Celtic Revival
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The Women of Ulysses: Lizzie Twigg
“Everybody who met her liked her – because she was warm and outgoing. Here I am saying good things about Lizzie. Poor Liz – nobody remembers her now.” – Padraic Colum, 1969 As Leopold Bloom passes the offices of the Irish Times in “Lestrygonians”, Ulysses’ eighth episode, he can’t help but think about all the…
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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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Ep. 74 – Irish Orientalism
We explore Leopold Bloom’s connection to the ancient Phoenicians. Topic covered in this episode include: social hierarchies in Ireland, Dubliners v. culchies, Leopold Bloom’s fascination with the Orient, how imperial British culture informs Bloom’s worldview, whether or not some people in Irish society benefited from colonialism, the Celtic Revival movement, how the Revivalist applied an…
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Is Leopold Bloom Phoenician?
“[The Irish language] is oriental in origin, and has been identified by many philologists with the ancient language of the Phoenicians, the originators of trade and navigation, according to historians. This adventurous people, who had a monopoly of the sea, established in Ireland a civilization that had decayed and almost disappeared before the first Greek…