Molly

Molly’s thoughts race, she makes inaccurate assumptions, and I think these elements of her characterization contribute to Nabokov’s suggestion that numerous meager poets were inspired by her narrative. Molly articulates the gross misstatements that occur to her at a whim. She progresses from one idea to another too quickly, leaving each idea unexplored and unquestioned-- which is dangerous, because a lot of the sentiments are self-deprecating. She is overly concerned about her weight, age, clothes, and sexuality. Her misstatements are delivered in an ungraceful tone-- this may have contributed to Nabokov’s suggestion that she is vulgar, in addition to the crass way in which she discusses her sexuality.

Transmigration of Souls

“Why did he desist from speculation?
Because it was a task for a superior intelligence to substitute other more acceptable phenomena in place of the less acceptable phenomena to be removed.

Did Stephen participate in his dejection?
He affirmed his significance as a conscious rational animal proceeding syllogistically from the known to the unknown and a conscious rational reagent between a micro- and a macrocosm ineluctably constructed upon the incertitude of the void.

Was this affirmation apprehended by Bloom?
Not verbally. Substantially.

Was this affirmation apprehended by Bloom?
Not verbally. Substantially.”

I want to better understand Joyce’s thoughts on the transmigration of souls-- a concept that may or may not be a Platonic reality. In this passage, we’re presented with a manifestation of the two contrasting modes of being that Bloom and Stephen seem to exhibit throughout the book-- specifically, the ways in which they interpret the unknown.

Stephen is described as distrusting “aquacities of thought and language.” He accepts or disregards his sensations with regard to his ability to articulate them in the terms of the systems of thought-- in which he has been educated-- that are deemed acceptable according to the popularly accepted standards of the contemporary academic community. He is a little surprised by Bloom’s earnest hospitality and he is conscious of his intellectual superiority to Bloom, as well as his academic background.

Bloom apprehends Stephen’s assumptions, although he would be unable to articulate the reasons for his apprehension, as the narrator alludes in his parodies of the thought processes of the two characters-- the pedantic and eloquent explanations given for Stephen, the laconic and sparse answers given for Bloom.

Later, the narrator will describe Bloom’s apprehension as a misapprehension. Is this Joyce’s critique of Bloom’s assumption of synchronicity with Stephen?

Is there a substantiveness to the transmigration of souls? In class, Robin said that there is if we allow there to be, as Bloom does and Stephen does not. I think that this chapter is a suggestion of what will happen if we allow there to be inexplicable realities, and it suggests the effects that might be provoked by the acceptance of such an assumption.

“works changing colour like those crabs about Ringsend in the morning"

Joyce’s style shifts from alchemist prose to his tighter, trademark narrative throughout the chapter. The shift is indicative of so much-- It indicates the utilisation of two very different parts of the brain. While capable of writing traditionally, Joyce-- like Shakespeare, Nabokov or (what I determine to be) any great writer-- is able to change voices. There is his traditional voice, but there is also the ability to create atypical phrases that suggest the patterns of the subconscious thought found in dreams. There are is a parallel between the narrative and its author’s complexities, in this case.

Literary alchemy is a technique that seems to convey reality more thoroughly than a more focused, restrained narrative. So much occurs throughout a day; our perspectives and attitudes change. Thoughts aren't perfect or linear. However, sometimes there is perfection in complication and this is what we see with Joyce’s prose-- and, I think, the mind of a good artist.

Throughout the conversation that occurs in this chapter, we see some of the ways in which these characters change throughout the novel. Stephen is bright and articulate with those who he believes to be his intellectual superiors, but witty with those he considers less intelligent than he is, such as Bloom. Bloom is sexually conflicted and obssessed, but trying to posture as a successful adman in conversation, although his thoughts are elsewhere. However, he is able to recognize that Stephen is hungry and offers to buy him dinner.

Note: There is an intriguing power dynamic in this chapter. When Bloom talks about the prostitute in the black straw hat to Stephen, we notice that he criticizes the man who didn’t take care of her, yet it seems that Bloom is unable to take care of or control his own wife. Are his criticisms of women an example of misused power?

