CREATING POSTCOLONIAL NATIONAL HEROES: the REVISIONIST MYTHS of W.B. YEATS and JAMES JOYCE a Dissertation Submitted to Kent

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CREATING POSTCOLONIAL NATIONAL HEROES: THE REVISIONIST MYTHS OF W.B.

YEATS AND JAMES JOYCE

A dissertation submitted

to Kent State University in partial

fulfillment of the requirements for the

degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Heather McCracken

December 2016

Dissertation written by

Heather McCracken

B.A., Sam Houston State University, 2009

M.A., Sam Houston State University, 2011

Ph.D., Kent State University 2016

Approved by

Claire Culleton , Chair, Doctoral Dissertation Committee

Kevin Floyd , Members, Doctoral Dissertation Committee

Tammy Clewell ,

Patrick G. Coy ,

Kenneth J. Bindas ,

Accepted by

Robert Trogdon , Chair, Department of English

James L. Blank , Dean, College of Arts and Sciences

TABLE OF CONTENTS ...... iii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...... iv

CHAPTER 1 Critical Introduction: A Marxist Postcolonial Approach To Revisionist Myth ...... 1

CHAPTER 2 Postcolonial Politics of Irish History ...... 30

CHAPTER 3 Imagining a National Mythic Culture ...... 74

CHAPTER 4 Yeats’s Cuchulain Cycle ...... 107

CHAPTER 5 Joyce’s Irish Epic ...... 160

CHAPTER 6 Conclusion ...... 206

REFERENCES ...... 212

iii Acknowledgments

I want to begin by thanking my committee for providing me the support and feedback that made this dissertation possible. Claire Culleton, Kevin Floyd, Tammy Clewell, and Patrick Coy contributed to this project, and I am so grateful for the dedication and care that they put into their assessment of my dissertation. Specifically, I want to thank Claire for helping me finish my dissertation from a distance and introducing me to the endlessly fascinating world of James Joyce scholarship; Kevin for having long conversations with me over coffee about Marxism, fueling and encouraging my interest in Theodor Adorno and Fredric Jameson, answering all of my panicked emails, and questioning and therefore strengthening my arguments; Tammy for inspiring not only my scholarship but my teaching as well and helping me adjust to being a doctoral student; Pat for taking a real interest in my work and providing the valuable insight of a scholar outside of my field. Along with my committee I also want to thank all of my colleagues and professors at Kent State University for supporting me over the last five years.

My earliest inspirations that first put me on the path to this dissertation were my colleagues and professors at Sam Houston State University, and I want to take a moment to thank one person in particular that shaped my understanding of what it means to be a teacher and a scholar. I was sitting in an undergraduate American Literature class taught by Drew Lopenzina when I discovered the kind of professor I wanted to be someday. Outside of the classroom he gave me the courage to pursue an academic career while being honest about the very real difficulties of doing so. His scholarship has inspired me in a number of ways over the years, and he continues to be a valuable source of encouragement and advice. The only way I can think to repay him for his guidance and friendship is to emulate his commitment to compassion in all aspects of my life.

I also want to thank all of the friends and family members who supported me over the years. I especially want to thank my mom, who has been my biggest cheerleader since before I can remember. I honestly can’t imagine getting to this point without her encouragement. She always believed in me, even when I didn’t believe in myself. I also want to thank one particular friend who went above and beyond in the last year of my dissertation writing process. Seth Johnson spent countless hours providing advice, encouragement, and suggestions that I will forever be grateful for. I am fully confident that one day Seth will make a fantastic dissertation director.

Because it would be impossible to list all of the ways that Chris McCracken has contributed to the completion of this dissertation I will attempt to thank him in one sentence:

This dissertation is dedicated to Chris, who let me share his name.

iv Chapter 1

Critical Introduction: A Marxist Postcolonial Approach to Revisionist Myth

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, Irish authors created and established one of the most important cultural movements in Irish history: the Irish Literary Renaissance.

These authors sought to give Ireland a literary culture that would serve as counterpart to its political, economic, and military campaigns for freedom from English rule. This dissertation was inspired by the men and women participating in the Irish Literary Renaissance who believed that a nation’s literature directly reflected its identity and, reciprocally, that writers can consciously construct national identity through their works. While each of these authors attempted this identity construction in different ways, they all were acutely aware of their potential role in the nation-making process. In order to understand why these authors embarked on this kind of national project, a basic knowledge of Ireland’s colonial history is necessary. A writer’s environment can have a profound effect on his or her work, especially if this environment is as volatile and oppressive as Ireland was while the nation suffered under British colonial rule. This environment served as the inspiration and motivation for the authors of the Irish Literary

Renaissance.

Beginning in 1169 with the Anglo-Norman Invasion, the colonization of the Irish resulted in centuries of violence, the confiscation of lands, resources, and sovereignty, and the near total destruction of Ireland’s native culture and language. While the Irish continually fought against this occupation, most rebellions ended in nothing more than failure and stricter colonial rule. The long and bitter battle for decolonization was not officially won until the War of Independence

1 (1919-1921), which resulted in the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922. Many factors contributed to this extended, eight-century colonial rule, including ambivalence and division among the Irish along with the calculated oppression of Irish culture. In an attempt to maintain control over the Irish, the English worked toward the eventual destruction of the native culture in order to whittle away any native claims to the colonized land. Geographic proximity helped the

English more easily assimilate the Irish to British culture, replacing the native Irish culture and ushering in centuries of colonial oppression. However, there were concentrated efforts to oppose colonial rule, including the literary movement led by authors such as W.B. Yeats, James Joyce,

J.M. Synge, and Lady Augusta Gregory which worked to combat cultural destruction by showing that not only could the “wild Irish” write, but that they also had a rich native culture long before the colonization of Ireland began. As Fredric Jameson argued in his groundbreaking essay

“Third-World Literature in the Era of Multinational Capitalism” (1986), writers living and working in a colonized nation create national allegories by presenting the individual experience as political allegory for the wider national experience. This dissertation examines the ways in which W.B. Yeats and James Joyce, by engaging in revisionist myth-making in order to create new culture heroes, consciously participated in creating the kind of national allegories Jameson refers to in his essay.1 It is my argument that these authors chose revisionist myth because it was a way of giving new life to old stories for the purpose of revitalizing and cultivating a distinctly

Irish culture separate from the English culture instituted and spread by colonization. This cultural project was not merely an assertion of identity, as culture was itself a vital part of achieving independence from English rule.

1 I borrow the term “culture hero” from Ato Quayson’s Calibrations (2003). This term is discussed in detail in chapter 3.

2 Ireland’s “Celtic Calibans”

While postcolonial theory has gained considerable prominence over the last two decades,

Ireland has not always been part of this critical conversation. Recently, however, scholars have begun to seriously consider Ireland’s role as a colonized nation thanks in part to projects like

Ireland and Postcolonial Theory, released in 2003. In this collection of essays, Irish studies scholars address the problem of Ireland’s postcolonial status by examining the similarities between the Irish colonial experience and more traditionally studied colonial nations. In the book’s introduction, Clare Carroll opens the debate by explaining some of the common objections to Ireland’s colonial status. Carroll explains that “Ireland, because part of the West, both geographically and culturally in Europe, is seen by some as a transgressive site for postcolonial theory that has been generated from Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America, and Asia”

(1-3). Ireland is often considered too English to have been actually oppressed by English rule.

The reason that this claim poses a problem for Ireland’s inclusion in postcolonial scholarship is because, for postcolonial scholars, the colonized native is necessarily subjected to discrimination and cultural racism by the colonizers in order to maintain dominance over the colony. In other words, for colonization to be successful, the colonized natives must be seen as fundamentally different and lesser than the colonizer. If the Irish were seen as no different than the English then

Ireland would not fit this established colonial narrative. However, the Irish were not seen as

English by the English. Ireland is not the exception to this rule because the Irish were very much so subject to discrimination and cultural racism by the English. Because of studies like Ireland and Postcolonial Theory, it is now generally agreed upon by postcolonial scholars that Ireland experienced colonization; however, there are some unique qualities of this colonization that set

3 Ireland apart from other nations that help make sense of the motivations of Irish authors like

Yeats and Joyce.

The somewhat unconventional form of discrimination against the Irish race is one thing that made the Irish experience unique. Anne McClintock’s Imperial Leather: Race, Gender, and

Sexuality in the Colonial Context (1996) examines the ways in which discrimination has been used by colonizers throughout history in every part of the world, including Ireland. She argues that discrimination in a colonial situation is used as a means to “police the ‘degenerate’ classes . . . who were collectively figured as racial deviants, atavistic throwbacks to a primitive moment in human prehistory” (McClintock 43). Colonial powers have historically used discrimination as a tool to demoralize and manipulate native subjects into believing that they require intervention and aid in the form of colonial rule. This allows the colonizer to claim the humanitarian motivation of progress and improvement while, in reality, the goals are that of expansion and exploitation at the cost of the colonized. Therefore, it is important to understand the forms of discrimination used in colonial situations. In the case of the Irish, McClintock explains, the concept of the “Celtic Caliban” was used to establish the otherness of the Irish in relation to the English. This was accomplished in a variety of ways, but some of the most documented examples can be found in representations of the Irish in English newspapers.

Political cartoons often depicted the Irish as wild beasts, unintelligent, drunk, lazy, and violent.

This discrimination was obvious at the time, as McClintock shows by quoting political economist Gustave de Molinari who noted in 1880 that it was common practice for England’s newspapers to “allow no occasion to escape them of treating the Irish as an inferior race—as a kind of white negroes” (52). Molinari is referring to the kinds of images often found in publications such as the satirical newspaper Punch. For example, a cartoon printed in 1849

4 depicts an Irish man carrying a sack of relief money sent in response to the Great Famine as an ape riding on the back of an English worker (see fig. 1). This unsympathetic representation suggests that giving aid to the lazy and uncivilized Irish is done so at the cost of hardworking

Englishmen, while also implying that the money would be wasted on the ape-like Irishmen.

THE ENGLISH LABOURER'S BURDEN;

Or, THE IRISH OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN. [See Sinlad the Sailor.

Fig. 1. Irish peasant depicted as an ape riding on the back of English laborer, cartoon from Punch

Magazine (London, 1849; print; 79), courtesy of University of Michigan and HathiTrust.

5 In Angels and Apes: The Irishman in Victorian Caricature (1997) L. Perry Curtis explains the significance of these kinds of animalistic representations of the Irish. Curtis writes,

“[t]he assumption that physical features and mental or emotional states are bound together in the same physiological system is an ancient one. . . By the early 1800s physiognomical dogma had become part of the popular scientific folklore, and men from all walks of life in every part of

Europe relied to some degree on this method of ‘seeing through’ their neighbors as well as strangers from other lands” (5). The fact that English cartoonists decided to represent the Irish as apes is, therefore, very significant because of this belief that physical appearance was a reliable marker of a person’s moral being. As Curtis notes, these visual representations of the Irish—

“the simous nose, long upper lip, huge, projecting mouth, and jutting lower jaw as well as sloping forehead”—were unmistakable signs that these people were “monstrous Celtic

Caliban[s] capable of any crime known to man or beast” (29). The Irish were, in other words, unintelligent, violent, lazy, savage, dirty, and capable of any other number of undesirable moral and social corruptions. While this visual representation of the Irish was a fairly new occurrence in the nineteenth century, these discriminatory assumptions about the Irish were much older.

A particularly telling example of this kind of colonial discrimination can be found as early as 1596 when Edmund Spenser was writing his A View of the Present State of Ireland.2

Originally brought to Ireland to work for the colonial government,3 Spenser lived in Ireland from

1580 until his death in 1598, and during his time in the country he formed a very unfavorable

2 Although Spenser’s work was completed by 1598, it was not published until 1633. 3 As Andrew Hadfield notes in his Edmund Spenser biography (2014), whether or not the author wanted to go to Ireland is unclear: “It is a matter of considerable controversy whether Spenser was exiled to Ireland against his will, having committed some sort of misdemeanor—possibly having offended Lord Burghley, [Queen] Elizabeth's Principal Secretary, in an early manuscript version of the satirical complaint, Mother Hubberds Tale—or whether he chose to pursue a lucrative career as an official in Ireland” (3). Hadfield directs interested readers to The Artist and Society in Shakespeare's English: The Collected Papers of Muriel Bradbrook, Volume I (1982) and Brendan Bradshaw, Andrew Hadfield and Willy Maley's Representing Ireland: Literature and the Origins of Conflict (1993) for a full account of these two positions (19).

6 opinion of his Irish neighbors. In his treatise, Spenser provides detailed descriptions of various

Irish customs as barbaric and savage, indicating that his dislike for the Irish initially stemmed from their cultural habits. Based on his observations, Spenser came to the conclusion that the only solution to the Irish problem was “the sword; for all these evills must first be cut away by a strong hand” (93). Spenser describes Ireland as a “nation ever acquainted with warres [wars], though but among themselves” where laws are determined by primitive traditions (14). However, his biggest concern was that the Irish might have an unhealthy effect on English colonists living in Ireland. Spenser was very worried about the possibility of the English taking on “Irish habits and customes, which could never since be cleane wyped away” (69-70). Spenser was particularly disturbed by the “speaking of Irish among the English” because he believed it to be the “cause of many other evills” (70). Along with marrying the Irish, speaking Irish was one of the “two most dangerous infections” that an Englishman could contract while living in Ireland (71). What is most telling about Spenser’s concern is the cruel hatred he expresses toward the Irish as a degenerate race. The language Spenser adopts is more appropriate for describing a deadly virus than a group of people. Spenser was certainly not the first Englishman to make these kinds of observations, but his publication provides compelling examples of the kind of racial hatred that the Irish faced. While this shows that the Irish were, like other colonized populations, subject to discrimination, it is impossible to ignore the fact that the Irish are, physically, the same as the

English. After all, the Irish are white, and therefore the Irish faced a unique form of racial hatred that disregarded skin color.

McClintock confronts this issue in her book by arguing that skin color is not the only indicator of otherness. In the case of the Irish, the English focused more on cultural habits and customs than physical traits. According to McClintock, there was an English assumption that

7 “cultural features of the Irish marked them as a race of ‘Celtic Calibans’ quite distinct from the

Anglo-Saxons” (52). It was the culture of the Irish that the English viewed as other; specifically,

McClintock notes that the English claimed that the Irish accent was barbaric, echoing Spenser’s distaste for the Irish language. And yet, even when the Irish adopted the English language and abandoned their native language, their accent betrayed their otherness. In addition to speech, the domestic habits of the Irish were also a source of discrimination. McClintock argues that it was believed that that there was a “domestic barbarism of the Irish” as indicated by their supposed

“slovenly lack of dedication to domestic order” (53). The English held the Irish to their own domestic standards and cultural traditions without any consideration or understanding of native customs. Anything about the Irish that did not conform to English standards and beliefs was viewed as primitive and used to mark the Irish as an inferior race. Even after the assimilation of

English customs, as in the case of language adoption, the Irish were considered beneath the

English. As in other colonial situations, this intentional discrimination against the Irish successfully resulted in forcing the colonized native into the role of the subordinate to the ruling

English colonizer. While the English maintained control over Ireland for the benefit and profit of the Empire, the discrimination that the Irish faced branded Irish culture as barbaric and not worth cultivating. Despite England’s attempt to completely eradicate Irish culture through this process, revitalization of the native culture eventually aided in Ireland’s fight to overcome English oppression.

The Role of Mythic Literature

Culture, in the hands of native authors, can be an invaluable tool to fight colonial oppression by establishing a much-needed sense of national pride through the construction of an anti-colonial nationalism. In Benedict Anderson’s foundational work, Imagined Communities:

8 Reflections on the Origin and the Spread of Nationalism (2006), he offers a broad definition of nationalism that begins to explain a national cultural project like the one in Ireland. Anderson understands the nation as “an imagined political community . . . imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign” (6). Nationalism, according to Anderson, is imagined in the sense that the members of these communities will “never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion” (6). Moreover,

Anderson posits that this sense of community, despite the fact that it is imagined through cultural expressions, is no less significant and carries with it a “profound emotional legitimacy” (4).

Nationalisms are constructed in order to promote the ideals and values that the nation as whole, or the individual artist, believes to be most important. The way in which these values and beliefs are disseminated is through cultural products like literature. Yeats and Joyce, through their writing, took part in this kind of national imagining. Rather than taking up arms against the

English, these authors contributed to the cause by reimagining and shaping Irish culture.

Believing that nationalism can be imagined, created, and shaped through literature, the goal of this dissertation is to show how exactly Yeats’s and Joyce’s works participated in the creation of a distinctly early twentieth-century Irish national culture using revisionist myth.

Yeats’s view of Irish national culture was dictated by his belief that the authentic culture of Ireland could be found in the ancient myths and folktales that had been largely forgotten through the process of colonization. Yeats felt that colonization had wiped out most traces of a pre-colonial history in Ireland, so much so that the Irish had forgotten their own stories and culture and replaced them with English culture. Yeats’s concern was that the Irish believed that they had no culture of their own—and no distinctly Irish identity—so he looked to ancient stories to remind the Irish that they had a rich literary past worth celebrating. To make these stories

9 popular once again, Yeats retells them in his poems, prose, and plays. A particularly interesting example of Yeats’s cultural project are his Cuchulain plays, which feature his appropriation of the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology. Yeats’s Cuchulain cycle comprises five plays, each of them treating a particular episode in the life of the Irish mythical hero Cuchulain: On Baile’s Strand

(1903), The Green Helmet (1908), At the Hawk’s Well (1917), The Only Jealousy of Emer

(1919), and The Death of Cuchulain (1939). Yeats’s plays are imaginative revisions designed to serve his nationalistic agenda of promoting an Irish culture separate from that of England’s.

These revisions also allowed Yeats to express his own concerns with the state of Ireland and attempt to promote the kind of Irish nationalism he thought would benefit the Irish cause the most. The personal and political struggles that Yeats faced as a postcolonial author become very apparent in his Cuchulain cycle, since the plays simultaneously express his frustrations with the

Irish and his hopes for an Ireland ruled by the Irish. While Yeats often felt disillusioned and angry with the Irish, he continued to believe that a national culture was absolutely necessary and would undoubtedly benefit Ireland.

