JAMES JOYCE & GREATER GREECE

 JAMES JOYCE ΚΑΙ ΜΕΙΖΩΝ ΕΛΛΑΣ

ερανίσματα

Trisevgeni Bilia. 2021. "'Unfinishing Masterpiece’: James Joyce’s "Ulysses" in GreeceJames Joyce’s 'Ulysses' in Greece," Greek Studies Now. Cultural Analysis Network, <https://gc.fairead.net/james-joyces-ulysses-in-greece?fbclid=IwY2xjawKDxQtleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHgJPD7C_A7ueGAqZ0rCaZwb2gxLnXcwAIljzooVHuJnSdEoTrOd7VyNv_6_V_aem_KPIX-xKdCAURBvJ6SMU-mg> (4 May, 2025).

Τα ελληνικά του Τζαίημς Τζόυς (ΤΡΙΣΕΥΓΕΝΗ ΒΙΛΙΑ)

“James Joyce, Textorized,” by Maxf, 2006 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:James_Joyce_textorized.png

https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/classics-and-celtic-literary-modernism/hellenise-it/3991BF4288B9F404CAA4050CCD6F393C?fbclid=IwY2xjawKDxkNleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHljrxctSgDeQM99k43IO-B2aEkJ5Ss8bxAqX7-hoCh5KJ3iMiFmh7ftzdxrV_aem_OOyN2kVkpkG_1XQsdlC6Cg

Baker, G. 2022. "Hellenise It," in Classics and Celtic Literary Modernism. Yeats, Joyce, MacDiarmid and Jones Joyce and the Mistranslation of Revival, pp. 85-122.

Gregory Baker

“I am distressed and indignant,” declared T. S. Eliot (1888–1965).1 “[D]iscreet investigations” were warranted, he told Sylvia Beach (1887–1962), for a “conspiracy” against James Joyce’s newly published novel, Ulysses, seemed to be afoot in England.2 In the months since the book’s 1922 printing in Paris, a number of English literary critics had come forward seeking press copies, but few actual reviews of the novel had appeared in British magazines and journals. Disheartened, Joyce himself explained to Harriet Shaw Weaver (1876–1961) that “certain critics” seemed keen to obtain the novel if only to then “boycott the book.”

https://openjournals.ugent.be/jeps/article/90007/galley/211743/download/

Loukopoulou, E. 2025. "James Joyce’s Portrait in London’s Greek Newspaper Hē Hesperia (1916–20)," Journal of European Periodical Studies 9(2), pp. 91–107.

https://books.openedition.org/puc/238

Norris, D. 1991. "A clash of Titans Joyce, Homer and the idea of epic," in Studies on Joyce’s Ulysses, p. 101-118. 

Fran O’Rourke, “The Three Aristotles of James Joyce"

https://franorourke.ie/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Joyce-and-Aristotle-2.pdf

Fran O’Rourke. . "Joyce and Aristotle," pp. 139-157. 

It is arguable that Aristotle – next to Homer – was Joyce’s greatest master. Without the Odyssey, Joyce could never have conceived Ulysses; had he not written the book celebrating his frst rendezvous with a beautiful girl from Galway, whatever he wrote would, however, have been profoundly marked by the philosopher of Stagira. There is, I suggest, a profound affnity of mind between Joyce and Aristotle; perhaps part of this kinship may be explained by its Homeric parentage. Aristotle too was profoundly infuenced by Homer; he cites him over 100 times, second in frequency only to Plato. Many of these citations are in those works of Aristotle which Joyce would read. One of the most moving documents which we possess from the entire corpus of ancient philosophy is the fragment of a letter written by Aristotle toward the end of his life: ‘The more solitary and isolated I am, the more I have come to love myths.’ 1 One recalls Rembrandt’s famous painting of Aristotle contemplating the bust of Homer. It is noteworthy that in Gulliver’s Travels, Jonathan Swift places Homer and Aristotle in the same company: ‘Having a desire to see those ancients, who were most renowned for wit and learning, I set apart one day on purpose. I proposed that Homer and Aristotle might appear at the head of all their commentators … I had a whisper from a ghost, who shall be nameless, that these commentators always kept in the most distant quarter from their principals, in the lower world, through a consciousness of shame and guilt, because they had so horribly misrepresented the meaning of those authors to posterity.’ 2

Joyce would bear no such guilt in the company of Homer and Aristotle.

