Martin, Taylor (Editions)
Rationale
The object I have chosen to examine is The Essentials of James Joyce, edited by Harry Levin. This edition contains multiple pieces of Joyce’s work such as Finnegans Wake, Pomes Penyeach, and of course Ulysses. What was interesting about the edited work was that they chose specific episodes from Ulysses and certain passages, not the fully completed episodes. For Ulysses, the episodes within this edition consist of “Nestor,” “Hades,” “The Wandering Rocks,” “The Sirens,” and “Penelope.”
The edition I chose is quite simple. The red hardcover was published in 1948 with gold foiling on the publisher’s logo. There are two copies of the novel, the only difference is that one is accompanied with a dust jacket. They are exactly the same on the inside. Even though the dust jacket does not reveal any extra information besides the name of the novel, visually it is more appealing. The dust jacket atop the red hardcover is a bold two toned orange. The title is in all capitals, except the "h" and "e" in the word "the." The letters are black with white to almost act as the shadows of the letters.
The reason why I chose this object was because I was curious about the reasoning why these certain episodes were considered “essential” out of all of Joyce's works. I want to explore the episodes in depth, trying to discover if they are related somehow. The goal of this exhibition is to examine the selected episodes from the The Essentials of James Joyce, figure out the similar themes and/or topics from the passages to learn what truly makes them ‘essential’ in the world of Ulysses. When looking at the novel, it is clear that in general, many episodes lead back to “The Wandering Rocks,” therefore it would be beneficial to examine the remaining episodes in Levin's edition and see what elements are related. Other key aspects to be examined are structure, style, and flow of the particular episode. Since each episode is written differently, ideally the essential episodes style would either relate to themes of the novel or are somehow interconnected. I believe that this will elevate my findings as I am not only looking at the themes of the episodes, but all parts of the selected episodes. Of course, Joyce had a reason for writing the episodes the way he did. It is most likely that Joyce himself had an opinion on what episodes within his novel were considered “essential” for telling the story, but if he did, there is nothing about it in Harry Levin’s version. Since it was published in 1948, key aspects behind his reasoning could be revealed by looking into the history of Ireland during this time period. There is a great possibility that the main events that were happening in Dublin had some sort of impact on Levin's choices of Joyce's essential work. With all that being said, I am hoping to create a strong argument about the meaning behind the specific episodes in The Essentials of James Joyce, and see how they reflect on the novel as a whole. I will not only look at key themes of these essential episodes, but also the structure, flow, and style that are presented in hopes to make a concise argument on the essentialism within Ulysses.
Literary Review
While The Essentials of James Joyce, provides essential episodes from Joyce’s Ulysses, the text does not provide the reason why they are considered essential. After examining peer reviewed articles, along with books, the key elements represented within these essential episodes are those of “The Wandering Rocks,” which are heaven, hell, and purgatory, which are the central idea for the episode.
With “The Wandering Rocks,” an article by Fritz Senn argues that hell, heaven and purgatory are all key aspects within the episode. What the article strongly focuses on is that there are constant errors of perception, specifically with the use of the word “hell.” Interestingly enough, “hell” is used as a negative and positive when describing different things. Generally, when “hell” is used positively, it is related to sexual fascination (which is mentioned later on). Something else I noted that might add to the essentialism is that the three main themes, hell, purgatory, and heaven, all are a part of the Divina Comedia, which is stated in the text and the locations within the episode all represent them. The article adds to my final exhibition as it provides understanding to the main three themes.
