English 30a

October 1, 1942

Over the lines

3

Illi inter sese magna vi bracchia tollunt
In numerum, versantque tenaci forcipe massam, (Aen. 8:452)
arises some editorial dispute. Some editions read, for the fourth word
of the first line, multa instead of magna. Vergil describes here the
ginates making shields in Vulcan's workshop. If one is to choose a
reading by the principles which he seems to follow in other passages,
magna, which would balance massam in the second line, thus suggesting
the alternate beat of hammers upon anvils, seems preferable.

At the end of the fourth Georgic occurs a quintessentially Vergilian
passage which is short and, actually, complete in itself. Vergil had
presumably intended to end his back-to-the-land tract with a glorification
of Messala. When, after Messala's disgrace, he was forced to suppress
the original ending, Vergil apparently inserted the Orpheus and Eurydice
episode which he had probably already written. Although Vergil's range
of effects is wide, his emotions are limited; consistently he reverts
to frustrated longing, to the futility of effort, to the sadness of death
and decay, moods which are peculiarly suited to short pieces. From this
point of view the eclogue is probably the perfect form for Vergil. In
this sense also the Orpheus and Eurydice story provides a perfect vehicle.

Illa quidem, dum te fugeret per flumina praeceps,

immanem ante pedes hydrum moritura puella
servantem ripas alta non vidit in herba.

At chorus aequalis Dryadum clamore supremos

Future participle
exploited for pathetic
effects

-2-

implerunt montes; flerunt Rhodopieiae arces
altaque Pangaea et Rhesi Mavortia tellus
atque Getae atque Hebrus et Actias Offthyia.
Ipse cava solans aegrum testudine amorem
*te*, dulcis coniunx, *te* solo in litore secum,
*te* veniente die, *te* decedente canebat.

Typical Vergilian
pathetic reiteration.

467
* Taenarias etiam facues, alta ostia Ditis,
et caligantem nigra formidine lucum
ingressus, Manesque adiit regemque *tremendum*,
nesciaque humanis precibus mansuescere corda.
At cantu commotae Erebi de sedibus imis
umbrae ibant tenues simulacraque luce carentum,
quam multa in foliis avium se māllia condunt,
vesper ubi aut hibernus agit de montibus imber,
matres atque viri defunctaque corpora vita
magnanimum heroum, pueri innuptaeque puellae,
impositique rogis iuvenes ante ora parentum;
quos circum limus niger et deformis harundo
Cocyti tardaque palus inamabilis unda
alligat, et noviens Styx interfusa coercet.
Quin ipsae stupuere domus atque intima Leti
Tartara caeruleosque implexae crinibus angues
Eumenides, tenuitque inhians tria Cerberus ora,
atque *Ixionii vento* rota constitit orbis.

* Change of key as jaws
of bell open.

Gerundive, in general
used to give reverberating
effect, here adds to
impressiveness of the
king of Hades.

Ll. 474-7 typical of
Vergil; they occur
almost unchanged in
the *Aeneid*.

Spondee; metrical stop
which holds up the line
so that the wheel seems
to pause.

-3-

Iamque pedem referens casus evaserat omnes,
redditaque Eurydice superas veniebat ad auras
pone sequens (namque hanc dederat Proserpina legem),
cum subita incautum dementia cepit amantem,
ignoscenda quidem, scirent si ignoscere Manes:
restitit, Eurydicenque suam iam luce sub ipsa
immemor heu victus que animi respexit. Ibi omnis
* effusus labor atque immitis rupta tyranni
foedera terque fragor stagnis auditus Averni.

Illa "Quis et me" inquit "miseram et te predidit,
Orpheu,
quis tantus furor? Et iterum crudelia retro
fata vocant, conditque natantia lumina somnus.

Iamque vale: feror ingenti circumdata nocte
invalidasque tibi tendens, heu non tua, palmas -."
Dixit, et ex oculis subito ceu fumus in auras
commixtus tenues fugit diversa, neque illum
prensantem nequiquam umbras et multa volentem
* dicere praeterea vidit; nec portitor Orci
amplius obiectam passus transire paudem.

Quid faceret? Quo se rapta bis coniuge ferret?
Quo fletu Manes, qua numina voce moveret?
Illa quidem Stygia nabat iam frigida cymba.

Septem illum totos perhibent ex ordine menses
rupe sub aeria deserti ad Strymonis undam
flevisse, et gelidis haec evolvisse sub antris,
mulcentem tigres et agentem carmine quercus;

Metrical scheme
submerges labor,
so that it is
thrown away like so
much spilt milk.

*V. never makes it
clear why the lake
should make such a
sound.

Line seems to die
out as she disappears.

Typical Vergilian
situation --
disappearance, echo,
reaching out.

*Specialty of Latin
verse; adverb between
two words modifying
both.

Impossible to tell
whether or not such
occasional end-rhymes
are intentional.

-6-

At the end of the first Georgic (11. 493 ff.) Vergil is working for
a different effect than the once he achieves in the Orpheus and Eurydice
passage. Here he is trying to write in a major key of the great affairs
of empire.

Scilicet et tempus veniet, cum finibus illis
agricola incurvo terram molitus aratro
exesa inveniet <u>ambra robigine</u> pila,
<u>aut gravibus</u> rastris galeas pulsabit inanes,
grandiaque effosis mirabitur ossa sepulcris.
Di patrii, Indigetes, et Romule Vestaque mater,
quae Tuscum Tiberim et Romana Palatia servas,
hunc saltem everso iuvenem succurrere saeclo
ne prohibete. Satis iam pridem sanguine nostro
Laomedonteae luimus periuria Troiae,
am pridem nobis <u>caeli</u> te regia, <u>Caesar</u>,
invidet, atque hominum queritur curare triumphos,
quippe ubi fas versum atque nefas: tot bella per orbem,
tam multae scelerum facies, non ullus aratro
dignus honos, squalent abductis arva colonis,

et curvae rigidum falces conflantur in ensem.
Hinc movet Euphrates, illinc Germania bellum;
vicinae ruptis inter se legibus urbes
arma ferunt; saevit toto Mars impius orbe:
ut cum carceribus sese effudere quadrigae,
addunt in spatia, et frustra retinacula tendens
fertur equis auriga, neque audit currus habenas.

Rough sounds suggest
rust.
Sound of hollow stroke.

<u>Gaeli</u> prepares <u>Caesar</u>.

Largely spondees to
gain effect of dignity.

Closing lines gather
momentum and speed.

Although Vergil can do the fast-moving account of major action as
well as he can do the Orpheus and Eurydice type of story, even in such passages
as the above sounds an undercurrent of longing and pathos, representing, perhaps,
Vergil's own feelings about war. In general Vergil does little straight
narrative, but tells the story through a lyric or elegaic mood.