Similarly frustrated with the Irish, Joyce often questioned his countrymen’s ability to improve their lives in any capacity. His disillusioned attitude toward the Irish led to his decision to leave his home country, but it did not stop him from contributing to the creation of an Irish culture that reflected his view of the nation. In Ulysses (1922), Joyce creates a new kind of epic, not just for Ireland but also for the modern world, since Joyce wanted Ireland to be in touch with international trends and to show the world a more realistic representation of the Irish. In doing so, Joyce’s epic required a different kind of hero than the unrealistic, overzealous image of a

Cuchulain-like figure that remained firmly locked in the past. In place of this, Joyce created

Leopold Bloom, using Odysseus as his mythic inspiration. Joyce’s revisionist Odysseus is an

10 accumulation of the past and the present, a modern cosmopolitan hero to serve as a model for what Ireland’s future might look like if it produced more men like Bloom, a “cultured allroundman” (Ulysses 235; 10.581).4 Bloom’s completeness, combined with his unique position as a hybrid colonial figure—as a Jewish man from a family that only recently emigrated to

Ireland from Hungary—makes him perfectly suited for the role of Irish national hero during a time in Ireland’s history when Joyce believed the Irish desperately needed guidance. Like Yeats,

Joyce believed that the disorganized, divided, and ambivalent state of Ireland was preventing anti-colonial projects from making real progress. This canonical novel reveals Joyce’s unique brand of Irish national culture, just as the Cuchulain plays reveal Yeats’s version of Irish national culture. Although each author had different, sometimes contradictory, opinions about Ireland and how best to help the nation, it is significant that they both turned to mythology—and, more specifically, mythic heroes—for inspiration.

It is my argument that Yeats and Joyce used revisionist myth for their national projects because they understood the value of myth in the process of creating a national identity. In 1968

Vladimir Propp changed the way that literary scholars thought about myth by demonstrating in

Morphology of the Folktale how every fairytale or myth follows a preset narrative structure, meaning that a storyteller need only follow a predetermined formula to craft a myth. Building from this, Claude Levi-Strauss argues in Myth and Meaning: Cracking the Code of Culture

(1978) that the ordered nature of myth is especially attractive to us because it “gives man, very importantly, the illusion that he can understand the universe and that he does understand the universe” (17). Levi-Strauss argues that myth, not only because of its ordered structure and predictability, is used as a way of explaining why and how people in our society do things. Both

4 All Ulysses citations include the page numbers from the complete and unabridged edition first published in the United States in 1961 followed by the episode and line numbers from the 1986 Hans Walter Gabler corrected text edition.

11 of these critics express a belief that is central to this dissertation: the structured nature of myth, along with the fact that it often establishes and reflects societal values and beliefs, has made it a timeless and infinitely appropriable literary mode. Considering this, it is not surprising that authors continue to look to myth for inspiration, just as scholars continue to study myth in order to understand the power it possess. In Why Fairytales Stick (2006), Jack Zipes expands upon the earlier works by Propp and Levi-Strauss and argues that myth is contagious because it “contains positive and negative effects within socialization processes,” and that it “carries relevant information that enables us to know the world” (94). Like Levi-Strauss, Zipes suggests not only that myth is timeless as a means of establishing order, but also that these stories are a way of understanding the world we live in—a way to spread messages, values, beliefs, or, in the case of

Yeats and Joyce, anti-colonial nationalisms.

Simply retelling myths from the past, however, is not enough. Zipes explains that myth is

“remembered, interpreted, adopted, and reproduced” in order to “contribute to the formation of a community and culture” (11). When people choose to retell a learned myth, Zipes suggests they do so not by copying the myth exactly but by revising it in a manner that is most relevant to the current sociocultural context. Zipes argues that as long as myth fulfills these conditions, it will always be relevant. For Yeats, revision enabled him to make Ireland’s myths applicable to contemporary life while also reviving what seemed to be a dead mythology that paralleled the lack of a national culture. Joyce revised the Odyssey to bring his readers out of an Irish past and into a global present while simultaneously shaping Irish national culture. As myth is a means of ordering the world, establishing societal norms, these revisionist myths had the potential to communicate what it meant to be Irish in a twentieth-century colonial, and then postcolonial,

Ireland. As storytellers, Yeats and Joyce played with the preset narrative structure of the myths

12 that inspired their works, and turned them into vehicles for their vision of Irish nationalism to help Ireland deal with the scars of colonialism. In other words, it was Ireland’s colonial history that made revisionist myth, as a means of establishing a national identity, a desirable method for

Yeats and Joyce.

Myths, much more than simple entertainment, carry with them a community’s history and culture. For this reason, myths hold a great deal of importance in the decolonization process.

Frantz Fanon, in his pioneering work on colonization and culture, The Wretched of the Earth

(1966), provides one explanation for this. According to Fanon, while physical violence marks the first encounter of colonization, the colonizer quickly realizes that a more long-term solution is required to manufacture a claim to the colonized land and people. As previously discussed, one way this is done is through racial discrimination, but Fanon argues that the destruction of native culture is also used to establish superiority over the native population. Laws that require natives to take up the customs of the colonizer are created and enforced, and the history of the nation itself is carefully rewritten and disseminated throughout the colony. However, the colonized is often unaware of this slow, and sometimes subtle, cultural destruction because he is, according to

Fanon, primarily concerned with the land since it is the land that will provide “bread and, above all, dignity” (36). While the natives are focused on recovering land, the colonizer continues to dismantle any claims the natives may have to a national culture. Despite the many ways in which the colonizer goes about destroying the culture of the colonized nation, Fanon argues that there is refuge in the form of myth. The native turns to pre-colonial myths that have been passed down through generations to give her a picture of what the nation was like before colonization. Fanon explains that these myths educate the native in the traditions and the history of the nation without the influence of the colonizer. The culture of the colonized survives in these myths; therefore, it

13 is through myth that a national culture can be established. However, Fanon argues that these

“stories, epics and songs of the people” must undergo a kind of change—must be revised and updated—in order to be relevant to the nation so that the people may relate to the old stories in a new way that will speak to their present condition (240). Fanon explains that native storytellers make old stories relevant by changing details in the stories in ways that “bring conflicts up to date and to modernize the kinds of struggles which the stories evoke” so that native audiences will more easily connect to the stories of their past (240). What Fanon is describing is the use of revisionist myth as a means of creating a national consciousness in order to give birth to an anti- colonial national identity. In this way, for colonized nations like Ireland, ancient stories from the nation’s pre-colonial history can be a source of national pride.

As these myths are given new life and pre-colonial culture is reintroduced, a distinctly anti-colonial nationalism can arise. In Anomalous States: Irish Writing and the Post-Colonial

Moment (1993), David Lloyd emphasizes the importance of mythology in Ireland’s case by claiming that “underdeveloped cultures such as Ireland’s must turn to literary institutions” in order to create unity in the nation, while more developed countries, like England, can rely on political constitution to maintain order (91). Lloyd’s argument is that unity must exist in a nation if decolonization is going to succeed, and one way of achieving this unity is through the establishment of a national consciousness through a national culture. Lloyd points to two elements that can bring about a national consciousness and unity: a national epic and a national genius to write it. In Lloyd’s opinion, the best way to establish a national consciousness is through the creation of a national epic because “the function of the epic may be seen not only as the unification of a culture but also, in a quite specific sense, as the production of a dialogic subversion of the colonizing powers” (Anomalous States 90). He adds that the project of creating

14 a national epic requires collecting and giving new life to the ancient myths of the nation.5 For

Lloyd, the epic is ideal for the creation of a national culture because it can become a timeless artifact by representing a nation’s history and culture, since it draws on pre-colonial myths.

Colonialism cannot destroy the old myths, the traditions, and the history they possess as long as native authors continue to revive them for native audiences. This point is reinforced by several postcolonial scholars who argue that native authors and native literature have the power to dismantle the colonizer’s seemingly impervious grasp.

In Inventing Ireland: The Literature of the Modern Nation (1995), Declan Kiberd says that the creation of a national culture in the form of literature is a means of “[d]enying that the colonizer alone had the power to represent the native,” and in turn it “permits the colonized to represent themselves” (646). For Kiberd, literature that contributes to a national culture has the power to “recover many voices drowned out by official regimes” (646). Therefore, if Ireland could take back control over its own narrative, it could then create an identity, a national consciousness, separate from England and move toward unity and decolonization. Literature’s ability to create culture is invaluable to the colonial situation. However, culture and the nationalism that it carries with it are complicated because colonization itself is a complicated situation that can change the way that culture and nationalism function. To fully appreciate this cultural phenomenon, it is worth returning to what Anderson said about nationalisms being imagined. The colonizer attempts to use culture in order to oppress native populations by shaping a very specific narrative about the colonized. This is also the case when the colonized realizes the full potential of native culture and chooses to recreate a national identity to establish an anti- colonial nationalism. Those with the ability to shape the narrative control it, and what they

5 As Lloyd notes, it is these kinds of national “ballads and folk-songs on which it was believed such epics as Homer’s were founded” (Anomalous States 91).

15 choose to include, or exclude, is sometimes at odds with other emerging iterations of national identity. Since this is the case with Yeats and Joyce, it is necessary to have a theoretical framework that is capable of sorting through and dealing with competing notions of national culture and national identity.

A Postcolonial Marxist Analysis of Nationalism and Culture

When Friedrich Engels toured Ireland in 1856 he wrote to Karl Marx that “Ireland may be regarded as England’s first colony . . . one can already notice here that the so-called liberty of

English citizens is based on the oppression of the colonies;” Ireland, as he saw it, was

“completely ruined by the English wars of conquest” (Ireland and the Irish Question 83-84).

Marx himself claimed that decolonization in Ireland would lead to revolution elsewhere: “If

England is the bulwark of landlordism and European capitalism, the only point where one can hit official England really hard is Ireland. . . . If it fell in Ireland it would fall in England” (Ireland and the Irish Question 161). These observations reveal a crucial fact about the colonization of

Ireland that this dissertation must address: colonialism and capitalism are intrinsically connected and this relationship contributed, and in many ways still contributes, to the struggles in Ireland.

While both Marx and Engels recognized the correlation between the struggles of the working class and colonial nations such as Ireland, the relationship between the fields of scholarship dedicated to studying these topics individually—Marxism and postcolonial theory—are often considered incompatible. And yet, a theoretical framework that draws on both Marxism and postcolonial theory can offer nuanced ways of understanding the various forms of resistance that arise against colonialism and capitalism, specifically in terms of nationalism and culture. Since these concepts are so important to this dissertation they require careful consideration and analysis. I believe that a synthesis of postcolonial theory and Marxism is the best way to define

16 these important concepts, but it is first necessary to review why these two theories have been perceived as incompatible before moving forward.

In both Marxism and postcolonial theory there is an established tradition of critiquing one another. For example, there is the Marxist critique that postcolonial theory ignores or diminishes the issue of class and fails to deal with the potentially problematic nature of nationalism. Aijaz

Ahmad’s In Theory (2008) serves as a good example of this kind of critique. In his book, Ahmad argues that we must analyze literature as a cultural object in terms of the economic and political world that produces it, which he claims postcolonial theory has failed to do because it obscures class. Whereas Marxists tend to see the world in terms of class, Ahmad argues, postcolonial theorists do so more in terms of “nations and countries and races” (41). For Ahmad, and Marxists in general, this method is seriously flawed because it takes attention away from the process of capitalism. A more recent Marxist critique of postcolonial theory is Vivek Chibber’s controversial book from 2013, Postcolonial Theory and the Specter of Capital. The main thrust of Chibber’s argument is that Subaltern Studies, and therefore postcolonial theory, blindly rejects, to its detriment, any theories deemed Eurocentric. While Chibber discusses the many consequences of this dismissal throughout his book, his main argument is that postcolonial theory as a whole needs to be rejected as an “analytical framework or as an anti-imperial critique” because it fails “in its analysis of capitalism” and “resurrects the worst instances of

Orientalist mythology” (288).6 Like Ahmad, one of Chibber’s main concerns is that postcolonial theory does not pay enough attention to capitalism, but Chibber goes further than Ahmad by

6 Chibber’s book created controversy among Marxists and postcolonial scholars because of statements like this. See Chris Taylor’s “Not Even Marxist: On Vivek Chibber's Polemic against Postcolonial Theory,” and Paul Heiderman’s response to Taylor on the Verso website for an example of the kinds of arguments made regarding Chibber’s book. In many ways, Chibber’s book has reignited debates like the one between Lazarus and Ahmad discussed below, but these arguments are not always productive. I echo Taylor’s assertion that we should “[s]top using the sign of Marxism to castigate a field of knowledge [postcolonial theory] that, while decidedly possessing its own problems, can in fact enrich and thicken Marxism and Marxist, anti-capitalist politics.”

17 calling for a total rejection of the theory itself. While it is true that not all Marxists reject postcolonial theory in these ways, or for these reasons, Ahmad and Chibber do represent the most popular critiques of this theory from a Marxist perspective.

Just as there are Marxist critiques of postcolonial theory, there are postcolonial critiques of Marxism. The most common reason that postcolonial scholars dismiss Marxism is because it is seen as being too reductive and Eurocentric. As Crystal Bartolovich explains in her introduction to Marxism, Modernity, and Postcolonial Studies (2002), postcolonial scholarship has traditionally been “not merely indifferent, but, in [its] dominant forms, actively and explicitly hostile, to Marxism” for these reasons (3). While Ahmad argues that postcolonial scholars need to focus more on class, postcolonial scholars argue that Marxists think about nothing but class and therefore ignore the issues unique to colonial situations. Bartolovich claims that “[a]mong the factors that render a supposedly moribund Marx(ism) so embarrassing to the currently dominant order . . . is Marxism’s insistence that it is capitalism which stalks about the world”

(8). The issue is that Marxists believe the subject that needs the most attention in any critical analysis is capitalism, while postcolonial scholars may choose to focus on colonization without addressing capitalism. The belief that Marxism is purely Eurocentric, however, is a more significant point of contention for postcolonial scholars. A good example of postcolonial theory’s attempt to distance itself from Eurocentric theories can be found in Dipesh

Chakrabarty’s Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference (2000).

While Chakrabarty does not deny the influence of capitalism in colonization and decolonization, he argues that capitalism is fundamentally different in colonial situations and therefore cannot be understood by Western theories like Marxism. Chakrabarty’s call to provincialize Europe is an attempt to combat this problem by dealing with the fact that European thought may not always

18 be equipped to understand the rest of the world. However, Chakrabarty is very careful to state that “provincializing Europe is not a project of rejecting or discarding European thought” (16); rather, it is a project focused on recognizing the differences in the non-Western world in order to accurately understand the experiences of colonialism, which Chakrabarty claims Marxism is incapable of doing because of its Eurocentric perspective. As postcolonial theory is committed to understanding colonial situations, these scholars tend to believe that existing theories, especially

Marxism, are inadequate for the above reasons. With critiques like these, it may be difficult to see any possibility for these two theories to work together, but it is very possible and, in my opinion, necessary for a more nuanced examination of national cultures, particularly in the case of Ireland.

These critiques have recently led to productive discussions of the possibilities of a synthesis of the two theories. Scholars like Neil Lazarus have already started working toward a

Marxist postcolonial theory in response to these debates. In the introduction to Nationalism and

Cultural Practice in the Postcolonial World (1999), Lazarus describes his project as a “self- consciously Marxist contribution to the academic field of postcolonial studies—one capable of suggesting a credible historical materialist alternative to the idealist and dehistoricizing scholarship currently predominant in that field in general” (1). Lazarus argues that Marxist scholars need to seriously engage with postcolonial theory rather than simply opposing it or ignoring its potential contributions to the field, just as postcolonial scholars need to make use of what Marxism has to offer. Lazarus continued this project as one of the editors of Marxism,

Modernity, and Postcolonial Studies, with the primary goal of pushing scholars of both fields toward a common ground. In the introduction, Bartolovich explains that a Marxist postcolonialism is invaluable because of its “insistence that cultural analysis of the everyday

19 (and the extraordinary alike) is inseparable from questions of political economy . . . and that the critique of colonialism, and of the social order that has followed formal decolonization, is inextricable from the critique of capitalism” (6). In other words, Marxism pushes postcolonial scholars to realize the impact of capitalism on colonization and decolonization. Following the lead of Lazarus and Bartolovich, this dissertation contributes to this growing field by showing firsthand how these two theories have something to offer one another in a way that enhances an examination of the Irish colonial situation as specifically related to nationalism and culture.

This theoretical framework is most useful for this project because it helps explain the complex roles of nationalism and culture in the process of decolonization. These concepts are especially relevant in an examination of the Irish situation because they often clashed with colonialism and capitalism, creating difficult hurdles for independence. My interpretation of these terms (and their impact on decolonization) is based on a compatible reading of Marxism and postcolonial theory that begins with Fredric Jameson. In the 1986 essay “Third-World

Literature in the Era of Multinational Capitalism” Jameson started a conversation that has stirred many postcolonial and Marxist scholars. While Jameson is credited as being one of the first

Marxist critics to address the question of nationalism in terms of postcolonial literature, his discussion sparked a debate that now stands as a manifestation of the divide between postcolonial theory and Marxism.7 Jameson’s essay attempts to discover whether there is a use

7 The most famous participants of this debate are Ahmad (In Theory (1992)) and Lazarus (The Postcolonial Unconscious (2011)). According to Ahmad, Jameson puts the third world in opposition to the first and second worlds, and his Three Worlds Theory is flawed because it defines the first and second world in terms of modes of production (capitalism and socialism), while the third world is defined by historical experiences (imperialism and colonialism). Ahmad argues that we should read the issues of third-world literature in terms of class but Jameson fails to do so. Lazarus claims that Ahmad’s reading of Jameson’s Three Worlds Theory is incorrect. He argues that Jameson’s association of the third world with colonialism and imperialism is based on a mode of production because capitalism is forced upon a nation in the process of occupation and conquest. Because of this misreading, Ahmad identifies Jameson’s essay as being primarily concerned with the struggle for national liberation rather than class struggles, while valorizing nationalism. Lazarus points out that what Ahmad fails to appreciate is Jameson’s dialectical approach to understanding nationalism and—world literature—an approach that Ahmad himself takes up.