Joyce set out to emulate Homer and his success is beyond dispute. He was also a true and sympathetic follower of Aristotle. He regarded Aristotle as the greatest thinker of all times, declaring: ‘In the last two hundred years we have had no great thinker. My judgment is daring, since Kant is included. All the great thinkers of the past centuries from Kant to Benedetto Croce have only recultivated the garden. In my opinion the greatest thinker of all times is Aristotle. He defnes everything with wonderful clarity and simplicity. Volumes were written later to defne the same things.’ 3

How did Joyce came to know Aristotle? Why such great esteem? I will presently assess the most obvious avenue of infuence – his Jesuit education – but would frst like to mention one which is perhaps overlooked. For generations in Ireland, the name of Aristotle has been synonymous with wisdom and erudition. The following extract from a German visitor to Ireland in 1843 illustrates how well Aristotle had become established over the centuries in the Irish vernacular tradition: https://www.academia.edu/44654148/Joyce_and_Aristotle

https://neoskosmos.com/en/2018/11/09/dialogue/opinion/james-joyce-the-greeks-and-orthodoxy/?fbclid=IwY2xjawKDypdleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHt29TGO7TcBFwJiZq8zLIZ8YBHBXEMWiZe5O9HCktFsbEEsz-fjc7g4dNKYj_aem_7fYVA4EgWHPAK7VfJYbB7g

Dean Kalimniou. 2018. "James Joyce, the Greeks and Orthodoxy," Neos Kosmos, <https://neoskosmos.com/en/2018/11/09/dialogue/opinion/james-joyce-the-greeks-and-orthodoxy/?fbclid=IwY2xjawKDypdleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHt29TGO7TcBFwJiZq8zLIZ8YBHBXEMWiZe5O9HCktFsbEEsz-fjc7g4dNKYj_aem_7fYVA4EgWHPAK7VfJYbB7g> (4 May, 2025).

https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/2/article/7682/pdf?fbclid=IwY2xjawKDyuxleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHjGnqmFDC4Q7YQI8toB9PYDH8ssh29EygnRdnRQXieQZSNfwSgPKCPTrTnaj_aem_8MwmxaZECjdncRvuPa7MGQ

Gillespie, M. P., Rev. of Greek and Hellenic Culture in Joyce, in Comparative Literature Studies 37.4 (2000), pp. 434-436.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/26288739

Hornbeck, C. 2009. "Greekly Imperfect: The Homeric Origins of Joyce's ''Nausicaa'," Joyce Studies Annual, pp. 89-108.

Greek and Hellenic Culture in Joyce (Florida James Joyce) Hardcover – September 30, 1998

by R. J. Schork (Author)

"Definitive. . . . This is the first comprehensive treatment of its subject; it is so thoroughly presented that competition is unlikely."--Mary T. Reynolds, author of Joyce and Dante

"A major contribution to the study of the incidence of Greek literary and cultural traditions in Joyce's works. . . . The almost axiomatic deference to Joyce's greatness and virtual infallibility is absent from this hard-nosed and eminently viable study."--Roy Arthur Swanson, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee

Classical allusion in James Joyce's work is staggering--despite the fact that he knew no ancient Greek and had only a minimal grasp of its modern form. This book by R. J. Schork comprehensively examines the essential contributions of Greek language, literature, history, and mythology to the structure and comic aspects of Joyce's fiction.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/25477762

Mills Harper, M. 2000. Rev. of  Greek and Hellenic Culture in Joyce, in James Joyce Quarterly 37 (3/4), Joyce and the Law (Spring - Summer, 2000), pp. 568-572.

http://www.siff.us.es/iberjoyce/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Chin.pdf?fbclid=IwY2xjawKDzVBleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHtlzfmg923UgdIyiYa8047OG0-RmnTXqQYdv6DU_N6sWO8E-MKU4cIAwk2Me_aem_ZJNhtEY0bKeb_15eScxxOg

SHEON-JOO CHIN. 1996. "Aristotle's Masterpiece: A Possible Source Book for the 'Ithaca' Episode of Ulysses," Papers on Joyce 2, pp. 19-24. 