English 30a
October 1, 1942

Over the lines

Illi inter eose magna vi brachia tollunt
In numerum, vereantque tenaci forei pessam, (Aen. 8:452)
arise some editorial dispute. Some editions read, for the fourth word
of the first line, multa instead of magna. Vergil describes here the
gints making shields in Vulcan's workshop. If one is to choose a
reading by the principles which he seems to follow in other passages,
magna, which would balance massam in the second line, thus suggesting
the alternate beat of hammers upon anvils, seems preferable.

At the end of the fourth Georgio occurs a quintessential Vergilian
passage which is short and, actually, complete in itself. Vergil had
presumably intended to end his back-to-the-land tract with a glorification
of Nossala. When, after Nossala's disgrace, he was forced to suppress
the original ending, Vergil apparently inserted the Orpheus and Eurydice
episode which he had probably already written. Although Vergil's range
of effects is wide, his emotions are limited; consistently he reverts
to frustrated longing, to the futility of effort, to the sadness of death
and decay, mood which are peculiarly suited to short pieces. From this
point of view the coloque is probably the perfect form for Vergil. In
this sense also the Orpheus and Eurydice story provides a perfect vehicle.

Illa quidem, dum to fugeret per flumina praecepere,

immanem ante pedes hydrum moritura puella
serventem ripas alta non vidit in herba.

At chorus aquefacie Dryadam clamore suprenos

-3-

Iamque pedem referens causæ evaserat omnes,
redditaque Surydioe superas veniebat ad auræ
pone sequens (namque hanc dederat Proserpina legen),
cum subita incantum decantia cœpit amantem,
ignosceda quidem, coirent ei ignosceda Nanes:
restitit, Surydioque cum iam luce sub ipse
incensur hou victus que animi reçepit. Ibi omne
effusus labor atque imitie rupta tyranni
federa torque frugor stegnie auditus Averni.

Illa "Quis et me" inquit "nisceram et te predidit,
Orpheu, quia tentus furor? Et iterum crudelia retro
fata vocant, conditque natantia lumina somne.

Iamque vale: feror ingenti circundata nocte
invalidaque tibi tendere, hou non tus, palme -."

Dixit, et ex coulie subito eou fumus in auræ
comixtus tenues fugit diverse, neque illum
presentem nequiquam umbrae et multa volentem
dicere præterea vidit; nec portitor Orai
amplius obiectam passus transire pallidum.

Quo flotu Nanes, qua numina voce noveret?

Illa quidem Stygia nabat iam frigida cyma.
Septem illum totos prohibent ex ordine monens
rupe sub aoria deserti ad Strymonis undem
floviaco, et gelidio hanc evolvisse sub antrie,
mulcentem tigres et agentem cœmino quercuo;

Notrical etieme
subnorges labor,
so that it is
thrown away like so
such spilt milk.

"V. never makes it
clear why the lake
should make such a
sound.

Line seems to die
cut as she disappears.

Typical Vergilian
situation —
disappearance, echo,
reaching out.

"Specialty of Latin
verse; adverb between
two words modifying
both.

English 30 a

September 24, 1942

In Dante's line

'Tin tin' sonando con si dolce nota, (Par. X.143)

may be seen a treatment subtler than the crude representation of bells
in the nursery rhyme, "Gay go up and gay go down," or even in Poe's <u>Bells</u>.
The recurrent <u>n</u>'s suggest vibrations in the air; the vowels <u>i</u> and <u>o</u> and
the consonant <u>l</u> carry on the sound of the bell. Further, the bell-sound
here is being used in an emotional context. There is an organic difference
between this and the earlier bell

E che lo nuovo peregrin d'amore
Punge, se ode squilla di lontano
Che paia il giorno pianger che si more,
(Purg. VIII.5ff.)

which sets the tone of Purgatory, of wistful longing to be somewhere
else. The later bell, which sounds in Paradise at a time when Dante has
been there about as long as in Purgatory in the first passage conveys
a sound much more human, much more highly coloured. For their subtle
handling and organic connection with a larger scheme these two bells
are among the most remarkable in poetry.

An example of a similar complex and subtle treatment occurs in

T. S. Eliot's <u>Burnt Norton</u>,

Only by the form, the pattern,

Can words or music reach

The stillness, as a Chinese jar still

Moves perpetually in its stillness.

Not the stillness of the violin, while the note lasts,

Not that only,...

The passage, which also uses <u>ll</u>, <u>n</u>, <u>i</u> and <u>o</u>, achieves the fine and
rarefied quality of the passages in Dante. Here the violin vibrations
are represented as are the vibrations of the bell in Dante. And in

First Lecture

I have been reading James Joyce and writing about him
ever since a Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man came out
in 1916.

Comparison of Portrait of the Artist with other books
of that period about the development of young men: Compton
Mackenzie, Bennett's "Clayhanger" etc.

Wrote reviews of Ulysses and Finnegans Wake. Realized
immediately inadequacy of reviews. Such books can hardly be
reviewed. As I reread the books, I saw that there was much
more in them, both of meaning and of art, than I had under-
stood at first.

I found that I went back to reading Joyce more than to
any other contemporary prose writer. I came to the conclusion
that he's a much greater writer than Proust, with whom he has
often been compared.

I also began to realize that it was not proper to com-
pare him with other novelists at all. He had at least as much
in common with the great contemporary poets, like Eliot and
Yeats,

But he presents us with an imaginative vision much larger
and more varied than Eliot or Yeats, and my next step was to
compare him to those great poets who present a large picture
of life, such as Dante and Virgil.

The use of language in Joyce is precise and intense in
a way that is hardly to be found in the work of any other
novelist. The representational capabilities of language
have been brought to a point comparable only to such masters
as Shakespeare and Dante. Furthermore, in Finnegans Wake
you find Joyce using the metrics of verse as well as the
rhythms of prose, and it became more natural to compare him
with poets rather than with novelists.

My final conclusion has been that Joyce is one of the
greatest writers in English and one of the greatest writers
who has ever lived. Great both in scope and in execution.
Highly organized.

I have decided that the only way to present and ex-
plain Joyce -- to show what he is trying to do and how
brilliantly he has achieved it -- is to go by way of the
great poets who have produced highly organized and finished
works rather than by way of the history of the novel.

-2-

I find it rather difficult to define at all briefly what I mean when I speak of "highly organized and finished work." To explain what I mean at length is really the purpose of these lectures.

