The final chapter concludes with Molly’s perspective. Not the hero, or the anti-hero, or even the hero’s son. Up until this point Joyce has offered us situations that we anticipate but do not necessarily deliver what we expect (the meeting of Stephen and Bloom.) However, the look inside to Molly’s thoughts is different in that it satisfies one’s feeling that something might be missing. This third perspective adds another dimension to the text and even legitimacy to Molly’s actions and greater insight into Bloom himself. Even Stephen’s character is filled out by her thoughts when she plans to read up and buy flowers in case he stops by the house again. There is something in Stephen’s nature and disposition that causes Molly to want to impress him.

Despite Molly’s meditations on Boylan and opening the Episode thinking ill of Bloom for bringing her breakfast - her last thoughts are on Bloom, which I think the ending of Ulysses to be characterized as ambiguously positive. (will add more this)

EUMAEUS

Stephen and Bloom’s encounter with the “redbearded sailor’ is a particularly intriguing moment in the Eumaeus episode. Moments preceding their interaction Stephen ponders, “what’s in a name” and that names are imposters, consequently it is the first thing the sailor asks Stephen. Stephen replies with his surname, which the sailor recognizes as belonging to Simon as well. However Stephen does not reveal that he is Simon’s son. This withholding of information reminds me of the way Odysseus conceals his identity while testing Eumaeus’ loyalty. Stephen, I think was perceptive enough to see that Murphy was an imposter and full of windy stories and therefore did not encourage him by revealing his true identity. Bloom is baffled by this but soon too realizes this through his characteristic empathy.

This idea of imposter runs throughout the entire chapter and is most evident in the voice of the narrator. It is quite different than the voice we have heard before in that it is overly descriptive to the point of falsity and does not seem to know the characters well – especially Bloom. In reference to Bloom he writes, “He was at heart a born adventurer though by a trick of fate he had consistently remained a landlubber…” Knowing Bloom, an adventurer is probably the last thing one would choose to characterize him as, his thoughts being far more adventurous than his actions.

Circe

The Circe Episode most definitely stands apart from prior episodes not only because of its drama format, but also because of the (at times) absurd hallucinations and several obvious repeated motifs. The three motifs I found most prominent were dogs, clothing and shades returning from the dead. One particularly disturbing moment is when Paddy Dignam appears as a dog with a human face and then morphs into human form – “He grows to human size and shape. His green dachshund coat becomes a brown mortuary habit. His green eye flashes bloodshot. Half of one ear, all the nose and both thumbs are ghouleaten.” (472) This is another instance of Joyce illustrating how humans and animals are interrelated and take on each other’s characteristics (when Bloom imagines a cat’s perspective/ when he is disgusted at the animalistic way the men are eating at the pub.) Also, this moment with Paddy (and before that Bloom’s dead parents) sets up the appearance of Rudy at the end of the episode. The final moments of the episode serve as a clear link between Bloom and Stephen and their father son relationship – Stephen has literally become his son and throughout the episode Bloom has been performing father-like duties – Zoe even asks if Stephen is Bloom’s son.

Clothing in this episode seems to serve as a vehicle for injecting color into the narrative. Up until this point I had not paid much attention to color other than the black clothes of mourning and the repetition of white in Oxen of the Sun. However, in this episode color is everywhere and Joyce uses it to bring a certain vividness to the text.

OXEN OF THE SUN

Because this episode is set in a maternity ward for the most part, it comes as no surprise that themes of fecundity (bloom’s meditation on Theodore Purfoy), bareness (wasteland images before the rain) and conception (esp. of ideas – all the authors Joyce has referenced) run rampant through the pages. Joyce further echoes these themes by assuming the roles of past authors to create an evolution (another theme explored with references to Darwin and the ‘missing link’) of writing styles through the ages. The relationship created between the events in the narrative and the morphing narrative style is micro/macrocosmic and they tend to dip in an out of each other. One of my favorite imitations Joyce explores is the gothic novel – which is clearly exaggerated, but it too incorporates larger ideas in an immediate scene: “My hell, and Ireland’s is in this life.” The section that follows the gothic seems to be a thinly veiled allusion to Joyce’s decision to construct this episode in this particular manner: “What is the age of the soul of the man? As she hath the virtue of the chameleon to change her hue at every new approach.. so too is her age changeable as her mood.”

