University of Tulsa

The Ulysses Theme

Author(s): Nathan Halper
Source: James Joyce Quarterly, Vol. 8, No. 3 (Spring, 1971), pp. 257-265
Published by: University of Tulsa
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25486912
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 Review Essay
Nathan Halper

The Ulysses Theme

For a number of years, I have been unhappy with many of the
books that are written about Joyce. I have also been unhappy with
some that are not written. Time and again, I have heard or read
that no one but a Dubliner may understand the allusions, the sensi
bility or ethos of another Dubliner. But when we wait for this in
group to inform us, they choose to tell us nothing. To use Joyce's
phrase, they are like "gods in a manger."

It is my pleasure this day to speak of a book, one of the great

books about Joyce. It is doubly my pleasure, for it was written by
a Dubliner. I refer to The Ulysses Theme by Prof. W. B. Stanford.
This was published in 1954 by Blackwell in Oxford. It was
later distributed in the United States by Macmillan, I think in
1956. That was
when I saw the book in the Gotham Book Mart.
Taken by its title ?and cover ?I glanced at a couple of pages;
after which I quickly got it and, that same night, read it with
edification and delight.

I spoke to the Nation about doing a review of it. They, in

turn, suggested that I do an article about all the Joyce books that
had been printed in that year. I did so in the issue of March 2,
1957.

This should have been a vintage year. It had seen books by

several of the V.I.P/s. There was a collection of reviews that Joyce
himself had written, also some additional pages of Stephen Hero.
But those, (I am afraid), were my less politic days. (I was younger
and expected more.) After making my unamiable remarks about
the others ?even those by Joyce ?I turned to the exception. I
gave it five paragraphs, of which I quote the first one.

257

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 258 Nathan Halper

"I have saved the best for last. The entire year ... is re
deemed by Mr. Stanford. The Ulysses Theme is the finest book
on to appear in a good while. (I say this even thought it is
Joyce
not a
basically Joyce book.)"
This calls for clarification. I will give it presently. Meanwhile,
let me observe that this helps to explain why it has been so little
noticed in our parish. (The Nation is not a magazine that is always
read by Joyceans.) I got William Tindall to put it in the Biblio

graphy of his Readers Guide to James Joyce. I twisted a couple

of arms but, in the next few years, met only one man who read it
on his own and, in his case, he
impulse. This was Vivien Mercier
did it not so much in his capacity as Joycean, but because he was
a Dubliner and had been at Trinity where, it is my impression, he
had known Mr. Stanford.

I remember that we were at a bar, making ungracious re

marks about some recent Joyce books. (When two Joyceans meet,
this is almost de rigeur.) But, after a couple of beers, we found a
mellower side to our nature. We spoke of those we had actually
liked. And, in so doing, we got to the subject of this book by Mr.
Stanford. We agreed that it was one of the great books. We de
plored that it had never received the attention it deserved. Each
said he would like to do an article about it, but we wondered if
we ever would have an occasion to do so.

I do not know that, if one of us had, it would have changed

the situation. ButI know it is neglected. For example, in Clive
Hart's recent study of Ulysses, though he has almost four pages
of Bibliography, this book is not mentioned.

It is my pleasure to bring the book to your attention.

The Ulysses of the title is not Joyce's novel. Mr. Stanford is

concerned with how different writers have dealt with the char
acter But, as he traces how, since the time of Homer,
Ulysses.
philosophers have judged him and poets portrayed him, he is doing
the same thing that Joyce has done before him: and, in following
his footsteps, has made some of the same findings. He gives only
half a chapter to this modern Irish version. And yet, willy-nilly,
Bloom is always present. He's implicit. We learn more about him

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The Ulysses Theme 259

than from most works exclusively devoted to this novel.

Itis a commonplace that Ulysses, Homers Odysseus, is a

of As described him to Frank ? "a
type Everyman. Joyce Budgen
complete all-around character." He is son, father, husband; a
master, a subordinate, as well as a companion. He loves his home
yet, in geography and love, he is a wanderer. He remembers, he
anticipates, yet also has the capacity to enjoy the present. In the
Iliad and Odyssey, he is put into all kinds of situations; in them,
he shows a full gamut of responses. As Mr. Stanford tells us, a
remarkable feature is his virtual monopoly of epithets in poly. By
this Homer indicates the "richness and complexity of his per
sonality."

