Ashplant
Reading, Smashing, and Playing Ulysses
Grandt, Jürgen E. "‘Might Be What You like, till You Hear the Words’: Joyce in Zurich and the Contrapuntal Language of Ulysses." Joyce Studies Annual 14, no. 1 (2003): 74–91.
Related topics:
Creation and Making
Music
The Unspoken
Grandt begins his argument by stating that it is impossible to tie "Sirens" (U 11) to any one musical genre, despite the fact that many critics have tried to do so. One problem generated by that approach (tying "Sirens" to one genre) is that critics often focus on the narrative structure of the episode and how it is shaped by music, rather than on the language that Joyce uses. Looking closely at language rather than at narrative and voices, Grandt argues that Joyce uses the theory of counterpoint to employ "Standard English as a kind of cantus firmus on which he impose[s] contrapuntally a new language" (80). Grandt uses "cantus firmus" here to refer to a pre-existing melody line for a new project. The "contrapuntal new language" refers to the way that Bloom plays with alliteration, repetition, compound words, assonance, and onomatopoeia in this episode. For example, he uses the two lines "Bronze by gold heard the hoofirons, steelyringing" (U 11:1) and "Bronze by gold, miss Douce's head by miss Kennedy's head, over the crossblind of the Ormond bar heard the viceregal hoofs go by, ringing steel" (U 11:64). The two lines refer to the same instance of time but are separated by an entire passage of text. As Grandt interprets these examples, the first one is the first voice, and the second one the second voice. The cantus firmus linking them together in Standard English is "Bronze-haired Miss Douce and gold-haired Miss Kennedy, sitting in the Ormond bar, heard through the horizontal blinds of the window the" (Grandt 80). It is only in joining the two lines together that we understand them. According to Grandt, this changes the way we read. He argues that "with language itself now occupying the center of the novel, the voice emerging from its pages is not longer that of the narrator" (83). What we have instead is the voice of the arranger or composer who is freed from the constraints of standard language, and can invent characters--and corresponding languages--at will. Furthermore, because they have to learn this new language, the text's readers change from audience to participants.
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