Homer's Odyssey:
Ithaca is the island that is the home of Odysseus. The epic Odyssey is the narration of the travails Ulysses faces during his journey home to Ithaca after the end of the Trojan war.
James Joyce's Ulysses:
Joyce used the name Ithaca to refer to the 17th episode/chapter of his Ulysses that describes the actual homecoming. Here Joyce opens another vista of style in using catechism - a series of (fixed) questions and answers (or percepts used for instruction). Everything that Bloom and Stephen talk about, see, and feel is categorized, everything is treated in an ordered manner. For Joyce this episode represented a mathematics-astronomico-physico-mechanico-geometrico-chemico sublimation of Bloom and Stephen's* interaction. Bloom has brought Stephen home. In the kitchen he makes him a cup of Epss's cocoa which he offers in the moustache cup, a gift by Milly. They talk about various things including the difference in their ages, races, etc. Bloom encourages Stephen to sing. He obliges with a ballad that is anti-semitic in nature. After Stephen gratefully rejects Bloom's offer of a bed for the night and leaves, Bloom goes back into the house, where he notices in the front room the remnants of Boylan's visit that afternoon. Bloom spends a lot of time thinking. About Boylan's visit, about the statue of Narcissus kept on the table, about the books on his bookshelf, about his expenses of the day, about his ambition of a very special mansion and what he will grow in its garden. After much time and thinking about various things, with his mind and heart in peace, he goes to his bedroom, dresses for the bed, lies down in the direction of N.W. by W. to rest.
It is 2 a.m.
* James Joyce by Richard Ellmann, p. 501, OUP, 1982
Selected Highlights of Episode 17 in Ulysses for the Uninitiated:
1. Sayings from Ulysses explored/explained:
- What in water die Bloom, waterlover, drawer of water, watercarrzer, returning to the range, admire? (17.183)
- the concomitant phenomenon place in the vessel of liquid by the agency of fire? (17.255)
- He had not risked, he died not expect, he had not been disappointed, he was satisfied. (17.349)
- He thought that he thought that he was a jew whereas he knew that he knew that he knew that he was not. (17.530)
- . . . the clandestine satisfaction of heroic irritation in masculine brothels, state inspected and medically controlled: . . . (17.668)
- The heaven tree of stars hung with humid night blue fruit. (17.1039)
- . . . her splendour, when visible: her attraction, when invisible. (17.1169)
- The truncated conical crater summit of the diminutive volcano emitted a vertical and serpentine fume redolent of aromatic oriental incense. (17.1331)
- . . . Industrious Foreign Acclimatised Nationalised Friendly Stateaided Building Society . . . (17.1658)
- An old man, widower, unkempt of hair, in bed, with head covered, sighing: an infirm dog, Athos: . . . (17.1889)
- The unsympathetic indifference of previously amiable females . . . (17.1949)
- New clean bedlinen, additional odours, the presence of a human form, female, hers, the imprint of a human form, male, not his, some crumbs, some flakes of potted meat . . . (17.2123)
- . . . the inanity of extolled virtue: . . . (17.2225)
- . . . he plump mellow yellow smellow melons of her rump, . . . (17.2241)
- Sinbad the Sailor and Tinbad the Tailor and Jinbad the Jailor . . . Xinbad the Phthailer. (17.2322)
(Episode.Line numbers in brackets above are according to the Critical Edition of Ulysses by H. W. Gabler, 1986)
2. Illustrations:
- Watercolours by Catherine Meyer
- Original photograph of Fritz Senn in front of the door of 7 Eccles street, Dublin by Chandra Holm
- Reproductions of objects (a moustache cup, and a pot of Plumtree's potted meat) belonging to the Zurich James Joyce Foundation holdings
3. Links to
- The recitation of Shule Aroon by the Oxford High School Concert Choir
- The recitation of Naphtali Herz Imber's poem Hatikvah (now the National Anthem of Israel)
- The rendering of the British folk song, Little Harry Hughes
- Adrian Lester's recitation of the famous soliloquy, To be or not to be, from Hamlet, published by The Guardian Culture
And much more!