Subconsciousness

In this chapter, Bloom explores a dream state in which amalgams of his diurnal experiences appear to him. He doubts himself, as Hamlet did, in the beginning of the chapter, wishing he hadn’t bought the crubeen and the trotter.

He hallucinates, pictures an ex-girlfriend/Gerty, and imagines a fictional Gulliver’s Travels-like city in which he has ultimate control of the subjects.

If *Hamlet* has been described by a certain Russian emigre writer as the paranoid dream of a neurotic scholar, this chapter is Bloom’s paranoid dream.

Hamlet returns from Wittenberg, finds that the people around whom he came of age are inadequate and wonders if he may be an amalgam of their inadequacies. When he kills them, he attempts to eliminate the influences of their solipsisms on his life and free himself.

What is Bloom doing here? He, like Hamlet, is looking on the figures who influence him and imagining a world in which he has control-- in which he is not an amalgam of his early life experiences, can act freely--

Are we amalgams of our early experiences? If we are, can we learn to understand ourselves better by studying our subconscious desires, with their origins? How could we do so? And could we benefit from the study?

Dreamspeak.

I got a lot of this chapter. I understood Joyce’s early allusion to the limitations of discourse, although I didn’t have the background in Medieval history to pick up on his parody.

A factor that inhibited my comprehension-- throughout the novel, as well as in this chapter-- was the character development; descriptions are sparse and rare. Many new characters are introduced without any description of their personalities and brought up suddenly. I’m learning to understand these characters by paying attention to the way that they speak-- their habits of speech, gestures... It’s more difficult, though, than it is with a narrator who gives us a lot of back story and detail.

Joyce’s characterizations are realistic; we don’t understand the subtext without the gesture or the speech of a character. We’re all sort of blank until we begin talking and gesturing, we begin to act, and our characters are revealed.

When I was reading the chapter, I thought a lot about the speech in dreams-- thwarted amalgams of sentences that are comprehensible to the dreamer but do not make logical sense upon waking.

Some of us dismiss these phrases we remember from our dreams. We try to quickly forget them, and make a cup of coffee before completing the set of tasks that begin the day. They don’t seem to coalesce with our sense of reality.

Nabokov suggested that dreams are mere amalgams of diurnal reality, but he also suggested that a dream sometimes will strike some chord with the dreamer in his waking life, as well as that it’s when “one is wide awake, at moments of robust joy and achievement, on the highest terrace of consciousness that mortality has a chance to peer beyond its own limits.”

This is a chapter about a birth, and in it there are many drunken misinterpretations of language-- This makes me think of the birth of Bloom’s consciousness in the novel. He seems in many ways to be an actor, stepping into and our of character throughout the book, as though society doesn’t coalesce with his sense of reality; he struggles to keep up with the conversation, but falls into deep reveries during his long walks, in which he has thoughts that he can’t share. He is unable to notice things; he doesn’t notice Blazes when he passes in Hades, but stares at his hands instead. The mistaking of language suggests an inability to accept the constraints of society that are presented-- a literary technique that expertly conveys the waxing and waning of Bloom’s consciousness.

Nausticaa

I’m struck by the ambiguity of Bloom’s feelings about his wife that Joyce leaves us with. I can’t decide if Bloom is attracted to her or not.

Much has been written in literature about the atypical seductress, particularly in Russian literature. While the round-faced woman with a ski jump nose and ringlets will always be idealized, sometimes we find that a different and darker kind of beauty is depicted with the candor and favoring tone that implies glorification. The first example that comes to mind is the water nymph in Lermontov’s A Hero of Our Time, a plain girl who seduces the protagonist, Pechorin, and then tortures him.

I wonder if Bloom is attracted to Gerty because she is flawed. I wonder if he resents his wife for her beauty and the ways in which she exploits it, and seeks a plainer woman.

“Jilted beauty. A defect is ten times worse in a woman. But makes them polite. Glad I didn’t know it when she was on show.”

This is the remark he makes to himself after he first notices Gerty’s lameness. Yet he is still tempted to masturbate.

However, I don’t think that we should assume that Bloom is attracted to his wife. I think it’s possible that he isn’t, that he’s repulsed by her poor taste and her heaviness. I think that he may be looking for a way out of his marriage, and disappointed at the limited options that surround him. I think he may take pleasure in Gerty’s weakness, because she represents, to him, the flawed nature of women that he implies throughout the novel.

