Stephen Dedalus

  • Ep. 130 – THOSE SLIGHTLY RAMBUNCTIOUS FEMALES

    Nelson supposes his toeses are roses, but Nelson supposes erroneously. Topics in this episode include Barcelona, revisiting James Joyce’s Guinness ad, the history of Nelson’s pillar, Horatio Nelson, the final resting place of Nelson’s head, possible replacements for Nelson atop the former pillar, failed attempts to raise the wind, A Pisgah Sight of Palestine or…

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  • Ulysses & The Odyssey: Scylla & Charybdis

    “[The paternity motif], which, applied to the Godhead, has been so fruitful a cause of misunderstanding and dissension in the Christian Church, that this episode is the subtlest and hardest to epitomize of all the eighteen episodes of Ulysses.” – Stuart Gilbert “The Aristotelian and Platonic philosophies are the monsters that lie in wait in…

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  • Ep. 129 – DEAR DIRTY DUBLIN

    What if we held hands in the Akasic Record? Topics in this episode include too much information about the Freemasons, entering the Promised Land, Daniel O’Connell’s mass meeting at Mullaghmast, political radicalism, the Akasic Record, Stephen’s magic powers, rebutting John F. Taylor, Parnell’s parliamentary finesse, argumentum ad pasiones, leaning into your own bias, the origin…

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  • Ep. 127 – A MAN OF HIGH MORALE

    “Speaking about me. What did he say? What did he say? What did he say about me? Don’t ask.” Topics in this episode include a rumor about Stephen, Professor Magennis, Æ the mastermystic, drama within Dublin’s occult circles, how Æ helped James Joyce get published, the opal hush poets, Joycean tarot cards, D.P. Moran and…

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  • Ep. 126 – ITALIA, MAGISTRA ARTIUM

    Sufficient for the day is the newspaper thereof. Topics in this episode include Grattan and Flood, Seymour Bushe and the Childs murder case, Hamlet references, Michelangelo’s Moses and where to find it, Lenehan’s cigarette scheme, J.J. O’Molloy’s love of forensic rhetoric, the shortcomings of memoria, court cases appearing in the works of Joyce, Samuel Childs…

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  • Ep. 124 – RHYMES AND REASONS

    Clamn dever. Topics in this episode include Dublin journalism minutiae, pallindromes, Lenehan’s spoonerisms, the sad history behind the real-life inspiration for Professor MacHugh, the return of Stephen Dedalus’ extremely erudite daydreams, Stephen punches up Douglas Hyde’s poem, poetic meter and foot, rhyme and rhythm, the nightmare of history, Joyce’s love of Dante, Dante’s Divine Comedy,…

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  • Ep. 122- A Hungarian it was one day…

    Did Leopold Bloom really give Arthur Griffith the idea for Sinn Fein? Topics in this episode include Stephen delivering Mr. Deasy’s letter, Stephen’s vampire poem, Crawford dunks on Mr. Deasy, a cure for foot and mouth disease, the assassination attempt against Emperor Franz Josef, Maximilian Karl O’Donnell, graf von Tirconnell’s heroic defense of the Emperor,…

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  • A Pisgah Sight of Palestine or the Parable of the Plums

    “But though the Irish are eloquent, a revolution is not made of human breath and compromises.”  – James Joyce, 1907, “Ireland, Island of Saints and Sages” In the final sequence in Ulysses’ seventh episode, “Aeolus”, Stephen Dedalus and the men from the Evening Telegraph office, having exhausted themselves with lofty rhetoric, set out to wet…

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  • The Language of the Outlaw: John F. Taylor’s Speech in “Aeolus”

    “But though the Irish are eloquent, a revolution is not made of human breath and compromises.” – James Joyce, “Ireland, Island of saints and Sages”, 1907 To listen to a discussion of this topic, check out the podcast episode here and here. In the closing pages of “Aeolus,” Ulysses’ seventh episode, the men gathered in…

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  • Decoding Dedalus: The Opal Hush Poets

    “The first spectre of the new generation has appeared. His name is Joyce. I have suffered from him and I would like you to suffer.” – Æ to W.B. Yeats, 1902 This is a post in a series called Decoding Dedalus where I take a passage of Ulysses and  break it down line by line.…

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