20 for nationalism in the third world because he claims that, for the most part, nationalism has been liquidated by the first world. Using this model, Jameson attempts to provide a method for reading third-world literature. Jameson, very cautiously (aware of how sweeping a statement like this may seem) writes, “all third-world texts are necessarily, I want to argue, allegorical, and in a very specific way: they are to be read as what I will call national allegories” (“Third-World

Literature” 69). That is, literature produced in nations that have experienced colonization appear, on the surface, to be taking place in the private sphere, when they are really taking place in the public sphere. These literatures, Jameson states, always present the individual experience as political allegory for the wider national experience. Similarly, the third-world intellectual is always a political intellectual. Jameson believes that this is an important realization because first- world readers (he refers to Americans specifically) do not see nationalism as having this function. In other words, first-world readers will have a difficult time understanding how nationalism can be used in struggles for independence, and will therefore not identify national literatures, or national allegories, as potentially radical. While Jameson is insistent that we must be critical of nationalisms, analyzing them historically rather than blindly accepting them, a third-world nationalism has a role to play in anti-colonial struggles. Therefore, Jameson’s essay asks us to analyze nationalisms in terms of their political consequences and to recognize that third world national literatures necessarily tell the story of the experience of the collective through national allegory whether they are intended to or not. The implication of Jameson’s essay, as it regards the compatibility of Marxism and postcolonial theory, is embedded in his insistence that we analyze nationalisms in terms of their political consequences. Jameson argues for a confluence between Marxism and postcolonial readings of literature because it is only

21 through a dialectical approach that can we understand the whole spectrum of third-world national literature.

Building on Jameson’s analysis, Lazarus argues that nationalisms have emancipatory potential and should be studied as such by Marxist and postcolonial scholars. In order to make his point Lazarus turns to Fanon’s theory of nationalism from The Wretched of the Earth.

Lazarus finds Fanon particularly useful in this discussion because Fanon understood the fundamental difference between bourgeois anti-colonial nationalisms and proletariat anti- colonial nationalisms in the decolonization process. The Marxist postcolonial critic must discern what kind of nationalism is being espoused in the colonial situation in question, and David Lloyd has been working on a method to do just that. In Irish Times: Temporalities of Modernity (2008),

Lloyd calls for a Marxist postcolonial theory built on the work of Antonio Gramsci. In the highly influential essays collected and published as Selections from the Prison Notebooks (1971),

Gramsci locates the site of hegemonic struggle in the nation-state, indicating the role the nation plays in revolution. Despite the tendency for Marxist critics to equate nationalism with pure ideology, Gramsci’s understanding of hegemony suggests the possibility for a more nuanced view of nationalism in terms of anti-colonial struggles and contemporary social movements. In order to properly address the complicated role of anti-colonial struggles we need to recognize, as

Lloyd posits, that nationalism is “not a unitary movement, predicated on the suspension of class difference, but a contested site in which competing definitions of the people and antagonistic social projects struggle for hegemony” (Irish Times 112). The battle for hegemony taking place in the creation of anti-colonial nationalisms includes the colonized and the colonizer along with various competing opinions based on divisions within these groups, all working to establish different versions of the nation’s identity. With that in mind, what needs further consideration is

22 the fact that nationalisms are not unitary movements without competing definitions of what it means to be, for example, Irish. When a colonized nation begins to build an anti-colonial nationalism it must make sense of native culture as well as the colonizer’s culture that has undeniably influenced the current fabric of the nation. The literature created in this environment reflects these struggles in a number of fascinating ways easily overlooked without a Marxist postcolonial perspective. Recognizing this fact enables us to better understand the complex function of nationalism in the colonial struggle.

Marxist postcolonial theory helps illuminate the complicated role that culture can play in the decolonization process. Postcolonial theory considers the role of culture and nationalism to be very important for anti-colonial movements. Culture, in the hands of native authors, can be an invaluable tool to fight against colonial oppression by establishing a much-needed sense of national pride through the construction of an anti-colonial nationalism. Postcolonial scholars have largely accepted Fanon’s definition of culture as the “expression of a nation, the expression of its preferences, of its taboos and its patterns” (244). In a colonial context this means nothing less than the ability to distinguish between the colonizer and the colonized as separate nations and peoples, which is an integral part of decolonization efforts. In this case, the role of culture, its function, is invaluable. Marxism, on the other hand, has a long history of seeing culture as commodified and ideological and is therefore more critical of how it functions in society.

Marxist critics warn against ignoring culture’s potential to become something more sinister, something used to control the masses to continue the unopposed reign of capitalism. For this reason, Marxists tend to believe the study of culture should be concerned with its ability to control people’s actions, and most importantly, how it works in the service of spreading and maintaining capitalism while also exploring its emancipatory potential.

23 Central to this Marxist understanding of culture is Theodor Adorno and Max

Horkheimer’s concept of the culture industry. First introduced by Adorno and Horkheimer in

Dialectic of Enlightenment (1947), the culture industry denies any possibility of creativity or imagination in the minds of consumers. Instead, these cultural objects are meant to reproduce reality in such a way that shows spectators what their reality should look like. Adorno and

Horkheimer argue that the culture industry is actively, through sameness and repetition, creating the rules for daily life, as it “inescapably reproduces human beings as what the whole has made them” while reducing the “tension between the culture product and everyday existence” so that they are indistinguishable from each other (100-101). Under the oppressive force of capitalism, culture acts as a way of manipulating and controlling the masses based on what the ruling class wants. Despite this, Adorno and Horkheimer do posit that there is the possibility of resistance by actively denying the sameness of the culture industry through the creation of art that acts out against this sameness and startles listeners/readers/viewers with something truly unexpected.

Specifically, the experimental quality of modernism was well suited to serve this function and to break free of the cultural ideology established by capitalism. By creating something that defied the sameness and repetition of the culture industry, Adorno and Horkheimer allowed for the possibility that culture could inspire rather than simply being reduced to a form of blind manipulation.

While Adorno and Horkheimer were willing to explore the emancipatory potential of culture, it was just as important that they remain skeptical of this possibility. This dialectical method of engaging with culture promotes a more critical and suspicious reading of literature than is common in postcolonial scholarship, without wholly dismissing it as a mere commodity.

As Adorno argues in Prisms (1967), “The dialectical critic of culture must both participate in

24 culture and not participate. Only then does he do justice to his object and to himself” (33). Rather than unquestionably arguing that Yeats’s and Joyce’s revisionist myths are works of literary resistance, it is necessary to look at these cultural objects critically in the way that Adorno suggests. Even in the hands of anti-colonial authors like Yeats and Joyce, culture is used to influence and normalize certain beliefs and behaviors. That being said, Adorno and Horkheimer were not considering the unique expressions of culture produced in colonial situations, and therefore their conclusions regarding the culture industry are not sufficiently equipped to analyze these works on their own. A truly subversive culture in a colonial space would need to resist not only capitalism but also colonial rule in order to reclaim the ability to represent their own experiences and, in some cases, their very existence, which is something that Adorno and

Horkheimer do not account for.

Adorno and Horkheimer do not address the masterful way that colonizers destroy native culture as a necessary step in the process of establishing and maintaining control. This destruction of native culture has serious consequences and contributes to the demoralization that was previously discussed regarding the role of racial discrimination in the colonization process.

Postcolonial scholars like Fanon call attention to the fact that colonization is not simply about land, arguing that “[c]olonialism is not satisfied merely with holding a people in its grip and emptying the native’s brain of all form and content. By a kind of perverted logic, it turns to the past of the oppressed people, and distorts, disfigures, and destroys it” (210). The history of native communities is systematically removed, leaving them with no pre-colonial values or customs. As

Lloyd explains in “After History: Historicism and Irish Postcolonial Studies” (2003), the aim of colonialism is nothing less than the “utter transformation of the colonized culture” in order to demolish any claim the natives have to the land (47). Unlike the culture industry, the destruction

25 of native culture is overtly violent. Culture in a colonial situation is not merely an ideological tool disseminating the values of capitalism and the Empire, just as it is more than a commodity, because it is violently forced upon native communities. Because of the nature of cultural colonialism, the cultural resistance that arises against it is invaluable to the process of decolonization. In “Reflections on Ireland and Postcolonialism” (2003), Edward Said suggests that culture is not merely important to decolonization; rather, it is culture that actually begins decolonization because “the land is recoverable at first only through the imagination” (225). It is through the creation of a singularly native culture that an anti-colonial nationalism arises to contribute to decolonization. This dissertation is primarily interested in how this culture is shaped by authors in the service of establishing a national identity—a process that is better understood by first coming to terms with nationalism and culture as discussed above.

In this dissertation I examine how Yeats and Joyce intervened in Ireland’s path toward independence. Both authors attempted to establish an Irish national culture capable of uniting the

Irish against the English by combating the cultural assimilation used by the English during the colonization process. While they went about this project in different ways, there are also important ways that their goals intersected and worked toward the same end. By reading the revisionist myths of Yeats and Joyce in this light, Irish studies scholars can understand each individual author in new ways and gain a greater understanding of the role of literature in Irish decolonization without ignoring the potential problems of a project that strove to control the national identity of Ireland. This reading emphasizes the real struggle that these authors faced under the yoke of colonialism as they used the culture hero and revisionist myth as a means of sorting through their own identity and the identity of their nation.

26 Chapter Summaries

“Chapter 2: Postcolonial Politics of Irish History” provides a much needed survey of Irish history, with particular attention paid to the colonial, political, religious, and social contexts that inform Yeats’s and Joyce’s work. I rely primarily on three works that provide good surveys of

Irish history: R. F. Foster’s The Oxford History of Ireland (1989), Diarmaid Ferriter’s The

Transformation of Ireland (2005), and Maire and Conor Cruise O’Brien’s Ireland: A Concise

History (1985) to provide this historical overview. This chapter also sorts through the personal politics of each author in order to better understand their motivations for choosing and revising their respective culture heroes. In order to understand Yeats’s politics and aesthetics I look at his

Autobiographies (1936) as well as R. F. Foster’s W.B. Yeats: A Life (1998) and Richard

Ellmann’s The Identity of Yeats (1970) and The Man and the Mask (1948), along with Yeats’s essays and letters. I establish Joyce’s complicated politics and aesthetics with the aid of Richard

Ellmann’s famous biography (1982) and Gordon Bowker’s James Joyce: A New Biography

(2012), and Joyce’s essays and letters. Although this chapter examines the evidence available that Yeats and Joyce may have intentionally worked toward creating an Irish identity through their works, I also discuss the fact that authorial intent is not the only indicator of their contributing to such a project. As Jameson notes, third-world authors cannot help but create national allegories because their works “necessarily project a political dimension in the form of national allegory: the story of the private individual destiny is always an allegory of the embattled situation of the public third-world culture and society” (“Third-World Literature” 69).

It is not only the author’s intent that must be considered because the works will be read in terms of the colonial situation, whether this was planned or not.

27 With this historical background established, “Chapter 3: Imagining a National Mythic

Culture” begins with a description of the Irish Literary Revival in terms of its impact on the decolonization of Ireland. I provide context and explanations for Yeats’s and Joyce’s varied involvement with this project in order to clarify how each author understood the role of culture in the Irish cause. Much of this information comes from Yeats’s Autobiographies and the Bowker biography on Joyce along with each author’s own critical essays on the subject. I then transition to an in-depth explanation of Yeats’s and Joyce’s reliance on myth and their fascination with their chosen culture heroes. With the aid of works like Jack Zipes’s Why Fairytales Stick (2006) and David Dwan’s The Great Community: Culture and Nationalism in Ireland (2008), I explain how myth was used as a means of establishing a feeling of national identity in Ireland. To clarify why Cuchulain and Odysseus were used as the models for each author’s culture hero I once again turn to their own writings on the subject along with scholarly interventions such as Declan

Kiberd’s Inventing Ireland (1995) and Andras Unger’s Joyce’s Ulysses as National Epic (2002).

In “Chapter 4: Yeats’s Cuchulain Cycle” I first examine the plays as a collective cycle in the order in which they were originally written and then in the order in which Yeats organized them in his 1924 Collected Plays.8 Analyzing the plays as they were written and performed provides a glimpse into Yeats’s constantly evolving attitude toward Ireland and the Irish cause.

The second half of the chapter is devoted to the organization found in the Collected Plays, which follows the chronology of Cuchulain’s life. Because the hero functions as a symbol of Ireland’s struggle, I examine the ways in which the cycle charts the growth of the country as the man himself grows. This organization reveals how Yeats wanted his hero’s growth to be understood by his readers. In this chapter, I make my central argument about how Yeats’s revisions of the

8 I refer to these plays collectively as a “cycle” because, although Yeats did not originally claim them as such, he grouped them together in his 1934 edition.

28 original Cuchulain myth served his construction of an Irish national identity and how Cuchulain emerges as a national culture hero.

“Chapter 5: Joyce’s Irish Epic” examines Ulysses as a revisionist myth in order to discover how Leopold Bloom functions as Joyce’s culture hero. I argue that, much like Yeats’s

Cuchulain plays, the novel reveals Joyce’s attitudes toward Ireland and his hopes for the Irish cause. Through a close analysis, I show that while Bloom is not your typical hero, especially not in the sense that Cuchulain is, it is his flaws and unlikely status of hero that made him appealing to Joyce because of his outsider status. Just as Joyce believed he had to exile himself from

Ireland in order to write about the nation, his hero is not wholly accepted by his Irish peers and therefore more capable of identifying the flaws of the nation and its people. This chapter provides an argument for how Joyce’s revision of the Odyssey allowed him to shape a more international culture hero for the future of Ireland.

In my concluding chapter I consider the legacy of these culture heroes and the authors who created them. I hope that this dissertation will encourage readers to think anew about the

Cuchulain plays and Joyce’s epic novel. While Yeats and Joyce are certainly heavily studied authors, there is still plenty to be discovered in their works, and this dissertation aims to contribute to this always-growing field.

29 Chapter 2

Postcolonial Politics of Irish History

To fully appreciate why W. B. Yeats and James Joyce appropriated myth to serve their national cultural projects, I must first contextualize their work in the long, bitter history of Irish-

English relations. In addition to providing a short summary of the major moments that defined the history of English colonialism in Ireland, this chapter will also explore each author’s engagement with Irish politics. I believe it is necessary to provide these historical and cultural contexts before diving into a close literary analysis of the plays and novels because they played a significant role in why and how Yeats and Joyce shaped their culture heroes. Providing an analysis of their political motivations will reveal the ways in which both authors were trying to control the national narrative during this transformative time in Ireland’s history. In this chapter I will show how each author responded to the colonial history and politics of Ireland in order to better understand how they intervened in the creation of a new Irish nationalism.

“Ireland unfree shall never be at peace”: The Colonization of Ireland

In the 1882 publication, Ireland: Her Past Glories and Trials, and Probable Future, John

Flanagan claims that nineteenth-century political leader Daniel O’Connell produced the most eloquent description of the initial conquest of Ireland when he claimed that it “doomed Ireland to seven hundred years of oppression” (79). O’Connell’s assertion represented the growing opinion at the time that English colonial rule was to blame for Ireland’s misfortunes, and that the Irish people had suffered long enough for the benefit of the English crown. Although O’Connell was by no means the first Irishman to express dissatisfaction with colonization, the reality was that by

30 the nineteenth century Ireland had been under foreign rule for several centuries despite various failed uprisings and rebellions. As established in the previous chapter, the arguments made in this dissertation depend partly on the understanding that Ireland’s history is entangled in colonial rule and all of the burdens that come with it. Since the rise of postcolonial theory, a new interest in Ireland’s colonial history has flourished, producing many historical studies on this subject, so I need not repeat the whole history of Ireland here. Instead, I will provide a sense of the course that colonization took in Ireland, beginning with the Anglo-Norman Invasion and ending with

Charles Stewart Parnell’s famous fall and the rise of cultural nationalism in Ireland.

In The Oxford History of Ireland (1989), Katharine Simms argues that Pope Adrian IV provided the support that made the eventual conquest of Ireland possible. Simms explains that in

1152, the Pope “invested [Henry II] and his successors with the right to rule Ireland,” paving the way for the Anglo-Norman Invasion to take place in 1169 (48). While this is a convenient moment to mark the beginning of what would eventually become the full-blown English colonization of Ireland, this early conquest was limited because the Crown’s attention was diverted elsewhere and therefore did not immediately result in true colonial rule. Between 1171 and 1172 Henry II moved forward with a large-scale British expedition that resulted in reorganizing land ownership and coercing many Irish kings to submit to the Crown’s power.

During this time, Irish resistance was weak and ineffectual due to ambivalence on the part of the previous Irish rulers and the absence of a central power to unite the Irish against their invaders.

Admittedly, the Irish lords experienced only small changes to their way of life after they paid homage and fealty to Henry II, allowing for this ambivalence. As Simms notes, it was easier for the Irish to submit to Henry II at this time because, as they saw it, “they had nothing to lose and something for which to hope: protection” (50). There seemed little reason to continue fighting

31 because the English campaign was mainly concerned with acquiring lordship, and the Crown would provide welcomed protection against other invaders who were perhaps less inclined to leave the Irish with what little power the English did. While there were certainly those who refused to swear loyalty to Henry II, they were either driven out or killed, and the lords who remained continued to live much as they had before the invasion. This being the case, organizing a mass campaign against the English was neither necessary nor worth the toll it might take on the

Irish ruling class.

By the thirteenth century, however, the relationship between Ireland and England was beginning to change, as colonizing land became the main focus for the English, resulting in a more substantial loss of power for the Irish ruling class. The cause of this shift in policy, according to Simms, was the European population explosion, which made the “large areas of underpopulated agricultural land in Ireland” a potential source of “wealth for those who could develop its full potential” (53). With more people came the need for more space, and England could not sustain these growing numbers. It is not surprising then that the Crown saw a solution to their problem in Ireland’s vast swaths of land populated by Irish natives. Not only could the

English provide new land for their citizens to live on, they could also use this land for the production of resources to benefit those in England. As P. Berresford Ellis explains in A History of the Irish Working Class (1972), while the early clan system in Ireland relied on the fostering of communities and shared resources without manifestations of private property, English colonialism changed this structure as it ushered in feudal laws with the help of the new Irish clergy who spread the message that the invasion and all that it brought with it was the will of

God. While this feudal structure was not strictly followed throughout Ireland, Ellis notes that it was the law of the land in the English Pale, where most of the early Anglo-Norman barons

32 settled, thanks in part to the building of Dublin Castle between 1204 and 1215, effectively giving the Crown a place to rule from in Dublin (29-32). With the English now more firmly invested in

Ireland’s rule, and with more English colonists moving to Ireland, the way the Crown ruled naturally shifted to account for these changes.