I will limit my meaning now, however, by explaining that there is one kind of highly organized work with which Joyce has little in common and which I shall leave out of account in this discussion. There is a kind of work which can be said to be highly organized by reason of its construction. Many novels and plays belong to this category. The hold on us of the novel or play and the intensity of the effect are due mainly to an intellectual machine which the writer has invented. Sophocles' plays are examples of this and so are Ibsen's. I don't mean that language and imagery, too, do not play their part in Sophocles, but they have no such importance as they have in Virgil or Dante. Language must also play more part in Ibsen than it does in the translations we have of him. He was a poet -- the Scandinavians say, a great poet. And he must be a good deal more interesting from this point of view than the rather wooden translations by William Archer that we read of him. But these translations are perfect examples of masterpieces that depend for their effect on construction rather than on language. Examples of this in the novel would be some of the middle novels of Henry James where the characters have all got to talk alike and to talk like Henry James. Here again you have construction almost naked.

This kind of thing is not the department where James Joyce most excels. The two modern writers he most admired seemed to have been Flaubert and Ibsen. But whereas he did learn a good deal from Flaubert and developed the novel further along the line that Flaubert was interested in, he was not at all successful when he attempted to follow Ibsen. He wrote one play, called Exiles, in which he tried to do Ibsen's kind of thing and this play is certainly the least satisfactory of his productions. It left him no scope for language.

I am, then, going to begin by talking about Virgil and Dante and Shakespeare. Then I am going to show how there finally appeared in the novel a writer who has the same kind of aims. Then I am going to go on to Ulysses and Finnegans Wake.

These are all writers in whom the use of language is very highly developed for representational purposes; and I am going to begin my discussion with one of the commonest ways of using language for a representational purpose, and one which it is easiest to understand. I am going to begin by discussing some examples of onomatopoeia -- that is the suiting of the sound of words to the sounds which are being described or suggested.

Anatole France on Dante and Virgil.

Influence of the great writers on one another. Danger for
anyone who studies sources to see great writers in terms
of their immediate literary background.

In this course I am skipping over the centuries.

Dante's relation to Virgil acknowledges him as his model and
takes him for his guide.

His imitations of Virgil. Passage from Purgatorio. Compare
this with Orpheus trying to grasp the vanishing Eurydice.

But here better narrative, more vivid dramatization.

Virgil does one exquisite passage after another and pieces
them together. Refer to Eurydice passage just mentioned.

The thing doesn't seem to move by itself. The characters
rather seem to resolve themselves into a series of beau-
tiful passages.

In Dante's "Divine Comedy" you get something on the big scale
which is more completely successful.

The *summit* through Hades in the Odyssey.

The sixth book of the Aeneid.

Dante also deals with meeting people in the other world, but
this is now developed into a complete picture of humanity
and the world as Dante knows it.

Subject is so enormous that I can only touch on a few corners
of it. Divine Comedy greatest work of literature -- very
complex but perfectly organized.

-2-

Each of the three parts has a different character and demands
a different set of effects.

Inferno

Purgatorio

Paradiso

Question of imagery: Simile and metaphor -- can ennoble or degrade -- Elizabethans get magnificence and nobility through comparisons of this sort, French naturalists tend to make things meaner and more animal: Huysmans' bad table d'hôte.

Dante almost always likens the unusual to the commonplace. He does this even in the Paradiso and, that in my opinion is why it is the only successful celestial poetry.

Doves in Fifth Canto and straws in glass among the traitors.
Another kind of imagery -- the suggestive style. A detail of
the narrative itself becomes a symbol for some psychological aspect of the situation.

Francesca's description of where she was born.

Ugolino's key in the tower.

Compare this to Chaucer:

And on a day bifel that in that hour
When that his mete was wont to be i-bought,
The gayler schet the dores of that tour.
He herd it wel, but he ne saugh it nought,
And in his hert anoon ther fel a thought
That thay for hungir wolde doon him dyen.
'Alas!' quod he, 'allas! that I was wrought!'
Therwith the teeres felle fro his eyen.

-3-

And Eliot:

...I have heard the key

Turn in the door once and turn once only

We think of the key, each in his prison

Thinking of the key, each conforms a prison

Only at nightfall, aethereal rumours

Revive for a moment a broken Coriolanus

This brings us to the larger question of the presentation
of character. Almost all of what Dante tells you about
his characters is implicit in this way.

He proves his stature as a creative artist by simply making
his people act and letting us draw our conclusions.

The whole story of the Divine Comedy is objective. Dante
himself is objectively shown. He is a character in the
story and his feelings, actions and words are presented
objectively like those of the other characters.

We have seen how Virgil could establish an atmosphere -- as
in the first eclogue or the episode of Orpheus and Eurydice.

We now come to the question of language as a medium for present-
ing character.

The characters in Virgil are not always distinct: they are half
imbedded in the beautiful verses.

The characters in Dante are living, independent and sharp.

And each talks with his own voice.

Virgil and Statius

The gates of hell

Francesca

Bertran di Born

Per me si va nella città dolente,
Per me si va nell'eterno dolore,
Per me si va tra la perduta gente,
Giustizia mosse il mio alto fattore:
Fecemi la divina potestate,
La somma sapienza e il primo amore.
Dinanzi a me non fur cose create,
Se non eterne, ed io eterno duro.
Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch'entrate.

Inferno III: 1-9

Gia'eran desti, e l'ora s'appressava
Che il cibo ne soleva esser addotto,
E per suo sogno ciascun dubitava;
Ed io sentii chiavar l'uscio di sotto
All'orribile torre; ond'io guardai
Nel viso a'miel figliuoi senza far motto.

Inferno XXXIII:43-48

-2-

the line, "Not the stillness of the violin, while the note lasts," one
of the most extraordinary Eliot has ever written, the note can be heard
still vibrating, its lasting caught in the word "lasts."

Besides combinations of sounds, onomatopoeia includes rhythm, in
prose, and in verse, metrics. Browning, for example, in the passage

I sprang to the stirrup, and Joris, and he;
I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three;
depends entirely upon methods, and not at all upon sound combinations
(to which he was, perhaps, not very sensitive.)

In Vergil's famous line

In which the word *putum* means 'curse' or 'gnash' or 'angle of camp,' he also resorts to anapests, but in a line which is actually very complex in structure. If the horses, in the passage, were galloping on something hard, Vergil would do the line differently; as it is, he uses *putum* and *campum* to muffle the sound, while at the same time the *p*'s carry on the sound of stamping, and the succession of *t*'s completes the sound.

A more difficult onomatopoetic problem is presented by the song
of birds. A crude attempt at accuracy may be seen in Nashe's "Song,"
from Summer's Last Will and Testament,

Spring, the sweetest spring, is the yeres pleasant King,
Then blooms eche thinge, then maydes daunce in a ring,
Cold doeth not sting, the pretty birds doe sing,
Cuckow, iugge, iugge, pu we, to witta woo.

Shelley in the Skylark, depends rather upon metre, using the variation
of short and long lines to suggest the profusion of the bird song.

