James Joyce
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Ep. 175 – Father Conmee
What is Dublin without Church and State? Topics in this episode include Stephen/Joyce’s past with Father Conmee, what Father Conmee represents, the eternal battle between Church and State (is it even a battle?), the collusion between Church and State, Father Conmee’s fondness for high-class women, which children Father Conmee likes, Father Conmee’s love of the…
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Fuga Per Canonem
“Since exploring the resources and artifices of music and employing them in this chapter, I haven’t cared for music any more. I, the great friend of music, can no longer listen to it. I see through all the tricks and can’t enjoy it any more.” – James Joyce, 1919 Joyce’s ambition for “Sirens,” the eleventh…
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Ep. 174 – The Wandering Rocks
Here be dragons. Topics in this episode include why “Wandering Rocks” is the least Homeric episode of Ulysses, why the name “Wandering Rocks” isn’t quite right, how Jason escaped the Wandering Rocks, how Leopold Bloom is a mightier hero than Odysseus, correspondences for “Wandering Rocks,” the “blind mechanism” of the Wandering Rocks, clockspeed, how to…
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Ep. 173 – Medical Dick and Medical Davy
…Gravy? Topics in this episode include the grande finale of Stephen’s Hamlet theory, he finally proves by algebra that Shakespeare is the ghost of his own father, dio boia, James Joyce’s reaction to Karl Bleibtreu’s Shakespeare conspiracy theories, Dana, Fred Ryan, the poetry and theatrical stylings of Buck Mulligan, Oliver St. John Gogarty’s play Blight,…
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Ep. 172 – Lapwing
Agenbite of Lapwing. Topics in this episode include Shakespeare’s coat of arms, the significance of Cassiopeia to Stephen’s Shakespeare theory, the auspicious stars heralding the births of Stephen Dedalus, Leopold Bloom, and Rudy Bloom, Stephen’s Hamlet dialectic fully unravels, the real Dedalus of myth, the charge of adultery against Susanna Shakespeare Hall, lapwings, a lapwing…
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“Sirens” Songs: The Croppy Boy
This is part one of a two part series about select songs from the “Sirens” episode. You can read part one here. “Bloom’s, the novel’s, and, apparently, Joyce’s answer to a rancid discourse of Irish nationalism appears to be nothing more than gas, flatulence induced by an Irish diet too rich in that unctuous, “grosser”…
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Ep. 171 – Richard and Gilbert and Edmund and Will
What if the Shakespeares were really a bunch of crumb-bums? Topics in this episode include Shakespeare’s brothers Gilbert, Richard, and Edmund, which ones Stephen thinks were bad brothers and which were good brothers, whether Shakespeare turned his brothers into villains in his plays, Anne Hathaway’s relationship to her brothers-in-law, why Shakespeare’s brothers never married, Gilbert…
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Ep. 170 – Rutlandbaconsouthamptonshakespeare
In which, Stephen proves through algebra that Hamlet’s grandson is Shakespeare’s grandfather. Topics in this episode include Puritanism, whether or not Anne Hathaway became a religious fanatic late in life, Shakespeare’s daughter Susanna and her Puritan husband, the squandering of Shakespeare’s estate after his death, “Venus and Adonis,” the mystical estate of paternity, Hamlet and…
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“Sirens” Songs: M’Appari
This is part one of a two part series about select songs from the “Sirens” episode. You can read part two here. (Part two coming soon!) Stuart Gilbert, in his book, Ulysses: A Study, explained that in the view of the average Dubliner, music was an “essentially Italian art.” Simon Dedalus recalls the music of…
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Ep. 169 – Pray for us, Saint Thomas
Ora pro nobis! Pogue mahone! Acushla machree! Topics in this episode include Thomas Aquinas (but less than you might expect), Aquinas’ views on incest, the meaning on “new Viennese school,” whether or not Joyce had any interest in psychoanalysis (and whether it matters), how Joyce may have encountered psychoanalysis in Zurich, Professor Edward Dowden, the…