Susan wrote: "The technique of the episode is the fugue, a composition in five sections with five voices. I'm not sure I can distinguish the five voices, nor the "eight regular parts with subject and counter-su..."

Herrerman contends that the fugal parts are: the chatter of the barmaids is the subject; Bloom's entry and monologue is the answer; Blazes Boylan is the counter-subject, Simon Dedalus hitting the last high note is the climax, and Bloom's fart is the coda. FWIW. I never would have seen it that way in a thousand years, but there it is.

He also contends that the opening is the overture -- a stream of short sentences, phrases, and sometimes single words that anticipate the full melody that develops in the episode

Thomas wrote: "Susan wrote: "Bloom isn't taken in by the music--"Music. Gets on your nerves....Ben Howth. That rules the world...Crowley, he stuns himself with it; ...Fiddlefaddle about notes." Bloom has his mind..That's only partly true. He is certainly taken in by Simon's rendition of "M'Appari." But Bloom hears everything as music."

I agree that he hears music everywhere, but since the barmaids don't really sing except a line or two while they work, it seems that the men singing around the piano take to role of the sirens. While others seem to be caught in the emotion of music, Bloom seems to maintain his distance. The Croppy Boy, the story of an Irish victim of British trickery, jiggers up national pride, but not Bloom's. The love songs don't inspire sentimentality in Bloom either. Perhaps Bloom makes the music comments in resistance to the power of music to enchant. He's still the "unconquered hero".

OK This is the most erotic literary porn I've ever read! I've read 2 summaries of the episode and neither hardly mention sex. Have I been Joyced and just imagine sexual metaphor in every noun and verb or is this a common experience?

I think Joyce is the Siren. would you rather row past with your ears plugged or be tied to the mast and hear the song?

Susan wrote: "OK This is the most erotic literary porn I've ever read! I've read 2 summaries of the episode and neither hardly mention sex. Have I been Joyced and just imagine sexual metaphor in every noun and v..."

No, I think you're right. It's everywhere in this episode. This is the sort of thing that got Ulysses banned in the UK and US. It isn't subtle, but compared to today's "erotica" it's still fairly subdued.

Susan wrote: "I think Joyce is the Siren. would you rather row past with your ears plugged or be tied to the mast and hear the song?"

One neat connection is that his sailors with their ears plugged led Odysseus past the sirens, and it is a deaf waiter (functionally ears plugged) whom Bloom asks to open the door so he can hear the music. In this episode, it seems pretty clear that Bloom is Odysseus. (The Odysseus role does seem to attach to different people in different episodes.)

Bloom definitely has sex on the brain in this episode. He's been keyed up all day, the Boylan leaves to "visit" Molly, he starts hearing the sad love songs, and the bronzegold temptresses are floating in the background. I'm not sure that I would read all the jarring imagery as erotic per se, but more as an indication of Bloom's agitated mind. If your edition has the Judge Woolsey Opinion, he does a great job of parsing this out - better than I could right now. Maybe I'll quote it later. But essentially, his point is that Joyce's intent is not to titulate the reader for titultion's sake, but rather just to get the reader inside of the character's experience. To the extent the reader is titulated, hey, that's life. This is a simplified idea of the legal definition of porn - is there a higher purpose, or is it just meant to provide cheap thrills.

But yeah, the imagery is certainly loud and clear...

Kyle wrote: "Bloom definitely has sex on the brain in this episode. He's been keyed up all day, the Boylan leaves to "visit" Molly, he starts hearing the sad love songs, and the bronzegold temptresses are flo..."

In one description of the barmaids, Miss Douce is wearing a rosebud surrounded by maidenhair fern on her blouse. Simon D apparently touches the corsage. Near the end of the episode there is another reference to this. I had to search to find these references so I can't say they are "cheap thrills", but now the shell with seagrass, the exposed ear, the timpany, to mention only a few of the female images, dominate the scene for me. I'm not sure Bloom's consciousness processes all these images, but I think the reader is invited to experience Bloom's state of mind. Joyce achieves a sense of intimacy, which for me, is unrivaled in literature (my limited reading anyway).

Susan wrote: "Kyle wrote: "Bloom definitely has sex on the brain in this episode. He's been keyed up all day, the Boylan leaves to "visit" Molly, he starts hearing the sad love songs, and the bronzegold temptr..."

Yeah, things are starting to get weird as far a the narration - we're starting to get some blurred lines between the third person narrator, Bloom, Stephen, and the city itself. I don't think we disagree about very much. I was just linking this scene back into the larger picture of the vulgarity accusations that got the book banned, and for what reasons it was ultimately found not vulgar in the US. Part of that turns on some fine points (or semantic differences, if you like) between "eroticism" (which would have been taboo), and "art".

Adding another layer of weird to the whole thing - it appears that Richie Goulding is the same Nuncle Richie from earlier - The sire of the "wise child who knows knows her own father".

Kyle wrote: " reasons it was ultimately found not vulgar in the US. Part of that turns on some fine points (or semantic differences, if you like) between "eroticism" (which would have been taboo), and "art". .."

I wrote a paper on Madonna's book Sex once and find Joyce way more intimate and erotic. I think viewing the world through a character's consciousness makes the world more immediate for me, however, pictures may be more immediate for others. Why is art OK and eroticism taboo? How are they different? Who defines? The debate seems to have found a cultural equilibrium though.

I wrote a paper on Madonna's book Sex once and find Joyce way more intimate and erotic. I think viewing the world through a character's consciousness makes the world more immediate for me,

Yeah, I think there are really two different questions that I may not have separated out well. One is the legal question that Thomas mentioned - whether the novel was pornographic by the laws (and values) of 1933 America. The other question is how we perceive it today - this is obviously a matter of personal taste and there is not really a right or wrong answer.

