For my lexicon entry, I find myself drawn to the word ‘bar’. One of the obvious reasons I think the word is important is because of the apparent omnipresence of alcohol and mentions of drinking. Additionally, since there are many synonyms for bar (e.g. pub, tavern) I think it would be interesting to examine when bar is used in place of those, and why. Beyond those synonyms, bar can also be used in a musical context, to refer to a measure of music or a brief excerpt of a song.

I find that bar as a prefix is used relatively frequently, common in the word ‘barmaid.’ The first mention of a bar, though, is at the beginning of episode three, where Uncle Richie “drones bars of Ferrando’s aria di sortita.” This use of bar opens up analysis of the musical themes of the novel in addition to the opportunity for examining the scenes that take place in bars in the context of alcohol use.

Before looking into bar, I considered the word bond, or bondage, primarily because those words would pair well with my obsession with themes of blackness and slavery. Despite their direct relation to my obsession, I chose not to focus on these words so as to keep examining other topics that I find very interesting, that being the topic of the frequency of alcohol use as well as the use of music and poetry allusions in the text.

After opening our discussion of Ulysses by examining the intent behind every aspect of the formatting, ranging from the lack of chapter titles to the asterisk at the beginning of each chapter, I have come to think of Ulysses as a work in which every aspect, every detail of the page is crafter a certain way for a certain reason. However, being serially published in a magazine with other work and advertisements, I imagine that the control of context is relinquished. Mullin writes that articles on “Emma Goldman [were placed] alongside advertisements for Goodyear Tyres, or a promotion for Diane of the Green Van, ‘The Book Hit Of The Year,’ a ‘Breezy Story’ on the back cover of an issue promising ‘NO COMPROMISE WITH THE PUBLIC TASTE” (Mullin 10). With Ulysses back in its original context, out of the author’s complete control and into a collection run by other editors, I wonder what effect the advertisements and other stories will affect the otherwise immersive experience of reading Ulysses.

The first mention of a person of African descent I noticed came in the form of Sabellius, dubbed “heresiarch” (ln. 659) in Stephen’s summary of heretical beliefs. Sabellius was a third century North African Libyan Catholic who rejected the idea of the Holy Trinity. He identified and accepted the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit as parts of one larger being, not separate beings, “illustrat[ing] the trinitarian relation by comparing the Father to the disc of the sun, the Son to its enlightening power, the Spirit to its warming influence” (CCEL) As Stephen puts it, Sabellius “held that the Father Himself was His own Son” (ln. 660). In his book Ulysses and the Irish God, Frederick Lang equates this Sabellian heresy to the Catholic idea of transubstantiation. First, he cites a definition of transubstantiation as “the Great God of Heaven comes down upon the altar and take the form of bread and wine”(Lang 80), which in Sabellius’s opinion would be the Father Himself becoming His own Son.

Stephen’s description of Sabellius’s heresy is interesting to me in how similar it sounds to Stephen’s description of Hamlet. Buck Mulligan explains that within his paradoxical explanation of Hamlet, “he proves by algebra that Hamlet’s grandson is Shakespeare’s grandfather and that he himself is the ghost of his own father.” Sabellius claimed that the Father is the Son, and Stephen says of Hamlet that the son himself is the father’s ghost. Yet despite this slight parallel, Stephen expresses distaste of Sabellius’s heretical belief. I think there’s something interesting to discuss there.

CCEL, “History of the Christian Church, Volume II: Ante-Nicene Christianity. A.D. 100-325.” – Christian Classics Ethereal Library. N.p., n.d.

Lang, Frederick K. Ulysses and the Irish God. Lewisburg: Bucknell UP, 1993. Print.