Perhaps the most obvious change came in the form of new legislation aimed at controlling and isolating native Irish culture and traditions. It was not easy to control Irish natives from a distance, and it was equally difficult to maintain control over the English colonists who were becoming more Irish everyday, bringing about a notable rise of the Anglo-Irish population. Small rebellions were breaking out all over the island, and it was often difficult to identify the enemy as Irish or English, and as the Crown lost revenue and men in these skirmishes new laws were created to dissuade colonists from mixing with natives. As Maire and

Conor Cruise O’Brien explain in Ireland: A Concise History (1985), the King’s subjects were horrified to see English colonists “become daily more Hibernicized, not only in language, dress and custom, but also in blood” (47). In 1366 the Duke of Clarence passed the Statutes of

Kilkenny in an attempt to establish the primacy of English culture in Ireland and to stop the spread of Irish culture and resistance by forbidding colonists from intermarriage, using the Irish language, and participating in any Irish customs. This legislative attempt to establish a clear difference between English and Irish was, in part, an attempt to draw more colonists to Ireland and to maintain control of these colonists. The problem was, despite these new laws, many colonists—some who had married into Irish families—were not willing to fight to maintain conquest.

This relationship between early English colonists and Irish natives gave rise to an Anglo-

Irish ruling class, allowing for a somewhat peaceful existence in Ireland for some time. While

33 there was a desire for stricter rule in Ireland, the distractions provided by the Hundred Years War and the Wars of the Roses seem to have temporarily forced England’s attention elsewhere. The

Irish, although living under a new feudal structure, were able to maintain many of their pre- colonial customs while living and working on their own land. And yet, the reality of the Irish situation was less cooperative than this suggests. As David Lloyd explains in Irish Times (2008), the economic state of Ireland would soon be bound by “[t]he rationalization of agriculture, the enclosure of land for tillage or grazing, and the displacement of whole populations, turning

Ireland into what Marx would come to call a ‘sheep-run’ for Britain,” which would in turn supply “both the fodder and the labour power for a developing capitalism” (122). Lloyd’s observation calls attention to the fact that England was quickly learning how to benefit financially from its colony, a practice that they would repeat in their other colonies as the Empire grew. However, even in the in the sixteenth century when Henry VIII proclaimed himself King of Ireland, Irish chiefs were still able to maintain some control over their own lands. The real change that Henry VIII’s policies enacted came in the wake of religious reform.

Nicholas Canny explains in his chapter on early modern Ireland in The Oxford History of

Ireland that religion was one of the major instruments of change in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Focusing on the role of the Catholic church in Ireland, Canny explains that Catholic priests found their roles completely altered because of Henry VIII’s actions: “[T]hey emerged as opponents of Crown government in Ireland once King Henry VIII had denied the authority of the papacy in spiritual matters, and set the English Reformation in train” (98). Whereas clergymen had once been useful allies in maintaining colonial rule in Ireland, they quickly found themselves potential enemies of the Crown and stripped of the political power they previously held. Not surprisingly, English-born Protestants filled any vacancies that appeared in the Dublin

34 administration and shifted the power dynamic in Ireland considerably. As English rule now meant Protestant rule, Irish natives whose families had adopted Catholicism centuries earlier began to see that they would forever be at odds with their colonizer in a previously unprecedented way, triggering new desires for independence.9

While this new shift in power was one cause of the growing desire for independence in

Ireland, as the English sought even tighter control over Irish natives and Anglo-Irish colonists alike, new attacks on Irish culture further fueled anti-colonial sentiment. The sixteenth century saw a sudden rise in concentrated efforts by England to enforce cultural assimilation in Ireland and the demonizing of native Irish culture. A clear example of this is Edmund Spenser’s A View of the Present State of Ireland, which declared war on Irish culture and worked to keep English culture untainted by the Irish influence. Part of Spenser’s arguments rested on the belief that adopting English cultural values and abandoning supposedly barbaric native traditions would improve the Irish race. Frantz Fanon’s theory of cultural colonization provides a way of understanding what the English were attempting to accomplish with their insistence that English culture was superior to Irish culture. In The Wretched of the Earth (1966), Fanon argues that in a colonial situation, the native population is portrayed as a degenerate race in order to perpetuate and condone the violence that is required to maintain colonial rule. Labeling native populations as inferior, savage, and barbaric provides a justification—albeit a false one—for colonization as an act of goodwill with the intention of bringing civilization to the untamed regions of the world.

While this cultural degradation in Ireland did have the intended effect of demoralizing the colonized natives to a certain extent, it also inspired some to more passionately resist English rule and rise up against the Crown. It would still be some time before any large-scale organized

9 According to Maire and Conor Cruise O’Brien, Christianity made its way to Ireland around 431 when Pope Celestine appointed the bishop Palladius to “the care of the Irish” (23). It is around this time that St. Patrick was sent to Ireland as a missionary to convert natives from pagan traditions.

35 resistance appeared in Ireland, but the stricter colonial rule established by Henry VIII did result in smaller uprisings that would set the stage for later rebellions.10 Although the Irish were capable of organizing these small-scale acts of resistance, uniting on a national level was still impossible because of growing divisions among the Irish. In particular, Henry VIII’s new religious policies were making it more difficult than ever to reach a consensus among the Irish.

Rather than being united against Henry VIII’s Protestant rule in Ireland, the shift in power that it resulted in led to growing divisions among the Irish. With more Protestants rising to positions of power, Irish Catholics began to face discrimination from their own people. In 1695 the situation reached a climax when official Protestant conquest was ensured with the establishment of the first penal laws following major defeats for Catholics like the famous Battle of the Boyne in 1690.11 These laws restricted Irish Catholics’ access to education, arms, and horses, and banish Catholic bishops from Ireland. As R. F. Foster notes in The Oxford History of

Ireland, all of this contributed to the Protestant Ascendancy that dominated after the shift from

Catholic power in Ireland at the start of the long eighteenth-century. Although there was now a replica Irish parliament, it was not completely representative of Ireland and instead, according to

Foster, “symbolized the domination of a class or caste defined by religion and social states: the

Protestant ‘Ascendancy’” (Oxford History 136). Land was redistributed to favor Protestants;

Catholics were barred from politics; the Protestant Church of Ireland became the official religion despite the fact, as Foster points out, that it was “the faith of a small minority of the Irish population” (136). The desire for this new elite class to maintain such strict control over their

10 One example of this was the Silken Thomas Rebellion of 1534, led by the Earl of Kildare, which unfortunately resulted in the confiscation of Kildare’s lands and more rigorous English rule in the area. 11 The Battle of the Boyne was a crucial turning point in the failed attempt of King James to reclaim the English throne after being ousted by the Protestant William of Orange. As Canny explains, King James gained the support of the “Catholic landed interest in Ireland as well as the Catholic clergy” but he was ultimately defeated and the penal laws were established in an attempt to prevent any future Catholic uprisings (126).

36 Catholic counterparts was driven by a fear that the tide would shift back in the favor of

Catholicism, as it had been before. Therefore, rather than unite to fight a common enemy found in the English, Irish Protestants and Irish Catholics found themselves at odds with one another, struggling for what little power the Irish Parliament granted them. Any uprisings that attempted to dismantle colonial rule during the eighteenth century failed partly due to this religious division in the nation. As with the failed uprisings in the previous century, these rebellions did result in supplying much-needed inspiration for future successes, even if their immediate results often brought stricter colonial rule for the present.

The eighteenth century ended with two such rebellions. The formation of the United

Irishmen, at first nothing more than what Foster describes as a “sophisticated, radical debating club,” blossomed into a revolutionary band of rebels inspired by the French Revolution (Oxford

History 151). While the United Irishmen tried to form an organized resistance against the

English, their attempts were often halted before they even launched. In 1796, for example,

Theobald Wolfe Tone managed to gain the support of the French naval force for the Irish cause, but their fleet was diverted by bad weather, and the campaign was abandoned. Much deadlier than this, in 1798 known radicals were apprehended before being able to carry out a planned rebellion, resulting in what Foster describes as a “localized jacquerie” that led to “bloodletting and massacre on an appalling scale” (153). Responding to these new, violent uprisings, England, via the Act of Union, established the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in 1801 in an attempt to strengthen control over the colony. The Act of Union resulted in the disbanding of the

Irish Parliament, although this marked little change for the political elite in Ireland. Foster suggests that the biggest points of contention for the Irish after the Act of Union came mostly from England’s “continuing failure to grant Catholic emancipation” along with the now

37 “apparent exploitation of the less developed economy” of Ireland (Oxford History 155). In defiance of this newly established union, Robert Emmet led an attempt to siege Dublin Castle in

1803, which resulted in Emmet’s public and very brutal execution, securing his place in rebel history among other early revolutionaries like Tone.12 While the rebellions of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries were failures for the Irish cause, the revolutionary spirits of Emmet and Tone sparked the imagination of nationalists, and their names quickly became well known throughout Ireland and England. There was now a growing Irish nationalist rhetoric inspired by these uprisings, as Emmet and Tone were elevated to the status of martyrs dying for the right of

Ireland to rule itself, and they would later inspire important revolutionaries like Patrick Pearse and James Connolly as calls for decolonization spread.

A major stride for Ireland that dramatically changed the course of Irish nationalism in the nineteenth century came when Catholic emancipation was finally granted in 1829. Led by Daniel

O’Connell, the Catholic emancipation movement was an important step because it showed the ability of the Irish to defeat oppressive legislation established by the English in the form of the discriminatory penal laws. O’Connell appeared to be capable of doing what no one else had managed to do so far: unite the Irish and organize a mass movement against England by first addressing the inequality and injustice of the penal laws. Catholic emancipation was a move forward for Irish decolonization because it served as an example of the potential for radical change in Ireland if the people organized and worked toward a single goal. As Foster asserts,

“the real revolution in the 1820s was O’Connell’s mobilization of mass politics” (Oxford History

157). If O’Connell could succeed in achieving Catholic emancipation, he could theoretically lead the Irish to decolonization. In the 1820s, more than any other time in Irish history, decolonization seemed possible. With the Catholic emancipation movement’s victory in 1829, O’Connell began

12 Convicted of treason, Emmet was publically hanged and beheaded.

38 advocating for the repeal of the Act of Union; however, as in the past, other factors intervened, and by the time of O’Connell’s death in 1847, the Irish had yet to organize a nation-wide rebellion. One of the major contributing factors to the lack of a full-scale uprising in the nineteenth century was economic turmoil wrought by the Great Famine.

Although the potato blight of 1845 marks the beginning of the Great Famine, the Irish economy was, in many ways, already failing before this. There were a variety of agricultural problems in Ireland that reached a climax with the potato blight. Foster admits that it is difficult to place all of the blame on one factor, but the reality was that the Irish were living and working in a nation with a “backward agrarian system, linked to a largely unindustrialized economy, and supplying the market created by British industrialization,” which was “strained to a breaking point by an uncontrollably expanding population” (Oxford History 166). In other words, the Irish economy at this time was controlled by the English economy, which extracted agrarian labor from Ireland to benefit England.13

Partly to protest to England’s inhumane and apathetic response to the widespread poverty and deaths of the famine, the Young Ireland movement—supporters of O’Connell’s Repeal of the Act of Union campaign who had grown frustrated with his cautious ways—attempted a failed rebellion in 1846.14 However, as Foster explains, “the general reaction was the passive one: emigration or death” (Oxford History 167). Post-famine Ireland was a very different nation with changing landscapes and traditions born out of mass emigration, abandoned farmlands, and the rapid decline of the Irish language. Two important political entities also grew out of post-famine

Ireland: factions in Ulster loyal to the British Crown who would later be identified as Unionists

13 See Eamonn Slater and Terrence McDonough’s “Bulwark of Landlordism and Capitalism: The Dynamics of Feudalism in Nineteenth Century Ireland” in Research in Political Economy (1994) for a detailed history of how Ireland moved from a feudal economy to the agrarian capitalism of the nineteenth century. 14 It is estimated that roughly one million people died as a result of the Famine.

39 and the Irish nationalism of Fenianism associated with the rise of the Irish Republican

Brotherhood (IRB).15 While the birth of these two movements would lead to greater divisions among the Irish that would result in future turmoil, the formation of organized resistance groups like the IRB meant that decolonization was now a serious focus and goal for a growing number or Irish men and women.

The rise of Irish nationalism following the famine years gradually coalesced around a persistent nationalistic objective: Home Rule. This became the nationalists’ guiding agendum between 1870 and 1918, and was Charles Stewart Parnell’s political platform as an Irish

Parliamentary Party candidate. In “Ireland Since 1870,” David Fitzpatrick credits Parnell with creating a populist movement in Ireland that united various groups under the banner of Home

Rule. When in 1886 Parnell’s party became the majority in the House of Commons, leaving

Prime Minister Gladstone’s party in the minority, Home Rule seemed like a real possibility as

Gladstone rescinded his previous objection to the cause. However, Gladstone’s Home Rule Bill was defeated and Parnell’s political success would be short-lived. As Fitzpatrick notes, in 1890

“Parnell’s delicate array of working alliances was shattered” when Gladstone announced that he would resign if Parnell remained in power after being named in connection to the divorce of

Catherine O’Shea from Captain William O’Shea (184).16 Parnell’s fall was swift, followed by his death in the following year, 1891. This led to a critical rift between the Irish that would last for years to come. For many, during Parnell’s success as a political force, it seemed as if legislative efforts were the best path toward independence. Witnessing Parnell’s disgrace and rapid decline

15 In his A History of the Irish Working Class (1972), P. Berresford Ellis describes the IRB as a “secret oathbound revolutionary movement dedicated to overthrowing English rule in Ireland by force and establishing an Irish Republic” (130). 16 The affair had been going on for ten years before Catherine’s husband filed for divorce. Captain O’Shea was fully aware of the affair, which had already produced three children, and the two had been living separately for some time. The inclusion of Parnell’s name in the divorce proceedings was most likely politically motivated.

40 from power destroyed these hopes, convincing many that politics would never produce real results, while loyal Parnellites blamed their fellow Irishmen for disowning the politician because of their moral outrage over his affair with a married woman. Parnell’s early political prowess showed that real change might be possible if the Irish had a voice to speak for them, but the nature of his fall also revealed how the Irish were standing in the way of their own independence.

The fact that Parnell—a person who was capable of making real change in Ireland—was cast aside because of an adulterous affair suggested that religious moralities mattered more to the

Irish than independence. At the turn of the century it was becoming clearer than ever that decolonization would be impossible without a unified effort. In response to this need for unity cultural movements like the Irish Literary Revival emerged as artists began to see the political potential of their work. Specifically, authors like Yeats and Joyce started to believe that unity could be achieved through the cultivation of a national culture. Rather than trusting in the political climate that had enabled Parnell’s failure, they saw wanted to reach the Irish through their art and effect real change in Ireland. Over the next two decades these authors would participate in the anti-colonial movement through their art, watching as their nation achieved independence while their personal relationships with Irish politics evolved.

The Evolution of Yeats’s Personal Politics

Reading literature through a postcolonial lens requires a certain amount of engagement with an author’s biography in order to establish the author’s experience with the colonial system represented in his work. This critical exercise encourages scholars to consider the question of authorial intent and whether or not a piece of literature can be politically relevant without being explicitly politically motivated. This is a central issue when attempting to read Yeats and Joyce and apply postcolonial theory. Is it possible to argue that Joyce’s work had a role to play in the

41 establishment of an anti-colonial Irish nationalism if he claimed he wasn’t interested in such matters? Similarly, if Yeats lost faith in Irish nationalism so much so that he yearned for the comforts of colonial rule, do his literary contributions to the cause become somehow less authentic? In the case of Yeats and Joyce, how much do their personal politics impact our reading of their works today? It is necessary to sort through these questions in order to grasp how

Yeats’s and Joyce’s personal politics were inseparable from their work. The political opinions of these authors matter because they explain certain characteristics that their culture heroes possess.

These biographical details can help illuminate how Yeats and Joyce dealt with their role as postcolonial authors as a condition thrust upon them by the circumstances of Ireland’s subjugation.

Yeats is often considered the poet of the Irish movement in the early twentieth century because of his role in establishing the Irish Literary Revival and the Irish National Theatre and because of his eventual position as an Irish senator. Yeats’s work is closely intertwined with Irish politics, whether he liked this or not. Although some of Yeats’s work was very clearly politically motivated and carries a very clear political message, the author was never completely comfortable with the relationship between politics and art.17 Despite Yeats’s own ambivalence, scholars have enthusiastically read and studied his work in terms of the Irish political climate.

Cristina J. Thaut’s assertion in “The ‘Rough Beast’: A Postcolonial and Postmodern Yeats”

(2001) that the author’s “poetic life is politically and culturally tied to Ireland” is by no means an outlier in Yeats scholarship (5). As an author living and writing in colonial and eventually postcolonial Ireland he felt compelled to define the Irish and contribute to the Irish cause, but that does not mean he didn’t struggle with the role he was expected to play. As an artist he wanted to

17 Poems like Yeats’s response to the Easter Rising, “Easter, 1916,” created a legacy for the poet as a political artist, but this only represents one part of Yeats’s diverse canon.

42 express himself through his writing and to sort through issues of aesthetics, mysticism, and the immortality of art. As a postcolonial artist he felt compelled to address more immediate issues such as Home Rule, the Easter Rising, and civil war. The author struggled to find a balance between his cultural and political goals, so much so that his work can often seem full of contradictions when compared to the rest of his canon and his personal statements. As he worked on the Cuchulain cycle, for example, his attitudes and concerns for Ireland evolved, causing the trajectory of the hero’s story to change. In the thirty six years that Yeats wrote and produced the

Cuchulain plays he sometimes found himself at odds with the Irish cause, disappointed with the nationalism he previously promoted, resentful of the public role he was required to play as an

Irish writer, and discouraged with the state of Irish independence. He openly expressed these opinions in letters and essays, which I will discuss further in a moment, but he also explored these complicated feelings in his creative work. As Ireland engaged in revolution, Yeats manipulated the original Cuchulain myth in order to make the hero conform to his shifting political ideals, and to make a contemporary culture hero out of the ancient version. While the author was committed to establishing an Irish culture and identity, his evolving politics and his personal struggles with Ireland have caused some scholars to question his dedication to the anti- colonial cause.