Legally, the specific question that Judge Woolsey answered in his Opinion was whether the novel was "written for the express purpose of exploiting obscenity". Woolsey did not detect the "leer of the sensualist" in the novel and lifted the ban.

I think most of us would disagree with the perception that any writing intended to sexually arouse the reader is smutty. I personally disagree with it. But I do tend to agree with Woolsey's conclusion that Ulysses does "not tend to excite sexual impulses or lustful thoughts but that its net effect...was only...a somewhat tragic and very powerful commentary on the inner lives of men and women". Particularly in this episode, I certainly feel the sensuality - but rather than erotic I find it sad...

Setting that aside for a minute, I'd just like to point out that Woolsey's Opinion is worth reading whether you agree with him or not. He is a perceptive reader and an elegant writer. I enjoyed his comments on the overall stylistics of the book in particular:

"Joyce has attempted...to show how the screen of consciousness with its ever-shifting kaleidescopic impressions carries, as it were on a plastic palimpsest, not only what is in the focus of each man's observation of the actual things around him, but also in a penumbral zone residua of past impressions, some recent and some drawn up by association from the domain of subconsciousness...

What he seeks to get is not unlike the results of a double or, if that is possible, a multiple exposure on a cinema film with would give a clear foreground with a background visible but somewhat blurred and out of focus in varying degrees."

If the Opinion is not in your edition, its worth reading - if only for contemporary perpective. It is only about 5 pages in my edition:

http://www.leagle.com/decision/193318...

This ran on longer than i intended. I have some other things to say about this episode, but perhaps tomorrow...

Patrice wrote: "Given the mores of our society today doesn't this seem dated?
I go to a lot of movies and watch things on TV and I've developed I kind of filter. When the "shocking" and obligatory sexual scenes c..."

Sure, as I mentioned, I think most of us have moved beyond this perception of smut/porn. But since the subject of the ban came up, I thought it was worth highlighting.

Patrice wrote: "Oh yes, I greatly appreciate your posting it. It's very interesting to see how things have changed. Thank you!

I'm just reacting to it."

But I do think, despite the dated attitudes towards sexuality, that Woolsey hit one some other very worthwhile perceptions about the novel.

Everyman wrote: "Susan wrote: "The technique of the episode is the fugue, a composition in five sections with five voices. I'm not sure I can distinguish the five voices, nor the "eight regular parts with subject ..."

After a lovely holiday on a cruise sailing through the Three Gorges of China, I've finally caught up with the group. (For some reason, I had no desire to read Joyce while on a relaxing cruise...)

I'm particularly intrigued by the comments about the fugue in this episode. Just prior to reading this episode, I was listening to some lectures on Coursera.org by Craig Wright (Intro to Classical Music) and he as talking about Bach and musical fugues. Since it's an intro course the complex structure of fugues wasn't really discussed but Wright focused on the basics. Which I completely see in the episode. According to what I learned the fugue is an imitative style of music, like an imperfect round/canon. At the beginning you get the subject (the confusing set of random words at the beginning until the word "Begin!") which is then revisited throughout the rest of the song interspersed with modulations (or changes on the theme).

When I first started reading this episode, I thought it was a rather wild idea -this episode mimicking a fugue- so I read the episode with both my iPad and Kindle opened. One the opening bit and one at the point of the episode I was reading at. I often went back to find the lines from the beginning in the main text of the episode. And they're all there, but perhaps not in sequential order, just as Thomas pointed out (and in my case, validated my whacky reading style for this episode).

Patrice wrote: "Yes, I was surprised by how carefully he assessed the book. He took his job seriously!

It's just such a strange and arbitrary thing, deciding what is porn. I wonder if they picked on Joyce becau..."

I'm wondering if Judge Woolsey wasn't just judging the book on whether it's porn or not but also taking into account the first amendment. Which in a time when social mores were upheld even over legal rules, would definitely be taking his job very seriously! And him calling Ulysses art was just his way of helping to justify his decision in the current social climate.

Note: at the time of posting this I haven't read Woolsey's opinion but I do thank Kyle for posting a link so I can go and read it.

While catching up on some of the older posts on the Lestrygonians episode, I noticed that there was discussion on Bloom having a meaty breakfast and vegetarian lunch. In this episode he's back to eating the innards with relish. Bloom seems very ... moody (I suppose that's the right word) regarding his eating habits.

From a letter to the Editor of the Little Review regarding an installment of Ulysses:

"There is a certain form of mental unbalance — about the lowest form— that takes delight in concentration on the "natural functions"... All attendants in insane asylums are familiar with it. Does James Joyce belong to those so affected? Do "the few who read him" belong? If not, and Joyce and his readers are to be considered fairly sane, would he — and they — be willing to perform their "natural functions" in public? If not, why take out a desire for dabbling in filth, in writing in public?

The only cure for the nausea he causes is the thought that "only a few
read him." I think the Little Revieiw has become a disgustingly artificial
and affected publication. You started out to be sincere, unconventional, to refuse to pander to commercialism, etc.: a wonderfully courageous and admirable ambition. But you are a great disappointment to those of us who hoped great things for you. 'You are like a crowd of precocious, "smarty cat," over-wise children, showing off. I know of no one who has anything for you now but pity, mingled with contempt and disappointment — and this from people who were once your friends and admirers. "

To which the editor responded:

"Yes, I think you must be right. I once knew a woman so modest that she didn't wear underwear; she couldn't stand its being seen in the wash."

Thomas wrote: "From a letter to the Editor of the Little Review regarding an installment of Ulysses:

"There is a certain form of mental unbalance — about the lowest form— that takes delight in concentration on ..."

There are few greater pleasures in life than a truly well crafted comeback. Well done, Little Review.