Ithaca is the island that is the home of Odysseus. The epic Odyssey is the narration of the travails Ulysses faces during his journey home to Ithaca after the end of the Trojan war.
James Joyce's Ulysses:
Joyce used the name Ithaca to refer to the 17th episode/chapter of his Ulysses that describes the actual homecoming. Here Joyce opens another vista of style in using catechism - a series of (fixed) questions and answers (or percepts used for instruction). Everything that Bloom and Stephen talk about, see, and feel is categorized, everything is treated in an ordered manner. For Joyce this episode represented a mathematics-astronomico-physico-mechanico-geometrico-chemico sublimation of Bloom and Stephen's* interaction. Bloom has brought Stephen home. In the kitchen he makes him a cup of Epss's cocoa which he offers in the moustache cup, a gift by Milly. They talk about various things including the difference in their ages, races, etc. Bloom encourages Stephen to sing. He obliges with a ballad that is anti-semitic in nature. After Stephen gratefully rejects Bloom's offer of a bed for the night and leaves, Bloom goes back into the house, where he notices in the front room the remnants of Boylan's visit that afternoon. Bloom spends a lot of time thinking. About Boylan's visit, about the statue of Narcissus kept on the table, about the books on his bookshelf, about his expenses of the day, about his ambition of a very special mansion and what he will grow in its garden. After much time and thinking about various things, with his mind and heart in peace, he goes to his bedroom, dresses for the bed, lies down in the direction of N.W. by W. to rest.
It is 2 a.m.
* James Joyce by Richard Ellmann, p. 501, OUP, 1982
Selected Highlights of Episode 17 in Ulysses for the Uninitiated:
1. Sayings from Ulysses explored/explained:
- What in water die Bloom, waterlover, drawer of water, watercarrzer, returning to the range, admire? (17.183)
- the concomitant phenomenon place in the vessel of liquid by the agency of fire? (17.255)
- He had not risked, he died not expect, he had not been disappointed, he was satisfied. (17.349)
- He thought that he thought that he was a jew whereas he knew that he knew that he knew that he was not. (17.530)
- . . . the clandestine satisfaction of heroic irritation in masculine brothels, state inspected and medically controlled: . . . (17.668)
- The heaven tree of stars hung with humid night blue fruit. (17.1039)
- . . . her splendour, when visible: her attraction, when invisible. (17.1169)
- The truncated conical crater summit of the diminutive volcano emitted a vertical and serpentine fume redolent of aromatic oriental incense. (17.1331)
- . . . Industrious Foreign Acclimatised Nationalised Friendly Stateaided Building Society . . . (17.1658)
- An old man, widower, unkempt of hair, in bed, with head covered, sighing: an infirm dog, Athos: . . . (17.1889)
- The unsympathetic indifference of previously amiable females . . . (17.1949)
- New clean bedlinen, additional odours, the presence of a human form, female, hers, the imprint of a human form, male, not his, some crumbs, some flakes of potted meat . . . (17.2123)
- . . . the inanity of extolled virtue: . . . (17.2225)
- . . . he plump mellow yellow smellow melons of her rump, . . . (17.2241)
- Sinbad the Sailor and Tinbad the Tailor and Jinbad the Jailor . . . Xinbad the Phthailer. (17.2322)
(Episode.Line numbers in brackets above are according to the Critical Edition of Ulysses by H. W. Gabler, 1986)
2. Illustrations:
- Watercolours by Catherine Meyer
- Original photograph of Fritz Senn in front of the door of 7 Eccles street, Dublin by Chandra Holm
- Reproductions of objects (a moustache cup, and a pot of Plumtree's potted meat) belonging to the Zurich James Joyce Foundation holdings
3. Links to
- The recitation of Shule Aroon by the Oxford High School Concert Choir
- The recitation of Naphtali Herz Imber's poem Hatikvah (now the National Anthem of Israel)
- The rendering of the British folk song, Little Harry Hughes
- Adrian Lester's recitation of the famous soliloquy, To be or not to be, from Hamlet, published by The Guardian Culture
And much more!
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