-3-

Tennyson employs a complex and subtle combination of sound and
metrical effects in the lines,

The children call, and I
Thy shepherd pipe, and sweet is every sound,
Sweeter thy voice, but every sound is sweet;
Myriads of rivulets hurrying thro' the lawn,
The <u>moan</u> of doves in <u>immemorial</u> elms,
And <u>murmuring</u> of innumerable bees.

(Princess
VII.221)

The passage is founded on <u>m</u>'s, supplemented by <u>n</u>'s. The tempo is spedded
by the metrical pattern of the line beginning, "Myriads of rivulets."
And the sound of bees is suggested as surely and much more subtly by the
word <u>innumerable</u> than it might have been by the word <u>hum</u>.

On a level with the technique of Dante and Eliot in the passages
earlier quoted is Milton's treatment of bird-song in <u>Paradise Regained</u>,

Here is such virtuosity as almost defies analysis. In three syllables
Milton present a summer long. (The sound <u>m</u> generally gives a feeling
of security and permanence.) "Attic bird" announces both "trill" and
"think;" the <u>m</u>'s and <u>s</u>'s, as it were carry on the simple statement,
sustaining both the <u>hum</u> and <u>buzz</u> of Milton's bees.

Arnold, who had not so sensitive an ear, depends both on variation
of line-length (somewhat comparable to Shelley's) and on long vowels to
represent the strains of the nightingale in his *Philomela*.

Hark! ah, the nightingale -
The tawny-throated!
Hark, from that moonlit cedar what a burst!
What triumph! hark! - what pain!...

-4-

Listen, Eugenia -

How thick the bursts come crowding through the leaves!

Again - thou hearest?

Eternal passion!

Eternal pain!

In Greek verse, which tends to be musical rather than representative, onomatopoeia appears highly developed. Aristophanes has a passage on the nightingale's song which is beautifully musical; it is one long succession of long vowels. Actually it parallels closely passages in English about birds' song. It is on this principle that Joyce scrambles language -- with the idea that all languages have enough in common to be used as a simple language -- that there are sound-motifs which are generally recognizable. It is the onomatopoetic function of language which Joyce emphasizes.

-5-

In Whitman occurs one of the most extraordinary of all bird-passages -
(The whole poem should be studied from this point of view; below are a
few of the crucial passages -)

Whitman uses both sound and metre to convey the bird song; here occur
some of the same sounds used in Aristophanes. Like Shelley Whitman suggests
profusion by the occasional long lines, but the irregular form handles the
effect more successfully; Whitman's bird-song has regularity-in-irregularity.

The burden of the bird's song is unsophisticated -- Whitman manages by the
use of modulations and alternations to keep the music going and at the same
time to come as near to the bird's emotions as it is possible to do in words.

The whole of *Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking* should be compared closely
with Aristophanes' treatment of the nightingale, as an instance of recurrent
sound patterns in different languages.

-6-

In a quite different poetic class in Robert Bridges' *Nightingales*.

Although Bridges uses the technique of alternate long and very short lines to convey the bird-song, and by the phrase "the year long" suggests, somewhat as Milton does, the duration of the sound, the effect of the lines is different from that of the previous passages. Here the meanings are all subjective; the song of the nightingale is part of a personal mood, and comes through as remote and dreamy, the emphasis being on emotion rather than upon the sound itself.

In *The Waste Land* Eliot uses sound, again the bird-song, in a completely subjective context. (11. 97-103, "A Game of Chess")

Here the bird-song is so closely blended with other themes that it can scarcely be disengaged. Eliot has used the techniques previously observed to fit the bird-song into his own poetic pattern. His 'profuse-strains' line suddenly injects an alexandrine into the blank verse pattern, thematically relieving the contracted reeling of the room. Here also the K's vibrate and the vowels carry the song. The word "world" brings the poet back to the vulgarity of ordinary life, and to people who hear the nightingale's song as "Jug jug", even as it was heard in the crudest attempts at representation in verse.

2

for all this zogzag world like a goodish-sized sheet of letterpaper
originating by tranship from Boston (Mass.) of the last of the first
to Dear whom it proceded to mention Maggy well & allathome's health
well only the hate turned the mild on <u>the van</u> Houtens and the general's
elections with a <u>lovely</u> face of some born gentleman with a beautiful
present of wedding cakes for dear thankyou Chriesty and with grand
funferall of poor Father Michael don't forget unto life's & Muggy well
how are you Maggy & hopes soon to hear well & must now close it with
fondest to the twoinns with four crosskisses for holy paul holey corner
holipoli whollyisland pee ess from (locust may eat all but this sign
shall they never) affectionate largelooking tache of tch. The stain,
and that a teastain (the overcautelousness of the masterbilker here,
as usual, signing the page away), marked it off on the spout of the
moment as a genuine relique of ancient Irish pleasant pottery of that
lydialike languishing class known as a hurry-me-o'er-the-hazy.

3

Well, you know or don't you kennet or haven't I told you every
telling has a taling and that's the he and the she of it. Look, look,
the dusk is growing. My branches lofty are taking root. And my cold
cher's gone ashley. Fieluhr? Filou! What age is at? It saon is
late. 'Tis endless now senne eye or erewone last saw Waterhouse's
clogh. They took it asunder, I hurd thum sigh. When will they re-
assemble it? O, my back, my back, my bach! I'd want to go to Aches-
les-Pains. Pingpong! There's the Belle for Sexaloitez! And Concepta
de Send-us-pray! Pang! Wring out the clothes! Wring in the dew!
Godavari, vert the showers! And grant thaya grace! Aman. Will we
spread them here now? Ay, we will. Flip! Spread on your bank and
I'll spread mine on mine. Flep! It's what I'm doing. Spread!

3

It's churning chill. Der went is rising. I'll lay a few stones on
the hostel sheets. A man and his bride embraced between them. Else
I'd have sprinkled and folded them only. And I'll tie my butcher's
apron here. It's suety yet. The strollers will pass it by. Six
shifts, ten kerchiefs, nine to hold to the fire and this for the code,
the convent napkins twelve, one baby's shawl. Good mother Jossiph
knows, she said. Whose head? Mutter snores? Deataceas! Wharnow are
alle her childer, say? In kingdome gone or power to come or gloria be
to them farther? Allalivial, allalluvial! Some here, more no more,
more again lost alla stranger. I've heard tell that same brooch of the
Shannons was married into a family in Spain. And all the Dunders de
Dunnes in Markland's Vineland beyong Brendan's herring pool takes num-
ber nine in yangsee's hats. And one of Biddy's beads went bobbing till
she rounded up lost histereve with a marigold and a cobbler's candle
in a side strain of a main drain of a manzinahurries off Bachelor's
Walk. But all that's left to the last of the Meaghers in the loup of
the years prefixed and between is one kneebuckle and two hooks in the
front. Do you tell me that now? I do in troth. Orara por Orbe and
poor Las Animas! Ussa, Ulla, we're umbas all! Mezha, didn't you hear
it a deluge of times, ufer and ufer, respund to spond? You deed, you
deed! I need, I need! It's that irrawaddyng I've stoke in my aars.
It all but husheth the lethest zswound. Oronoko! What's your trouble?
Is that the great Finnleader himself in his joakimono on his statue
riding the high horse there forehengist? Father of Otters, it is him-
self! Yonne there! Isset that? On Fallareen Common? You're thinking
of Astley's Amphitheayter where the bobby restrained you making sugar-
stuck pouts to the ghostwhite horse of the Peppers. Throw the cobwebs
from your eyes, woman, and spread your washing proper. It's well I
know your sort of slop. Flap! Ireland sober is Ireland stiff. Lord

