Bar

Forms:

Bar (N) [musical term], Bar (N) [ legal term], Bar (N) [Slang for currency]

Related:

Barmaid, Fivebarred, Debarred, Barrister

Explication:

Bar appears in terms of its musical definition as a unit of measurement of a written piece of music. It has a literal meaning as a physical line used to measure music on a page, as well as is used to refer to a section in recital. In this form, it is used as “He drones bars of Ferrando’s aria di sortita,” (U. 3.) to refer to the brief excerpt whistled to Stephen, not written on a page. The frequent act of recalling and singing brief pieces of songs tends to invoke this use of the word, even if Joyce does not explicitly use it.

Bar is used frequently in Episode 12 to refer to The Bar in a legal sense, as a profession. An amalgamation of this meaning and the musical meaning is found in the moment when the Irish singer Caruso Garibaldi is described, and it is said that “His superb highclass vocalism, which by its superquality greatly enhanced his already international reputation, was vociferously applauded by the large audience among which were to be noticed many prominent members of the clergy as well as representatives of the press and the bar and the other learned professions” (U. 12). Here, the obvious use of the bar is in reference to the profession. However, in describing the skill of this singer, saying that other musicians, or representatives of the bar in this different sense of the word also noticed his skill would also get the point of his skill across.

Another occurrence of bar in the legal sense is in Episode 7, lines 705-710, where J.J. O’Molloy and Myles Crawford are having a conversation about the state of law in Ireland, pining after the days of famous and great barristers “like Whiteside, like Isaac Butt, like silvertongued O’Hagan.” Crawford remarks that the current members of the bar are “in the hook and eye department” and “in the halfpenny place,” meaning that they are of significant lower quality than these great, famous barristers. While this usage does not carry the musical double meaning with it, it is still a useful and interesting example of characters’ thoughts on the Irish governmental and legal system outside of an explicitly colonial context. Much of the discourse regarding the state of Ireland centers on England’s involvement in Irish affairs, while here we have Irish people talking about Irish affairs on their own terms.

OED Definitions:

1. Music. ‘A vertical line drawn across the stave to divide a musical composition into portions of equal duration, and to indicate the periodical recurrence of the accent’ (F. Taylor in Grove Dict. Music); also, the portion contained between two such lines, technically called the ‘measure.’ double bar: two parallel vertical lines, marking the close of a strain or section. attrib. in bar-line.

†24. A barrier or partition separating the seats of the benchers or readers from the rest of the hall, to which students, after they had attained a certain standing, were ‘called’ from the body of the hall, for the purpose of taking a principal part in the mootings or exercises of the house. Obs. See barrister n.   Hence the phrases:— to be called to the bar: to be admitted a barrister. †to cast over the bar: to deprive of the status of a barrister, to disbar; gen. to reject.¶After 1600, when utter-barristers, as well as sergeants and apprentices-at-law were allowed to plead in the law-courts, bar in these phrases seems to have been popularly assumed to mean the bar in a court of justice, outside of which ordinary barristers appear to plead, while King’s Counsel and Sergeants-at-Law have places within it. Hence the mod. phrase to be called within the bar: to be appointed King’s (or Queen’s) Counsel.