Consciousness in "Cyclops"

In this chapter, we see that Bloom’s consciousness is at least one of the central themes.

I read the chapter differently than did the other students in the class; I felt that Joyce’s racing tangents were meant as an attempt to articulate the the sub-conscious. I did not think that the passage about the seance was satiric. (However, I am interested in the arguments to the contrary.)

I found that the subject of consciousness was addressed in the chapter. By giving us multiple perspectives on the transpiration of events and the histories or interpretations of them, Joyce managed to demonstrate the possibilities of human consciousness.

The brutalities that confronted Bloom were committed in disregard of his human consciousness-- Questions of his intellectual oppression could be applicable.

I think that the Cyclops could represent a myopic perspective, and the inhibition of consciousness as demonstrated by a brute society.

Disparate Thoughts on Sexuality and Image, to be Resolved Later

In my last post I wrote about Bloom’s discerning, almost feminine eye...

I guess that could come across as vague...

In class, we’ve briefly alluded to his obssession with sexuality, yet we haven’t discussed it thoroughly. It is a complex subject, as well as one that I don’t feel I have the life experience to really go into in depth--

However, I do know what it is to be a high school student obssessed with fashion.

Bloom reminds me of a high school student obssessed with fashion.

Perhaps the most striking example of this comes when he discourses with his ex-girlfriend. He manages to maintain a somewhat intelligent conversation with her, yet throughout it he finds hiumself occupied with the estimation of the number of years in which she has worn her dress.
And later, throughout the book, he assesses and evaluates the attire of the men and women he encounters...

I don’t want to make the assumpton that the reader assumes the visual is sexual, but I do think that this is a question I would like to explore.

Fashion showcases the body, and Bloom is aware of this.

Throughout the novel, he notices the details of attire:

“Blazes Boylan’s smart tan shoes creaked on the barfloor where he strode.”

“A hackney car, number three hundred and twentyfour, driver Barton James of number one Harmony avenue, Donnybrook, on which sat a faire, a young gentleman, stylishly dressed in an indigoblue serge suit made by George Robert Mesias, tailor and cutter, of number five Eden quay, and wearing a straw hat very dressy, bought of John Plasto of number one Great Brunswick street, hatter. Eh? This is the jingle that joggled and jingled.” 279

These are some examples of Bloom’s discerning eye that come to mind. He notices the cut of a dress, and the brand of a shoe; he notices the nuances of personal style that distinguish the women he evaluates-- the way they put themselves together.

His assessments are often read as misogynist by critics, but I think that this rings a bit hollow .

I think that, for Bloom, the image is sexual. I think that a certain aesthetic attracts him-- and I think that the look of his own wife repulses him; her weight is a point of contention with him.

“Got big then.”

He writes this in reminiscence of a concert that she missed because of her pregancy withg their son. I think that this observation is significant, in that it is singular; there is no parallel observation of a pre-natal weight gain that accompanied Milly’s birth, and so I think that this refers to a general weight gain that is unrelated to a pregnancy.

I think that Bloom’s attraction to his wife is predominantly physical, but not in a sexual way-- rather, I think that he is attached to her, but that she is more of a comfort to him than a provocation of sexual desire.

Fubsiness and Fashion in Dublin, 1904

Not too many people are fubsy anymore and if they are, it’s kind of a good thing-- implying education, a prominent artistic career in the seventies, or at least well-read vegetarianism. Windblown hair and natty wool coats have been replaced by t-shirts printed with the phrase “sexy girl” and yellow/black higlights among the truly badly dressed today.

But in Dublin in the 1920’s, fubsy conveyed something else. It conveyed poverty-- Stockings that sagged around the ankles were not a charming detail of the quirky girl in ninth grade English, but instead implied a tight budget, and a pot of porridge for too many siblings in the delapidated house with a dirty front porch floor. It conveyed an inability to maintain an appearance, and to function in the present, implied inadequacy and difficulty...

Fubsiness still exists throughout the Isles today. The frumpy girls in Belle & Sebastian lyrics come to mind, for examples.

What is fubsy? Yellowing Pendleton coats, excessive knitwear, stains, spots, tears, obvious darning, nattiness...