WAENT

O for a beaker full of the warm South,
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,

Keats: 'Ode to a high-kilingale'

Oilily bubbled up the mere.

Tennyson: 'Dyke of the King'

Fitti nel limo, dicon: 'Tristi fummo
Nell'aer dolce che dal sol s'allegra,
Portando dentro accidioso fummo:
Or ci attristiam nella belletta negra.'

Aucte 1, VII, 121

All. Double, double toil and trouble:
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.

2nd Witch. Cool it with a baboon's blood,
Then the charm is firm and good.

Macheath

To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours,
With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine.

Or lose thyself in the continuous woods
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound,
Save his own dashings --

Our plenteous streams a various race supply,
The bright-ey'd perch with fins of Tyrian dye.
The silver eel, in shining volumes roll'd,
The yellow carp, in scales bedropp'd with gold,
Swift trouts, diversified with crimson stains,
And pikes, the tyrants of the Wat'ry plains.

Nunc cantu crebro rumpunt arbusta cicadæ;
Nunc etiam in gelida sede lacerta latet.

Oilily bubbled up the mere.

1, VII, 121

-2-

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

....

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too, --
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river shallows, borne aloft

Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

Aeneid VI, 706-9 (inclusive)

Objectæ salsa spumant adspergine cautes;

Oilily bubbled up the mere.

Fitti nel limo, dicon: 'Tristi fummo
Nell'aer dolce che dal sol s'allegra,
Portando dentro accid'oso fummo;
Or ci attristiam nella belletta negra.'

1, VII, 121

-2-

.....

Aeneid VI, 706-9 (inclusive)

Nunc cantu crebro rumpunt arbusta cicadae;
Nunc etiam in gelida sede lacerta latet.

Oilily bubbled up the mere.

1, VII, 121

-2-

.....

Aeneid VI, 706-9 (inclusive)

-3-

Ille, inter vestes et levia pectora lapsus,
Volvitur attactu nullo, fallitque furentum,
Vipeream inspirans animam; fit tortile collo
Aurum ingens coluber, fit longæ taenia vittæ,
Innectitque comas, et membris lubricus errat.
Ac dum prima lues udo sublapsa veneno
Pertentat sensus, atque ossibus implicat ignem,
Necdum animus toto percepit pectore flammam;
Mollius, et solito matrum de more, locuta est,
Multa super nata lacrimans Phrygiisque hymenæis:

La mer, la mer, toujours recommencée!

Les sanglots longs
Des violons
De l'automne
Blessent mon cœur
D'une langueur
Monotone.

A light broke in upon my brain, --
It was the carol of a bird;
It ceased, and then it came again,
The sweetest song ear ever heard,
And mine was thankful till my eyes
Ran over with the glad surprise,
And they that moment could not see
I was the mate of misery;

-4-

But then by dull degrees came back
My senses to their wonted track;
I saw the dungeon walls and floor
Close slowly round me as before,
I saw the glimmer of the sun
Creeping as it before had done,
But through the crevice where it came
That bird was perch'd, as fond and tame,
And tamer than upon the tree;
A lovely bird, with azure wings,
And song that said a thousand things,
And seem'd to say them all for me!
...
I saw them, and they were the same,
They were not changed like me in frame;
I saw their thousand years of snow
On high — their wide long lake below,
And the blue Rhone in fullest flow;
I heard the torrents leap and gush
O'er channell'd rock and broken bush;
I saw the white-wall'd distant town,
And whiter sails go skimming down;
And then there was a little isle,
Which in my very face did smile,
The only one in view;
A small green isle, it seem'd no more,
Scarce broader than my dungeon floor,
But in it there were three tall trees,
And o'er it blew the mountain breeze,
And by it there were waters flowing,
And on it there were young flowers growing,
Of gentle breath and hue.
The fish swam by the castle wall,
And they seem'd joyous each and all;

-5-

The eagle rode the rising blast,
Methought he never flew so fast
As then to me he seem'd to fly;

Vides ut alta stet niue candidum
Soracte nec iam sustineant onus
siluae laborantes geluque
flumina constiterint acuto?

Birds in the high Hall-garden
When twilight was falling,
Maud, Maud, Maud, Maud,
They were crying and calling.

Platt's examples:

Yet once more O ye laurels and once more,

Over the blue sea goes the wind complaining,
And the blue sea turns emerald as he goes,

He will watch from dawn to gloom
The lake-reflected sun illume
The yellow bees in the ivy-bloom.

And like a skylit water stood
The bluebells in the azured wood.

-2-

.....

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too, ---
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river shallows, borne aloft

Aoneid VI, 706-9 (inclusive)

-5-

But follow; let the torrent dance thee down
To find him in the valley; let the wild
Lean-headed Eagles yelp alone, and leave
The monstrous ledges there to slope, and spill
Their thousand wreaths of dangling water-smoke,
That like a broken purpose waste in air:

Platt's examples:

Nunc cantu crebro rumpunt arbusta cicadae;
Vepria
Nunc etiam in gelida sede lacerta latet.
Varia

Oilily bubbled up the mere.

1, VII, 121

-2-

.....

Thb.

Aeneid VI, 706-9 (inclusive)

-4-

....

Oilily bubbled up the mere.

1, VII, 121

-2-

.....

Aeneid VI, 706-9 (inclusive)

Et iam summa procul villarum culmina rumant,
Maioresque cadunt altis de montibus umbrae.

La tendresse des anciens jours leur revenait au coeur,
abondante et sèlencieuse comme la rivière qui coulait, avec
autant de mollesse qu'en apportait le parfum des seringas, et
projetait dans leurs souvenirs des ombres plus demesurées et
plus mélancoliques que celles des saules immobiles qui
s'allongeaient sur l'herbe.

