Ulysses & The Odyssey: Aeolus

“We mustn’t be led away by words, by sounds of words.” - “Professor” MacHugh

Part of an occasional series on the Homeric parallels in James Joyce’s Ulysses.

To listen to a discussion of this topic, check out the podcast episode here.

The Odyssey, Book X:

After escaping the Cyclops, Odysseus and his surviving crew find themselves in the land of Aeolia, home of Aeolus, the warden of the winds. Aeolus wines and dines Odysseus and his crew, and after a month’s time, sends them on their way with a magic bag containing all the unfavourable winds. This way, they can’t be blown off course and can sail straight to Ithaca. With Ithaca finally in sight, the sailors become convinced that Aeolus has given Odysseus treasures that he is hoarding from them. The sailors open the bag, releasing the winds, which blow into a squall and send them all back to Aeolia. Odysseus humbly asks Aeolus for help again, but this time he tells Odysseus to kiss his royal Greek arse. Odysseus and his crew must restart their long, dangerous trek home.

“Aeolus”, the seventh episode of James Joyce’s Ulysses, contains my favorite Homeric parallel of the book - the transformation of Odysseus’ magical bag of winds into a roomful of windbag journalists. “Aeolus” is the point where we as readers realize that Ulysses is capable of taking some stylistic risks. Immediately, we are confronted with sixty-three sections introduced with headlines, as if each were a story in a newspaper. Counterintuitively, these headlines tend to emphasize the mundane over the newsworthy. Rather than focusing on the news of the day, the journalists we meet in this episode are mired in nostalgia. It’s fitting, then, to begin our discussion of their world by looking at their connection to the classical past.

Odysseus’ misadventure in the land of Aeolia only occupies a few paragraphs in The Odyssey, so the main parallels in Ulysses are an abundance of references to wind, weather and air throughout the “Aeolus” episode. Our sideways Odysseus remains Leopold Bloom, who takes on a smaller role in this episode. He comes across as a side character, so we only spend a few pages inside his head. We also get to see how his blowhard friends and colleagues talk about him when he’s not in the room. Bloom and Stephen Dedalus, our sideways Telemachus, nearly cross paths here for the first time, but like ships passing in a newsroom at midday, they don’t meet (yet).

The Joycean Aeolia is the office of the Evening Telegraph, which is owned by the Freeman’s Journal, Dublin leading newspaper in 1904. The fictional Aeolia was located on real-world volcanic island Stromboli, one of Italy’s Aeolian islands to the north of Sicily. Aeolia is described by Homer as a floating isle upon which sits a palace surrounded by tall, brazen walls. Due to the winds circling its walls, there is a constant background din. Stuart Gilbert, in his 1930 reading guide Ulysses: A Study, interprets Aeolia’s floating island as the pumice stones that float in the water around tumultuously active Stromboli after an eruption. In the Evening Telegraph’s office, these buoyant stones take the form of packing paper, galley pages and tissues tossed about the building. The brazen walls of the Freeman’s Journal are actually the “rows of cast steel” of the tramlines criss-crossing Dublin’s O’Connell St.

Aeolus Giving the Winds to Odysseus, Isaac Moillon, 17th c. — *Aeolus Giving the Winds to Odysseus,* Isaac Moillon, 17th c.

Like Aeolus’ palace, the Freeman’s Journal is filled with the noise - trams, mailcars from the neighboring General Post Office, and the printing press. A native Aeolian like the Freeman’s Journal’s master printer Joseph Nannetti knows how to speak within the gaps of the cacophony, but a visitor like Bloom is overwhelmed by the roar. One unfortunate detail of life in Aeolia is that the Warden of the Winds marries his daughters to his sons. This incestuous relationship is represented in “Aeolus” by the unholy marriage of journalists and the powerful people they write about. Editor Myles Crawford may swoon at the tale of the intrepid Ignatius Gallaher evading the censors, but he also toes the line with Archbishop Walsh, cautioning Stephen, “... no poetic license. We’re in the archdiocese here.”