Bloom notices fubsiness throughout the novel. His eye for style is almost feminine in its discretion.

Scylla and Charybdis

This is a chapter about the better-read characters, who contrast with Bloom-- who is not like them, who thinks of his family, mostly, and whose most insightful reveries concern the stockings of girls and some disparate aspects of a concept from his high school physics class.

All of Stephen’s friends are eager to display their knowledge to one another, but their thoughts and theories are never realized in conversation. They speak in fits and starts, one upping eachother, but there is no realization to their ideas, the conversation doesn’t go anywhere .

The stream of consciousness in this chapter parallels their conversation. Stephen thinks of concepts from Shakespeare’s plays, but he doesn’t come to any conclusions.

Structure of a Meditation

Recently, my little sister went on a meditation retreat in Montreal. She meditated for ten days, stopping only to eat and sleep from four in the morning until sunrise. This afternoon, she called me and told me about her experiences.

She said that after awhile she began to see images. She told me that the images she saw first were of advertisements and icons of pop culture, then the images progressed to distortions of reality, and finally became pared down, sweet, and uncomplicated.

I couldn’t help but think of this novel, and began to wonder if Joyce was influenced by the experience of an intense meditation. In this chapter, there are many images of advertisements. The narratives of the next chapters will grow more complicated-- reality will be presented in a more complex way. And the book will end with a romantic scene of early romance.

In this chapter, we really see Bloom alone for the first time in the novel, with nothing to do. Earlier he had the distractions of tasks to accomplish. Here we see him looking out at the ocean-- an image often used by film directors to connote meditation on reality. In this contemplation of reality, and his thoughts, the progression of Bloom’s thoughts seem to parallel my sister’s.

Most importantly, Odysseus returns home from a war, and this could imply a meditation, or a sort of inward journey.

Tragic Hero

“When we say cliche, stereotype, trite pseudoelegant phrase, and so on, we imply, among other things, that when used for the first time in literature the phrase was original and had a vivid meaning. In fact, it became hackneyed because its meaning was at first vivid and neat, and attractive, and so the phrase was used over and over again until it became a stereotype, a cliche... Now what Joyce does here is to cause some of that dead and rotten stuff to reveal here and there its live source, its primary freshness” (Nabokov, Lectures on Literature, page 363).”

Nabokov thought this chapter was poorly balanced, but I like it for its quirkiness. I think of Joyce reading the paper and realizing that the headlines did not capture half of what really transpired in the stories its reporters attempted to cover, reductively. (I’d think Nabokov would appreciate it; he was an opponent to the language he termed “journalese.”) And I think of Bloom, going into work and silently observing the surreal nature of the mundane, represented by the headlines.

Leopold is an interesting guy whose attempts at form come across as false, and in this way he is a tragic hero. His pathos is apparent; the reader sympathizes-- we all struggle with feelings of isolation, but most of us mask it better than he does.

All of the characters in the book probably struggle with the same sense of alienation that Bloom does. So why then is Bloom so ostracized?

He is different; he is Jewish in a Catholic society. I think that when someone has some obvious and grand difference that could be perceived as a flaw by the bourgeoisie, such as ugliness or a strong difference in beliefs-- well, they tend to feel even more isolated-- almost bizarre or freakish-- and develop a heightened awareness of it, as well as a need to compensate for their difference. A certain vigilance will also be present in their demeanor. I struggle to explain the reasons for this with logic, but know that there may be a feeling of uncertainty that accompanies a pronounced quirk. And this uneasiness contributes to the reasons for their ostracizing.

Bloom is a hero because his perception glorifies the mundane, as said before. His sensuality is sort of a retreat into a sense of perfection. As he leaves Mr. Nannetti’s office, he takes a meditative stroll down the corridor, observing the actions of his coworkers with contemplative detachment. At one point, “He stayed in his walk to watch a typesetter neatly distributing type. Reads it backwards first. Quickly he does it. Must require some practice that. mangiD. kcirtaP. Poor papa with his hagadah book, reading backwards with his finger to me. Pessach. Next year in Jerusalem” (122).