After life's fitful fever he sleeps well,
In his own bed with his wits; —

with doubtful feet and wavering resolution
I come, still dreading thy displeasure,

Samson . . . .

Virgil

atqui sciebat quae sibi barbarus
tortor pararet; non aliter tamen
dimouit obstantis propinquos
et populum reditus morantem

quam si clientum longa negotia
diudicata lite relinqueret
tendens Venafranos in agros
aut Lacedaemonium Tarentum.

Aye, knowing well the savage rack
Would wreak its wrath on every limb,
He parted kin who held him back
And citizens who wrought with him,

Unmoved, as if, the lawsuits tried,
Of clients weary business free,
To the Venafran fields he hied,
Or Greek Tarentum by the sea.

multosque per annos -- Aeneid I:38
cerrabant acti fatis maria omnia circum.
Tantae molis erat Romanam condere gentem.

Such pains it cost to build the Roman state.

Calling for Hylas - 8th eclogue
Orpheus and Eurydice

Stabant orantes primi transmittere cursum
tendebantque manus ripae ulterioris amorae: Aen. VI. 313

M. Vare, tuum nomen, superet modo Mantua nobis,
Mantua vae miserae nimum vicina Cremonae,
cantantes sublime ferent ad sidera cycni.' -- Ec. IX. 27

Objectæ salsa spumant adspergine cautes; -- Sn. III:534

multa
Illi inter sese magne vi bracchia tollunt
in numerum, versantque tenaci forcipe massam. Aen. VIII; 452

Interea videt Aeneas in valle reducta
Seclusum nemus, et virgulta sonantia silvis,
Lethaeumque, domos placidas qui praenatat, annem.
Hunc circum innumerae gentes populique volabant;
Ac, veluti in pratis, ubi apes aestate serena
Floribus insidunt variis, et candida circum
Lilia funduntur, strepit omnis murmure campus.

Votre âme est un paysage choisi
Que vont charmant masques et bergamasques
Jouant du luth et dansant et quasi
Tristes sous leurs déguisements fantasques.

Tout en chantant sur le mode mineur
L'amour mainqueur et la vie opportune,
Ils n'ont pas l'air de croire à leur bonheur
Et leur chanson se mêle au clair de lune,

Au calme clair de lune triste et beau,
Qui fait rêver les oiseaux dans les arbres
Et sangloter d'extase les jets d'eau,
Les grands jets d'eau s'élèvent parmi les marbres.

A mole cinque-spotted, like the crimson drops
I' the bottom of a cowslip

1.

Et iam summa procul villarum culmina fumant,
Maioresque cadunt altis de montibus umbrae.

2.

La tendresse des anciens jours revenait au cœur, abondante et silencieuse comme la rivière qui coulait, avec autant de mollesse qu'en apportait le parfum des seringas, et projetait dans leurs souvenirs des ombres plus démesurées, et plus mélancoliques que celles des saules immobiles qui s'allongeaient sur l'herbe.

3.

Illi inter sese magna vi bracchia tollunt
In numerum, versantque tenaci forcipe massam. (Aeneid 8: 452)

4.

5.

Ille, inter vestes et levia pectora lapsus,
Volvitur attactu nullo, fallitque furentem,
Vipeream inspirans animam; fit tortile collo
Aurum ingens coluber, fit longae taenia vittae,
Innectitque comas, et membris lubricus errat.
Ac dum prima lues udo sub lapsa veneno
Pertentat sensus, atque ossibus implicat ignem,
Necdum animus toto percepit pectore flammam;
Mollius, et solito matrum de more, locuta est,
Multa super nata lacrimae Phrygiisque hymenaeis; (VII: 349)

1.

sub

2.

La tendresse des anciens jours revenait au coeur, abondante et
silencieuse comme la rivière qui coulait, avec autant de mollesse
qu'en apportait le parfum des seringas, et projetait dans leurs sou-
venirs des ombres plus démesurées et plus mélancoliques que celles
des saules immobiles qui s'allongeaient sur l'herbe.

3.

Illi inter sese multa magna vi bracchia tollunt
In numerum, versantque tenaci forcipe massam. (Aeneid 8: 452)

4.

5.

Ille, inter vestes et levia pectora lapsus,
Volvitur attactu nullo, fallitque furentem,
Vipeream inspirans animam; fit tot tile collo
Aurum ingens coluber, fit longae taenia vittae,
Innectitque comas, et membris lubricus errat.
Ac dum prima lues udo sublapsa veneno
Pertentat sensus, atque ossibus implicat ignem,
Necdum animus toto percepit pectore flammam;
Mollius, et solito matrum de more, locuta est,
Multa super nata lacrimas Phrygiisque hymenaeis:
(VII: 349)

1.

2.

La tendresse des anciens jours revenait au cœur, abondante et silencieuse comme la rivière qui coulait, avec autant de mollesse qu'en apportait le parfum deseringas, et projetait dans leurs souvenirs des ombres plus démesurées et plus mélancoliques que celles des saules immobiles qui s'allongeaient sur l'herbe.

3.

Illi inter sese magna vi multa bracchia tollunt
In numerum, versantque tenaci forcipe massam. (Aeneid 8: 452)

4.

5.

Ille, inter vestes et levia pectora lapsus,
Volvitur attactu nullo, fallitque furentum,
Vipeream inspirans animam; fit tobtile collo
Aurum ingens coluber, fit longae taenia vittae,
Innectitque comas, et membris lubricus errat.
Ac dum prima lues udo sublapsa veneno
Pertentat sensus, atque ossibus implicat ignem,
Necdum animus toto percepit pectore flammam;
Mollius, et solito matrum de more, locuta est,
Multa super nata lacrimas Phrygiisque hymenaeis:

(VII: 349)

1.

2.

La tendresse des anciens jours revenait au cœur, abondante et silencieuse comme la rivière qui coulait, avec autant de mollesse qu'en apportait le parfum desseringas, et projetait dans leurs souvenirs des ombres plus démesurées et plus mélancoliques que celles des saules immobiles qui s'allongeaient sur l'herbe.

3.

Illi inter sese magna vi bracchia tollunt
In numerum, versantque tenaci forcipe massam
(multa)
(Aeneid 8: 452)

4.

Vides ut alta stet niue candidum
Soracte nec iam sustineant omus
siluae laborantes geluque
flumina constiterint acuto?

5.

Ille, inter vestes et levia pectora lapsus,
Volvitur attactu nullo, fallitque furentem,
Vipeream inspirans animam; fit textile collo
Aurum ingens coluber, fit longae taenia vittae,
Innectitque comas, et membris lubricus errat,
Ac dum prima lues udo sublapsa veneno
Fertentat sensus, atque ossibus implicat ignem,
Necdum animus toto percepit pectore flammam;
Mollius, et solito matrum de more, locuta est,
Multa super nata lacrimas Phrygiisque hymenaeis:
(VII: 349)

1.