Another interesting facet of this episode is the way Bloom is represented and described (childe Leopold, sir Leopold, traveler Leopold.) In keeping with his tendency toward empathy Bloom continually wonders at Mina Purfoy’s plight: “Sir Leopold heard on the upfloor cry on high and he wondered what cry that it was whether of child or woman.” Later in the episode he turns his thoughts to her husband, Theodore in what further reveals Bloom’s insecurities in his ability to procreate.

One part of the episode that I found particularly self-conscious on Joyce’ part was when he abuts the Defoe section with a diary section (allusion to Robinson Crusoe?) however it is also incredibly brilliant. It is also in the diary section that a rain storm is described, which brings life to the “barrenness” – in the same vein as how Robinson Crusoe brought new life to the English literary tradition by being considered the first novel.

CYCLOPS

Incredible episode. It is vastly different than the chapters that preceded it, not only because the narrator has materialized into a character but also because we never enter into either of the two protagonists’ thoughts. The narrator’s perspective is highly exaggerated and editorial – he spends nearly two pages describing the figure of the citizen. This description stands out particularly in light of the basic one line descriptions allotted to our supposed heroes. “The eyes in which a tear and a smile strove ever for the mastery were of the dimensions of a goodsized cauliflower.” The narrator’s style boarders on absurdity and hilarity especially when he goes on to list “Irish heroes and heroines of antiquity,” which naturally includes Cleopatra and Adam and Eve. At the end of this particular rambling the bartender brings over their pints, Joe “lays out a quid” and then the narrator remarks to us, “O, as true as I’m telling you.” This seems to be an obvious poke at the ‘reliable narrator’ trope from Joyce because he certainly is not reliable but leads us through wordy ramblings.

SIRENS

The language Joyce uses in this Episode is at times unavoidably luscious and indulgent and usually accompanies a character when they are eating or drinking. “Boylan eyed, eyed. Tossed to fat lips his chalice, drankoff his tiny chalice, sucking the last fat violet syrupy drops.” (267) The thinly veiled sexual connotation does not come as a surprise in light of Boylan’s character and ironically enough links him to Bloom and serves as a sort of metaphor for each man’s sexual appetites. Bloom again eats with relish “the inner organs, nutty gizzards, fried cods’ roes.” But while Bloom takes pleasure in eating Bolyan takes pleasure in drinking up Miss Douce’s attention. This part also reminded me of the peach and pear exchange between Boylan and the shop girl in the previous chapter. Joyce uses images of food to both reflect a character’s disposition and as metaphors for things left unsaid (the blushing of the peaches.)

The Siren Episode is appropriately aural. Not only do the frequent instances of “jiggedy jingle jaunty jaunty” give sound to the text but the words themselves are often alliterative and echoing and contain assonance: “Brightly the keys, all twinkling, linked, all harsichording, called to a voice to sing the strain of dewy morn, of youth, of love’s leavetaking, life’s, love’s morn.” (264) Sound becomes serpentine weaving though Joyce’s words and giving them a poetic song-like quality – this is what Joyce does best: he uses these subtle techniques to translate a particular feeling or impression from a scene for the reader without using explicit descriptions.

The Wandering Rocks

I am not quite sure what to make of the fractured vignettes in the Wandering Rocks Episode. Surely it is and interesting and a well timed lull it what seemed to be a focus on Stephen and Bloom. So, in a way that is just what Joyce may be doing here- breathing life and giving depth to other characters and situations that up until not have remained on the periphery. In the first vignette with father Conmee – the third person removal is unavoidable. Nearly every other paragraph begins with, “Father Conmee this,” or “Father Conmee that,” if anything this chapter brings to the forefront the narrator’s role in the course of events and that perhaps he too is part of the story (or what enlivens it.) Through the narration of Father Conmee we see how the narrator proves to be quite editorial and omnipotent in his remarks- “ Father Conmee walked and walking, smiled for he thought on father Bernard Vaughans’s droll eyes and cockney voice.”
In particular these different insights shed light on the relationship between Simon Dedalus and his children. Simon is the absent father, the inadequate father and the father nominally and not in any other way. This, I think, is important to note in comparison to Bloom who longs to have had a boy to father in a close way. In a sense Bloom plays the role of a father to his wife Molly. He makes her breakfast in bed, buys her smutty novels, encourages her singing career and now that their relationship is no longer sexual he sees her in a more detached way.

