Joyce Flashcards
PAYM: genre
Kunstlerroman
PAYM: narrative style
Free indirect discourse (as opposed to omniscient 3rd person of Stephen Hero)
PAYM: diction
The childhood of Stephen Dedalus is recounted using vocabulary that changes as he grows, in a voice not his own but sensitive to his feelings.
o Cf. The Waves and Autobiography of Red
PAYM: Jesuit schools
corporeal punishment; mortification of the flesh
PAYM: plot, Belvedere
Stephen gets a grant so he can attend Belvedere College, where he excels. Starts whoring; more distanced from father
PAYM: plot, class retreat
Class goes on religious retreat, sermons on pride, guilt, punishment, and Four Last Things. Stephen’s conversion.
PAYM: “Last four things”
death, judgment, Hell, and Heaven (class religious retreat sermon)
PAYM: Stephen’s conversion
After class retreat. Repents, ascetic self-punishment & joy; this eventually turns into routine.
PAYM: Stephen’s devotion comes to the attention
of the Jesuits and they encourage him to consider entering the priesthood. He considers, but has crisis of faith due to conflict between spiritual beliefs and aesthetic ambitions.
PAYM: Dollymount Strand
Along Dollymount Strand he spots a girl wading, and has an epiphany in which he is overcome with the desire to find a way to express her beauty in his writing.
PAYM: Moment of converting back to aestheticism
Dollymount Strand
PAYM: As student of University College, Dublin,
Stephen grows wary of all institutions: Church, school, politics, family.
PAYM: Stephen concludes of Ireland that it is… (so he does what?)
too narrow for his artistic expression; self-imposed exile; but he is determined to forge the uncreated conscience of his “race” (Ireland).
PAYM: Stephen Dedalus
Growing up, goes through long phases of hedonism and deep religiosity. Eventually adopts aestheticism—beauty, art. Joyce’s alter ego, mirrored events from Joyce’s youth. Greek mythical figure Daedalus—craftsman who also engaged in struggle for autonomy.
PAYM: Simon Dedalus
Stephen’s father, impoverished former medical student, strong Irish nationalism. Sentimental about his past, frequently reminisces about his youth. Loosely based on Joyce’s own father and their relationship.
PAYM: Mary Dedalus
Stephen’s mother who is very religious and often argues with Stephen about attending services
PAYM: Emma Clery
Stephen’s beloved, the young girl to whom he is fiercely attracted over the course of many years. Stephen constructs Emma as an ideal of femininity, even though (or because) he does not know her well.
PAYM: Charles Stewart Parnell (in the novel)
An Irish political leader who is not an actual character in the novel, but whose death influences many of its characters. Parnell had powerfully led the Irish Parliamentary Party until he was driven out of public life after his affair with a married woman was exposed.
PAYM: Cranly
Stephen’s best friend at university, in whom he confides. A secular confessor for Stephen. Eventually begins to encourage Stephen to conform to wishes of his family and to try harder to fit in with his peers, advice Stephen fiercely resents. Towards the conclusion of the novel he bears witness to Stephen’s exposition of his aesthetic philosophy. It is partly due to Cranly that Stephen decides to leave, after witnessing Cranly’s budding (and reciprocated) romantic interest in Emma
PAYM: Dante (Mrs. Riordan)
The governess of the Dedalus children. She is very intense and a dedicated Catholic
PAYM: Lynch
Stephen’s friend from university who has a rather dry personality
PAYM: mnscrpt, original conception of the idea for the book
Starts out as Stephen Hero, a realist work—abandoned and largely reworked in PAYM
PAYM: mnscrpt, where/when published
The Egoist over 25 instalments from 1914-15.
PAYM: mnscrpt, story of acceptance for publication
In 1913 Yeats recommended Joyce’s work to Pound; Pound wrote Joyce; Joyce sent 1st chapter of PAYM; Pound advocated and it appeared in The Egoist
PAYM: what is The Egoist
London literary magazine, pub’d important early modernist poetry and fiction. Manifesto claimed to “recognize no taboos.” Also published parts of Ulysses; Pound helps PAYM get published here.
PAYM: Charles Stewart Parnell (in history)
Charles Stewart Parnell: Irish nationalist politician and major figure in British House of Commons in 1880’s. Leads Irish Parliamentary Party until driven out following love affair. His death impacts characters.
PAYM: quote the first line
“Once upon a time and a very good time it was… moocow…” etc.
PAYM: quote Stephen’s resolution just before the end of the book
“I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race.”
PAYM: autobiography, art, life (talking point)
as both recording and shaping: though days may pass between his entries, a new entry often starts by referencing the previous (or some previous) entry. Sometimes this becomes theme in the new entry, such as the crocodile bred out of the Nilemud. We see representation or expression of new experiences and emotions being affected by past representations, watching consciousness or ideology being formed by a fusion of art and life.
PAYM: expiation, art (talking point)
art as a continuing form of expiation for Stephen. Not simply a replacement for the blessings of religion, as many had already argued by Joyce’s time (see even Arnold), but as a replacement for the punishment and guilt of religion. Some irony, therefore, in the implicit tone of liberation in his concluding entries.
PAYM, Joyce, or Modernism generally: Ulysses, epic (talking point)
Ulysses and the evolution of Pope’s baroque, much-in-little style in Rape of the Lock. Here, too, an epic is compressed. And there’s a connection—a similar evocation of diminished importance. The little bibles and files of pins have become Bloom’s little thoughts and files of half-conscious impulses.
PAYM: give headings for talking points
- Autiobio, art, & life
- Art as new form of expiation
- Ulysses, epic, & Pope