This passage presents an interesting link between mechanism and spirituality. The image of a typesetter's work is juxtaposed with a remembered image of his father reading to him as a child, and the recollection of a traditional Jewish toast in the final part of the passage. It indicates the significance and holiness Leopold perceives in commonplace images.

Defense

I have a lot of homework this weekend, and so I won't be able to write very much today. I do want to say that I've changed my opinion on Leopold-- I feel that in one of my other postings I berated him for his self-satisfaction. After reading this chapter, I can better understand him. Perhaps his emphasis on sensation and dismissal of the emotionally provoking is a mechanism of comforting himself so that he is able to confront the constant hostility he faces with grace.

On Leopold's Posting

Leopold Bloom is not offended at the subtle remarks about his wife, as Stephen is when he is teased by Buck-- We learn that he knows of her infidelity, but he is not offended at that either; he rather takes it as an indication of her intellectual inferiority, seeking an affair with a more intelligent woman. It's intriguing, because Leopold is not an intellect-- he has a minor academic background, but it may have been acquired without any passion or interest, out of the bourgeois habit of acquiring enough education to find a job that does not entail labor. Yet he considers himself more intelligent than his wife, who does not have an academic background. Did Leopold post the listing in the paper out of a sense of inadequacy-- did he seek an intelligent companion with whom he could develop intellectually? Or was it out of self-satisfaction-- did he hope to find someone who might elevate his social status, someone whom he might consider superior to Molly? Leopold seems to be a self-satisfied character; he doesn't acknowledge the disrespect of the other characters-- perhaps he is not even aware of it. Confidence and pleasure seem to distinguish him, at this point in the novel-- I might argue the latter reason.

Bloom and Milly

Bloom evaluates the attractiveness of his daughter, and is supportive and appreciative of her emerging sexuality. Some fathers stifle the sexuality of their daughters by teasing them or making hostile remarks; this creates nervousness in the daughter, a sort of fear of sexuality. I think that the same is true for sons with dominant mothers. Milly lives with no such restraints, and this allows for her sexual freedom-- I suspect that we will see the manifestation of this later in the novel.

(The novel is rife with subtext in the relationships between the characters, and I notice parallels between them and the people I know... It's really a novel of complex characterizations that provoke a lot of analysis-- It's meditative rather than stylized; I feel like a lot of thought has been given to the reasons for each character's behavior.)

"Abbas father, furious dean, what offence laid fire to their brains?"

In “Proteus,” Stephen wonders why others provoke him. Unable to think of a good reason, he continues his walk down the beach...

There are lots of small things about him, certainly: He would read the first two pages of a lot of books when he was younger, he lusts after a fubsy woman, and a girl in darned yellow stockings. He brings up the past offenses of his friend long after the fact, and makes frequent comparisons between himself and Hamlet.

Buck seems smarter than Stephen-- he’s quicker and more articulate. Throughout the first chapter he dismisses Stephen for an “agenbite of inwit,” a “jejune jesuit,” “dogsbody,” and “the bard’s noserag.” He tells him, “I’m hyperborean as much as you.” All of these belittlements seem to imply that Buck disapproves of Stephen’s amour propre, which is humorous when taken into account with his aforementioned traits-- and could warrant an offhanded jibe once in awhile.

Could the reasons for such provocations run deeper, though? Could Buck and Mr. Deasy perceive some glance of Stephen’s as dismissive, or take his daydreaming as a sign of disinterest in them, and feel demeaned? Is their teasing a form of self-assertion?

Or is the reason less understandable? Are they simply cruel, and merely provoke him because he cannot assert himself?

Stephen and Lycidas

Lycidas is the name of a poet-goatherd found in a poem by Theocritas. It’s also the name of the title character in a pastoral elegy written by John Milton after the shipwreck and drowning of the poet’s classmate at Cambridge, with whom he had studied to join the clergy.
In the poem, the narrator laments the gaiety and spontaneity he sacrifices for the labors of philosophy, and addresses the poet-sheperds working in the fields by telling them that Lycidas will return in his death to bless them in their quests to live lives of intellectual pursuit despite the sacrifices of certain sensual pleasures and a certain spontaneity. In this meditation on the nature of the philosopher and his place in society, Milton presents many contrasts between the thoughtful and the frivolous.
In Chapter Two, Stephen teaches the poem, but slips into a moment of almost narcissistic reverie after his student reads a passage:

“ -- Weep no more, woeful shepherd, weep no more
For Lycidas, your sorrow, is not dead,
Sunk though he be beneath the watery floor...” (Joyce, 25).