One of the most perplexing issues that arises when reading Yeats’s culture hero in terms of anti-colonial politics is the fact that, at times, the author seemed to favor certain aspects of colonial rule. In “Yeats and Eugenicism: The Garrison and Mentality in a Decolonizing Ireland”

(2001), Spurgeon Thompson questions Yeats’s status as a postcolonial author on these grounds.

While Yeats may have been an advocate for Irish independence before it was won, Thompson argues that the author’s dissatisfaction with the “bourgeois post-colonial state in Ireland” led to a

43 longing for the “form of the old colonial state” (27). Thompson makes a convincing case based on Yeats’s documented disdain for the masses—the “uneducatable” according to Yeats18—and his preference for the Anglo-Irish ruling class. Thompson’s analysis, which emphasizes the Irish author’s personal prejudices and his lack of faith in the common Irishman, reveals the contradictions within that pulled him away from the anti-colonial movement at times. However, this does not necessarily mean that Yeats’s work cannot be considered anti-colonial. Rather, as I will show in the following chapters, Yeats ultimately placed his hope in the post-colonial state.

The argument made in Thompson’s essay is important not because it destroys any chance of reading Yeats as a postcolonial author, but because it acknowledges the internal struggle that he faced as an artist working and living in a colonized nation. Because of Yeats’s conflicted political evolution, the cycle provides unique insight into his anxieties and doubts about the means of achieving and maintaining independence. Additionally, these kinds of arguments complicate the notion of what makes a postcolonial author in the traditional sense. The reality is that Yeats was a member of the Anglo-Irish ascendency, and therefore, as Deborah Fleming reminds us in her introduction to W. B. Yeats and Postcolonialism (2001), descended from colonists. He benefitted from colonial rule as a member of the ruling class, but he also suffered under British rule with the rest of Ireland. Acknowledging these contradictions makes it easier to understand the plays and the man behind them.

Yeats’s Autobiographies, a series of previously published essays written between 1909 and 1934 and collected and republished by the author as one work in 1936, serves as a striking example of these contradictions. The work, more accurately described as a collection of personal and political essays rather than a true autobiography, is not a completely reliable biographical

18 Yeats refers to the “uneducatable masses” twice in his essay On the Boiler (1939) to argue that the masses were not capable of ruling themselves.

44 source, but it does provide valuable insight into how the author viewed himself and the evolving factor of his politics. In these essays, Yeats carefully crafted his public persona as an Irish author and nationalist who was conflicted about the Irish cause. Throughout the book he criticizes Irish politics for having been ineffective and needlessly divisive in the past, but he is also critical of his own behavior that he describes as having been overzealous at times. For example, when reflecting on the struggle for Home Rule under Parnell’s leadership, Yeats explains that as the scandal was unfolding he felt a great deal of disappointment and anger toward the Irish people and the political system. At the time, Parnell’s leadership was inspiring, and his campaign for

Home Rule was a defining moment for Yeats and other nationalists. For a brief moment, Parnell made it seem as though the political climate would pave the way to independence. While

Parnell’s fall from power and subsequent death left many of his supporters feeling discouraged and lost, Yeats was initially inspired by this failure. Richard Ellmann, in Yeats: The Man and the

Masks (1948), notes that this event provided the young author with a “new reason for wanting to work for Ireland on a larger scale than before” (100). However, in “The Trembling of the

Veil,”19 when Yeats reflects on his involvement with Parnellite politics he claims that the only achievement of the whole campaign was filling “Ireland with its bitterness” because of the unproductive bickering it produced between opposing positions (Autobiographies 180). He expresses embarrassment at his own participation in these fruitless battles in his younger days, recalling a time when he would threaten to turn his glass upside down rather than drink to the

King’s health (192). These anecdotes and observations in Autobiographies show Yeats struggling to define his role in the Irish cause. He freely admits that his early participation in nationalist politics did not last partly because he lost faith in the Irish people. While Ellmann

19 “The Trembling of the Veil” is the second section of Autobiographies and was originally published in 1922. The section is meant to cover Yeats’s life from 1887 to 1896.

45 argues that “we should not allow [Yeats’s] own confession of a multiplicity of motives to blind us to the larger idealism which animated all that he did for his country” (Man and the Masks

103), it is also equally important to address Yeats’s lack of commitment to an anti-colonial Irish nationalism because of the role this shifting back and forth played in the shaping of Cuchulain as a culture hero.

Yeats’s contradictory nature and his unreliable Autobiographies make it difficult to piece together what he really thought about the Irish cause. One thing that Yeats and his biographers do agree on is the influence others had on his beliefs as he worked to shape his identity as an

Irish author. In W. B. Yeats: The Apprentice Mage (1997), R. F. Foster explains that Yeats’s father, John Yeats, had a particularly strong influence over him because he was often at home with the children. According to Foster, John Yeats “concerned himself closely with shaping [his children’s] minds,” and this was especially true for his eldest son (16). Ellmann describes John

Yeats as a religious skeptic, an ardent believer in nationalism, and an affectionate yet intellectually dominating father who was sociable, adept in conversation, confident in his opinions, and hopeful of the future (Man and the Masks 22-23). Instead of following his father’s example, Yeats felt overwhelmed by his overbearing influence and tried to rebel against his beliefs, especially his religious skepticism. This desire prompted him to study religion extensively to find ways to refute his father, which eventually introduced him to the world of the occult. His mother, Susan Pollexfen, also had a strong influence over his future literary interests, but rather than rebelling against his mother he was more apt to follow her lead. Susan Pollexfen, who was born in County Sligo in the west of Ireland, preferred the country to the cities her husband loved so much, and as a result the family spent time living in both places. This love for

Sligo, and her Protestant beliefs, greatly influenced her children, and her love of ghost and fairy

46 stories was passed down to Yeats at a young age. Sligo was, for Yeats, a place of magic and stories where it was common to talk of fairies. He recalled his mother spending her free time exchanging stories with the wives of fishermen in the kitchen, an activity he would replicate as an adult when he scoured the countryside collecting similar stories for inspiration (Foster,

Apprentice Mage 21). While Yeats’s parents shaped his early relationship with literature and religion, his mother was not interested in politics, and, according to Foster, John Yeats’s attitude toward the Irish cause “remained detached” (Apprentice Mage 31). Instead, the politically charged people Yeats met outside of his family were responsible for introducing the young man to the world of Irish politics.

One such acquaintance was Charles Hubert Oldham, who is credited with introducing the young Yeats to the nationalist movement and literary nationalism in 1885. It was during this time that the IRB was blowing up English railway stations, and Parnell was pressuring Prime Minister

Gladstone to introduce the Home Rule Bill. To Yeats, this must have seemed a ripe time to become involved in the political future of Ireland. Under Oldham’s influence, he enthusiastically attended meetings of the Young Ireland Society in York along with attending the Contemporary

Club where he could discuss politics and literature with like-minded people (Foster, Apprentice

Mage 39). While Yeats met many influential people at these meetings, the most important was

John O’Leary. Having just returned from an imprisonment in England and exile in France because of his involvement in an anti-colonial uprising in 1867, O’Leary embodied the Irish struggle in Yeats’s mind. At his trial, O’Leary had famously made a name for himself as a stringent opponent of colonial rule by making a speech “denying the right of an English tribunal to judge him for treason when England was not his country” (Ellmann, Man and the Masks 45).

47 The devoted nationalist was more radical and outspoken than many of the other members of the

Contemporary Club, so it is no surprise that he inspired young nationalists like the impressionable Yeats who were eager to make a name for themselves. Yeats was probably right when he described O’Leary in “Reveries over Childhood and Youth”20 as a man who had the

“moral genius that moves all young people” (Autobiographies 100). O’Leary’s belief that Ireland could gain independence through literary efforts, rather than Parliamentary action, had the most lasting influence on Yeats. As Ellmann explains, the old Fenian had “little belief in

Parliamentary efforts to secure Irish Home Rule” (Man and the Masks 46). O’Leary transformed

Yeats’s nationalism from patriotic zeal into something revolutionary and anti-colonial by showing the young author that his writing could be a means of resistance. While Yeats’s politics would change over the years, he always carried with him this belief that literature could influence the fate of a nation.

Yeats’s plan for an Irish national literature that would contribute to decolonization began to take form in these influential years after meeting O’Leary. In “The Trembling of the Veil,” he describes how his thoughts turned toward the idea that his “native scenery might find imaginary inhabitants” as he “half planned a new method and a new culture” for Ireland (Autobiographies

139). Yeats was beginning to see the need for a cultural identity in order to inspire decolonization, and he believed that he might be the one to create this new culture through his writing. O’Leary’s influence also encouraged Yeats to see the possibility of the unifying power of literature. In his own words, he claims that O’Leary made him realize that “we might bring the halves together if we had a national literature that made Ireland beautiful in the memory”

(Autobiographies 105). O’Leary’s vision of a national culture was distinctly anti-colonial, which

Yeats eagerly embraced for a time. As the author started to think seriously about the

20 “Reveries over Childhood and Youth” was originally published in 1914 and is the first section of Autobiographies.

48 decolonization of Ireland he met the revolutionary figure Maud Gonne. This meeting would boost Yeats’s faith in Irish nationalism and greatly increase his political involvement.

Throughout Yeats’s life Maud Gonne would prove to have a profound influence on his political and personal development in a number of ways. In “The Trembling of the Veil,” he describes their first meeting in 1889 in such a way that emphasizes the overwhelming impression she made on him:

Presently a hansom drove up to our door at Bedford Park with Miss Maud Gonne,

who brought an introduction to my father from old John O’Leary, the Fenian

leader. She vexed my father by praise of war, wars for its own sake, not as the

creator of certain virtues but as if there were some virtue in excitement itself. I

supported her against my father, which vexed him the more, though he might

have understood that . . . a man young as I could not have differed from a woman

so beautiful and so young. . . . It was years before I could see into the mind that

lay hidden under so much beauty and so much energy. (Autobiographies 119-20)

Following this initial meeting, Yeats would find himself wrapped up in the mystery of Gonne for years. Within a year of meeting Gonne, Foster explains that Yeats was working constantly to

“present himself to Gonne as her cicerone, in occultism as well as in national revivalism”

(Apprentice Mage 92). When Gonne cared about something, Yeats threw himself wholeheartedly into the cause. While he was undoubtedly motivated by a desire to possess Gonne—a goal he would never achieve—her political activities pulled the young author further into the nationalist movement and inspired his creative output. For Yeats, Gonne’s most valuable influence was inspiring him to believe in the potential for change in Ireland. Her enthusiasm was contagious, and he could not help but follow her lead. These early influences, his parents, O’Leary, and

49 Gonne, all shared the important role of introducing him to the potential for a literary Ireland that reached back to pre-colonial traditions. With these beliefs firmly established in his mind, Yeats embarked on a literary career that evolved alongside Ireland’s struggle for independence.

Despite Yeats’s newfound commitment to this literary project, he met considerable opposition to his efforts more than once. These failures are noteworthy because they often resulted in Yeats distancing himself from the movement. When his work was not received as positively as he desired, his commitment to the cause would falter. To Yeats, it seemed as though

Ireland was fighting against itself at times. He believed that this was particularly true of the middle class. As Ellmann explains, “For Yeats the materialistic middle class was the enemy of all he wished to accomplish” (Man and the Masks 134). When his anger toward the disunity and inaction of the Irish people grew, it was most vehemently focused on the middle class. In

“Estrangement,”21 he expresses disdain for the middle class, claiming that the root of all of the problems in Ireland was that the political class was the middle class, which lacked the ability to contemplate creative power because a “cultivation of hatred” had been adopted as the “one energy of their movement” (Autobiographies 359). Because of this, Yeats blamed the middle class for Ireland’s inability to achieve independence through political venues and questioned the nation’s ability to rule itself if that independence was ever won. However, his distaste for the middle class extended beyond politics. In Anomalous States (1993), David Lloyd pinpoints the larger source of Yeats’s frustration with the middle class: to Yeats, members of this class were a

“hindrance to the development and dissemination of nationalism rather than a means to preserving national culture” (133). Yeats believed that the ambivalence of the middle class was sabotaging his vision for Ireland because it resisted the national culture he was producing.

21 “Estrangement” is a collection of extracts from a 1909 diary that Yeats published in Autobiographies.

50 Yeats’s frustration with the middle class can be further understood when read through the lens of postcolonial theory. Fanon explains that the middle class often hinders decolonization because of its ambivalence, arguing that the middle class does not understand the necessity for action against the colonizer because of its “intellectual laziness. . . spiritual penury. . . [and] the profoundly cosmopolitan mould that its mind is set in” (121-22). In other words, the middle class is content under colonial rule and therefore sees little reason to fight for decolonization. Yeats was not as wealthy as the bourgeoisie, but his intellectual involvement put him among their numbers. He did not think of himself as part of the middle class, which he believed was made up of uneducated people concerned primarily with making money; instead, he believed he had more in common with the upper class because of his intellectual and artistic success. Therefore, it is not surprising that Yeats believed that it rested in the hands of upper class intellectuals to unite the Irish and achieve independence. This is where Yeats and Fanon’s opinions diverge significantly. Fanon looked to the masses—the lower class—to achieve independence. The author’s disgust with the middle class was more about its resistance to the kind of national culture he was working toward and less about its ambivalence regarding colonial rule. The more

Yeats worked on establishing a cultural nationalism in Ireland the more disenchanted he become, causing him to distance himself further from the anti-colonial movement. Even when a real, organized effort for independence emerged in 1916, Yeats remained skeptical.

When the fight for decolonization expanded beyond literature and culture to military intervention, rather than wholeheartedly supporting the cause, Yeats distanced himself from these efforts. The author seemed pleasantly surprised to see Ireland actively working toward independence, but he was uncomfortable with the means used to achieve this goal. The moment that prompted these concerns, and changed Yeats’s perspective, was the 1916 Easter Rising.

51 With England distracted by World War I, young Irish nationalists made a bold decision to organize a rebellion in Dublin and other parts of Ireland to demand Irish independence. In the years before the uprising, various groups like the Irish Citizen Army (ICA), the Ulster Volunteer

Force, and the Irish Volunteers were formed to bring likeminded Irish men and women together for their individual causes. The ICA was dedicated to protecting Irish laborers and, under the leadership of James Connolly, promoting the ideals of a socialist republic.22 Described by

Gregory Dobbins as “among the first to produce . . . a critical rethinking of Marxism from the standpoint of the colonized” (Lazy Idle Schemers 614), Connolly used the ICA to promote the belief that decolonization and the concerns of the working class were intrinsically bound, and he expressed disgust with any Irish nationalists who were not committed to an anti-capitalist movement.23 The Ulster Volunteer Force was made of Unionists loyal to the British Crown who resisted Home Rule. In opposition to this, the Irish Volunteers were formed to defend Home

Rule and, thanks in part to the infiltration of the IRB, to establish an Irish Republic.24 In The

Transformation of Ireland (2004), Diarmaid Ferriter describes the years between 1912 and 1918 as a time when “a giant vacuum existed in Ireland, into which a variety of organisations and movements were being sucked, often with conflicting aims, personalities and visions of the future” (110). This tense and divided atmosphere was deeply felt by Yeats, who believed that in

22 The ICA was originally formed with James Larkin in connection with an important moment for the socialist movement in Ireland—the Dublin Lockout of 1913. For a detailed account of the lockout and the role of the ICA see Ellis’s The History of the Irish Working Class. Following the lockout, James Connolly pushed the group to fight for Irish independence. 23 In a bitingly sarcastic essay written in 1899, Connolly revealed the contradictions of a pro-capitalist decolonial movement: “After Ireland is free, says the patriot who won’t touch socialism, we will protect all classes, and if you won’t pay your rent you will be evicted same as now. But the evicting party, under command of the sheriff, will wear green uniforms and the Harp without the Crown, and the warrant turning you out on the roadside will be stamped with the arms of the Irish Republic. Now, isn’t that worth fighting for?” (44). In another essay Connolly urges the movement to understand that freedom cannot be truly gained under a capitalist system. He puts it this way: “If you remove the English army to-morrow . . . unless you set about the organization of the Socialist Republic your efforts would be in vain. England would still rule you. She would rule you through her capitalists” (8). 24 The IRB, formed in 1858, quietly gathered members and maintained a secretive revolutionary agenda leading up to the Easter Rising.

52 spite of each group’s supposed goals, they would never make any real progress. After all, there were even divisions within each group. For example, the Irish Volunteers, once made up of about

150,000 members, found its numbers greatly diminished and its members split when leader John

Redmond urged the Irish to fight for the British army in WWI. Pulling the Volunteers further apart, Patrick Pearse became the voice for members who were in favor of arming the group and organizing a legitimate military campaign against colonial rule, a move that the IRB enthusiastically supported (Ferriter 138-141). It would soon become clear that Yeats had greatly misjudged young Ireland’s commitment to independence when these groups joined forces to declare an Irish Republic in 1916.

On April 24th, Pearse, as Commander-in-Chief, and Connolly led a revolt that seized the

General Post Office in Dublin in the name of the Irish Republic.25 Ferriter explains that these

“1,000 men and 200 women, members of the Volunteers, the ICA and the IRB” were united by the belief that Irish nationalism was worth fighting for (141). Over the next week, these men and women occupied the General Post Office and other strategic buildings as the city transformed into a chaotic warzone when British troops were called in to remove the rebels. In Dublin 1916:

The Siege of the GPO (2009), Clair Wills notes that contributing to the confusion surrounding the Rising was that Dubliners failed to take the rebels seriously at first. Wills writes, “[t]he first difficulty faced by the insurgents was the unwillingness of the Post Office staff and their customers to take [the rebels] at all seriously. . . . No doubt this was partly because the

Volunteers themselves were only slowly beginning to realize that this was for real” (24). The rushed planning and broken communication leading up to the rebellion resulted in a disorganized

25 Whether or not Pearse was the Commander-in-Chief has been debated. Ferriter explains that some, such as trade unionist William O’Brien, claimed that it was Connolly who was Commander-in-Chief (145). It is difficult to establish a clear understanding of the facts surrounding this rebellion because, as Ferriter notes, “[t]he definitive history of the Rising has yet to be written, and many questions have been left unanswered. Much confusion abounded during Easter Week, on the part both of the rebels and of the British government” (142).

