the argument of ulysses

501 Pages·2007·24.48 MB·English

the argument of ulysses

the argument of uiysses
by Stanley sultan
ohio state university press
Copyright © 1964 by the Ohio State University Press
All Rights Reserved
Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number: 64-22634
All selections from Ulysses, by James Joyce, Copyright 1914, 1918
and renewed 1942, 1946 by Nora Joseph Joyce. Reprinted by per­
mission of Random House, Inc., New York, and The Bodley Head
Ltd., London.
All selections from A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, by James
Joyce, are used by permission of The Viking Press, Inc., Publishers,
New York; the Executors of the James Joyce Estate; and Jonathan
Cape Ltd., London.
"Who Goes with Fergus?" reprinted with permission of Mrs. W. B.
Yeats; the Macmillan Company, New York; the Macmillan Com­
pany of Canada; Messrs. Macmillan and Company Ltd.; and Messrs.
A. P. Watt and Son, London, from Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats,
Copyright 1906 by The Macmillan Company, Renewed 1934 by
William Butler Yeats.
Portions of "Joyce's Irish Politics: The Seventh Chapter of Ulys­
ses" by Stanley Sultan, reprinted from the Massachusetts Review,
Vol. II, No. 3 (Spring, 1961), by permission of the publishers.
Copyright © 1961 by Stanley Sultan.
Portions of "The Sirens at the Ormond Bar: Ulysses" by Stanley
Sultan, reprinted from the University of Kansas City Review, Vol.
XXVI, No. 2 (Winter, 1959), by permission of the editors.
this book is dedicated to Jamie and

acknowledgments
I wish to thank: the Shell Oil Company and Deans H.
Donaldson Jordan and Robert F. Campbell of Clark Uni­
versity for grants that met the bulk of the expenses for
typing, editorial assistance, and permissions fees; the rare
book librarians and Donald Wing of the Yale University
Library; Ethel Mahue Delaney and Betty Hill Place, for
help of various kinds; Alfred Young Fisher, George Gibian,
Gordon S. Haight, Wendell Stacy Johnson, and Martin
Price (among others), for their interest in the book and
their encouragement.
For assistance in the preparation of the manuscript, I
am indebted to Cynthia Forman Johanson, Dona Luongo
Stein, and Florence Lehman Sultan.
To the late Newton Arvin, to Harold Bloom, Cleanth
Brooks, Malcolm Cowley, Robert Gorham Davis, Charles
Feidelson, Richard M. Kain, Thomas E. Sheahan, and
Robert A. Stein, I owe certain virtues of the book and the
diminution of certain defects.
I have saved my first and greatest indebtedness for last.
The major part of The Argument of Ulysses is based on a
Yale University doctoral dissertation, which originated in
Professor Cleanth Brooks's seminar on certain modern
writers, was tested and tempered by the critical intelligence
of my fellow student Thomas M. Greene, and benefited
above all from the counsel of Professor Eugene M. Waith.
He gave me guidance and encouragement beyond my
deserts; but the debt that I owe him for determined,
eloquent battle with my stubborn will only he and I know.
STANLEY SULTAN

contents
introduction 3

chapter one 31

1 the tower 33

2 the school 42

3 the strand (Stephen) 51

in search of Stephen 62

chapter two 89

4 *Ae kitchen 89

5 «Ae pos£ o$ce 93

6 the cemetery 98

mr. leopold paula bloom 104

chapter three 108

7 j/ie newspaper office 109

"episodes" and correspondences 118
chapter tour 123

8 davy byrne's 123

style in ulysses 138

chapter five 149

9 the library 149

Joyce's dublin and dublin's Joyce 181

chapter six 205

10 the city 205

chapter seven 220

11 the ormond hotel 220

12 barney kiernan's 232

chapter eight 263

13 the strand (bloom) 263

14 the hospital 277