In another illustration of the unholy marriage of journalism and the Church, Red Murray “gravely” informs Bloom that “his grace” has phoned again. In real life, the Freeman’s Journal publisher Thomas Sexton was in a feud with Archbishop Walsh. As a result, Sexton used his platform to minimize the accomplishments of Archbishop Walsh while enlarging those of Cardinal Logue of Armagh. As a result, Walsh frequently phoned the paper to register his protest.

While the wind in the Freeman’s Journal offices is occasionally literal, such as the breezes churned up by the newsboys cavorting in the hallway, most of the wind is produced by the newspapermen themselves. Joyce saw journalists as a fitting metaphor for the volatile nature of the wind, portraying them as “weathercocks” blown this way and that by the interests of the day, whether those interests were political, religious or popular. Odysseus-Bloom and Telemachus-Stephen must tangle with the capricious Wind Lord Myles Crawford, the editor of the Evening Telegraph, whose mood seems to change on a whim. One moment he supports Bloom’s canvassing endeavour, the next he’s telling Bloom to kiss his arse. Similarly, Crawford is initially amenable to Stephen’s budding career as a writer, but when Stephen offers up his “Parable of the Plums,” the irascible old editor is indifferent at best.

The men lounging around the office of the Evening Telegraph share puffs of rhetoric, hoping to find some bits of enlightenment in their oratorical gusts. Joyce uses these men to symbolize the greater stagnation he saw in Irish society of the era. Action and ambition had been hobbled by centuries of futility and disappointment, culminating in cultural paralysis, or G.P.I. (general paralysis of the insane). G.P.I. has been used elsewhere in Ulysses as a shorthand for the long-term effects of syphilis, but it also works as a fitting description for the stagnation experienced by these men who long for a national identity separate from colonial domination. The men in the newsroom are hoping the metaphorical bags of wind that they are unleashing in the form of oratory will contain the treasured wisdom required to push Ireland into a more prosperous era. Mark Osteen, in his book The Economy of Ulysses, likens their ineffectual efforts here to an inflated verbal economy - lots of linguistic liquidity, but not backed by the gold (wisdom) that would confer value.

Another recurring theme in this episode is that of eleventh hour failure, as experienced by Odysseus and his crew as they are blown back to Aeolia with Ithaca in sight. Bloom loses Crawford’s support for his ad, while J.J. O’Molloy can’t secure his loan. Bloom’s ad for Alexander Keyes and Stephen’s parable carry undertones of Charles Stewart Parnell’s failed attempt to bring Home Rule to Ireland. The men gathered in the office discuss a speech comparing the Irish to the Jews in Egypt, bringing to mind Moses, who never entered the Promised Land, only glimpsing it from a distance atop Mt. Pisgah, a parallel to Parnell’s frustrated dream for Ireland.

* * * * *

While visiting Dublin in 1909, Joyce bluffed his way into a press pass for a show at the Abbey Theatre and was subsequently invited to visit the office of the Evening Telegraph. He mined these visits for details that eventually wound up in “Aeolus.” Though this scene is set in 1904, the Freeman’s Journal had experienced a major reversal of fortune by 1909. In 1904, it was Dublin’s top-selling newspaper, but by 1909, it was noticeably in decline. Joyce’s portrayal of the newspapermen bumming around the office remembering their glory days is more reflective of the culture of the Freeman’s Journal in 1909 than in 1904.

The Freeman’s Journal was truly a “great daily organ” in its heyday. Founded in 1763, it was the longest running newspaper in Great Britain and Ireland in 1904. The office was burned during the 1916 Rising, but the Freeman’s Journal continued publishing until the mid-1920’s. Its ultimate undoing was a combination of politics and marketing. Politics were a part of the Freeman’s Journal’s DNA from its inception, when it was associated with Irish opposition to the Act of Union. Myles Crawford recalls the Freeman’s founders in “Aeolus”:

“Grattan and Flood wrote for this very paper, the editor cried in his face. Irish volunteers. Where are you now? Established 1763. Dr Lucas.”

