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Decoding Dedalus: Christfox in Leather Trews
This is a post in a series called Decoding Dedalus where I take a passage of Ulysses and break it down line by line. The line below comes from “Scylla and Charybdis,” the ninth episode of Ulysses. It appears on page p.193 in my copy (1990 Vintage International). We’ll be looking at the passage that…
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Ep. 144 – Rawhead and Bloody Bones
Let’s hope for something galoptious when all’s said and done. Topics in this episode include the lestrygonian feast in the Burton, masculinity and meat eating, societal paralysis, Bloom’s plan to feed the masses, Bloom’s memories of working in the cattle market, the importance of cattle to the Irish economy, the horror that is dicky meat,…
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Decoding Dedalus: Entelechy, Form of Forms
“—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…
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Ep. 143 – Bloodhued Poplin, Lustrous Blood
Think unsexy thought. Think unsexy thoughts. Think unsexy thoughts. Topics included corrections, Yeates and Son, parallax, eclipses, Dunsink Time, Thomas Moore, peristalsis, Bob Doran, Take off that white hat!, Huguenots, the princess of the Lestrygonians, Leopold Bloom’s failed attempt to think unsexy thoughts, Bloom as sideways Odysseus, Bloom failing to destroy Molly’s suitor, and a…
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A Shakespearean Ghoststory Part 2: Anne Hath a Way
“In fact, it could be argued that versions of Anne Hathaway are always constructed in connection with Shakespeare, and that the ways she is depicted are designed to produce a particular ‘Shakespeare’ rather than an independent portrayal of Hathaway as an early modern woman…” – Katherine Scheil “Anyone steeped in western literary culture must wonder…
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Ep. 142 – Weggebobbles, Fruit, and Scotch Octopuses
“If you do the eyes of that cow will pursue you through all eternity.” Topics in this episode include two-headed octopuses, the Freemasons, the real Lizzie Twigg, Dublin’s oldest vegetarian restaurants, Æ, vegetarianism in the early twentieth century, Pythagorus, nutarians and fruitarians, Leopold Bloom’s brief foray into vegetarianism, nutsteak, mashed yeast, the elitism of vegetarians,…
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Ep. 141 – The Fascination of a Name
“Simon Dedalus said when they put him in parliament that Parnell would come back from the grave and lead him out of the house of commons by the arm.” Topics in this episode include James Stephens and his organizational blunder, Michaelmas traditions, architecture and peristalsis, the legacy of Dr George Salmon and his big spooky…
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A Shakespearean Ghoststory Part 1: Hamnet Shakespeare
“—But this prying into the family life of a great man, Russell began impatiently.” This is part one of a three part post about searching for real-life “ghosts” by prying into Shakespeare’s personal life. You can read part two here and part three here. Who was the real Hamnet Shakespeare? Not much is known about…
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Ep. 140 – Up the Boers!
Was Leopold Bloom ever totally radical? Topics in this episode include Bloom’s memory of a protest, Bloom’s view of the police, the significance of soup imagery, the origins of the Boer War, Irish Nationalist opposition to the Boer War, Joseph Chamberlain, Christiaan de Wet, the irony of Irish Nationalist support for the Boer cause, a…
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Ep. 139 – The Meeting of the Waters
The constables have been let our to graze. Topics in this episode include: 1904 popular culture, James Carlyle and the Irish Times, foxhunting, horsey people, Leopold Bloom’s disdain for high class women, The Irish Field, a personal ad from the 1870’s, Mrs Miriam Dandrade, the Purefoys, Fletcherism, the Chew-Chew Method, fad diets of yore, munching…