Abstract
Although Joyce does not explicitly acknowledge the presence of Aristophanes, there are more references to Greek comedy in his fiction than current criticism indicates. Several of Socrates' ridiculous experiments fromThe Clouds pop up inFinnegans Wake. Aubrey Beardsley's illustrations for Samuel Smith's version ofLysistrata inspire a series of thematically pertinent accusations leveled at HCE. Clever uses of bird names and the Olympian emissaries to Cloudcuckooland fromThe Birds, as well as several clusters of distorted play-titles and the signature chant fromThe Frogs also appear in Joyce's final work. References to ancient comedies are worked into “aesthetic” passages inStephen Hero andUlysses. This largely covert deployment of Aristophanic material, all of it thoroughly irreverent and richly comic, is evidence for Joyce's wide and creative range of allusion.
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References
Throughout this article Joyce's works are cited parenthetically in the text.FW=Finnegans Wake (New York: Viking, 1939);U=Ulysses, ed. Hans Walter Gabler, et al. (New York: Random House, 1986);SH=Stephen Hero, ed. John J. Slocum and Herbert Cahoon (New York: New Directions, 1944);P=A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (New York: Viking, 1968);CW=The Critical Writings, edd. Ellsworth Mason and Richard Ellmann (New York: Viking, 1964);Letters I=Letters of James Joyce Vol. I, ed. Stuart Gilbert (New York: Viking, 1966). TheFinnegans Wake Notebooks are cited from the appropriate volume ofThe James Joyce Archive, ed. Michael Groden, et al. (New York: Garland, 1978).
In his first year at University College (1898–1899), Joyce composed an essay, “The Study of Languages.” In it he wrote, “let us consider the case of the classics. In Latin—for the writer acknowledges humbly his ignorance of Greek—a careful and well directed study must be very advantageous” (CW 29). For a discussion of Latin and Greek as elements in Joyce's rivalry with Oliver Gogarty, see R. J. Schork, “Buck Mulligan as aGrammaticus Gloriosus in Joyce'sUlysses,”Arion, third series 1.3 (Fall 1991) 76–92.
There is nothing on or by Aristophanes in Joyce's Paris library. An English translation of four plays (The Acharnians, The Knights, The Birds, The Frogs) and an Italian translation of three others (Le nuvole [The Clouds], I calabroni [The Wasps], La pace [Peace]) survive from the Trieste library; seeJames Joyce's Trieste Library: A Catalogue of Materials at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, Michael P. Gillespie, with the assistance of Eric B. Stocker (Austin: University of Texas, 1986), pp. 34–35, items #15–16.
Immediately after the first phrase there is another crossed entry: “bringing Latin” (VI.B.4.248); this may refer to the fact that “flea's gizzard” appears in a paragraph that contains 32 instances of the affectedly Latinate suffix-ation, including the adjacent “eructation” (FW 557.13–558.20).
Harry Burrell, “The Illustrator in theWake: Aubrey Beardsley,”A Wake Newslitter XVII (1980) 96–97.
Burrell traces the publishing history of various forms of this volume (“Illustrator” 97). It seems that the first general publication of the unexpurgated plates and text wasThe Lysistrata of Aristophanes, Illustrated by Aubrey Beardsley (london: Academy/New York: St. Martin's, 1973); the text of the comedy in that volume was translated into English prose by Samuel Smith.
Citations are from Smith's translation:Lysistrata, pp. 42 and 51.
Roland McHugh,Annotations to “Finnegans Wake” (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, revised edition 1991), p. 357. These annotations are absolutely indispensable in primary matters of linguistic, historical, musical, geographical, lexical, etc. detail—but they are not infallible or exhaustive.
Burrell, “Illustrator” 97.
Lysistrata 602; Smith's translation, p. 32. See Aristophanes,Lysistrata, ed. Jeffrey Henderson (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987), pp. 147–148 for a good discussion of the props involved in this scene.
The text is quoted from Smith's translation:Lysistrata, p. 27.
Philip L. Graham, “The Birds,”A Wake Newslitter X (1973) 39.
For identifications of these, other nearby birds, and any other avian references throughout theWake, see McHugh,Annotations, ad loc..
Graham, “Birds” 39.
Graham, “Birds” 39.
See Vincent Deane, “Greek Gifts:Ulysses into Fox in VI.B.10”,Joyce Studies Annual 5 (Summer 1994) 164 for a discussion of the source (Irish Times 20 October 1922) of Joyce's amused interest in “beavers,” as recorded in the very early (1922) Notebook, VI.B.10.2. Also see a section of Joyce's 8/11/22 letter to Harriet Shaw Weaver about the current craze for a game involving the spotting of various types of “beavers” (Letters I.193).
The phrase “melt my belt” (FW 450.4–5) could also be genetically related to “zones asunder” (FW 328.8); and both phrases may echo a classical Latin source: Horace'ssolutis…zonis (“with sashes unfastened”) (Carm. 1.30.5–6).
James Joyce's “Scribbledehobble”: The Ur-Workbook for “Finnegans Wake,” ed. Thomas E. Connolly (Evanston: Northwestern University, 1961), p. 145 [762] “25 Knights” (uncrossed) appears on the same page. For the date of this entry see Danis Rose,The Textual Diaries of James Joyce (Dublin: Lilliput Press, 1995), p. 31.
L. A. Wiggan, “The Voice of the Frogs: An Analysis ofBrekkek Kekkek Koax fromFinnegans Wake,”A Wake Newslitter VI (1969) 62.
For a complete discussion of this topic—with conclusive evidence that the croaks were part of a farting contest, see Garry Wills, “Why are the Frogs in theFrogs”,Hermes 97 (1969) 306–317.
Stanislaus Joyce,My Brother's Keeper, ed. Richard Ellmann (London: Faber and Faber, 1958), pp. 61–62.
James S. Atherton, “Sport and Games inFinnegans Wake,” in:Twelve and a Tilly, ed. Jack P. Dalton and Clive Hart (Evanston: Northwestern University, 1965) 61.
Atherton, “Sport” 60–61; the correct designation for the first-draft manuscript is 47481-94r (=JJA 56.2).
The text records that “Stephen was readingOreste” (SH 192); I suspect thatOrestea (Italian) was intended.
In hisElectra, Sophocles uses two revelation/identification devices: a lock of hair (901) and a signet ring (1222–1223).
See Jeffrey Henderson,The Maculate Muse: Obscene Language in Attic Comedy (New Haven and London: Yale University, 1975; 2nd ed., Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), pp. 134–135.
For a convenient transcription and comparison of both schemata, see Richard Ellmann,Ulysses on the Liffey (New York: Oxford University, 1972), “Appendix”, after p. 187.
CW 39; the citations come from Joyce's presentation (20 January 1900) to the University College's Literary and Historical Society of his thoughts on “Drama and Life.”
The latest word in this frequently partisan field is Rose,The Textual Diaries.
David Hayman,The “Wake” in Transit (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990), pp. 54–55.
I thank the two anonymousIJCT readers for their extraordinarily useful comments and suggestions.
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Schork, R.J. Aristophanes and Joyce. International Journal of the Classical Tradition 2, 399–413 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02678067
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02678067