Lestrygonians

What strikes me about Bloom, particularly in this chapter, is his preoccupation with other people’s families. His hyperawareness probably stems from the now sterile relationship he has with his own wife and the fact that his only living child doesn’t resemble him. Bloom finds this troubling – that Milly is a “watered-down” version of Molly when it is so easy for him to identify Dedalus’ daughter (“knew her eyes at once from the father”) – a case where there is no doubt about paternity. Through the chapter he goes on to reminisce about when Molly was pregnant and Milly was young and being washed in a tub, which is accompanied by the comment, “Happy. Happier then.”

What also struck me about this chapter was the plethora of common sayings and figures of speech that interject Blooms thoughts – “nature abhors a vacuum,” “mum’s the word,” “proof of the pudding,” “wear out my welcome,” etc.. They seem to wander into his thoughts as he wanders about town – thus perpetuating the wandering and “homeless” theme so closely tied to Bloom’s character. The only time in the Episode when we exit Bloom’s head is when Nosey Flynn’s conversation about Bloom dominates the text. The way Joyce treats Bloom’s interior monologue is somewhat matter-of-factly and distended enough so as to not elicit sympathy from us as readers. Despite the many pages we have spent in Bloom’s head I feel far more empathy and understanding for Steven even tough on the face of it his thoughts seemed more elusive.

HADES

While reading the Hades chapter I suddenly became aware of Joyce’s use of boat/water imagery, not only in this episode but previous episodes as well. Boat imagery, in this case, is a natural occurrence for the obvious river Styx allusions in a chapter centering on a funeral. But because of the constant presence and references to boats I am wondering if Joyce is working on constructing a complex symbol. Bloom at the end of the funeral, says to himself, “Beside him again. We are the last. In the same boat. Hope he’ll say something else.” Technically the “he” is Mr Kernan but it may be more prophetic in its intent – I think this could also be read as if it is Bloom sitting in the boat with Charon (the ferryman of the dead) – in his own vision of death. Earlier in this episode Bloom and the other men discuss the story of Rueben J. and his son who was rescued by a boatman after he falls into the water. Again boats and death are linked, however this time the boy is saved and brought to life by the boatman. This story is echoed in Telemachus when Stephen remembers a drowned man whose body was found.
Both of these instances makes me think back to the Proteus chapter, which ends with Stephen seeing a ship: “Moving through the air high spars of a three master, her sails brailed up on the crosstrees, homing, upstream, silently moving, a silent ship.” This is especially cryptic – will the ship bring someone to rescue Stephen or will it usher him to some sort of demise? In addition to all of this Joyce has named the pub where Stephen is supposed to meet up with Buck, The Ship.

So far, images of ships/boats are linked to the transition between life and death or death and life. It will be interesting to see it Joyce will keep this up or change its meaning or drop it altogether.

CALYPSO

The first episode of book II invites the reader to draw parallels between Stephen and Bloom. Both Telemachus and Calypso open with a name and a description of an imposing and even frightening figure: Buck Mulligan and Leopold Bloom: “Mr. Leopold Bloom ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls. He liked thick giblet soup, nutty gizzards, a stuffed roast heart, liver slices fried with crustcrumbs, fried hencod's roes. Most of all he liked grilled mutton kidneys which gave to his palate a fine tang of faintly scented urine.” Bloom is described in a considerably more visceral way than the other characters we have encountered up until this point. Everything about him is bodily and pulsing – much more alive than how one imagines Stephen. Even their respective daydreams and thoughts are vastly different (though similar in their wanderings.) Stephen and Bloom seem like embodiments of the Apollonian and the Dionysian. Stephen is clearly Apollonian in the way his thoughts are lofty and poetic while Bloom is concerned with bodily pleasures (wanting to watch the woman’s hips and finding satisfaction in his bowel movements.) Bloom’s thought process is rooted in the natural things he sees (wondering how the cat sees him and wishing to walk around the earth in front of the sun.)