Professor MacHugh makes a crack about the “sham squire” when Myles Crawford first enters the office. This is a reference to Francis Higgins, who took over the editorship of the Freeman’s Journal in the late 18th century. The paper’s political position switched to pro-Union under Higgins, who was a paid agent of Dublin Castle. Higgins, a disreputable figure, was nicknamed the sham squire, and is evoked twice in Ulysses. In the 1840’s, Sir John Gray bought the Freeman’s Journal, the same Sir John Gray who peers “aloft at Nelson through the meshes of his wry smile” from his pavement island in “Aeolus.” Not much more is said of Gray in Ulysses, but in the short story “Grace” from Dubliners, Mr. Power quips, “None of the Grays was any good,” while listening to a story about the unveiling of the Gray statue. Though he became an object of disdain for Mr. Power (and apparently James Joyce), Gray was anti-Union, unlike Higgins.

In the late 19th century, ownership of the Freeman’s Journal was taken over by Caroline Agnes Gray, Sir John’s daughter-in-law. Though the Freeman’s Journal initially supported Home Rule politician Charles Stewart Parnell under Mrs. Gray, the paper reversed its stance and forsook Parnell in 1891. Around the same time, the Irish Daily Independent launched as a Parnellite publication in opposition to the Freeman’s Journal. Though the Freeman’s Journal was still Dublin's leading newspaper in 1904, in 1905 the modern Irish Independent launched and undercut the Freeman’s Journal’s readership. The Indo sold for half the price of the Freeman’s, while boasting a more modern format and a less partisan editorial. The Independent’s business model was based on that of the Daily Mail, founded in 1896 by Lord Northcliffe, aka Alfred Harmsworth or “Harmsworth of the farthing press” as he’s disparagingly nicknamed in “Aeolus.”

Thus, by the time Joyce visited the Freeman’s Journal’s offices in 1909, the paper was on the wane, a mere shadow of its glory days. The once-great Freeman’s Journal had succumbed to the G.P.I., moribund and paralyzed, symbolically squatting in the heart of the Hibernian metropolis. Men loll around the office talking about the good ol’ days rather than hunting down that day’s scoops. Any money earned is spent at the pub. Their words are mere bombast and wind, boiling off as quickly as they arise.

Joyce was no slouch in his portrayal of the Evening Telegraph, scattering the “Aeolus” episode with the names of the paper’s real staff. We’ll cover some of the lesser figures found in “Aeolus” here and save the major characters for another post.

Early on in “Aeolus,” we hear the “ee,cree” of Ruttledge’s door. Wilson Ruttledge was the cashier at the Evening Telegraph when Joyce visited in 1909. He routinely walked through the rambling newspaper office on payday, his coming heralded by a jangly moneybox and the phrase “the ghost walks,” which MacHugh appropriates in “Aeolus.” Ruttledge appears in conjunction with the renowned Davy Stephens:

“The door of Ruttledge's office creaked again. Davy Stephens, minute in a large capecoat, a small felt hat crowning his ringlets, passed out with a roll of papers under his cape, a king's courier.”

Stephens was a well-known street newspaper vendor in his day, rumored to have offered King Edward VII a newspaper during a visit to Dublin, thus a king’s courier.

Red Murray, who Bloom speaks to at the outset of “Aeolus”, was based on Joyce’s maternal uncle John “Red” Murray. The real Red Murray worked in accounts for the Freeman’s Journal and was the brother of William Murray, who appears in Ulysses as that “drunken little costdrawer” Richie Goulding. Stanislaus Joyce described his Uncle Red as a “reformed atheist and a drunkard.” Uncle Red was the one who demanded that James and Stanislaus kneel at their mother’s deathbed and pray. Though Stanislaus is not portrayed in Ulysses, James Joyce’s agenbite of inwit around this incident is always lurking in the back of Stephen’s mind. Murray’s piety is on display in “Aeolus” as he opines how the “stately figure” W.H. Brayden, editor of the Freeman’s Journal, looks like “Our Saviour.” This holy imagery stands in stark contrast to Simon Dedalus’ description of the rolls of fat on Brayden’s neck.