It is one of those intriguing moments we know so well, when the discussion of literature turns toward the personal and our conversationalist references a poem with such depth and complexity that we realize he alludes to a work of strongest importance to himself; momentarily, Stephen envisions himself as Lycidas, who blessed the would-be philosophers with consciousness, leading them from a happiness based on dismissal to an enlightened awareness.
This is certainly a difficult and fleeting peace Stephen attains; the schoolboys with whom he is surrounded, Buck Mulligan, Haines, and Mr. Deasy all challenge his conscious intellect by bullying and manipulating him or by using these tactics on one another-- in the case of the schoolboys.

“It must be a movement then, an actuality of the possible as possible. Aristotle’s phrase formed itself within the
gabbled verses and floated out into the studious silence of the library of Saint Genevieve where he had read, sheltered
from the sin of Paris, night by night” (Joyce, 25).

The first sentence of the passage immediately following the schoolboy’s reading of the poem illustrates the deep sentiment the poem evokes in Stephen-- It brings him hope. With the first phrase, he is transported from the unpleasantness of the classroom of disruptive boys to a memory of studying in Paris.
The image of Stephen distracted and dreaming of Lycidas while surrounded by a noisy schoolroom of boys taunting one another is the first part of the novel in which Stephen is idealized as a teacher. In Chapter One, he played the half-wit to Buck’s virtuoso and struggled to assert himself; he walked away at the end, yes, and muttered “usurper”-- here he assumes a position of control.

Comparative Notes

It was clear to me that William Faulkner was influenced by James Joyce when he wrote the short story, “Ad Astra,” about ten years after the publication of Ulysses. In the story, six American soldiers go drinking on a break from fighting in the trenches on the Western Front during World War I. The structure, characters, and many of the descriptions parallel those found in Chapter One of Joyce’s novel:

Joyce’s choice of setting is romantic in its abstraction-- It’s set in a tower on the beach. William Faulkner also sets his story somewhat ambiguously. His American soldiers wear British uniforms as they drive to a club. Why a tower? Why British uniforms?

Yet the answers to these questions aren’t as important as the characters’ interactions in these meditations on human isolation. Many authors-- and directors, for that matter-- will place characters in a strange context in order to connote the absurdity of their habits.

Neither the college students in the tower nor the soldiers in the Jeep communicate in any way. They attempt to express themselves, but all of their exchanges are abrupt, brief, and incomplete. However, the inner lives of the characters are portrayed with richness. Joyce uses the stream of consciousness to reveal his characters’ struggles and philosophies, Faulkner allows his characters to reveal their thoughts in conversation.

Both works suggest an abyss that represents the richness and variety of human perceptions-- In Ulysses, it is represented by the sea; in “Ad Astra” by the subadar as he discusses the approaching end of World War I.

“’But soon it will clear away,’ he said. ‘This effluvium of hatred and of words. We are like men trying to move in water, with
held breath watching our terrific and infinitesimal limbs, watching one another’s terrific stasis without touch, without
contact, robbed of all save the impotence and the need.’”

This is represented in the structure of both works, which waft from dialogue to Faulkner’s philosophical narrative or Joyce’s stream of consciousness and back again. There is little action in either work, which address the variance in our modes of being, and the way in which that isolates us.

Sunday afternoon meditation on reality, perspective, Nabokov, and Yeats

Plato has a theory about objects and reality.

If this was a test, and you asked me to explain his theory, this is what I would say: Plato suggests that what we acknowledge to be a tree has a universal value; this value includes each of our differing perceptions of it, while the basic qualities that we ascribe to the object form its reality.

My Oxford defines reality-- in a philosophical context-- as an existence that is absolute, self-sufficient, or objective, and not subject to human decisions or conventions.

Different perceptions complicate reality.

In Vladimir Nabokov’s autobiography, Speak, Memory, and William Butler Yeats’ poem, “The Phases of the Moon,” theories are given regarding the nature of perception, a concept which differs in its different manifestations through our different selves.