PROTEUS

The Homeric title of the Episode is quite applicable – Proteus, the shape shifter, is reminiscent of the shifting of Stephen’s thoughts. Proteus is also called “the old man of the sea” and Stephen’s thoughts are generated and spurned by things he sees as he walks along the shore.

Proteus, so far, is my favorite episode. The way in which Joyce interweaves Stephen’s daydreaming with reality is seamless and compelling. What makes this steam of consciousness/unconsciousness sound cohesive is Joyce’s use of descriptive images. Several of them jumped out at me because they are so unconventional and yet translate an exact impression to the reader: the “two crucified shirts” on the clothesline, the “lemon houses” turned golden in the sun and the “molten pewter surf” of the sea. These instances seem poetic in intent because Joyce is presenting us with banal images that are enlivened and given new meanings through his descriptions.

Elsinore is also referenced again in this episode: “My soul walks with me, form of forms. So in the moon’s midwatches I pace the path above the rocks, in sable silvered, hearing Elsinore’s tempting flood.” Elsinore, in this case, represents a sort of unavoidable reality or calling. At this point Stephen snaps out of his thoughts and is brought back to his surroundings only to notice a “bloated carcass of a dog lolled on the bladderwrack.” When Elsinore was referenced earlier by Haines: “I mean to say, Haines explained to Stephen as the followed, this tower and these cliffs remind me somehow of Elsinore” it causes Stephen to see “his own image in cheap and dusty mourning between their gay attires.” This parallels what Stephen says about “form of forms” and the idea that he is shifting shapes and constantly unsure of his form.

NESTOR

The Nestor Episode offers up another character that is fundamentally different than Stephen: Mr. Deasy. Unlike Buck who is young and strapping, Deasy is old and I think, in some ways jealous of Stephen (despite all of his apparent short-comings.) Deasy takes pleasure in lecturing Stephen and makes a little show when it is time to pay him with his leather purse and placing his payment on ceremoniously on the table. “He brought out of his coat a poketbook bound by a leather thong. It slapped open and he took from it two notes, one of joined halves, and laid them carefully on the table.” This is another way in which these to men differ: money. Deasy is meticulous and obsessed with it while Stephen could really care less. Deasy preaches to Stephen about getting a little machine like his in order to keep his money safe and Stephen replies with, “Mine would often be empty.” In the Telemachus Episode we learn that Stephen is the one who pays for the rent, milk and trips to the Ship and doesn’t really even think much about it. In fact, after he is paid he refers to the “lump in his pocket” as “symbols soiled by greed and misery.”

The scene in which Deasy asks Stephen to take his letter about diseased cattle to get it printed is telling of Deasy’s character. He wishes to still be influential in someway and the best way he can think of is through this letter. For some reason I associate this act with aging – still wanting to be heard while you influence is waning. Perhaps this is because I feel like writing a letter like this is something my grandmother would do – a form of assertion and proof that he is still capable.

telemachus

What I found striking about the first book in Ulysses is that it begins with Buck Mulligan. Joyce opens with a figure that is hulking and of heroic stature, and yet he is not our hero – he is the foil for Stephen Daedalus the meek and insecure anti-hero. This false start is clearly modern in what it achieves. On one hand it harkens back to the classic, to the Odyssey, because it begins in the middle of things. However, when we realize that this is not the intended protagonist within the story the rug gets pulled out from underneath us. By structuring the beginning of his epic in this way Joyce further underscores Stephen’s apparent ineptness as a hero.

