Ashplant
Reading, Smashing, and Playing Ulysses
Bowen, Zack R. Musical Allusions in the Works of James Joyce: Early Poetry Through Ulysses. Albany: SUNY Press, 1974.
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Music
Native and Foreign
Bowen attempts to both create a definitive annotation of musical allusions in Joyce's work and provide a critical study on the ways that Joyce uses music (mostly how he uses it in Ulysses.) The book touches briefly also on Joyce's poetry, Exiles, Dubliners, Stephen Hero, and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Bowen starts off each section with an essay that summarizes the way music is used in that work. Bowen does not intend to make any sweeping statements about Joyce's work as a whole, he adds in his introduction that "neither the essays nor the explications of the allusions are complete in themselves" (4), but rather works to create a larger whole. In the Ulysses section, which comprises more than half, Bowen explores the different functions that music seems to serve in Ulysses, particularly in the "Sirens" episode. He argues that music serves as a cultural connotation, that it underscores the narrative lines and supports characters' statements. Throughout the text, it reiterates and stresses topics under discussion. Bowen also describes it as "the vehicle of conscious thought association, taking Bloom smoothly from one subject to another" (49). He goes on to use musical examples to show that Bloom and Stephen are represented as the same person in Ulysses. He first cites several non-musical examples to support this, such as when Bloom and Stephen look into a mirror and see the same reflection, and so demonstrates how the characters become intertwined. He then goes to use "The Croppy Boy" and "Little Harry Hughes" to show how Stephen and Bloom further become one person. The experiences mentioned in these songs become shared experiences between them--thus, the are one person. This is also an example of music supporting themes in the text. Bowen goes to an interesting discussion of whether or not "Sirens" (U 11) is in the form of a fugue, in conversation with Walton Litz. While Litz feels that "Sirens" has a fugual structure, Bowen argues that the unique overture to the episode prevents it from being a fugue. Bowen also argues against it being an opera, as other critics have argued, because he feels that although there are a number of references to opera this does not give the episode an operatic structure. Bowen concludes that music appears "in connection with every theme, action, or major character in the novel" (64). Bowen supplements this introductory essay with a detailed explanation of how music functions in each episode of the book.
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