Time has brought a new dimension to what, in Homer, is al

ready many-sidedness. Through the centuries, as attitudes to life
have changed, each shift has been accompanied by some change in
the image of Ulysses. I paraphrase Mr. Stanford:
Thanks to Homer's
conception of his character and exploits, he offers a wider founda
tion for such a later development than any other figure of Greek
mythology. What is especially congenial to adaptation of his myth
is his own quality of adaptability.

"One feature will need special emphasis. This is the . . . ethi

cal ambiguity of his distinctive characteristic . . .which is intel
ligence. Intelligence, as Homer indicates, is a neutral quality. It
may take the form of low and selfish cunning or of exalted al
truistic wisdom." Between these poles, his character vacillates
throughout the tradition.

In each society, writers ? or

reflecting perhaps denying ?the
values of that society, gave new emphases or shadings or created
an enlargement of what had been merely a hint in the original.

They taken up all of the various

have options. Ambiguities
were given flesh. We have a plenum, a universe of people who have
the name Ulysses. In another sense, what we have is a spectrum of
descriptions of a single person. Ulysses is the sum, the universe,
of all of these varying, all of these contradictory impressions, in
sights, opinions. It is something like a watered silk, showing dif
ferent lusters in a perpetually-changing light.

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 260 Nathan Halper

Which takes us to Leopold Bloom, the universal man.

To make him, Joyce has used not only the themes that are
found in Homer. He has used the years of variations on the themes.
Before we consider this, let us notice an anomaly. Bloom, this Dub
lin man, the Dublin Everyman, is not a typical Dubliner. He is
not a typical Man.

This goes back to Homer. In a chapter titled The Untypical

Hero, Mr. Stanford reminds us how, among those long-legged
Achaeans, there is something unaristocratic or non-Achaean in his
portrait. There is even a suggestion that he is of a different racial
stock. He is not "an eccentric figure or a narrowly limited type"
but Homer succeeds "in distinguishing Odysseus in slight devia
tions from the norms in almost every heroic feature* Mr. Stanford
observes how these other heroes feel uneasy in his company. They
mistrust a man whose mind is always working, who weighs the
effects of that he might
the things do and, in the light of this,
tempers his behavior.
Like Achilles, they suspect that this is a man
"who hides his thoughts in his heart and speaks a different mind/'
And there are moments when, like Achilles, they find this to be
hateful.

In Homer, this is a part of his material. Posterity has decided

to use the word "universal"; but it is dubious that Homer kept
thinking, "What I am doing is a Universal Epic. My Odysseus is
Everyman." In the case of Joyce, this is precisely the intent.

Shaw ? another Dubliner ? tells us that, when he was looked

at by an the latter was astounded. He said the eyes
eye-doctor,
were normal. A very unusual state.

So with our problem, is intelligent. The majority of

Ulysses
men are not. And intelligence is a of Man. It is a
yet, quality
norm. Not in a statistical ? a distin
sense, but as a differentia
guishing part of the essence of the species. His prudence, his
ability to reflect and to anticipate, these are rare but they are
qualities that do tend to separate Man from the other animals. If
Bloom is kindly and considerate, if he shows understanding of the
feeling or the pain of others, we may be cynical and say this is
unusual. Yet these traits are among the necessary components of

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The Ulysses Theme 261

words like *riuman" and "humane."

I have mentioned the suggestion that Ulysses is of foreign

blood. In Joyce, this too is a part of the picture of Man. Not as
a statistic: not even as a differentia. It is a metaphor. Man is a
stranger. He is gregarious but lonely. A stranger?though he is
always at home.

This in the later version of Everyman.

is repeated Humphrey
Chimpden Earwicker is not only an alien. He lives in Chapelizod
which, at that time, was a suburb of Dublin. In the city area, yet
not officially a part of it. In and out of Dublin which, in the Wake
as in is a microcosm of this world.
Ulysses,

Joyce begins with Homer. He takes Odysseus, already rich in

complexity. He takes his complement of traits, the pattern of his
? the basic human ? the of his
relationships relationships range
activities, the situations that show forth the diversities in his
character. He takes him and translates him to another time and
place.