53 and uncertain week for the rebels. Chaotic and unpredictable fighting continued until April 29th when the insurgents were forced to surrender. Mass arrests, secret court martials, and executions followed: Pearse, Connolly, and the other leaders of the Rising were executed by firing squad.

Since Yeats was in London at the time, his reaction to the Rising was based on secondhand accounts pouring out of Dublin. He received mixed messages regarding who had instigated the

Rising and how it was unfolding. However, those in Dublin were just as uncertain about what was happening. Early on, Wills notes, “[k]nots of people gathered at street corners to discuss the new situation, and the curious wandered from group to group trying to gather information. . . . the audience that gathered for the Rising was somewhat intractable—its demeanour curious rather than awed, or inspired” (41-42). Another common reaction to the Rising was to take advantage of the chaos by looting, reports of which were often unsympathetic and used to discredit the actions of the rebels (Wills 49-50). In London, reports of the Rising included newsreels with dramatic pictures of destroyed buildings and civilians without access to food, allowing Yeats to see the state of the Dublin despite the fact that he was not there (Wills 89).

Partly because of conflicting reports, the events of Easter Week did not initially elicit positive support from Yeats or the Irish public; as Wills explains, “It is commonplace that while the

Rising itself garnered little support among the Irish in general, the executions and wholesale round-up and imprisonment of suspects turned the tide of sympathy in favour of the rebels”

(100). The violent nature of England’s response to the Rising seemed inhumane to many, including Yeats.

Originally dismissive of the Rising, condemning the actions of the rebels occupying the

General Post Office, Yeats’s opinion of the event changed considerably as he received more accurate information from Ireland. Ellmann argues that at first, “Yeats had been indignant with

54 the Dublin insurrectionaries for needlessly sacrificing their lives, but gradually their death became ennobled in his mind” (Man and the Masks 217). His struggle for meaning is expressed in his letters to Lady Gregory and John Quinn following the executions in May. To Lady

Gregory Yeats wrote, “I had no idea that any public event could so deeply move me—and I am very despondent about the future. At the moment I feel that all the work of years has been overturned, all the bringing together of classes, all the freeing of Irish literature” (Letters 613).

Just a few days later, Yeats wrote to Quinn, “A world seems to have been swept away. I keep going over the past in my mind and wondering if I could have done anything to turn those young men in some other direction” (Letters 614). Yeats was acquainted with many of the rebels who lost their lives in the Rising, and his feelings of guilt for their deaths continually appeared in his writing. In “Easter, 1916,” Yeats asks, “Was it needless death after all?” (Collected Poems 67), and at the end of his life in “The Man and the Echo” he asked once more, “Did that play of mine send out/Certain men the English shot?” (Collected Poems 12-13).26 Believing the Irish to be too ambivalent to achieve independence, Yeats was shocked to learn that some were more than willing to die for the cause. Faced with the violent reality of revolution, the author now feared further bloodshed.

Over the next few years Yeats watched as Ireland moved toward revolution. The aftermath of the Easter Rising resulted in growing support for independence, and in 1919 the

Anglo-Irish War of Independence officially began. For the next two years, guerrilla warfare spread throughout Ireland as the Irish Republican Army (IRA) fought to establish the Irish

Republic. Ferriter explains that the IRA was not clearly unified, volunteers often lacked proper training, and civilians were frequently caught in the crossfire. For example, Ferriter notes that in

Cork “most of those killed by the IRA did not die in armed combat but as a result of the shooting

26 Yeats is referring specifically to his politically charged play Cathleen Ni Houlihan, which was written in 1902.

55 of unarmed people” (220). Civilians loyal to England, and those who supported the war, were equally likely to be killed by the opposing side. While the IRA fought for independence, Ireland was still divided on the issue. The arrival of the Black and Tans, British volunteers recruited to support the troops in Ireland, and the carrying out of violent reprisals added to the loss of civilian lives. As for Yeats, he was once again in England for much of the revolutionary activity occurring in Ireland. Shortly after the war began he moved his new wife Georgie Hyde-Lees and daughter Anne to Oxford and observed the war from a distance. However, the author did not remain silent, finding the actions of the Black and Tans particularly horrifying and speaking out against the British response to the war at a debate on the Irish Question at the Oxford Union with the successful goal of, according to Foster, persuading the audience that “their King’s soldiers are murderers” (Arch-Poet 188). The war ended in 1921 with the signing of the Anglo-Irish

Treaty and the establishment of the Irish Free State, but this didn’t mark the end of the bloodshed in Ireland.

Soon after the Treaty was signed, civil war broke out because of dissatisfaction with an agreement that meant the total loss of Northern Ireland to England and a continued oath of allegiance to the Crown for “Southern Ireland,” now the Irish Free State. Members of Sinn Féin, the political party responsible for declaring Irish independence, and the IRA were split between those who sided with the Treaty and those who opposed it. In W. B. Yeats: The Arch-Poet (2003),

Foster explains that the author supported the treaty as “[t]he oath of fidelity was no obstacle for him, nor was the loss of the six counties now making up Northern Ireland” (213). His overall assessment of the civil war was that it was yet another example of needless bloodshed, describing Ireland at the time as a “whirlpool of hatred” (qtd. in Foster 214). Although a ceasefire was called in 1923, the divisions that caused the fighting did not disappear, and Ireland

56 continued to deal with the violent aftermath of the Anglo-Irish Treaty. The lack of unity that continued in Ireland after the establishment of the Irish Free State did little to convince Yeats that the deaths it resulted in had been worth it.

Following events like the Easter Rising and the War of Independence, Yeats was increasingly uncomfortable with the cost of decolonization and the kind of nationalism it had produced. The fact that civil war broke out following the establishment of the Irish Free State justified his skepticism. Yeats continued to believe that even an independent Ireland would not be successful without unity. However, this was not the only thing bothering him; his age was quickly catching up with him, and his role in Irish politics had greatly diminished. While he had convinced himself he was too old to participate in the politics of his youth, often using age as an excuse to avoid it altogether, he was appointed to the Irish Senate by President Cosgrave in 1922.

The position was largely symbolic, however, and it did little to help him regain a sense of participation in Irish affairs. Yeats could not do much in the position and had very little real power, and Ellmann reports that he often kept silent during meetings in order to avoid betraying

“his ignorance in economic and administrative matters” (Man and the Masks 243). He was increasingly convinced that his voice was no longer being heard, a notion that embittered him against the Irish public.

As dedicated as Yeats was to Irish nationalism, in his later years he showed little interest in any kind of politics. After finishing his work as a senator, the author disappeared from the political world. A lifetime of serving the Irish had left him disillusioned with the political process.

In a letter to Ethel Mannin in 1936 he made his position clear as he responded to a request to become actively involved in the movement against totalitarianism:

57 Do not try to make a politician of me, even in Ireland I shall never I think be that

again—as my sense of reality deepens, and I think it does with age, my horror at

the cruelty of governments grows greater, and if I did what you want, I would

seem to hold one form of government more responsible than any other, and that

would betray my convictions. Communist, Fascist, nationalist, clerical, anti-

clerical, are all responsible according to the number of their victims. I have not

been silent; I have used the only vehicle I possess—verse. . . . I am not callous,

every nerve trembles with horror at what is happening in Europe, ‘the ceremony

of innocence is drowned.’ (Letters 850-51)27

Yeats had wanted to establish a unified Irish nationalism that would improve his nation, but the

Irish rebellion had moved forward without him, leaving civil war and instability in its wake.

Worst of all, the national pride that he bolstered with his work seemed to him to have contributed to the deaths of many young nationalists and led to more violence. In the last years of his life, he struggled to understand what he believed in, but instead of looking for answers in politics, he dedicated his time to studies of religion once more. He spent most of his time keeping to himself and avoiding the world around him. However, in the last month of his life, Yeats turned his attention back to his culture hero once more, completing the last play in the Cuchulain cycle.

Some new peace must have been discovered in his final studies, as in a letter written just weeks before his death he expressed a hopeful sentiment: “I know for certain that my time will not be long. . . . I am happy, and I think full of an energy, of an energy I had despaired of. It seems to me that I have found what I wanted” (Letters 922). What Yeats was looking for is not clear, but if his other work is any indication, it was likely a sense of unity and purpose. The fact that Yeats used his final energies to complete a play he would never see performed, The Death of

27 Yeats is quoting his poem “The Second Coming” to call to mind the end of the current age and a new beginning.

58 Cuchulain, shows that his commitment to his culture hero did not waver when the end was near.

Yeats could not leave his hero’s story unfinished, as it was also the story of postcolonial Ireland.

Joyce’s Exiled Politics

Much like Yeats, Joyce often expressed a desire for his work to have a lasting influence on Ireland, and his political views regarding the Irish cause were just as complicated. In his discussions on the subject of Irish independence, Joyce would sometimes claim that he had no interest Irish politics whatsoever. The author’s personal statements regarding Irish politics, along with his intentional exile from Ireland, have made scholars hesitant to read Joyce’s work in relation to the Irish cause. However, these comments are more suggestive of a difference of opinion regarding Irish nationalism. As Richard Ellmann shows in his Joyce biography, the exiled author often found it difficult to accept the optimistic ideals of Irish nationalism, a fact that often set him against those who shared the similar goal of freeing Ireland from British rule.

These disagreements led to the belief, even during his lifetime, that Joyce had an aversion to politics of any kind. For example, in a 1915 letter to Edmund Gosse, Yeats claimed that “[Joyce] had never anything to do with Irish politics, extreme or otherwise, and I think disliked politics”

(Joyce, Letters II 362). For a time, scholars echoed Yeats’s dismissal of Joyce’s role in Irish politics, but recently there has been a reevaluation of the exiled author’s contribution to the cause. While it is true that Joyce’s relationship to Ireland was complicated, and he often appeared as though he was not concerned with Ireland’s fate, his work reveals something more.

As Joyce expressed in a letter to his wife in August 1912, his political involvement was concerned with the shaping of an Irish identity, claiming that he was “one of the writers of this generation who are perhaps creating at last a conscience in the soul of this wretched race”

(Letters II 311). Admissions like this reveal the author’s hope that his work might influence

59 Ireland’s present and future. And although Joyce was not always an avid supporter of the Irish cause, he often expressed anti-colonial opinions and openly identified himself and Ireland as oppressed victims of British rule.

While it can be difficult to define Joyce’s relationship to the Irish cause, his feelings regarding the British Empire are very clear. In 1898 Joyce wrote an essay while studying at

University College, Dublin, which openly expressed his disgust with the kind of subjugation that made colonization thrive. In the essay, simply titled “Force,” a sixteen-year-old Joyce writes,

The essence of subjugation lies in the conquest of the higher. . . . When right is

perverted into might, or more properly speaking, when justice is changed to sheer

strength, a subjugation ensues – but transient not lasting. When it is unlawful, as

too frequently in the past it has been, the punishment invariably follows in strife

through ages. (Critical Writings 24)

This early interpretation of subjugation as not lasting and eventually subject to punishment reveals Joyce’s understanding of the relationship between Ireland and England and of imperialism itself. In the same essay, Joyce argues, “[s]ubjugation is ‘almost of the essence of an empire and when it ceases to conquer, it ceases to be’. . . . Politically it is a dominant factor and a potent power in the issues of nations” (Critical Writings 24).28 The young author’s explanation of the relationship between force, subjugation, empire, and political power was an apt description of how he viewed the colonization of Ireland, while the disdain for force expressed in the essay foreshadows his later reluctance to support the militaristic rebellion in Ireland. As Declan Kiberd explains in Inventing Ireland (1995), for Joyce, contributing to the Irish consciousness by writing it down was an alternative to “acts of political violence, his way of seizing power” (329-30). In

28 Joyce defines subjugation by quoting Cardinal Newman’s sermon titled “The Christian Church an Imperial Power”.

60 the “Force” essay, Joyce favors love and kindness as a preferable means of reacting to subjugation, concluding with the argument that the “power for force and of persuasion of red conquest” has made possible a “new subjugation” in the form of “kindness over all the good”

(Critical Writings 24). While the observations in his essay may seem surprisingly mature for a sixteen-year-old, the fact that Joyce was already wrestling with these ideas at such a young age suggests just how important they were to his understanding of Irish politics. The motivations behind this keen understanding of the oppression of Ireland and an aversion to violence become clearer when looking at Joyce’s childhood experiences in a politically charged household.

Joyce was surrounded by many opinionated figures during his childhood, but his earliest political influence was his father. John Stanislaus Joyce was, for a time, a looming political force in the household. The frequent political conversations in the house and the appearance of his father’s political friends—like Fenian rebel John Kelley—had a great impact on Joyce’s understanding of the colonial situation in Ireland. As Gordon Bowker recounts in James Joyce: A

New Biography (2011), John Joyce was actively involved in politics as the secretary of the

United Liberal Club, and he frequently campaigned for his preferred candidates. Similarly influential was the Joyces’ governess and distant relative, “Dante” Elizabeth Conway, whose

“nationalism was so intense that she once belabored an elderly gent with her parasol for standing to attention for ‘God Save the Queen’” (Bowker 24). This anecdote shows just how seriously

Dante took the issue of British rule in Ireland, making it easy to see how her presence influenced the impressionable young Joyce. Yet, while Dante and Joyce’s father may have both supported

Irish nationalism, religion ultimately divided them, specifically in regards to the scandal surrounding the latter’s political hero, Parnell. A passionate follower of Parnell, Joyce’s father was devastated by the politician’s fall so much so that he became aggressively anticlerical and

61 bitter about the state of Irish politics. Biographers agree that the Parnell scandal had a significant impact on Joyce because of the intense sense of betrayal and loss of hope expressed by his father.

John McCourt’s claim in James Joyce: A Passionate Exile (1999) that Joyce “never forgave his narrow-minded fellow Irishmen for betraying their leader in his moment of greatest need” is reinforced by fact that the author constantly returned to the figure of Parnell and the theme of betrayal in his work (20). Similarly, Bowker notes that the “Parnell affair left bitter traces on

Joyce’s life and work” (38). This political betrayal, fueled by the religious morality upheld by the Catholic Church, shaped Joyce’s view of national politics and the role of the Church in

Ireland. Not surprisingly, Dante’s reaction to the affair, like that of many others, was to forcefully reject Parnell and his politics on religious and moral grounds. This put her at odds with Joyce’s father and his Parnellite friends, leading to violent arguments in the home. While

Joyce sided with his father regarding the Parnell controversy—writing his first poem, “Et Tu

Healy”, on the subject of the betrayal—this experience did not endear him to politics. The volatile atmosphere at home provided Joyce with a glimpse into the passion that politics could inspire, but it was a passion that was not necessarily productive. To witness two Irish nationalists, both seemingly fighting for the same independence, practically coming to blows over an issue of morality must have left Joyce with the impression that politics were a waste of time and engaging with Irish nationalism counterproductive.29

These counterproductive political debates informed Joyce’s rejection of the narrowly defined Irish nationalism promoted by Yeats in favor of a more cosmopolitan version of nationalism. While Yeats’s politics were focused intently on Ireland as a unified nation, Joyce

29 Joyce memorialized these arguments in the famous Christmas dinner scene in Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (see pages 21-34). When the heated and violent argument finally ends Joyce concludes the scene in a way that shows just how big of an impact these moments had on his childhood understanding of politics and the emotional impact of Parnell’s fall for nationalists like his father: “Stephen, raising his terror-stricken face, saw that his father’s eyes were full of tears” (34).

62 dismissed this as a limited understanding of the Irish question and looked to bring Ireland into the global sphere. Joyce was concerned with the need for establishing a cosmopolitan Irish identity, one that focused on larger issues than just the Irish state. As Dominic Manganiello shows in Joyce’s Politics (1980), Joyce had many issues with the major nationalist movements in

Ireland because he believed they were not truly working to improve the Irish condition. For example, while Joyce praised some of the efforts made by Sinn Féin, he found it impossible to fully support the party because he perceived the movement behind it as both racist and too narrowly focused on Irish nationalism. He argued that the Irish nationalist movement was actually making it more difficult for the Irish to achieve independence because devoted nationalists were incapable, or unwilling, to address the other sources of Irish suffering. Joyce believed that two institutions were working diligently alongside colonialism to keep the Irish paralyzed, and no amount of Irish pride was going to make them disappear. He understood that these two forces, the Catholic Church and capitalism, would survive and continue to oppress the

Irish with or without colonial rule. The inability to rise up against colonial authority is a condition of the colonization process itself, as years of cultural and political oppression create a feeling of ambivalence in the colonized nation. While Yeats blamed this ambivalence on

Ireland’s middle class, focusing on a perceived lack of cultural pride among the Irish along with their resistance to his brand of cultural nationalism, Joyce believed that the issue went beyond cultural ambivalence, identifying the Catholic Church and capitalism as two major opponents to the Irish cause.

After Joyce left Ireland in 1904 he spread awareness of the plight of the Irish to European audiences, emphasizing the role that these institutions played in the colonial oppression of

Ireland. Although he was no longer in Ireland, believing his energies were best spent elsewhere,

63 the young author found himself speaking and writing about the Irish cause. He was particularly motivated to explain that the Irish remained under colonial rule for so long partly because the

Irish themselves were complicit in their own subjugation. In 1907 Joyce expressed this sentiment in a lecture, “Ireland, Island of Saints and Sages,” given in Trieste, where he spoke passionately about the various ways in which the brutality of British colonial rule had ravaged Ireland: “The soul of the country is weakened by centuries of useless struggle and broken treaties, and individual initiative is paralysed by the influence and admonitions of the church, while its body is manacled by the police, the tax office, and the garrison” (Critical Writings 171). By addressing the various institutions that supported colonial rule he built the argument that Ireland was not only dominated by English rule but also by the institutions brought to Ireland through colonization. Joyce argued that the Irish sabotaged their hopes for independence by allowing the

Church control them, such as in the case of Parnell’s fall.30 Faced with these obstacles, Joyce rather bitterly concluded that “[n]o one who has any self-respect stays in Ireland, but flees . . . ”

(171). He believed that this would never change unless Ireland disregarded the influence of the

Church, and he argued that there was no point in organizing any kind of anti-colonial rebellion against England “while the Roman tyranny occupies the palace of the soul” (173). However, despite these seemingly hopeless descriptions of the Irish and the anti-colonial movement, Joyce concluded his talk with a surprisingly impassioned speech for the cause:

One thing alone seems clear to me. It is well past time for Ireland to have done

once and for all with failure. If she is truly capable of reviving, let her awake, or

let her cover up her head and lie down decently in her grave forever. . . .

