In rereading Ulysses, I recently reviewed the passage where Mr. Bloom helps a “blind stripling” cross the street, and Bloom’s reflections remind me how central sense perception is to Joyce’s work.
In this post, I look at a few places where sense perception is important to Ulysses before turning to Joyce’s treatment of the senses in Finnegans Wake.
Continue readingThis post briefly looks at an exchange in I.8 and another exchange in III.3, both of which deal with the ideas of sounds and wounds in Finnegans Wake.
Continue readingMy title is a quote from the Keats poem “La Belle Dame Sans Merci.” I was thinking of this haunting ballad — which depicts a female figure ensnaring a knight — around the same time that I was first seriously contemplating the speech of Issy in I.6, the quiz chapter. Like the Belle Dame, Issy is a sort of temptress figure.
This post looks at some highlights of Issy’s speech and thinks about Issy as a character in Finnegans Wake.
Continue readingThis post briefly looks at a line from I.1 and a callback to it in I.5.
Continue reading
The Suspended Sentence 