For all episodes considered essential in The Essentials of James Joyce, I found indexes of recurring elements. All of these peer reviewed indexes provide page and line numbers of aspects that repeat throughout the episode and even relate to elements within “The Wandering Rocks,” which is considered one of the essential episodes. I believe these can be quite helpful and add to my final exhibition. Examining “The Wandering Rocks” index, colours such as “sky blue” are mentioned often, along with many different places, and female sexual fascination. Sexual fascination is also mentioned in “Hades” as well. There is a mention of the marriage of heaven and hell in “Nestor” which directly relates to the themes within “The Wandering Rocks.” Heaven and hell is also represented in “Penelope” in mention of the heaventree of stars. In the “Penelope” index there is mention of travel to multiple places like in “The Wandering Rocks.” “Penelope” also mentions victims falling to sirens charms which relate to “Sirens.” Overall, I believe that the indexes add most to the conversation and allow me to build upon my argument to find out what truly makes these episodes essential as many relate to each other. It also suggests that they are all interconnected. Since many episodes relate to “The Wandering Rocks,” it would make sense for the essential episodes to have themes and elements from this specific episode. Therefore, what make the essential episodes “essential,” are the ideas of heaven, hell and purgatory. This is also understandable when looking at the time this edition was published since it was post World War Two, and many people had died because of it. These essential themes relate to the time period, which suggests why Levin made the decision on their essentialism.
Short Paper
The Essentials of James Joyce, edited by Harry Levin, suggest that the episodes “Nestor,” “Hades,” “The Wandering Rocks,” “Sirens,” and “Penelope” are essential within Joyce’s Ulysses. I have found that the episodes are majorly related to “The Wandering Rocks,” and the themes—heaven, hell, purgatory, and water—within. As it is important to understand what makes the episodes essential, it is also important to know why Levin picked them as essential. With that being said, Harry Levin picked “Nestor,” “Hades,” “The Wandering Rocks,” “Sirens,” and “Penelope,” as essential episodes because they represent themes of heaven, hell and purgatory which relate to the post World War Two era.
The Greek episode names of Ulysses suggest what episodes are going to have these themes of heaven, hell and purgatory. “Hades,” “The Wandering Rocks,” and “Sirens” are some of the only chapters in which the Greek name represents death in some way, relating to heaven, hell or purgatory. Hades is the Greek God of the underworld, The Wandering Rocks is a dangerous sea that crushes ships, and sirens are used to call in sailors and kill them. Interestingly enough, these all have some representation of water between them, since the underworld has the River Styx. Arguably, the only other episode that Greek meaning has obvious elements of death would be “Lestrygonians,” who are cannibalistic giants. With that being said, that episode lacks the connection that the other three have.
Drawing The Essentials of James Joyce back to Ulysses is quite easy, as these themes of heaven, hell and purgatory are common within each of the essential episodes. The three episodes mentioned above represent death in some way, therefore making it clear that heaven, hell and purgatory are vivid themes within the episodes. Yet “Nestor” represents wisdom and "Penelope" relates to faith and thinking in the Odyssey. In the “Nestor” episode of Ulysses, the main themes relating to “The Wandering Rocks” can be found within money. There is talk of how money is power which can lead to sin. “Symbols too of beauty and of power… Symbols soiled by greed and misery.” (Joyce, lines 226-228). Greed is known as one of the seven deadly sins in Christianity. If as a human your soul is soiled by greed, then hell is a possibility, as well as being tortured in purgatory. Water is also briefly mentioned within the episode as well. Even though the connecting themes are not as prominent as they are within other episodes, it is clear that they are there, but are being presented through wisdom and teaching, therefore leading back to the Odyssey.
Overall water, hell, and purgatory are within the majority of these essential episodes. Yet, with “Penelope,” heaven and beauty is represented more than any of the other essential episodes. Molly is choosing to look on the brighter side of things, talking about nature within the quote “I love flowers id love to have the whole place swimming in roses God of heaven theres nothing like nature the wild mountains then the sea and the waves…” (Joyce, lines 1557-1559). This quote in itself represents many things. The images of heaven itself, but also the beauty in the sea. The Greek elements in the episode names suggest that water is more related with death than beauty, as the sea holds sirens, it can crush boats with waves, and it can lead the dead to the underworld. With that being said, “Penelope” completely flips, transforming this idea, as well as connecting these essential episodes to the other with heaven, hell, purgatory, and water.