The point is not that there were giants in those days, and
that, by their standards, we are pygmies in these.

say a couple are a Romeo

If we and Juliet, this may have an
element of mockery. How grey they look, how dull they sound in
At the same time, it is a comment on Romeo and
comparison.
Juliet. Behind the magic of the words, the illusion of the stage,
they are these kids on our block. If this were not true, the play
would have less meaning.

In the pages of Ulysses, Bloom isHomer's hero. And, in Homer,

Odysseus is Bloom. It is because of this that both of them are
universal.

Joyce's book
is Ulysses, its story is an Odyssey, not because
some close ? or far-fetched ? parallels.
the author has constructed
The kinship is of character. Because Bloom is Ulysses, his days will
have these parallels. He will always meet a Cyclops, see a maiden,
visit Circe. He will go back to Penelope.

But Joyce is schematic. He seems to have his policy. If Bloom is

universal, then ?by Poseidon ? universal he will be. He is going

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 262 Nathan Halper

to show him in all possible ways.

Homer shows his hero through his acts and his words. And, on
occasion, shows him through the words of others. Joyce makes that
a conscious method of construction. The impressions of a diversity
of Dubliners are a mode of showing Bloom in all of his diversity.

Mr. Stanford that there may be moments

thinks when Homer
speaks about himself. Once
more, Joyce enlarges a faint hint into
a principle. Where in Homer the subjective level is peripheral, in
it is at the heart -* one of at the heart of his
Joyce many things
creation.

That Joyce himself is an aspect of Bloom fulfills the univer

sality. But, as we know, Joyce is also Stephen. One may "prove by
algebra" that Stephen is a form, a younger phase of Bloom. To
Telemachus is not a he is a of ?
Joyce, only son, stage Odysseus
adding this to the completeness.
In addition, Joyce does something that, although it is based
on Homer, is a thing that Homer could not possibly do. He looks
? and ? of
through the eyes glasses three thousand years of writers
who have looked upon Ulysses.

Besides showing his protagonist through his words and deeds,

through the words of others, through the lenses ?all the lenses ?
of our cultural history, he does something else. He shows Everyman
from inside. We see the simmer of his consciousness, the seething
in his subconscious. The free association, and the obsessions of his
nightmare.
There is something more. In the pages of Ulysses, he uses
"imitative form." For example, we have often been told how, in
the lying-in hospital, the changing style repeats the evolution of
?
English and, through this, the growth of the foetus in the womb
until, howling, it is finally expelled. Each of the other chapters has
its relevant style. The sum of these styles in an "imitative form.**
It is one more reflection of Everyman.

Back to Mr. Stanford.

He quotes Stanislaus Joyce as saying that his brother had
studied the work of many writers on Ulysses. Virgil, Ovid, Dante.

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The Ulysses Theme 263

Shakespear, Racine, Fenelon, Tennyson, Philips, D'Annunzio,

Hauptmann, as well as Butler and Berard, and the translations
by
Butler and Cowper. He must have known? even if he did not
number of less extensive or less formal treatments. He
study?a
must have looked in various books of reference. Joyce was a

schoolboy when he learned about Ulysses; and, from that day,

willy-nilly, be accumulated bits of knowledge that referred to him.
He was the sort of man who, so to speak, likes to
pick-up little
pieces of string and save them till an occasion when he could use
t)*em.

Mr. Stanford's book is summarized by its title. As the subtitle

says, it is A Study in the Adaptability of a Traditional Hero. This
entails the writer gathering a similar of material.
body
He begins with folk-tales that Homer probably used: he re
lates them to the world-wide theme of a Wily Lad or Sly Boots.
This strikes a chord. There are two different occasions when Bloom
is called a "slyboots." We may take it granted that the specific
phrase was not unusual in Dublin. But, as we have found, when
they are used by Joyce, even such phrases are not idle.

There are other examples. But I do not wish to imply that what
is put before us is limited to these details. Let us rather turn at
tention to topics with a wider scope.