Our perceptions is made up of our perspectives on events, and the way these perspectives limit or free us from our potential to gain a broader perspective on the world.

Is there a universal model of the way perception changes in a person?

In Speak, Memory, Nabokov writes,

“The spiral is a spiritualized circle. In the spiral form, the circle, uncoiled, unwound, has ceased to be vicious; it has been
set free... Twirl follows twirl, and every synthesis is the thesis of the next series. If we consider the simplest spiral, three
stages may be distinguished in it, corresponding to those of the triad: We call ‘thetic’ the small curve or arc that initiates
the convolution centrally; “antithetic” the larger arc that faces the first in the process of continuing it; and ‘synthetic’ the
still ampler arc that continues the second while following the first along the outer side. And so on.
A colored spiral in a small ball of glass, this is how I see my own life.”

In “The Phases of the Moon,” Yeats describes human life during the different phases of the moon. I wondered-- Does Yeats present the phases of the moon to exemplify a model of the changes in consciousness that we experience over a lifetime, as Nabokov does with his definition of the spiral? Or does he imply that these phases of the moon represent individuals possessing varying levels of awareness?

I think that the poem could be read in both ways.

Middle and Late Yeats: The Unlimited Expansion

In Poetic Knowledge in the Early Yeats, the critic Grossman suggests the poet’s ascription of universality to his poetic voice with a discussion of Yeats’ philosophies regarding the link between mind and object.

“The archetypal self-finding on which poetic knowledge is based arises, as we have pointed out, in a single experiment which Yeats never ceased repeating: the comparison of the imaginal content of mind as autonomous subject with the imaginal content of world as the object of mind and the origin of experience. The discovery to which this experiment leads is that images which arise in the individual consciousness are also images in the great resource of collective representation which constitutes historical culture. The last and absolute version of this assertion is that mind and world are symbolically identical.”

He discusses Yeats’ concept concerning object perception, suggesting that the similarity of the perception shared by different individuals of an object allows for the poetic assumption of poetic knowledge-- which he defines as the universal relevance of a concept. Because we ascribe the same significance to a given object, there could be a similarity in other perceptions we share. Grossman also suggests that the world’s existence and value can be attributed to our perceptions of it.

The link between perception and object is a concept very much related to yogic philosophy, in which one level of enlightenment occurs when a viewer is conscious of all aspects of an object’s relativity to the varying aspects of the universe. This state is referred to in a translation of Yoga Sutras I found in my bookcase the other day-- “In the state of Nirvicara Samadhi, an object is experienced in its full perspective, because in this state, knowledge is gained directly without the use of the senses.” In this state, the enlightened transcends the constraints of his own perceptions and achieves a more comprehensive awareness which involves the perception of a greater reality, as Yeats seemed to with his development of a unversal narrative during his career-- after beginning with one that focused on themes that were prevalent in the poet's own life.

Yeats' Early Period: The Limit of Contraction

“The mind or imagination or consciousness of man may be said to have two poles, the personal and impersonal, or, as Blake preferred to call them, the limit of contraction and the unlimited expansion. When we act from the personal we tend to bind our consciousness down as to a fiery center. When, on the other hand, we allow our imagination to expand away from this egoistic mood, we become vehicles for the universal thought and merge in the universal mood.”
-- W.B. Yeats and Edwin J. Ellis in The Works of William Blake

The duality Yeats expresses here can be noted in a comparison of his earlier period to his middle and later periods. When we read works from Yeats’ early period, we suspect traces of Yeats’ personal consciousness. The speaker of “The Ballad of Moll Magee,” which describes the lament of a woman sent away by her husband for laying on her child in the night, expresses a cry for sympathy which is an emotion that Yeats may have wished for his own mother, who struggled with severe depression.