As to why this section is given the title of Telemachus may also be modernist in its intent. In the Odyssey Telemachus is Odysseus’s son who is born just before Odysseus is called to war. This idea of father and son and of lineage arises in Ulysses when Buck Mulligan jokes by saying “He proves by algebra that Hamlet’s grandson is Shakespeare’s grandfather and that he himself is the ghost of his own father.” Later on in the conversation Haines goes on to say, “The Father and the Son idea. The son striving to be atoned with the father.” That is to say that perhaps Stephen is a “descendant” of the ultimate hero and therefore diluted and removed from greatness. Or maybe it is even Joyce commenting on his attempt to modernize the classic epic and atone, somehow, with Homer,

QUESTIONS:

-Money permeates the first book – what role does it play in defining the relationships between characters? And will it continue to be a prevalent image throughout the rest of the books?
- Is Joyce attempting to create a new form of poetics or is he pursuing a modernist narrative?

sing whatever is well made

In reading this last collection of Yeats’s poems I have begun to focus on how he connects music with the poet and how that relationship is often times burdened. Burdened either by an audience or the sense of a certain responsibility. This responsibility is evidenced in ‘Under Ben Bulben’ when Yeats writes, “Irish poets learn your trade Sing whatever is well made, Scorn the sort now growing up all out of shape from toe to top.” In this particular section the voice of the poem is telling poets to write of past greatness and “cast your mind on other days that we in coming days may be still the indomitable Irishry.”

In ‘Lapis Lazuli’ Yeats opens with, “I have heard that hysterical women say they are sick of the palette and fiddle-bow, of poets that are always gay.” There seems to be something ineffectual about the poet especially in times of turbulent Irish history; poets are no longer lauded for their art (like Homer) but seen as superfluous. Throughout the course of this poem, as Yeats reflects on the carving, there is a longing in its tone to be one of those three Chinese men who, in the end, are immortalized in the stone with their easy made “glittering” and “gay” by “mournful melodies.”

Images of music and singing are prevalent in ‘Sailing to Byzantium.” In this poem music (poetry) enlivens the past but the ancient monuments themselves served as the genesis for the poem. Yeats evokes the sages like the muse and says, “O sages standing in God’s holy fire as in the gold mosaic of the wall, come from the holy fire, perne in gyre, and be the singing masters of my soul.” He begs them to take him from the earth so that he may reborn not in the “form of any natural thing” but to be “set upon a golden bough to sing to the lords and ladies of Byzantium of what is past, passing, or to come.”

endurance

What I find most intriguing about Yeats’s poems from The Tower are his references to mythology and empire. These nods to the past, though at times appear disjointed in certain poems are also appropriate in light his transformation as a poet. Ellmann asserts Yeats’s later years as a poet is a result of his complex and mystical belief in the different phases of the human soul and his desire to reconcile the four main antinomies that form the world. Yeats believed that time in which he was living was nearing its peak of objectivity, which would then cycle into subjectivity. These ideas also play into Yeats’s obsession with aging and the afterlife.

Meditation on enduring images from the past reveals a certain preoccupation with the immortal – things that have not deteriorated over time. Yeats mentions both preservation and deterioration (“loosening masonry”, “cracked masonry”.) But unlike his earlier poems, which view aging with a certain fear, this fear seems to be quelled by the hope of his words enduring after his death, like those of Chaucer and Homer. However at the same time his own doubt surfaces through imagery of the inadequacy of stone and more explicitly when he says, “my works are all stamped down into the sultry mud.”

QUESTIONS:

SWANS

On the surface Yeats’s poems in The Wild Swans at Coole suggest that his relationship with nature has began to fissure in some way. It seems the optimism and wonder he once held for nature as evidenced in Seven Woods has transformed into feelings of desertion. In this collections namesake Yeats writes, “I have looked upon those brilliant creatures and now my heart is sore. All’s changed since I, hearing at twilight, the first time on this shore.” From this I gather that nature has shown Yeats how he has changed and he is subsequently saddened by it. How is it that “their hearts have not grown old,” but his has? Yeats envies the swans and their ability to remain true to their partner (swans choose a mate and stick with them for their entire life) and “attend upon them still” with a heart unchanged by outside circumstances.