30 Joyce was adamant about the role the Church played in Parnell’s fall and subsequent death. In “Home Rule Comes of Age,” an article written for Il Piccolo della Sera later that year, Joyce described the affair as “the moral assassination of Parnell with the help of the Irish bishops” (Critical Writings 193). Joyce believed that the scandal had literally killed Parnell, claiming in the 1912 essay “The Shade of Parnell” that the politician “died of a broken heart at the age of 45” (228).

64 [R]evolution is not made of human breath and compromises. Ireland has already

had enough equivocations and misunderstandings. If she wants to put on the play

that we have waited for so long, this time let it be whole, and complete, and

definitive. (Critical Writings 174)

Declarations like this show that while Joyce was not blind to the difficulties of achieving independence, he sincerely wished for the Irish to rise up and take charge of their nation.

However, at the time, he had no reason to believe this would happen while he was still alive: “I am sure that I, at least, will never see that curtain go up, because I will have already gone home on the last train” (174). Based on his experiences and observations in Ireland he could not believe that the Irish were capable of committing themselves to the cause. While he was certain that the Irish were shackled by their commitment to the Church, the young and recently exiled

Joyce was still forming his vision of the form that a revolutionary Irish nationalism should take to inspire change.

After leaving Ireland, Joyce expanded his studies on various subjects that informed his opinions of the Irish cause and the role of nationalism. One of the major influences on his evolving understanding of nationalism was his growing interest in socialism. Although Joyce may not have identified as a socialist he was very well read on the subject and saw socialism as a counter to the role of the Catholic Church in Ireland. As Ellmann explains, Joyce “wanted socialism to prevent the Church from dominating politics” (James Joyce 197). This is not to say, however, that he was only interested in socialism as a means of opposing the Church. Many of his works explore the oppressive role of capitalism in Ireland, suggesting that the author was fully aware of the relationship between capitalism and colonialism. And yet, as Gregory

Dobbins’s notes in Lazy Idle Schemers (2010), while Joyce’s “youthful interest in socialism has

65 long been acknowledged” serious consideration of socialism in his work “remains relatively neglected” (63).31 Dobbins argues that scholars have measured Joyce’s waning interest in socialism based on the fact that “there are not many references to it in the letters written after his early years in Italy” even though “there are allusions to socialism in all of his fictional works”

(Lazy Idle Schemers 67). As Joyce was never comfortable fully committing himself to any political ideology, it is not surprising that he was not a devout socialist, but that does not mean he was not interested in or concerned with the anti-capitalist movement. His attraction to socialism should not come as a surprise considering his firsthand experience witnessing the paralyzing effects of capitalism and class divisions in Ireland. Early in his childhood he watched as his family fell from middle-class respectability, and, despite his father’s desperate attempts at upward mobility, the Joyce’s lived in poverty for the majority of the author’s life. As McCourt notes, the financial struggles of his family showed Joyce “first hand what it meant to live on so many of the rungs of the social ladder, to tumble unceremoniously [downward]” (21). Personal experience, and a study of socialism, impressed upon Joyce the belief that the Irish were not only victims of colonialism but also capitalism. Any anti-colonial movement that did not address the fact that Ireland was firmly controlled by a colonial capitalist system was, for Joyce, incapable of truly achieving freedom.

Joyce believed that Ireland needed an anti-capital, anti-colonial nationalism to promote decolonization. And he also believed that those claiming to be Irish nationalists at the time were unwilling to criticize capitalism. Because of this, Joyce claimed that Irish nationalists were not

31 See Dominic Manganiello’s Joyce’s Politics (1980) and Trevor L. Williams’s Reading Joyce Politically (1997) for early examinations of Joyce’s socialism. In addition to Dobbin’s book, other recent and more in-depth readings of the socialism in Joyce’s work can be found in M. Keith Booker’s Ulysses, Capitalism, and Colonialism (2000) and Patrick McGee’s Joyce Beyond Marx: History and Desire in Ulysses and Finnegans Wake (2001).

66 truly concerned with freeing all of Ireland. This is perhaps best expressed in a 1905 letter to his brother, Stanislaus, where Joyce defends socialism’s necessary role in Irish emancipation:

You have often shown opposition to my socialistic tendencies. But can you not

see plainly from facts like these that a deferment of the emancipation of the

proletariat, a reaction to clericalism or aristocracy or bourgeoisism would mean a

revulsion to tyrannies of all kinds. Gogarty would jump into the Liffey to save a

man’s life but he seems to have little hesitation in condemning generations to

servitude. (Letters II 148)

Responding to news of the marriage of his old friend turned bitter enemy, Oliver St. John

Gogarty, Joyce points out the hypocrisy of nationalists like Gogarty who claimed to want freedom for Ireland but who lived a life of leisure. While Gogarty was more than willing to save a drowning person in the Liffey—on three separate occasions—he showed little compassion for those suffering under the capitalist system. Joyce uses this opportunity to criticize nationalists, claiming that they overlook the suffering of the lower classes despite their heroic posturing.

Earlier that same year, in another letter to Stanislaus, Joyce expressed his distaste for this brand of heroism, claiming that “the whole structure of heroism is, and always was, a damned lie”

(Letters II 81). Rather than promoting and celebrating the so-called heroic character of men like

Gogarty, the young author turned his attention to those suffering the most under British rule. As he argued to Stanislaus in a 1906 letter, “anyone can see that if the Irish question exists, it exists for the Irish proletariat chiefly” (Letters II 167). That is, it should exist for the Irish proletariat, but this was not the case according to Joyce. As the nationalist movement further diverged from an anti-capitalist movement, he distanced himself from its cause and instead focused on what his writing could do for Ireland if it ever did manage to achieve independence. Joyce more intently

67 on the issues that would arise in a post-colonial Ireland due, in part, to the inadequacies of the nationalist movement.

Whether or not Ireland would ever become a post-colonial state seemed very unlikely to the young Joyce. The refusal to dismantle the capitalist system and Ireland’s continued reliance on the Church had him convinced that independence was unlikely because it was impossible to organize a unified movement. As he expressed in the first of three articles written in 1907 for the

Trieste newspaper Il Piccolo della Sera, uprisings in Ireland always failed “because in Ireland, just at the right moment, an informer always appears” (Critical Writings 190). In the same essay, titled “Fenianism,” Joyce critiqued the Irish for their inability to build anything substantial from the sacrifices made in their honor. Speaking specifically of John O’Leary—Yeats’s political hero—Joyce wrote that the old man, returned from his exile, found little cause to celebrate in a nation still struggling helplessly under English rule. Using somewhat bombastic language, he claimed that the Irish “break the hearts of those who sacrifice their lives for their native land” despite the fact that they “never fail to show great respect for the dead” (192). The second essay,

“Home Rule Comes of Age,” lambasted the inability of legislation to make any difference for the

Irish cause. Joyce argued that politicians would always fail to vote in favor of the Irish people, and as far as he was concerned, even legislation like the Home Rule Bill would do little to make any real difference for the Irish. While the young exile held nothing back in these critiques of the

Irish cause, his final essay, “Ireland at the Bar,” reveals a somewhat more sympathetic depiction of Ireland. Describing the colonization of Ireland, Joyce explained to his Italian readers that “six centuries of armed occupation and more than a hundred years of English legislation . . . has reduced the population of the unhappy island from eight to four million, quadrupled the taxes, and twisted the agrarian problem into many more knots” (199). These three articles paint a

68 picture of Ireland as a nation greatly suffering under colonial rule, so much so that the Irish themselves seemed incapable of changing their fate. Appealing to readers outside of Ireland,

Joyce spoke on behalf of his people with the hope that the Irish cause would be better understood. These articles were a way for the author, still struggling to understand the Irish cause himself, to promote a different kind of Irish nationalism and pride that would bring Ireland into the international sphere. After all, even if Ireland seemed a hopeless cause, Joyce fully intended to be the voice of his nation, as revealed in a letter to his wife Nora in 1909: “I will become indeed the poet of my race” (Letters II 248).

What Joyce could not have predicted in 1907 was that the Irish would rise up against

England and win their independence by 1922. Like Yeats, Joyce watched the Irish revolution unfold from a distance. The violence of the Easter Rising disturbed the author, who had recently relocated to Zurich because of WWI. According to Ellmann, Joyce “followed the events with pity” and was particularly upset when he learned that his pacifist friend Francis Sheehy

Skeffington had been senselessly killed during the Rising (James Joyce 399.32 Bowker explains that Joyce was “shocked by the violence” of both the Rising and the subsequent executions, and that “what remaining sympathy he had for Sinn Fein evaporated” (225). Faced with the reality of revolution, the maturing author was forced to deal with the fact that freedom often came with a high price. Rather than seeing the Easter Rising as a step forward for the Irish cause, Ellmann suggests that Joyce “evaluated the rising as useless,” but that the exiled author was also confronted with the fact that he was isolated from the rapidly changing political climate in

Ireland (James Joyce 399). Feeling out of touch and disturbed by the bloodshed both from the

Rising and the war that was closing in around him in Europe, Joyce was hesitant to openly

32 As Bowker reports, Skeffington was arrested while trying to prevent looting during the Rising and shot without a trial by a “demented British officer recently back from France and ready to shoot ‘conchies’ [conscientious objectors] on sight” (225). The officer was later judged guilty of murder.

69 support the Irish cause. He expressed this sentiment in a letter to Fanny Guillermet responding to a request to write something about the Easter Rising for the Journal de Geneve: “I am restricted to making a pronouncement on it by means of the scenes and characters of my poor art” (Letters

I 118). Rather than serving the anti-colonial movement directly, Joyce discovered, like Yeats, that the ideal way to promote nationalism without also promoting violence was through his writing. As McCourt notes, while Joyce exiled himself very purposefully from Ireland, “he dearly wanted to be read and understood in his native country” (106). Rather than speaking out in favor of the Rising, the author concentrated his efforts on getting his writing published and began working on the epic that would become Ulysses.

While Joyce concentrated on his writing, the Irish cause moved forward without him.

During the Irish War of Independence the author was living in Paris and far from the fighting.

Consumed by his writing, along with socializing with other artists in Paris, Joyce left behind very few documented opinions of the events unfolding in Ireland. This was partly due to his intense fear and trepidation concerning any kind of violence, but it also seems to have been driven by an almost stubborn refusal to speak about a movement that he felt detached from.

However, when news reached him of the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty he was, at least initially, optimistic about the future of his native country. Ellmann explains that Joyce was

“briefly exhilarated by the foundation of the Irish Free State,” although this feeling did not last very long (James Joyce 533). Rather than embracing the Irish Free State, Joyce remained skeptical of the new government. The civil war that erupted over the conditions of the Treaty quickly turned him against the newly independent Ireland. As Manganiello suggests, it is not surprising that he was disappointed with the results of the War of Independence, as the violence that followed only confirmed “Joyce’s worst suspicions about his countrymen” (165). As Joyce

70 had predicted in his youth, even though Ireland was technically free to govern itself now, it was still very much controlled by the institutions once supported by colonialism. The independence

Ireland had won was incomplete, a fact that was apparent to Joyce as fighting continued in

Ireland. When Nora took the children to Ireland against his wishes for a visit in 1922, he was horrified to learn that they had been caught in the middle of the civil war and narrowly escaped harm. As far as he was concerned, little had changed in Ireland, and it was just as divisive as ever. The Irish Free State was unstable, and the continued threat of violence left Joyce bitter about the whole affair. Understandably, Manganiello concludes that “Joyce remained skeptical of an Irish Free State which still paid homage to what he considered to be spiritual tyranny”

(174).

Although Joyce would consider visiting Ireland later in his life, he never made the trip and continued to resist any involvement with Irish politics that extended beyond his writing.

After his father’s death in 1931 the author felt more disconnected from Ireland and Irish politics than ever before. When Joyce was invited to be the guest of honor at a St. Patrick’s Day celebration in 1932 he rejected the offer because, according to Ellmann, he feared that “the presence of the Irish Ambassador, Count O’Kelly, would imply his endorsement of the new state” (James Joyce 643). In a letter to Harriet Weaver on the subject he explains his position:

I care nothing about politics. . . . Ireland, with Ulster in, will probably be a

separate republic in ten or fifty years and I do not suppose anyone in England will

really care two hoots whether it is or not. They are doing many things much more

efficiently, I am told, than was possible under the old régime, but any semblance

of liberty they had when under England seems to have gone—and goodness

knows that was not much. (qtd. in Ellmann 643)

71 Later that same year Yeats wrote to Joyce urging him to accept a nomination to the Academy of

Irish Letters. The group, which Yeats was forming with George Bernard Shaw, was meant to be a “vigorous body capable of defending our interests, negotiating with Government, and I hope preventing the worst forms of censorship” (Yeats, Letters 800). However, Joyce refused this offer as well, claiming that he saw “no reason why my name should have arisen at all in connection with such an academy” (Letters I 325). These refusals clearly indicate that by this time Joyce was determined to separate himself from any kind of Irish politics. Yet, despite these protestations, the author continued to write about the Irish experience. While the aging author had lost faith in Irish politics, he held on to the belief that his writing could contribute to

Ireland’s future by continuing to shape an understanding of Irish identity and nationalism through literature.

Ireland’s colonial history, and the varied ways in which Yeats and Joyce responded to decolonization efforts during their lifetimes, directly informed each author’s understanding of nationalism. While both men were opposed to violence, even for the sake of Irish independence, they struggled to find a way for their writing to inspire the movement. Yeats, who was deeply involved in Irish politics early on, eventually discovered that his views were not always in line with the younger generation that would eventually lead Ireland to revolution. Believing that his contributions to the cause were no longer appreciated, the aging author distanced himself from the cause and watched as the nationalist movement achieved independence without him. Deeply skeptical of the Irish people’s ability to commit to real change, Joyce chose to distance himself from official politics. Rather than becoming involved with the political and military movements forming in Ireland, the author chose to exile himself from his nation, but he did so in order to contribute to the cause in the only way he could: through his writing. While it can be difficult to

72 argue that Yeats and Joyce were fully dedicated to the Irish cause at all times, their investment in

Ireland’s future is clear when looking at their revisionist myths.

73 Chapter 3

Imagining a National Mythic Culture

In Anomalous States (1993), David Lloyd argues that “the function of a national literature is normalizing” (47). What Lloyd means is that a national literature is used as a way of establishing a coherent and unified idea of a nation’s cultural identity. In the case of Irish national literature, Lloyd writes, the goal was to “develop from its primitive, native incoherence to the status of a representative national institution” to operate at the “individual as at the national level, to develop ethical identity” (47). The authors participating in the creation of an

Irish national literature at the turn of the century were motivated by these goals, giving rise to the

Irish Literary Revival. The importance of this cultural movement cannot be overlooked when considering the ways in which W. B. Yeats and James Joyce participated in the creation of a national literature for Ireland. This chapter begins with an analysis of Yeats’s and Joyce’s relationship with the Irish Literary Revival to establish how each author engaged with the project of normalizing Irish identity. Motivated by the conviction that Ireland needed a national culture to combat colonial rule, Yeats and Joyce used revisionist myth to shape culture heroes that would represent the Irish experience. Although each author had varying opinions of the Irish Literary

Revival, both men believed that culture was a valuable tool for the anti-colonial movement, and they were both drawn to revisionist myth and culture heroism to achieve their goals. With this in mind, this chapter also provides an in-depth discussion of why Yeats and Joyce manipulated myth to shape their individual culture heroes, along with an explanation of why they chose

Cuchulain and Odysseus as their models. The chief focus of this chapter is the ways in which

74 these authors viewed the relationships among myth, culture heroism, and national identity as a means of resisting colonial rule.

The Irish Literary Revival

While nationalist politics was growing in the late nineteenth century, literary circles that would eventually contribute to the anti-colonial movement in Ireland were beginning to form. In

“The Irish Revival: A Re-appraisal” (2000), P. J. Matthews argues for the necessity of a cultural movement such as the Irish Literary Revival by explaining that “[i]n truth the period between

1893 and 1911 represented a particularly dark and powerless period for parliamentary politics in

Ireland” (13). With political avenues blocked, anti-colonial Irish men and women turned to other institutions to promote the Irish cause. Postcolonial scholars have done great work to explain how and why literature intervenes in the decolonization process by establishing a unifying culture for colonized natives to find inspiration and empowerment in. This was especially true in

Ireland where centuries of English rule had stripped away many elements of Irish cultural traditions. The works created under the influence of this movement reshaped how the Irish, along with the rest of the world, identified Irish culture. In some ways, the Irish Literary Revival seemed to stir a latent sense of duty in the Irish writers of this era to give the country something that it had not been in full control of since coming under English rule: a distinctly Irish culture.

According to Maire and Conor Cruise O’Brien, this new generation of Irish writers felt a sense of “[s]hame at the passivity or treachery of an earlier generation” and yearned for the kind of action that previously seemed impossible (123). For example, events such as the fall of Charles

Stewart Parnell left Yeats and Joyce with the feeling that the previous generation had betrayed the cause of Irish independence. Rather than passively observing these moments, this new

75 generation was motivated to participate in the movement by making literature relevant to the

Irish cause.

