Stephen Dedalus

  • 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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  • Ep. 120 – THE GRANDEUR THAT WAS ROME

    How often does James Joyce think about the Roman Empire? Topics in this episode include Leopold Bloom bullied by children and adults, stealing upon larks, the Oval, The Rose of Castille, Lenehan’s riddle unfulfilled, the Roman Empire as an analogue to the British Empire, puns, cloacae, the origin of the phrase “cloacal obsession,” H.G. Wells’…

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  • Up the Boers!

    As Leopold Bloom passes beneath Tommy Moore’s roguish finger on his long walk to lunch in “Lestrygonians”, Ulysses’ eighth episode, a flock of cops catches his attention: “A squad of constables debouched from College street, marching in Indian file. Goosestep. Foodheated faces, sweating helmets, patting their truncheons. After their feed with a good load of…

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  • Ep. 114 – HOUSE OF KEY(E)S

    We finally unlock the secrets of Ulysses! Topics in this episode include Joseph Nannetti Sr. and Jr., the debts of Joe Hynes, Bloom’s passivity, the real Alexander Keyes, his struggle to advertise in print in Dublin, advertising in late Victorian Ireland, an innuendo of Home Rule and the Manx Parliament, heraldic imagery in Bloom’s ad,…

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  • Ep. 110 – Aeolus

    The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind… We kick off our series on Ulysses’ seventh episode, “Aeolus”! Topics in this episode include Book X of The Odyssey, Homeric parallels found in “Aeolus”, the headlines, the Evening Telegraph as it appears in Ulysses, Stromboli, brazen walls and floating isles, wind and air imagery, the…

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  • Parallax

    “The paths that Joyce lays out for Bloom and Stephen that day in Dublin are not parallel to one another, for then they would never meet. They are parallactic: his characters, unbeknownst to themselves, meet the same issues which themselves assume different appearances as they are differently perceived and experienced in the context of the…

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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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  • Ep. 94 – A Fine Old Custom

    I’ll tickle his catastrophe, believe you me! Topics include Ulysses tarot cards, incubism, the system of correspondences found in Ulysses, Martin Cunningham, Mr Power, Simon Dedalus, armstraps, caring for corpses, women’s role in caring for the dead, hats as identities, economic incubism, Bloom’s outsider status, Irish funeral customs, embalming, why Dignam’s widow doesn’t attend his…

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