We that Joyce has a name as being

know a muck-raker, a
Thersites.He has befouled the whiteness of Penelope. He has
brought an outhouse to the temple. And he saw to it that this was
used. His shame is common knowledge, so that Gilbert Higher,
a classicist), was able to make a comparison.
(like Mr. Stanford
He spoke of a home that smelled as awful as
"nearly Joyce's novels."
He felt his radio-audience would know precisely what he meant.

Mr. Stanford's evidence shows that this behavior of Joyce's is

in the great tradition. In the golden centuries of Greece, there were
versions written in which Penelope slept with all of her suitors.
While in a fragment of a satyr-play by Aeschylys, (Yes, I said
a chamber-pot is emptied over the head of Odysseus.
Aeschylus),
In another, a heron that is overhead scatters ordure on his bald
pate, causing his death by sepsis.

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 264 Nathan Halper

Even this is only one of the fringe benefits. What is central

is the analysis of Homer and, at lesser length, of the books that

Joyce specifically studied.

At the time that I bought The
Ulysses Theme, I had been
reading and re-reading Ulysses for about thirty years. I had done
so with pleasure and, I like to think, a bit of understanding. But,
at this point, I must make a confession. I had seen charts that estab
lished correspondences; I had read books that found echoes and
analogies for, it sometimes seemed, every comma in Ulysses. Yet,
when at Bloom,
I looked I was never able to feel that here was
Homer's mariner; when I read Homer ?like Joyce, I read him in
? I was never able to sense the of Bloom. When
English presence
I read a book where one of the characters was called Ulysses or
Odysseus, it never entered my mind that here was something
which might be relevant to Joyce.
But, when Mr. Stanford led me into Homer, Ulysses kept re
minding me of that little bourgeois whom I got to meet in Dublin
on June 16, 1904. Now, when I read Ulysses, I see Homer's sailor.
I see all the characters that Mr. Stanford has evoked. Ulysses, butt
and buffoon. Ulysses, man of dignity. The coward: the brave man.
The coarse little fellow, the self-indulgent ogler, and the Christ
like figure, suffering and all-enduring. Here is Dante's seeker . . .
th bore of Fenelon . . . the humanist in Troilus, like a
acting
father to a young one who is not his son.
compassionate
My one regret is that more
attention is not given to Samuel
Butler. Mr. Stanford does
say that Butler thought the Odyssey was
written by a woman; he does not add that this woman is Nausicaa.
Thus, when Joyce pretends to write like Gertie MacDowell, he is
only doing what Butler has suggested.
One other point is that Butler shows the identity of the women
of the Odyssey. Calypso is the same as Circe; both an older version
of Nausicaa. The matrons are versions of Nauscaa's mother. He
has two types; but ?as always ?Joyce is more schematic. It is
clear in Finnegans Wake, where Kate, Anna, Isabel, are phases of
one Woman. In Ulysses this is not so obvious, but it has been shown
that the unseen Marta is a reflection of Molly. It has been remarked
that Milly, like Issy, is going to be like her mother. I have said that
"slyboots" is applied to Bloom on two separate occasions. Once by

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The Ulysses Theme 265

Molly, his wife. Once by Bella Cohen. This suggests that Bella is
an aspect of Penelope. It is a facet of the Wife that she manages
her brothel. There, like dominant Bella, she puts Ulysses through
his paces. All in all, a compound Penelope is a proper mate for
Everyman. A gaggle of women married to a pride of men.

Near the end

of the book, just before its Epilogue, we have
that half-chapter which is devoted to Ulysses. The other half be
longs to the Odyssey Kazantzakis. Since this was later,
by published
in 1938, it is the last to be discussed?the last word in the tradi
tion. But, though Mr. Stanford has given him this honored place,
his heart, like ours, belongs to somebody else. Before this chapter,
there is no reference to Kazantzakis or his book.
Joyce is mentioned
by name on page after page. The title of this chapter is The Re
integrated Hero.

Homer s sailor was complex. As a rule, the others show only

some single one of his aspects. They have broken him down into
his component parts. Now, after three thousand years, Joyce has
put him back together.

Everyman has wandered. Like Ulysses himself, he has had ad

ventures: he has wandered for years. But, at long last, he has come
home.

Odysseus has been re-born!

New York City

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