Oliver St- John Gogarty

  • Ep. 166 – Synge

    Why do we always fight most with the people we have the most in common with? Topics in this episode include James Joyce’s fraught relationship with playwright John Millington Synge, the way Synge shows up in Ulysses, in-jokes about Yeats that made it into Ulysses, Synge’s artistic work and why Joyce took issue with it,…

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  • Ep. 161 – Yogibogeybox

    We finally learn the weirdest thing that Joyce and Gogarty got up to. Topics in this episode include Giacomo Joyce and dirty love letters, the pain of not being invited, Æ’s New Songs and Joyce’s exclusion from it, why Æ Russell hasn’t released any new songs this year, Aristotle’s experiment, the meaning of nookshotten, Shakespeare…

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  • Decoding Dedalus: Yogibogeybox in Dawson chambers.

    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.191-192 in my copy (1990 Vintage International). We’ll be looking at the passage that…

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  • Puck Mulligan: A Joycean-Shakespearean Fool

    “—We oughtn’t to laugh, I suppose. He’s rather blasphemous. I’m not a believer myself, that is to say. Still his gaiety takes the harm out of it somehow, doesn’t it?” – Haines In “Scylla and Charybdis,” Ulysses’ ninth episode, just as Stephen Dedelaus’ exegesis on Hamlet in “Scylla and Charybdis,” Ulysses’ ninth episode, reaches a…

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  • Poetry in Ulysses: Medical Dick and Medical Davy

    In the opening scene of “Scylla and Charybdis,” Ulysses’ ninth episode, our Hero-Artist Stephen Dedalus finds himself in the librarian’s office of the National Library in a flurry of literary repartee. The other men in the scene, Lyster and John Eglinton, chat and banter, while Stephen tosses in a few snarky comments. Eglinton lobs back:…

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  • Ep. 32 – James Joyce Tower & Museum

    Dermot and Kelly get an insider’s view of the Sandycove Martello Tower – the Omphalos of Dublin itself! Maggie Fitzgerald, James Holohan and Andrew Basquille give Blooms & Barnacles a tour of all the museum’s nooks and crannies. Discussions include the Joycean historical items on display in the museum, the history of the tower, what…

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  • Ulysses CCD: St. Ursula

    —I pinched it out of the skivvy’s room, Buck Mulligan said. It does her all right. The aunt always keeps plainlooking servants for Malachi. Lead him not into temptation. And her name is Ursula. Part of an occasional series on Catholicism in Ulysses. Stephen Dedalus and Buck Mulligan discuss, as Stephen puts it, a symbol…

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  • Ep. 7 – In Defense of Dorkiness

    Kelly and Dermot discuss Stephen’s tower-mate, the Englishman Haines. Haines was based on a real-life roommate of James Joyce’s – Dermot Chenevix Trench. Did Joyce’s personal dislike of Trench color his characterization in the novel? What’s up with that black panther mentioned in ‘Telemachus?’ Why does Dermot (our host) have bad memories of learning Irish…

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  • Decoding Dedalus: A Dedalus Never Pays His Debts

    —I will tell you, he said solemnly, what is his proudest boast. I paid my way. … I never borrowed a shilling in my life. Can you feel that? I owe nothing. Can you? This is a post in a series called Decoding Dedalus where I take a paragraph of Ulysses and  break it down…

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  • Ulysses & The Odyssey: Telemachus

    I am now writing a book based on the wanderings of Ulysses. ‘The Odyssey,’ that is to say, serves me as a ground plan. Only my time is recent and all my hero’s wanderings take no more than 18 hours. – James Joyce, 1918 For a discussion of this topic, check out our podcast episode…

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