Ep. 38 - Pico della Mirandola like.
Giovanni Pico della Mirandola
This episode of Blooms & Barnacles takes an esoteric twist as we continue deeper into "Proteus", Ulysses' third episode. Topics include: why Dermot is not impressed with the Library of Alexandria, the length of a mahamanvantara, what the heck a mahamanvantara is, Joyce's youthful rage put into poetry, Joyce's youthful interest in theosophy, Pico della Mirandola's desire to speak to angels, Renaissance magic, hermeticism, , correspondences in Ulysses, and why Dermot thinks Neil de Grasse Tyson is wrong.
Media recommended in this episode:
"The Holy Office", James Joyce
Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, Frances Yates
"Giovanni Pico della Mirandola" on the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
On the theosophists' influence on cremation: https://www.theosophical.org/publications/quest-magazine/1684-up-in-smoke-theosophy-and-the-revival-of-cremation
"Pico della Mirandola" by Walter Pater
Yeats’ “yogeybogeybox”
Further Reading:
Carver, C. (1978). James Joyce and the Theory of Magic. James Joyce Quarterly,15(3), 201-214. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/25476132
Ellmann, R. (1959). James Joyce. New York: Oxford University Press.
Gifford, D., & Seidman, R. J. (1988). Ulysses annotated: Notes for James Joyce's Ulysses. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Gilbert, S. (1955). James Joyce’s Ulysses: a study. New York: Vintage Books.
Joyce, S. (1958). My brother’s keeper: James Joyce’s early years. New York: The Viking Press.
Tindall, W.Y. (1954). James Joyce and the Hermetic Tradition. Journal of the History of Ideas, 15(1), p. 23-39. Retrieved from https://tinyurl.com/y3jt7uwp
"Theosophy." Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology. Retrieved April 13, 2019 from Encyclopedia.com: https://www.encyclopedia.com/science/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/theosophy