The discussion of Shakespeare and theater that dominates Book 9 seemed to set up and lead into a reflective kind of meta-theater enacted by Stephen, Mulligan, Best, and Eglinton. After a couple pages, the narrative starts using epithets, paralleling the Greek prose-poem tradition, for the characters\u2014\u201cbeautifulsadness Best,\u201d \u201cugling Eglinton,\u201d \u201cMonk Mulligan,\u201d \u201cSonmulligan\u201d (204, 205, 208)\u2014that change according to the role they\u2019re taking on (Buck Mulligan, for example, is at first Monk Mulligan as he intones Latin, but later becomes Sonmulligan when he\u2019s imagining himself to be his own father, clasping his face with \u201cbirthaiding hands\u201d (208). As in earlier books, however, the roles assigned and enacted to and by the characters don\u2019t always seem to fit; descriptions in these passages seem discordant and almost nonsensical: Buck Mulligan \u201cgagged sweetly\u201d instead of speaking; all characters \u201csmiled their smiles\u201d (206), a phrase that evokes a kind of strained mechanism.<\/p>\n
The role-playing atmosphere also then fits with the play format that\u2019s used for a page: paralleling the discordant role of the descriptions and epithets used earlier, the stage directions seem nonsensical and forced\u2014how does someone speak \u201cA tempo<\/em>\u201d (209)? I\u2019m not sure at all what that means, but it definitely makes the dialogue seem stiff and unnatural.<\/p>\n Following this passage, I thought the discussion of names was especially meaningful. As Stephen explains it, Shakespeare\u2019s name is \u201cdear to him\u2026dearer than his glory of greatest shakescene in the country\u201d (210). Where Shakespeare\u2019s manipulation of his name is an almost holy revelation, however\u2014\u201crevealed\u2026in the sonnets where this is Will in overplus\u201d (210)\u2014Stephen\u2019s name is a burden, an indication of his spoiled boots and the \u201choles in his socks\u201d (210). \u201cI am tired of my voice, the voice of Esau,\u201d he reflects (211): like Esau, who disguised his voice to claim his brother\u2019s birthright, Stephen finds himself fraudulent and without poetic integrity. Tellingly, when Eglinton calls Stephen a \u201cdelusion\u201d and mockingly asks if he believes his own theory (213), Stephen \u201cpromptly\u201d replies \u201cNo,\u201d voiding any emotional weight or significance his ideas ostensibly held (213).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The discussion of Shakespeare and theater that dominates Book 9 seemed to set up and lead into a reflective kind of meta-theater enacted by Stephen, Mulligan, Best, and Eglinton. After a couple pages, the narrative starts using epithets, paralleling the Greek prose-poem tradition, for the characters\u2014\u201cbeautifulsadness Best,\u201d \u201cugling Eglinton,\u201d \u201cMonk Mulligan,\u201d \u201cSonmulligan\u201d (204, 205, 208)\u2014that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/Ulysses16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/Ulysses16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/Ulysses16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/Ulysses16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/Ulysses16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=274"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/Ulysses16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":275,"href":"https:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/Ulysses16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274\/revisions\/275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/Ulysses16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/Ulysses16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/Ulysses16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}