This paper attempts to suggest that Aristotle's Masterpiece, which is mentioned three times in James Joyce's Ulysses, is the original for the catechistical method employed in the “Ithaca” episode. A quarter of a century ago, R. A. Copland and G. W. Turner proposed in their joint essay that the question-and-answer form of “Ithaca” is directly indebted to

Richmal Mangnall's Historical and Miscellaneous Questions for the Use of Young People, with a Selection of British and General Biography, &c., &c., a textbook of elementary factual knowledge which went through over a hundred editions during the nineteenth century and was still in use in Joyce's times.1

From then on, many critics appear to have accepted Mangnall's book as a primary source for Joyce's “Ithaca” in Ulysses.2

Since I do not agree with them, however, I propose that Joyce probably used Aristotle's Masterpiece as a model for parody in his composition of “Ithaca” because of the mutual resemblances between Aristotle's Masterpiece and Joyce's “Ithaca.”

Nothing is more convincing as evidence that Joyce was quite familiar with Aristotle's Masterpiece than his own three oblique references in Ulysses:

(1) “Mr. Bloom turned over idly pages . . . of Aristotle's Masterpiece. Crooked botched print. Plates; infants cuddled in a ball in bloodred wombs like livers of slaughtered cows . . . All butting with their skulls to get out of it . . .”3; (2) “. . . the recorded instances of multiseminal, twikindled and monstrous births conceived during the catamenic period or of consaguineous parents—in a word all the cases of human nativity which Aristotle has classified in his masterpiece with chromolithographic illustrations” (U 14.973-77); and (3) “. . . you then tucked up in bed like those babies in the Aristocrats Masterpiece he brought me another time . . . old Aristocrat or whatever his name is disgusting you more with those rotten pictures children with two heads and no legs. . .” (U 18.1237-41). As is indicated in these quotes, Joyce not only refers to the title of Aristotle's Masterpiece but also uses its contents for the writing of Ulysses.4

The fact that “Aristotle's masterpiece” is jotted down in Joyce's Ulysses Notesheets in the British Museum is more evidence that Joyce used this book as a source in the composition of his highly intertextual novel.5

https://www.greek-language.gr/digitalResources/ancient_greek/navigator/browse.html?object_id=20728&fbclid=IwY2xjawKPpJdleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHpTtQUujJLt_VecxCVousaN-PATEnxSvZ0fKYpCE5RRItVVES-WmBLrIxcWZ_aem_j8MAvdzHTU0q9-kApigLfg

Αρχαία Ελληνική Γλώσσα και Γραμματεία, Πυξίς, Ψηφιακή Αρχαιοθήκη s.v. Οδυσσέας (Επιμ. Τριανταφυλλιά Γιάννου)

Το 1922 εκδόθηκε το πλήρες κείμενο του Οδυσσέα του James Joyce, χωρίς λογοκρισία. Αποτελεί ένα πρωτοπόρο και παραδειγματικό «μοντερνιστικό» μυθιστόρημα που άλλαξε για πάντα την ιστορία της πεζογραφίας. Ο Joyce δήλωσε ότι πήρε τη γενική πλοκή του από την ομηρική Οδύσσεια και τα 18 κεφάλαια του βιβλίου φέρουν τους τίτλους με τους οποίους είχαν δημοσιευθεί αποσπασματικά στο The Little Review. […] Ο Οδυσσέας μάς αφηγείται μία ημέρα —την 16η Ιουνίου 1904— από τη ζωή δύο Δουβλινέζων, των Stephen Dedalus (Τηλέμαχος) και Leopold Bloom (Οδυσσέας). Κάνουν τις δουλειές τους και συναντούνε διάφορους γνωστούς και αξιομνημόνευτους Δουβλινέζους καθώς διδάσκουν, τρώνε, περπατούν, συζητούν και αυνανίζονται. […] Ο Joyce αποφάσισε να γράψει μια φανταστική εκδοχή της Οδύσσειας προσαρμοσμένης πάνω σε ένα πολύ πραγματικό και συγκεκριμένο Δουβλίνο. (Hall 2008)

