The OED cites various definitions of the word “mourning,” ranging from the rather straightforward “Anxiety, sorrow, etc.” to more complex definitions like “yearning; pining from love.”
Given that many of the instances of the word “mourning” in Ulysses have to do with clothing, the definition of “Mourning” that I find most interesting and relevant is:
- a. “The conventional or ceremonial manifestation of sorrow for the death of a person; esp. the wearing of clothes associated with death (in Western society usually black). Also: the period during which such clothes are worn.”
This definition falls under the broader definition “Grieving caused by the death of a person” and presents black clothing as a physical embodiment of grief caused by death
The OED dates this definition back to 1325 Middle English as seen in the Biblical books of Genesis and Exodus in the form of “murning.” It seems that the earliest instance of “mourning” as we see it written today (that is, not in Middle English) occurred in 1589 in Puttenham’s “poeticall mournings in verse.” By 1911, the word’s usage seems to parallel how we see it today, as the OED cites Greer’s passage in which a narrator decides “to dress in black as an expression of my mourning for my father.”
The OED also goes into the specific details about the phrase “in mourning,” which appears frequently in Ulysses. The OED defines “in mourning” as:
- “sorrowing or grieving for the death of a person, esp. in the period of the conventional or ceremonial manifestation of sorrow”
- “wearing clothes or covered with the draperies customarily indicative of bereavement”