‘Lines Written in Dejection’ follows a similar theme. Its title says it all: dejection. Yeats is again the solitary observer (“when have I last looked on…”) who has been left out and left behind and age seems to have something to do with it. “And now that I have come to fifty years I must endure the timid sun.” The moon has left him with only the sun and taken with he a sense of wonder and magic (the witches and centaurs.) This poem suggests to me that with age, Yeats has discovered that he does not have the same optimistic views of nature as he did when he was younger – but desperately wants to return tot hat state of mind.

QUESTIONS
- Is it Yeats’s age that was cause for his changing perspective on nature or was there a significant event in his personal life that lead to these changes?
- There is a lot of imagery of things “vanishing” in this collection – how does this create a mood that differs from Seven Woods?

Yeats and Youth

Many of Yeats’s poems in In the Seven Woods concern themselves with transition - from either day to night or from young beauty to age. Images of the moon are frequent and lend themselves to a dreamlike quality. This makes sense in light of Ellmann’s chapter on Yeats’s early life, which speaks of his constant desire to daydream. There is both a sense of decline and cyclical nature embodied in these poems.

‘The Old Men admiring Themselves in the Water’ relates to the way Ellmann describes Yeats’s insecurity with his youth. Probably due to his father’s insistence on education and Yeats feeling that he was just not quite smart enough (failing to have high enough marks for admission into Trinity) may have lead him to equate wisdom with age. In my opinion, the theme and sentiment of this poem is a little tired, however I do find its sound quite beautiful. The way Yeats maintains a subtle rhyme throughout the poem and the repeating sound of ‘waters’ mimics the sound of the drifting water itself.

Ellmann says that Yeats believed that “words are not merely signs of things, but things themselves.” In ‘Old Memory,’ however Yeats seems to speak of the inadequacy of words when he says, “Through the long years of youth, and who would have though it all, and more than it all, would come to naught, and that dear words meant nothing?”
Perhaps Yeats is speaking about the emptiness of words uttered or written in the past because one has become so far removed from them that they do not exist in the same way – only in “old memory.” Or (maybe grasping for straws here) the “her” who is spoken of in the beginning of the poem is Ireland and she is stuck focusing on the past that it leaves her incapacitated in the present.

QUESTIONS:

- Does the content of this collection of Yeats’s poems match up with his ambition? Or do some fall short?
- Is there anything about these poems that is undeniably Yeats? If not, does that matter?

Yeats, Ireland, Identity.

Writing out of a geographic location, race or gender that is defined by its afflictions requires a certain alliance and reference to that suffering identity. It becomes an unavoidable and necessary task for a writer to honor the histories that remain in present minds. Emerging from an Irish tradition Yeats embodies this very idea - “he planned first to soak himself in Irish literature, lore, folkways and history. Next he would write Irish literature.” Brown’s article explains how Yeats had to negotiate his poetry with his sense and his country’s sense of nationalism. Nationalism being intrinsically linked to Irish identity because of a history that is characterized not only by turmoil inflicted by other nations/people but also within itself. In this context Yeats grew to find out what a dangerous responsibility it is to balance one’s poetry and nationalism without stepping on any toes. This is evidenced by Yeats’ waning support from both the Fenians and O’Leary. As Brown states, “a poet who was rather aggressive in asserting his private historical insights, any failure of discernment would have been noted, if only to highlight his areas of clear-sightedness.”

In terms of his early poetry seems to super-impose poetic tradition onto an Irish subject. In the cases of ‘The Ballad of Moll Magee’ and ‘Who goes with Fergus?’ Irish characters are brought to life through the use of regular rhyme and traditional forms – it is not the form that makes these poems Irish, it is the content. One picks up on allusions to Irish history with lines like, “she moves in the firelight pensively apart.” (from ‘To an Isle in the Water) and “or stormy silver fret the gold of day, and midnight there enfold them like a fleece and lover there by lover be at peace. The tale drove his fine angry mood away.” (‘The man who dreamed of Faeryland) What I find compelling about these early poems is the way Yeats deftly intertwines the people he writes about and the landscape. It speaks to the way that the Irish have been uniquely linked to their landscape.


QUESTIONS

- Yeats references folklore in many of these poems – how do they serve as a platform for establishing his own style?
- To what extent is it Yeats’ skill with words or his treatment of Irish history that have brought these poems such recognition?