Introduction: Modernist Mythopoeia — The Language of the In-Between and of Beyond

Abstract

The dramatic entrance of Buck Mulligan impersonating a priest is a blasphemous opening to James Joyce’s Ulysses. Ascending to the top of a Martello Tower, he does not seek refuge with God, for the name Buck, connoting male animal sexuality, is aptronymic given that his ‘ungirdled’ yellow dressing gown hints towards unbridled Wildean-paganism. Later on, Buck theatrically declares his post-religious position in no uncertain terms by publicly reciting Friedrich Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra: ‘He who stealeth from the poor lendeth to the Lord. Thus spake Zarathustra.’² With an ironic reversal of Proverbs 19:17, ‘He that hath pity upon the poor lendeth unto the LORD; and that which he hath given will he pay him again’, Buck imitates the abrasive and populist image of Nietzsche’s iconoclastic philosophy that is supposedly intoned in ‘Zarathustra’s Prologue’. This is when Zarathustra descends from the mountains, wishing to bestow and distribute his wisdom: ‘Could this be possible! This old holy man in his forest has heard nothing yet, that God is dead!‘³ Impersonating Zarathustra and staging a mock Catholic ritual in a loose and garish robe, before plunging naked into the cold waters of the Irish Sea, confirms the defiant atheism of Buck Mulligan. However, although the episode ‘Telemachus’ immediately signals a parodic rejection of religion, the underlying irony is that plump Buck, a little on the fat side, appears fatuous when giving his morning salutations to the earthy glory of a new day.

Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A yellow dressinggown, ungirdled, was sustained gently behind him by the mild morning air. He held the bowl aloft and intoned :

— Introibo ad altare Dei. [I go unto the altar of God]¹