Stopped today's reading at "... guiltless though maligned." (Penguin 244. 7), (Gabler 9.244)
We are still in an office of the National Library in Dublin. Stephen and others (See Sabrina's excellent post from last week to learn about the various characters who were present) have just talked about Heines, who is not there as he has gone to buy the book, The Love Songs of Connacht, by Douglas Hyde (1860 - 1949).
What we read on these pages is a fictional discussion of fiction (Fritz Senn's words). Mainly of Shakespeare. That too about Shakespeare's Hamlet. Before Stephen starts expounding his thesis on Shakespeare and Hamlet, Georg Russell makes a kind of 'derogatory' remark about lovesongs. (That he does so warning occultly hints at his interest in mysticism, occult etc.) He also comes up with some strong opinions about peasants, who makes revolutions, the cheap kind of work (sixshilling novel) produced in the rarefied air of the academy,.. They also talk about the literary scene in France, about Mallarme.
But Shakespeare and Hamlet, rather Stephen's views of Shakespeare and Hamlet, occupy the center stage on these pages. We have to read these pages with much care as Stephen's exposition is interspersed with a lot of interior monologue, his thoughts wandering from Shakespeare's fiction to what others (such as the 16th century English dramatist Robert Greene) have said about the bard, to his own time at Clongowes as portrayed by Joyce in A Portrait of The Artist as a Young Man, to his mother's deathbed, to the money he owes A. E. (George Russell) etc.
We should pay special attention to a couple of things in Stephen's argument. (a) to his attempt - telling himself to add local color, work in all you know - to recreate the atmosphere of the staging of a Shakespearean play. (Penguin 240.26 ff) (b) to his explanation on what a ghost is. Stephen defines a ghost as one who has faded into implacability through death, through absence, through change of manners. (c) to his main argument that the dead king in Hamlet is Shakespeare himself, that Hamlet is none else than his dead son, Hamnet, and that he naturally converts his own wife Ann Hathaway into the guilty queen, Gertrude. (The connection between Hamnet and Hamlet occupies scholars even today as can be read here.) Stephen's painting of what happens when Shakespeare appears to Hamlet as the ghost is really beautiful: To a son he speaks, the son of his soul, the prince, young Hamlet and to the son of his body, Hamlet Shakespeare, who has died in Stratford that his namesake may live for ever.
Stephen's thesis does not attract everybody in the room. Russell objects to such a peeping and prying into greenroom gossip. Mr Best's face, appealed to, agreed. (We only know that Mr Best's face agreed, we don't know if indeed Mr Best agreed!) Of course Stephen is not happy about this. In his thoughts he mocks at Russell by referring to him as sirrah, (a common form of addressing an inferior person during the Elizabethan times), remembering at the same time that Russell had lent him a pound when he (Stephen) was hungry.
Recollection of this borrowed pound leads Stephen's thoughts to what happened to that money (spent most of it in Georgina Johnson's bed), to his conversation that morning with Mr. Deasy (I paid my way. I paid my way.), and finally to philosophical excursions of the identity of a human being. (Molecules all change. I am other I now. Other I got pound. = With time the stuff we are made of changes. The Stephen who borrowed the pound five months ago is different from the one who is now Stephen.) He thinks of his childhood and youth as portrayed in the novel, A Portrait...
He underscores this chain of thoughts with: I, I and I. I. I dare to interpret this as follows: The full stop between I, I and I and I stands for 'changes in the molecules'. The comma between I and I and I. signifies that something still continues even if the molecules change. (Read Aristotle to understand more!)
Stephen next thinks of A. E. I. O. U. Here Joyce has posed a nice puzzle for us. Do the 'I's of I, I and I. I remind Stephen of the five vowels of the English language or is he telling himself: "A. E. (George Russell's pen name) I owe you (that pound)"?
Finally, please do not loose heart if this episode comes across as being too hard a nut to crack at first reading. Continue with the reading group once you finish reading Ulysses first time. Everything becomes so much more enjoyable and beautiful the second time over!
We are still in an office of the National Library in Dublin. Stephen and others (See Sabrina's excellent post from last week to learn about the various characters who were present) have just talked about Heines, who is not there as he has gone to buy the book, The Love Songs of Connacht, by Douglas Hyde (1860 - 1949).
What we read on these pages is a fictional discussion of fiction (Fritz Senn's words). Mainly of Shakespeare. That too about Shakespeare's Hamlet. Before Stephen starts expounding his thesis on Shakespeare and Hamlet, Georg Russell makes a kind of 'derogatory' remark about lovesongs. (That he does so warning occultly hints at his interest in mysticism, occult etc.) He also comes up with some strong opinions about peasants, who makes revolutions, the cheap kind of work (sixshilling novel) produced in the rarefied air of the academy,.. They also talk about the literary scene in France, about Mallarme.
But Shakespeare and Hamlet, rather Stephen's views of Shakespeare and Hamlet, occupy the center stage on these pages. We have to read these pages with much care as Stephen's exposition is interspersed with a lot of interior monologue, his thoughts wandering from Shakespeare's fiction to what others (such as the 16th century English dramatist Robert Greene) have said about the bard, to his own time at Clongowes as portrayed by Joyce in A Portrait of The Artist as a Young Man, to his mother's deathbed, to the money he owes A. E. (George Russell) etc.
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| "Shakespeare's family circle" by unknown german engraver - engraving. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/ File:Shakespeare%27s_family_circle.jpg#mediaviewer/File:Shakespeare%27s_family_circle.jpg |
Stephen's thesis does not attract everybody in the room. Russell objects to such a peeping and prying into greenroom gossip. Mr Best's face, appealed to, agreed. (We only know that Mr Best's face agreed, we don't know if indeed Mr Best agreed!) Of course Stephen is not happy about this. In his thoughts he mocks at Russell by referring to him as sirrah, (a common form of addressing an inferior person during the Elizabethan times), remembering at the same time that Russell had lent him a pound when he (Stephen) was hungry.
Recollection of this borrowed pound leads Stephen's thoughts to what happened to that money (spent most of it in Georgina Johnson's bed), to his conversation that morning with Mr. Deasy (I paid my way. I paid my way.), and finally to philosophical excursions of the identity of a human being. (Molecules all change. I am other I now. Other I got pound. = With time the stuff we are made of changes. The Stephen who borrowed the pound five months ago is different from the one who is now Stephen.) He thinks of his childhood and youth as portrayed in the novel, A Portrait...
He underscores this chain of thoughts with: I, I and I. I. I dare to interpret this as follows: The full stop between I, I and I and I stands for 'changes in the molecules'. The comma between I and I and I. signifies that something still continues even if the molecules change. (Read Aristotle to understand more!)
Stephen next thinks of A. E. I. O. U. Here Joyce has posed a nice puzzle for us. Do the 'I's of I, I and I. I remind Stephen of the five vowels of the English language or is he telling himself: "A. E. (George Russell's pen name) I owe you (that pound)"?
Finally, please do not loose heart if this episode comes across as being too hard a nut to crack at first reading. Continue with the reading group once you finish reading Ulysses first time. Everything becomes so much more enjoyable and beautiful the second time over!