Ο Joyce πήρε για πρότυπο την Οδύσσεια του Ομήρου και της πρόσθεσε την ενότητα τόπου και χρόνου. Η βασική υπόθεση του έργου μοιάζει με της Οδύσσειας: ένας τετραπέρατος μεσόκοπος περιπλανιέται επιστρέφοντας —μέσα από πειρασμούς και δοκιμασίες— στο σπίτι του, στη γυναίκα και στο γιο του, ενώ ένας νεαρός βγαίνει στον κόσμο για να πάθει και να μάθει, αναζητώντας τον χαμένο πατέρα του. Η ιστορία κορυφώνεται όταν οι δυο τους ανταμώνουν επιτέλους, έπειτα από μεγάλες, και χωριστές, περιπλανήσεις. Ο φοιτητής Stephen Dedalus θυμάται πως αρνήθηκε το θεό στο προσκέφαλο της νεκρής μητέρας του, τον πιάνει υστερία και, μεθυσμένος καθώς είναι, μπλέκει σ' έναν καβγά· τον γλιτώνει ο Bloom, ο περιπλανώμενος Ιουδαίος, και τον παίρνει στο σπίτι του. Η οικογένεια του Stephen δεν του είχε προσφέρει σπιτικό· η γυναίκα του Bloom είναι άπιστη, και το παιδί του έχει πεθάνει. Ο έρημος πατέρας βρίσκει τώρα τον ορφανό του γιο.

Πολλοί αναγνώστες, όμως, θα διαβάσουν ώς το τέλος τον Οδυσσέα χωρίς να αντιληφθούν πως ακολουθεί το πρότυπο της Οδύσσειας. Στο αρχικό χειρόγραφο ο Joyce είχε προτάξει σε κάθε κεφάλαιο ομηρικά παραθέματα, αλλά τα έβγαλε πριν από την έκδοση. Μια ένδειξη είναι, βέβαια, ο τίτλος Οδυσσέας, αλλά κι αυτή τη συσκοτίζει το ψευδώνυμο του Joyce: ο συγγραφέας αποκαλεί Dedalus τον εαυτό του, και δεν υπάρχει παράδοση που να συνδέει τον Οδυσσέα με τον τεχνίτη Δαίδαλο. Ύστερα, και ο αναγνώστης που διακρίνει μια γενική ομοιότητα με την Οδύσσεια σίγουρα δεν θα προσέξει ότι κάθε κεφάλαιο του Οδυσσέα, κάθε πρόσωπο που εμφανίζεται παραπάνω από μια στιγμή, και πολλά από τα άψυχα αντικείμενα που χρησιμοποιούνται είναι μελετημένα έτσι ώστε να αντιστοιχούν με παράλληλά τους στην Οδύσσεια. Στον Οδυσσέα λ.χ. επανεμφανίζονται οι τέσσερις γυναίκες των περιπλανήσεων του Οδυσσέα: Η μυστική νύμφη Καλυψώ είναι η δακτυλογράφος Clifford, που αλληλογραφεί με τον Bloom αλλά παραμένει αθέατη· η βασιλοπούλα Ναυσικά είναι η Gerty MacDowell, η κοπελίτσα που του ξυπνά λάγνες σκέψεις στην ακρογιαλιά· η Κίρκη, που μεταμορφώνει τους ανθρώπους σε κτήνη, είναι η ματρόνα του πορνείου όπου ο Bloom συναντά τον νεαρό Dedalus· τέλος, η πιστή Πηνελόπη είναι η άπιστη γυναίκα του, η Molly. Η σπηλιά των ανέμων συμβολίζεται με τα γραφεία μιας εφημερίδας στο Δουβλίνο· ο Κύκλωπας Πολύφημος γίνεται ένας άξεστος και βάναυσος Ιρλανδός νησιώτης· ο πυρωμένος πάσσαλος του Οδυσσέα είναι το πούρο του Bloom κ.τ.λ. Οι περισσότερες αντιστοιχίες είναι όμως πολύ δυσδιάκριτες, και δεν εντοπίζονται χωρίς τη βοήθεια των σχολιαστών που γνώριζαν τον Joyce και, κατά τα φαινόμενα, είχαν ακούσει κάποιες νύξεις από τον ίδιο. […] (Highet 1988:667-670)