Something that I would like to mention is the structure and flow of certain episodes and how they relate to the themes of heaven, hell, purgatory, and water. When dissecting the essential episodes, it is interesting to look at how the episodes are structured. While examining “Penelope,” it is clear that this episode is extremely different from the rest. Of course, each episode specifically has its own structure, but some are more similar than others. "Penelope" consists of one long sentence, but when examining the flow of that sentence, it is clear that it flows like water. This is not the only episode though that relates back to these key themes. When looking at “Hades,” there are many short sentences throughout the episode. Of course, the whole episode cannot simply be three worded sentences but there are a lot. Even though there is not a lot of evidence to support the meaning behind it, it could represent the idea of death. Joyce could have continued many of the sentences on, but some of them just seem to end when he could have combined some of them. The idea itself may be far-fetched, but when you think about the sudden end to the sentences, that is how life works itself. You are here one minute and then it abruptly ends.
The last point I would like to bring up is that the fact that Harry Levin may have decided that these episodes are essential as they represent heaven, hell and purgatory, which relate heavily on the time the edition was published. 1948 was three years after World War Two ended, which had plagued many countries with death. Death so clearly relates to the themes within the selected episodes that it is hard to argue otherwise.
Overall, it is clear to see that the essential episodes of The Essentials of James Joyce, contain the themes of heaven, hell, purgatory and water. The title names, along with their meaning generally relate to one of these themes, and if they don’t there is heavy mention of the topic within the episodes themselves. Water is represented throughout all the essential episodes and can be used as a way to link all of them together as if they are part of a river of essentialism. These themes are also relevant in the way that structure and flow are presented within the novel as they are integrated into the writing style. Generally, it makes sense that Levin would consider these episodes essential as they represent what was going on in 1948 as the war had ended three years prior. Death had been a constant for so long, which makes sense why the episodes with heaven, hell and purgatory were considered essential. The episode “The Wandering Rocks,” is the episode where these four themes are the key aspects of the episode, and since all the essential episodes lead back to “The Wandering Rocks” in some way, it makes sense that those themes are what makes the episodes in Levin’s edition essential.
Bibliography
Joyce, James. The Essentials of James Joyce. Edited by Harry Levin, 1948.
Joyce, James. Ulysses. Edited by Hans Walter Gabler, et al., Vintage Classics, 2022.
Schutte, William M. “An Index of Recurrent Elements in ‘Ulysses’: ‘Eumaeus,’ ‘Ithaca,’ and ‘Penelope.’” James Joyce Quarterly 17, no. 1 (1979): 67–80.
Schutte, William M. “An Index of Recurrent Elements in ‘Ulysses’: ‘Hades.’” James Joyce Quarterly 14, no. 3 (1977): 335–56.
Schutte, William M. “An Index of Recurrent Elements in ‘Ulysses’: ‘Nestor.’” James Joyce Quarterly 13, no. 2 (1976): 218–33.
Schutte, William M. “An Index of Recurrent Elements in ‘Ulysses’: ‘Sirens.’” James Joyce Quarterly 15, no. 4 (1978): 354–75.
Schutte, William M. “An Index of Recurrent Elements in ‘Ulysses’: ‘Wandering Rocks.’” James Joyce Quarterly 15, no. 3 (1978): 244–58.
Senn, Fritz. “James Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’: Hell, Purgatory, Heaven in ‘Wandering Rocks.’” Hungarian Journal of English and American Studies (HJEAS) 19, no. 2 (2013): 323–28.
“Fugue Noun - Definition, Pictures, Pronunciation and Usage Notes | Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary at OxfordLearnersDictionaries.Com.” https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/english/fugue?q=fugue.
“Sonata Noun - Definition, Pictures, Pronunciation and Usage Notes | Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary at OxfordLearnersDictionaries.Com.” https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/english/sonata?q=sonata.