“…a homerule sun rising up in the northwest from the laneway behind the bank of Ireland.”

Bloom has more worldly concerns for Brayden, wondering, “But will he save the circulation? Thumping. Thumping.” Since the Freeman’s Journal in Ulysses is closer to the state of the Freeman’s Journal in 1909, there’s some question about whether or not the editor can save a paper caught in the grips of paralysis. Given the Freeman’s Journal’s home in the heart of the Hibernian metropolis, circulation doesn’t just mean subscriptions. The thumping Bloom remarks on is not only the sound of the printing press, but the vital organ of Dublin itself, the lungs of the great city. Perhaps if Brayden can unclog this once proud institution, it would allow the civic life of Dublin to breathe a little easier. Coming on the heels of the circulation motif in “Hades” (and the realization of what happens when the pump governing circulation fails), the power Brayden possesses is all the clearer.

Patrick “Paddy” Hooper took over the editorship from Brayden after 1916. During Joyce’s 1909 visit, Paddy was working as a correspondent in London, thus in Ulysses, he has just arrived in Dublin with Jack Hall, another longtime Freeman’s Journal reporter:

“They're gone round to the Oval for a drink. Paddy Hooper is there with Jack Hall. Came over last night.”

Paddy’s father, Alderman John Hooper, gave the Blooms an embalmed owl “with a clear melancholy wise bright motionless compassionate gaze” as a wedding gift. Alderman Hooper is also listed as one of Molly’s alleged suitors in “Ithaca”.

* * * * *

Setting aside the real-world connections of “Aeolus,” the most striking stylistic feature of this episode is those headlines. The “Aeolus” headlines are the first clue we receive as readers that Ulysses is capable of greater stylistic leaps than just an especially naturalistic tone or intricate stream-of-consciousness. Daniel R. Schwarz describes the headlines as an example of bathos, meaning a shift in tone from the sublime to the ridiculous. When we dive into Ulysses as readers, we are expecting to be elevated by the experience of reading an Important Novel. We get to experience the warm glow of knowing we’ve done something Very Clever. Joyce deploys bathos throughout the novel to undercut the egos of all of us smarties, demonstrating how the absurd can lurk just beneath the surface of great art. While we search for meaning and metaphors in the singular stylistic choice of the Aeolian headlines, Joyce is really playing with irony.

The headlines themselves shift stylistically from staid, dignified, Victorian-style headlines to the more sensational, yellow journalistic style of Joyce’s day. They’re meant to show the degradation of journalistic writing, like a small-scale version of “Oxen of the Sun.” Not all of the headlines accurately describe the passages that follow, and some of them inflate the importance of the goings-on of a particular passage, such as when a shared smoke becomes a “calumet of peace.” This allows Joyce to subtly communicate to the reader how journalistic language can nimbly distort the truth. If we can’t all agree on some form of a shared truth, there is no hope for progress in our society. Journalists have a unique influence over this shared discourse and abusing this power blurs the truth. A society that finds itself at such an impasse is in danger of stagnation and the dreaded G.P.I.

The introduction of these disruptive headlines foreshadow the surreality into which Ulysses will ultimately descend. The headlines serve as a warning that neither Stephen nor Bloom are totally in the driver’s seat of their own story, as might be suggested by the omniscient third person narrative of the early episodes. These headlines aren’t written or spoken by any of the characters within the story; their provenance is entirely unclear within the context of the novel. In fact, the headlines did not appear in an early version of “Aeolus’” that appeared in The Little Review. It seems Joyce decided to make this episode, the opening of the second third of his epic, a clear line of demarcation between the novel as we know it and the novel as he wanted to sculpt it. As voyeurs into Bloom and Dedalus’ Dublin, we know (though they don’t) that they were created by a mad god in control of their world. His willingness to distract us from the world he’s created serves as a warning that things are about to get weird.

The Odyssey, Book X:

Further Reading:

Who Were the Real Men in Aeolus' Newsroom?

Who is the Man in the Macintosh?