2.

La tendresse des anciens jours revenait au coeur, abondante et silencieuse comme la rivière qui coulait, avec autant de mollesse qu'en apportait le parfum des seringas, et projetait dans leurs souvenirs des ombres plus démesurées, et plus mélancoliques que celles des saules immobiles qui s'allongeaient sur l'herbe.

3.

Illi inter sese magna vi bracchia tollunt
In numerum, versantque tenaci forcipe massam (Aeneid 8: 452)

4.

5.

Ille, inter vestes et levia pectora lapsus,
Volvitur attactu nullo, fallitque furentum,
Vipeream inspirans animam; fit tortile collo
Aurum ingens coluber, fit longae taenia vittae,
Innectitque comas, et membris lubricus errat.
Ac dum prima lues udo sub lapsa veneno
Pertentat sensus, atque ossibus implicat ignem,
Necdum animus toto percepit pectore flammam;
Mollius, et solito matrum de more, locuta est,
Multa super nata lacrimas Phrygiisque hymenaeis;

(VII: 349)

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Ac dum prima lues udo sub lapsa veneno
Fertentat sensus, atque ossibus implicat ignem,
Necdum animus toto percepit pectore flammam;
Mollius, et solito matrum de more, locuta est,

614

THE NEW REPUBLIC

Books in Review

Lost Worlds

This is a time when Americans are likely to be plagued by the feeling of having lived in several worlds—that of peace and inevitable progress, that of war, that of the post-war boom and crash, and now a beleaguered island world where they listen to radio voices from Ankara and Australia, but, if they are civilians, seldom travel more than twenty miles from their own doors. Those who grew up in the rural South and those who spent many years in France have another feeling besides—that one of their worlds has foundered in the storm, leaving them among the ragged survivors. Often they try to recapture it in their memoirs, which are not at all like those which Robinson Crusoe wrote in his prosperous old age; it is rather as if the younger Crusoe on his desert island were setting down the record of his life in a society that had vanished behind the waves.

The South of post-reconstruction days is the vanished world that John Andrew Rice describes in the first brilliant chapters of "I Came Out of the Eighteenth Century."¹ He describes it nostalgically, but without hiding any of its faults from himself or the reader. It was poverty-stricken, ignorant, often brutal; it had buried itself in a past that was partly unreal; and yet, if Mr. Rice had his life to live over, he would choose to be born again in the low country around Charleston. He would choose it, he says at the end of his story, "for its long, clockless days; for its child's world for children . . . for curds, fresh cane syrup, cracklings hot out of the pot, rain on the roof and the roof of split shingles, quilts, mud chimneys cracked from the heat of light 'ood knots, muzzle loaders, calico, firecrackers at Christmas, puppies; for its simple faith in simple words, justice, freedom, happiness . . . and faith in man."

That is a faith he has never lost while roaming up and down the whole creation. He studied at Tulane and Oxford, he taught in a boys' school and three colleges, including the almost unbelievable Rollins, and finally he helped to found another college, Black Mountain, that promised to be the most interesting educational experiment of the last twenty years. To judge from his comments on men and events, he must be an unusually stimulating teacher, but there are qualities derived from his South Carolina background—pride, independence, stubborn integrity—that make it hard for him to get along with bureaucrats or boards of regents. His recent years have been full of alterations, and Mr. Rice doesn't enjoy talking about them. The end of his book makes me think of a train plunging through the night with its curtains drawn and ending its run at what should be only a way station. But Mr. Rice writes superbly when describing his Grandmother Smith's plantation in the red clay hills and his Grandmother Rice's plantation in the lowlands—indeed, whenever he deals with the lost country of his boyhood.

¹ I Came Out of the Eighteenth Century, by John Andrew Rice. New York: Harper and Brothers. 351 pages. $3.

For Julian Green, the lost country is Paris. He was born and reared there, he wrote his novels there—in French, about French people—and had it not been for the German invasion, he would be living there today. Once in his early life, he was absent from Paris for three years; it was when he was a student at the University of Virginia. He says that on his return, "an extraordinary elation took hold of me. . . . I realized that I had longed so desperately for Paris that I had never left it in spirit, because I was part of it just as it was a part of me." This longing for a now irrecoverable Paris is the real theme of his twelfth book, the first he has written in English.

"Memories of Happy Days" ² is not the sort of autobiography that one expects from any novelist, French or American. It reveals no great interest in French society, and a deliberate innocence about French politics. More surprising still, it is not much concerned with Frenchmen as individuals, most of the people who enter the story being vaguely characterized and almost faceless. Even Jean Cocteau remains a ghost, although it is evident that Mr. Green was deeply impressed by him. "As I write this," he says, "I realize how woefully inadequate my words must sound in their efforts to describe what escapes description; it is like trying to convey an idea of the flight of a bird to a blind man"—but that, after all, is the author's task, and Mr. Green evades it. Moreover, he shows no particular desire for self-revelation. He tells the story of how he became a novelist, and it is interesting though scarcely unusual, except for the speed with which he achieved success; but nowhere does he reveal his secret thoughts, and he makes himself seem rather colorless, which I am sure is a false impression. His book gives us one thing, however, and that is a mood, a powerful feeling of nostalgia growing out of simple and apparently neutral statements of what he did or saw. Here as in his novels, he succeeds by strictly prosaic methods in achieving the effects of poetry.

The lost world described in Kay Boyle's new book is essentially the same as that evoked by Julian Green, but she deals with its last moments, so that she might almost be writing a sequel to his story. "Primer for Combat" ³ is published as a novel; in reality it is a mixture of personal narrative and fiction. It is presented as a diary that might have been kept by the author herself, and that says what she thinks about the fall of France, but also it contains an invented plot in the shape of a love story symbolizing the dilemma of people trapped by Hitler's conquests. Incidentally, it is the first of her books that is written from beginning to end in straightforward English prose that keeps one reading ahead even when it deals with trivial matters.

As a comment on the French defeat, the book is accurate, honest and much better informed than most of its predecessors, although it does not greatly change the picture we have formed already. As a novel, it suffers from having

² Memories of Happy Days, by Julian Green. New York: Harper and Brothers. 332 pages. $3.

³ Primer for Combat, by Kay Boyle. New York: Simon and Schuster. 320 pages. $2.50.

NOVEMBER 9, 1942

613

yards building new ships. However, it is pretty difficult to get a layman serving on a draft board to distinguish between a shipfitter in a yard building new ships, who is performing the same routine task over and over again, and a shipfitter in a repair yard, who has to do a different kind of job every day and figure it out by the exercise of mechanical ingenuity.

