PART B:
We stopped just as Miss Douce started to trill gaily: "O, Idolores, queen of the eastern seas!" (Penguin 336.28) (Gabler 11.226)
From the roads of Dublin we have moved to the inside of a bar.
Joyce not only gave the name 'Sirens' to the 11th episode of Ulysses but also defined 'music' as its art.
Music is present here in various forms; not only in the terminology, songs, choice of verbs etc used by Joyce but equally prominently in the structure of the episode.
The episode starts with 57 (Gifford counts 60 in his Annotations) fragments of sentences, not all complete (Penguin p. 328 to 330). According to Fritz Senn this part, serving as the introduction to the episode, is like the overture of a musical composition introducing motives that reoccur and can be recognized later. The concert hall is the bar of the Ormond hotel. The concert begins at 4 pm.
The two sirens - bronze by gold (the barmaids, Miss Kennedy and Miss Douce) - appear at the very beginning of the episode. We have met them already in the previous one. They talk about the viceroy, his wife and others in the passing cavalcade. (... yes, sitting with his ex(celency), pearl grey and Eau de nil... Look at the fellow in the tall silk.) They are visited by the boots boy of the hotel bearing them a tray of china for their tea. There is a small altercation between the giggling girls and the boot boy, ending with the haughty bronze telling the boot: 'I'll complain to .... if I hear any more of your impertinent insolence.' These last two words (that appeared in the very first sentence of the episode) is turned by the boot boy to 'Imperthnthn thnthnthn'. The barmaids discuss - laughing, giggling, yelling, shrieking, choking - whether or not Miss bronze is awfully sunburnt with Miss Kennedy suggesting remedies, and about the old fogey in Boyd's (wholesale druggists). Simon Dedalus walks in, exchanging pleasantries and flirting mildly with Miss Douce (He held her hand. Enjoyed her holidays?) He orders fresh water and a half glass of whisky. Miss Douce serves him, and polishing a tumbler, trills, 'O, Idolores, queen of the eastern seas!' from the musical comedy, Floradora.
It is not just motives from the beginning pages of the episode that are repeated on later pages, echoes of what we had seen/heard earlier are also repeated here. For example, we are told that Bloom (Bloowho) passes the hotel carrying the book, Sweets of Sin (episode 10). The word 'Jingle' appears more than once. We had heard it in episode 4 when the loose brass quoits of Molly's bedstead jingled. (Penguin 67.8) The challenge - and fun - is to recognize when these repetitions and echoes occur.
We stopped just as Miss Douce started to trill gaily: "O, Idolores, queen of the eastern seas!" (Penguin 336.28) (Gabler 11.226)
From the roads of Dublin we have moved to the inside of a bar.
Joyce not only gave the name 'Sirens' to the 11th episode of Ulysses but also defined 'music' as its art.
.jpg) |
| (Source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Attic_black-figure_oenochoe,_Odysseus_resists_the_song_of_the_Sirens,_525-500_BC,_Altes_Museum_Berlin_(13718823364).jpg) |
Music is present here in various forms; not only in the terminology, songs, choice of verbs etc used by Joyce but equally prominently in the structure of the episode.
The episode starts with 57 (Gifford counts 60 in his Annotations) fragments of sentences, not all complete (Penguin p. 328 to 330). According to Fritz Senn this part, serving as the introduction to the episode, is like the overture of a musical composition introducing motives that reoccur and can be recognized later. The concert hall is the bar of the Ormond hotel. The concert begins at 4 pm.
 |
| (Source: http://cpkeegan.blogspot.ch/2011/11/ormond-quay-hotel-place-of-sirens_4106.html) |
It is not just motives from the beginning pages of the episode that are repeated on later pages, echoes of what we had seen/heard earlier are also repeated here. For example, we are told that Bloom (Bloowho) passes the hotel carrying the book, Sweets of Sin (episode 10). The word 'Jingle' appears more than once. We had heard it in episode 4 when the loose brass quoits of Molly's bedstead jingled. (Penguin 67.8) The challenge - and fun - is to recognize when these repetitions and echoes occur.