“The Madness of King Goll,” “The Lake Isle of Innisfree,” “To an Isle in the Water,” and “Who goes with Fergus?” also address themes of escape which mirror the sentiments which Yeats experienced as a young boy and artist--
In Ellman’s essay on Yeats’ early life, he discusses Yeats’ overbearing father. He was a pre-Raphaelite painter who had married Yeats’ mother while studying to be a tradesman; she expressed her disapointment with his erratic change in vocation through a crippling depression that kept her bed-ridden throughout most of Yeats’ early childhood. In his opinions, we understand that Yeats’ father was perhaps more voluble than explicit1-- Ellman suggests that his opinions were seldom recognized to be such, and that Yeats’ use of classical mythology and philosophies in his early work were perhaps a form of rebellion against the more fashionable techniques of his father. (Ellman discusses the concept of a conservative rebellion, explaining the difficulty in rebelling experienced by the generation born to one that has rejected traditional modes of thought and discusses the way in which the new generation might renew conservative ideas to reject the ideas of its parents.)

We’re left to wonder at Yeats’ childhood impressions. What was it like to grow up in a house in which the caretakers were unchecked by eachother? The relationship of the Yeats parents was unbalanced. His father’s strong opinions were unopposed and unquestioned by his mother, whose complete retreat suggests her dominance by him. Would Yeats’ father behave disrespectfully toward his mother, causing her to withdraw?

The troubles and inadequacies of Yeats’ parents may not have been apparent to an outsider-- Because the superficial observer would not notice anything that could possibly trouble Yeats, there was probably a sense of suspicion or prejudice surrounding this child who was probably suffering, apparently without cause. His father was a popular figure, but there was probably a great contrast between his social demeanor and his personality at home.

This leads us to the theme of escape in Yeats’ early period, and the limit of conscious contraction which he addresses in his introduction to a volume of Blake. These difficult feelings which Yeats grew up with may have contributed to the self-invention that distinguishes this period, in which we see that Yeats uses these classical influences in his allusions to difficult and painful personal experiences through verse.

on Ellman's essay

I was intrigued by the self-conscious choices Yeats made in his middle poetry, as well as in his earlier and later work, although I don't like to use the word self-conscious, as I object to the common connotation of vanity that some people associate with the word-- Self-consciousness is not at all vain, but is rather an asset which prohibits us from being defined solely by unfavorable or difficult experiences in our pasts. And this is apparent in Yeats. The seamless precision of his language implies a familiarity with the limits of the poor articulation and logic demonstrated by his father, whose constant, unquestioned, and often reductive commentary must have been deeply frustrating for the sensitive and thoughtful son. Firsthand, the poet learned the importance of choosing one's words carefully and of the subtle injuries that we inflict upon one another when we speak too crassly.

Ellman's article also mentions Yeats' unnatural love of learning, as well as its relation to his unfullfilled wish for an orthodox education. The poet's respect for the academic is noticeable in the mythological historical, and scientific classifications he makes throughout his oevre. This brings me to a question: This morning I read Schiller's definition of good art, in which he suggests that a work of art is good if it is popularly accepted by the elite. Could Yeats' technique be read as an example of this theory? And how does the plot of "Adam's Curse" relate to Yeats' philosophies?

     Escapism is a prevalent theme in Yeats' poems; many allude to the disaffection of a character at odds with the events that transpire around him and who imagines a fantastic world of beauty in their place. "The Lake Isle of Innisfree," "Who Goes with Fergus?", "To an Isle in the Water," and "The Man Who Dreamed of Faeryland" all address or allude to a desire to detach. "The Madness of King Gall" is about a king of Ulster who commands the respect of his subjects, wins many battles, and yet slips into private reverie in their company and alone-- his solitary ramble and hallucination are described in the last three stanzas of the poem.

     "The Ballad of Moll Magee" is the lament of an indigent woman who rolls onto her child while she sleeps. Her escapism is not self-imposed or in any way indulgent; her husband sends her away-- she mutters to herself as she walks. It is intriguing when read with some knowledge of Yeats' own troubled mother, who suffered from a depression so severe that she would spend days in bed. Perhaps Yeats' own relationship with his mother could have contributed to his provocation of sympathy for this character. Taking this supposition into account, could we read the poem as a meditation on tolerance? Is it possible that, by giving us the life experience of a woman who might otherwise be dismissed, Yeats might generate sympathy for her? In the final stanza, Moll addresses the reader, "So now, ye little childer,/ Ye won't fling stones at me;/ But gather with your shinin'  looks/ And pity Moll Magee" (Yeats, 24).

     And could it be read as a plea for tolerance of our parents' shortcomings?