On the whole I feel that we have gotten reasonably fair consideration from our local draft boards. The basic difficulty, it seems to me, is that the military authorities are trying to build too large an army in too short a time. The pressure which is exerted on the draft boards to furnish their quotas is so great that they cannot give a great deal of thought to individual cases. It seems to me from what I know of our industrial program in this war that we are not so situated that we can equip, transport and supply an army of even seven million people at the present time. If we cripple industry to build this enormous army in the next few months, what good will it do us? There will not be ships and planes to transport them to foreign battlefields and keep them supplied. I am afraid that we are going to have a situation where the production of material lags while millions of soldiers sit around in training camps.

It will be possible for many industries to call heavily upon the employment of women to solve their problems. I am afraid that this is hardly a practical solution for a ship-repair plant, where the work is rough and dirty and where there is so much climbing up and down vertical ladders to be done. There are a few crafts where we could use women if absolutely forced to, but for the most part they are semi-skilled trades such as welding and burning, where the training problem is not so acute.

There is another labor resource which we are only beginning to exploit—that is the latent capacities of Negroes, who are now being used mostly for unskilled work. For the long pull the acceptance of Negroes into shipyard crafts will help a great deal, but it will not give us much relief during the next few critical months during which the war could be lost by the rigid pursuance of a mistaken policy.

I have no doubt that a case can be made against industry for lack of foresight in its labor procurement and training policies, but the question is now, it seems to me, not who is to blame but how should we proceed in order to fight the war most effectively.

Baltimore, Md.

FRANK S. HOPKINS

## Joyce as Revolutionary

SIR: To all of us who knew James Joyce, not only through his work, but through the privilege of participation in his daily life, a book such as Harry Levin has written, or even a criticism of that book such as appeared over Max Lerner's signature in your number of September 28, contains so much that is gratifying that objections would seem to indicate an oversensitive loyalty to the memory of a friend. There do exist here as elsewhere, however, certain misconceptions concerning the broader significance of Joyce's intentions, and since the Lerner article crystallizes these misconceptions, I should like to reply to it, in the hope that my testimony may render a modest service for further examination of the work of this great artist.

Mr. Lerner writes as follows: "In 'Finnegans Wake' the history of the Earwicker family forms the flimsiest of ties between our actual world and the wild and yet cunning construction of the most fabulous artificiol in literary history.... His writings are all elaborations... infinitely complex variations on a theme which, even when discovered, does not seem terribly important. ... But while he organizes all else, he gives us no framework for his illuminations."

None of the critics of Joyce's last book seems to have perceived the deep social conviction it contains and which is resumed in the title itself. Finnegan, for Joyce, was the eternally comic Irishman, the fellow who, having started out in life as

the great Finn, of heroic stature, had fallen to the position of the down-trodden, drunken hodcarrier of the song, the man that everybody laughed at, the bum, the good-for-nothing. But Finnegan was also the under-dog, the common people, not only of Ireland—which, for Joyce, was symbolical of the same personal humiliation he had known in his impoverished, chaotic family life—but also of the entire world. When Joyce dropped the apostrophe of the title of the song "Finnegan's Wake," he really gave expression to his belief in the destiny of humble people. "Watch out," he said, not only to England's ruling classes, but to ruling classes everywhere, "Finnegans (do) wake." And no sooner had he said it than, indeed, they did begin to wake and their awakening is revealing them to be of giant stature (a story about the finding of giant bones, you will remember, having been at the origin of the writing of this extraordinary work).

This can be only a hint, but I should like to suggest that Mr. Lerner and all those who are inclined to dismiss Joyce's themes as "not seeming terribly important," look again. They will find, first of all, a very young man indignant at the hypocrisy, stupidity and injustice he saw about him. Later, they will find him passionately concerned with man's relation to God, with his terrible choice between this world and the next, with the mystery of artistic creation, with the eternal problems of good and evil, of sex and death.

Then, as his own life unfolded, by compressing into an ancient mold that symbolizes man's eternal nostalgias and wanderings all the little incidents, the jokes, the tragedies, the hopes and disillusions that make up the daily lives of simple people in a modern city, he conferred on these mediocre lives a kinship with an older, legendary pattern of human experience that relieves their sordidness and lightens their burden.

Finally, taking all humanity, all nature for his canvas, this incomparable artist left no source untapped, to give us, in a single volume, a complete image of mankind throughout the ages; of his legends and myths, his arts and sciences, his languages, his struggles, his games, his dreams. Here, whether he records the gossip of humble women washing clothes by an Irish river, or the delicate yearning of a cloud to return to its father the sea, there is no word, no incident in this tale of the sleeping giant that has not been conceived in an all-embracing sympathy for man's destiny, a consoling faith in his oneness with nature.

To me, Joyce's themes do seem "terribly important." I do not believe, either, that they are so hidden by artistic virtuosity that they may not be discovered. On the contrary, I am convinced that in the end, it is the enormous intelligence, the rare spiritual and human qualities that characterized the man and, therefore, characterize his work, which, even more than its brilliant form, will assure its permanent and unique place in the world's literature.

Mt. Vernon, N. Y

MARIA JOLAS

## From The New Republic Mail Bag

C. L. Reed of West Newbury, Massachusetts, writes to praise the editorial "Rendezvous in Moscow" in the October 12 issue, which described, in fancy, the conversation which might have been truthfully spoken by Wendel Willkie and Joseph Stalin. "Before it had got down to earth again, along came your October 19 issue with 'Willkie Speaks Out.' Those two articles are worth the subscription." F. Petrick, of Los Angeles, also writes to commend the Willkie editorials.

William B. Glover, who owns an avocado grove near Los Angeles, writes that though he has lost money over a period of years, he still does not favor the setting of prices of farm products at profiteering levels, which he believes many growers' associations are attempting to do.

Sec. 2347. Money to be returned for receipts. Each such licensed person shall give to each applicant for employment from whom a fee or other valuable thing shall be received for procuring such employment, a receipt in which shall be stated the name of the applicant, the amount of such fee or other valuable thing, the date and the name or nature of the employment or situation to be procured and a separate receipt in which shall be stated the name and address of the person or persons to whom the applicant shall be referred or sent for employment or work. In case the applicant shall not obtain or accept a situation or employment through the agency of such licensed person, such licensed person shall forthwith return to such applicant upon demand the amount of the fee or the valuable thing paid or delivered to such licensed person. In case the applicant shall accept the situation with the person to whom he has been referred, such applicant shall forfeit the fee or valuable thing paid as aforesaid. Each such receipt shall have printed on its back, in the English language, a copy of this section, and each licensed person shall cause a plain and legibly printed copy of this section to be posted in a conspicuous place in such agency or place of business. No person shall display, on any sign or window or in any publication, the name, "The Connecticut Free Public Employment Bureau," or a name similar thereto.