A Word In Your Ear

by Eric Rosenbloom
copyright 2003





Table of Contents


Part I • Introduction

Language and Technique

Reading Techniques

Example of Technique

Example of Exegesis

Characters (Sigla)

Relationships

Patterns

Issy

Identity

Other Characters

Magic Numbers

Saints Giordano and Giambattista

Viconian Cycle

Death and Rebirth

Humanism

The Book of the Dead

Structure

Geography

Dublin

The Rest of Ireland

History

Prehistoric

Christian

Norse

English

Misery

Struggle

Liberation

James Joyce

Last Word Before Reading On

 

Part II • Reading

King Roderick O’Conor — pp. 380–382

The Kiss — pp. 383–386

St. Kevin and the Bath — pp. 604–606

Archdruid Berkeley and St. Patrick — pp. 611–612

Note on Reading

2 Fables

The Mookse and the Gripes (pp. 152–159)

The Ondt and the Gracehoper (pp. 414–419)

The Fables of La Fontaine

ALP

HCE

13 Passages

Overture (pp. 3–4)

Finnegan’s Wake (pp. 4–6)

The Book (pp. 18–20)

Slander (pp. 33–34)

The Ballad of Persse O’Reilly (pp. 44–47)

Letter (pp. 104–108)

Shem (pp. 169–172)

Shem the Penman (pp. 182–186)

The Song of the Four (pp. 398–399)

Vision of Shaun (pp. 403–405)

Farewell to Haun (pp. 471–473)

The Letter (pp. 615–619)

Anna Liffey (pp. 619–628)

Appendices

A Shorter Finnegans Wake

The Mystery of the Narrator

Cycles of Genesis

The Ravisht Bride



Ma la fantasia altro non è che risalto di reminiscenze, e l'ingegno altro non è che lavoro d’intorno a cose che si ricordano.

— Giambattista Vico

(But imagination is nothing other than the springing up again of reminiscences, and genius is nothing but working on what is remembered.)



No, it’s a wheel, I tell the world. And it’s all square.
With kindest regards sincerely yours

— James Joyce




Hyl. But the novelty, Philonous, the novelty! There lies the danger. New notions should always be discountenanced; they unsettle men’s minds, and nobody knows where they will end.

— George Berkeley




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