The Irish Literary Revival, just one component of the larger Irish Revival that included various political and cultural ideologies, gave a sense of order and purpose to this national project with a focus on the literary.33 According to Marjorie Howes and Joseph Valente in Yeats and Afterwords (2013), the aim of the Irish Literary Revival was to “create a vibrant future for

Ireland by resuscitating the past” (1). Yeats, a prime mover of the Irish Literary Revival and an outspoken advocate for its goals, believed that his generation could effect great change by establishing a national culture through reviving and revising pre-colonial traditions and culture through literature. Yeats devoted much of his early career to promoting the ideals of the Irish

Literary Revival and recruiting other writers to its cause. While Yeats’s personal concern was with reviving past traditions, the overall focus of the Irish Literary Movement was the more general aim establishing an Irish cultural identity for the nation’s future. As Gregory Dobbins explains more thoroughly in Lazy Idle Schemers (2010), while the works that contributed to the

Irish Literary Revival “may have varied . . . they shared a common project of delineating those aspects of the national character that would help enable an imaginative construction of the nation, which could become a reality through enough hard work,” whether these works were concerned with “ancient legendary material” or “the representation of a more contemporary vision of the west of Ireland” (69). In other words, the overall goal of the Irish Literary Revival was the decolonization of Irish identity through literary efforts. While Yeats played an instrumental role

33 In New Voices of Irish Criticism (2000), both Gregory Dobbins (in “‘Scenes of Tawdry Tribute’: Modernism, Tradition and Connolly”) and P. J. Matthews (in “The Irish Revival: A Re-appraisal”) emphasize the necessity of recognizing the multiple elements that came together to make up the Irish Revival as a whole, rather than suggesting that the movement was a cohesive, singularly literary one. Significantly, Dobbins reveals the fact that the Irish Revival, with its “competing political and culture ideologies” was a “Gramscian war of position” (5). Dobbins reaffirms this point in Lazy Idle Schemers when he rightly identifies the Irish Revival as a “multifaceted act of labour necessary for the birth of the nation” (12).

76 in this literary project, Joyce often found himself at odds with the movement. Even though he is sometimes grouped with other writers working with the Irish Literary Revival, Joyce was very outspoken about his doubts and issues regarding the methods employed by the group. Despite this friction, Joyce was working toward some of the same goals as those associated with the

Revival. As Dobbins argues, whether or not the author was comfortable with the Irish Literary

Revival as a literary institution, his work necessarily contributed to the Revival as something that

“provided the imagery and symbolic content for an anti-imperialist form of nationalism” (Lazy

Idle Schemers 67). Because the Irish Literary Revival was an important cultural touchstone in this process and in the history of Irish decolonization, it is necessary to briefly discuss how Yeats and Joyce participated in this movement.

“Would he not die for Ireland?”: Commitment to the Cause

Ultimately, the goal of the Irish Literary Revival was to create an official national literature for Ireland. Lloyd explains that the authors working during the years of the Revival believed that the “proper function of the Irish writer would accordingly be to represent the people, in every sense of that word” (Anomalous States 43). While this is a great deal of responsibility for an author to accept, Yeats was convinced that it was necessary for Irish independence. He believed that Ireland had reached an important moment in the early twentieth century, which necessitated a literary revival. In Samhain, the Irish National Theatre Society’s periodical, Yeats explains this moment as one that “comes in every country when its character expresses itself through some group of writers, painters, or musicians, and it is this moment . . . which fixes the finer elements of national character for generations” (8). Of course, Yeats counted himself among this group of artists that would bear the responsibility of fixing the national character of Ireland. As Lloyd aptly notes, “Yeats, as is well known, devoted three

77 decades of his life to a cultural nationalism whose object was to forge a sense of national identity in Irish subjects such that their own personal identity would be fulfilled only in the creation of the nation” (Anomalous States 69). Because of this dedication, Yeats, along with Lady Augusta

Gregory, is often credited with bringing the Irish Literary Revival to life through his writing and through the establishment of related institutions such as the National Literary Society and the

Irish National Theatre Society.

In stark contrast to Yeats’s dedication to the Irish Literary Revival, Joyce displayed skepticism and, at times, hostility toward the cultural institution and its various projects. This does not, however, suggest that Joyce was completely opposed to the movement or its goals.

Gregory Castle argues in Modernism and the Celtic Revival (2001) that it is important for scholars not to “lose sight of the fact that Joyce and Yeats desired the same thing: the creation of an imaginary Irish nation and race” (173). Castle draws necessary attention to the fact that despite the many ways in which Yeats and Joyce differed, there is at least one point on which they agreed: Ireland needed a literature to define it. The major difference between the two authors was how they chose to contribute to this agendum. While Yeats enthusiastically promoted the Irish Literary Revival and actively gave his work over to the cause, Joyce was more often an outspoken critic of the movement and those associated with it. In James Joyce and

Nationalism (1996), Emer Nolan suggests that Joyce’s main critique was based on the fact that he “did not believe in resuscitating outdated traditions, either to help aspiring artists or to pacify the masses” (23). Nolan’s observation reveals two important points that explain Joyce’s reservations about the Irish Literary Revival: Joyce was opposed to the idea that an author’s duty was to his nation, and he did not believe in the revivalist project of simply churning out ancient

Irish myths and customs as a means of promoting what seemed to him a false sense of Irish

78 identity. One of Joyce’s major issues with the Irish Literary Revival was the idea that art should work solely for a cause. Joyce was not willing to suffer for Ireland like Yeats was, instead saying

“let Ireland die for me,” a pronouncement that he has Stephen Dedalus repeat in Ulysses (qtd. in

Ellmann, James Joyce 399). Although Joyce agreed that Ireland needed a culture of its own, according to Gordon Bowker, “the patriotic demand to work for a new Ireland” was too much of a price for his art (54). While not working directly with the Irish Literary Revival, Joyce’s writing still contributed to the cultural mission of the movement without him actually being a card-carrying member, so to speak. Declan Kiberd points out in Inventing Ireland (1995) that while Joyce isolated himself from the institutions of the Irish Literary Revival and left Ireland, he took with him into exile the “ancient Gaelic notion that only in literature can the consciousness of a people be glimpsed” (328). Yeats too shared this “ancient Gaelic notion” but, unlike Joyce, he expressed this belief through heavy involvement in the movement and its organized institutions, even if he disagreed with them at times.

Yeats’s early involvement in the Irish Literary Revival was heavily inspired by the encouragement of those closest to him, particularly John O’Leary and Maud Gonne. The first major task that Yeats undertook was to create the National Literary Society in 1892 under the influence of John T. Kelly and O’Leary. The primary purpose of the society was to foster interest in Irish culture by opening lending libraries throughout Ireland. However, as R. F. Foster explains in W. B. Yeats: The Apprentice Mage (1997), there were problems with the National

Literary Society from the beginning. The main issue for Yeats was that Kelly insisted that the

National Literary Society be free of “aggressive Parnellism and neo-Fenianism” (Foster 120).

Although Yeats tried to redirect the efforts of the National Literary Society to include a stronger political stance regarding decolonization he would ultimately fail. Despite this setback, the

79 National Literary Society ultimately provided Yeats with an important community that would foster and cultivate his understanding of the Irish Literary Revival as a whole. The most important moment of Yeats’s participation in the National Literary Society came after Douglas

Hyde’s presidential address to the organization. In this address, “The Necessity of De-

Anglicizing Ireland” (1892), Hyde, an Irish language scholar, argued that the only way to construct an Irish culture was to return to writing exclusively in Irish and reviving the old customs, music, and athletic traditions of the people who originally spoke this language. While

Yeats agreed with most of Hyde’s observations, especially those that called for a revival of Irish customs and traditions, there was a fundamental problem with Hyde’s address: the insistence that all Irish literature must necessarily be written in the Irish language. As Foster explains, the argument that “denied that there could be a distinctively Irish literature in the English language . . . contradicted everything [Yeats’s] own work stood for” (Apprentice Mage 126).

Yeats did not write in Irish because he did not know the language, but more than that, he disagreed with the insistence on the Irish language because it threatened greater insularism and provincialism. In response to Hyde’s address, the author denounced the belief that Irish literature must be written in Irish. In a letter written to the editor of the political newspaper United Ireland,

Yeats countered Hyde’s argument with the following questions:

Can we not build a national tradition, a national literature, which shall be none the

less Irish in spirit from being English in language? Can we not keep the continuity

of the nation’s life, not by trying to do what Dr. Hyde has practically pronounced

impossible, but by translating or retelling in English, which shall have an

indefinable Irish quality of rhythm and style, all that is best of the ancient

literature? (“The De-Anglicising of Ireland” 261)

80 These questions demonstrate Yeats’s desire for Irish culture to inspire nationalism in a way that maintained the Irish spirit while still being accessible. Not only had English become the common linguistic currency in Ireland—neither Yeats nor Joyce was fluent in Irish—but also no one outside of Ireland would be able to appreciate literature written in an unfamiliar language.

Language was not, for Yeats, the only way of connecting the Irish with their past. More important was the ability of culture to bring the Irish together, to create a sense of community in a nation that had for so long been defined by colonial rule.

Yeats was not the only Irish author determined to show that language did not define a nation’s literature. Joyce also believed that one of the things holding the Irish back was the insistence on the use of a language that no longer felt natural. The promotion of the Irish language was one barrier to his involvement in the Irish Literary Revival, and he would never be formally involved with revivalist institutions like the Irish Literary Society or the Irish National

Theatre Society. In fact, John McCourt notes in James Joyce: A Passionate Exile (1999) that even during his days at University College, Dublin, Joyce was somewhat “resentful of the overbearing Catholic and nationalistic ethos of the University and its three hundred students”

(25). While the promotion of the Irish language was not the only objection Joyce had to these institutions, it was one of the reasons he claimed to be hesitant about calling himself an Irish nationalist. In a 1906 letter to his brother Stanislaus he wrote, “If the Irish programme did not insist on the Irish language I suppose I could call myself a nationalist. As it is, I am content to recognise myself as an exile” (Selected Letters 125). Joyce was opposed to the idea promoted by

Hyde’s speech, and upheld by the Gaelic League, that Irish literature must be written in the Irish language. Joyce rebelled against those who chose to write in Irish, more interested in the ways in which, as Kiberd describes, “his people had managed to reshape English, to a point where their

81 artists could know the exhilaration of feeling estranged from all official languages” (Inventing

Ireland 331). Joyce, a lover of languages, enjoyed tinkering with and distorting languages in order to create new meaning, which he saw as a much more productive creative endeavor than forcing his ideas through a single, strictly bound language just for the purposes of promoting a false sense of nationalism. Language was an important part of Joyce’s work, and while the Irish language appears in his novels, it is not used to promote the language over English because, for the author, there was nothing especially authentic about the Irish language. Writing in Irish would not make someone Irish, just as writing in English would not make someone English.

Joyce felt there were more important ways in which the Irish were betraying their cultural values than through the language they chose to write in. As Kiberd argues, “In Joyce’s texts, there is a double exposure: he indicts colonialism, as do revivalists themselves, but then he proceeds to indict the native culture for not living up to expectations of it, for not being authentic elsewhere”

(Inventing Ireland 336). Joyce was aware that colonialism had taken the Irish language and nearly erased it, but those writing in this language could not realistically revive it if no one could read it. Rather than focusing on language, he wanted to rebuild what it meant to be Irish in an

English-speaking nation. This was the way to create an authentic community that could realistically communicate with one another, which was a goal that Yeats shared as well.

As David Dwan remarks in The Great Community: Culture and Nationalism in Ireland

(2008), “For much of his career, Yeats was inspired by an ideal of communal life that he associated with the ancients” which “derived their sense of integration from their shared pursuit of cultural excellence” (79). Through a shared culture, Yeats believed that a new community could be forged, one that resisted colonial identification. Driven by this desire for community,

Yeats used the colonizer’s language to promote an Irish culture created by the Irish and inspired

82 by an ancient Irish past. One of the ways that he promoted this project was through the establishment of the Irish National Theatre and the opening of the Abbey Theatre. Yeats believed that a national theater would significantly contribute to the goals of the Irish Literary Revival in a number of ways. In Autobiographies (1936), he explains that he thought it was necessary to have a national theater in Ireland because it could function as a much-needed national institution for culture and would be a place to foster community. According to Yeats, “You cannot keep the idea of a nation alive where there are no national institutions to reverence, no national success to admire, without a model of it in the mind of the people” (Autobiographies 364). A public theater would be a place for Irish audiences to see plays that Irish writers were creating and to inspire a true revival of Irish culture and nationalism.

Yeats expressed his hopes and plans for the Irish National Theatre in Samhain while also reporting on its successes and failures. These observations reveal how the author understood the role of the Abbey Theatre in the Irish Literary Revival and his hopes for the ability of his own plays to contribute to this project. In the 1901 volume of Samhain Yeats wrote that the importance of a public theater rested in its ability to recreate “the imaginative tradition of Ireland”

(7). In 1901 he was just beginning to imagine how an Irish theater could further the goals of the

Irish Literary Revival by fostering creativity. As his confidence in this project grew his expectations for the theater expanded as well. In the 1903 Samhain, Yeats insisted that the

Abbey Theatre would be a “place of intellectual excitement—a place where the mind goes to be liberated” (9). As with the Irish Literary Revival as a whole, the Abbey Theatre was meant to improve the Irish by nurturing their minds through art that specifically promoted Irish culture as opposed to the culture produced by England. Overall, his reports tell an optimistic story of the potential of the theater to have a lasting impact on Irish culture and identity. In the fourth edition

83 of Samhain, Yeats expresses an optimistic belief that the Irish people were ready for a true cultural revival in Ireland: “I would not be trying to form an Irish National Theatre, if I did not believe that there existed in Ireland, whether in the minds of a few people or of a great number I do not know, an energy of thought about life itself . . . powerful enough to overcome all those phantoms of the night” (15). Through the plays produced at the Abbey Theatre, Yeats and other playwrights could reach audiences waiting for a rebirth of Irish culture. While the reality of the

Abbey Theatre was not always what Yeats hoped it would be—not all of the plays were received with the kind of enthusiasm he predicted—it functioned as an important way for him to actively participate in the Irish Literary Revival by gathering a community. In this way, Yeats’s relationship to the Irish Literary Revival was, for a time, heavily defined by his desire to gather a national audience. As Kiberd argues, speaking of Yeats and the other players of the Irish Literary

Revival, “If they were to invent Ireland, they must first invent the Irish” (Inventing Ireland 136).

A public theater was the place in which Yeats attempted to invent an Irish audience for his plays and where he upheld the goals of the Irish Literary Revival by reviving a pre-colonial Irish past.

While Joyce initially supported some of the productions at the Abbey Theatre, and was certainly aiming to invent an Irish audience of his own, he grew to dislike the habit of only showing Irish plays. According to Bowker, Joyce was “by no means enamoured of the Irish

Literary Theatre or the cultural revival” largely because of the insistence on all things Irish over other European works of art (81). He quickly grew weary of the singular focus of the theater and went so far as to publish an essay denouncing this practice in 1901. In “The Day of the

Rabblement” he criticizes the theater while simultaneously acknowledging its potential. Joyce admits, “The Irish Literary Theatre is the latest movement of protest against the sterility and falsehood of the modern stage” (Critical Writings 69-70). Recognizing the intent of Yeats’s

84 project, Joyce shows that he is not unaware of the need for cultural appreciation in Ireland.

However, this is where the compliments end, and he quickly asserts that by only showing revivalist Irish plays, the Irish Literary Theatre was pandering to the public as “it surrendered to the popular will” (Critical Writings 70).34 Not only was it offensive to Joyce that the Abbey

Theatre would not stage productions of European plays, but he also believed that the supposedly authentic Irish plays being produced were deeply flawed because they simply repeated colonial understandings of Irish history. The author felt that there was nothing authentic in revivalist representations because they ultimately relied on English models for their plays. According to

Kiberd, Joyce believed that “[w]hat the revivalists sought to rediscover was merely a projection of imperial fantasy” (Inventing Ireland 335). That is, the past that the Irish Literary Revival wanted to recapture was actually based on colonial representations of Irish culture that pleased the “popular will” he criticized in “The Day of the Rabblement.” These criticisms, however, do not make Joyce an enemy of the basic principles of the Irish Literary Revival. Rather, they are an attempt to more authentically uphold these goals by insisting on a realistic representation of the

Irish that didn’t depend upon a past marred by colonialism.

While Yeats was fascinated by Ireland’s history and traditions, Joyce wanted to get away from the past and focus firmly on the present and the future. As Kiberd explains, Joyce’s work displays an attempt to explain “to a baffled people who they were” through “a discovery of the real Ireland of the present” (Inventing Ireland 336). Although the Irish Literary Revival claimed to be representing the Irish people through the creation and promotion of Irish culture, he believed that the movement was a failure because it was detached from the realities of modern life. Dobbins argues that because of the movement’s obsession with the past, Joyce felt that it

34 Joyce was also angry that Yeats rejected his English translations of two of the German playwright Gerhart Hauptmann’s plays that he submitted to be performed at the Abbey Theatre. He believed that the theatre should produce European plays as well as Irish plays but Yeats disagreed.

85 was “woefully inadequate to overcome the general sense of colonial underdevelopment and impoverishment that characterized Irish life in the years leading up to independence” (Lazy Idle

Schemers 9). He viewed the Irish Literary Revival as unrealistically romanticizing the Irish and their history in an attempt to bolster national pride, but this was not, in his opinion, a productive method for achieving this goal.35

While Joyce did not officially participate in the Irish Literary Revival, he did not wholly oppose the philosophy behind the movement. As Dobbins notes, Joyce “objected to the Revival’s view of history, not to Irish nationalisms as such” (Lazy Idle Schemers 90). He was not against

Irish nationalism or the fostering of a new Irish culture, but he believed that authors like Yeats were too enamored with the past to focus on the present. Joyce identified Irish history with paralyzing traditions such as religion, rather than, as Dobbins argues, “an abstract source of tradition that would culminate in the nation-state” (90). However, Joyce’s understanding of this reliance on the past does not fully account for the way that Yeats revived Irish culture. As Renée

Fox argues in “The Revivalist Museum” (2013), Yeats was aware that “cultural revival does not derive from the simple excavation of old stories but rather from a heroic act of aesthetic transformation that can reanimate those legends into bodies of modern poetry” (22). Yeats worked to revive Irish culture, but he did so with the intention of transforming and updating it to be relevant to modern Irish audiences. Despite Joyce’s opinions of the Irish Literary Revival, the revivalist project that Yeats participated in was much more complicated than a mere resurgence of the past. In reality, both authors used the same method of looking to the past for inspiration in their attempts to establish an Irish identity for the twentieth century: revisionist mythmaking.

35 Joyce’s criticisms are not wholly unfounded. As Joseph Valente points out in “Nation for Art’s Sake: Aestheticist Afterwords in Yeats’s Irish Revival” (2014), “even as the early revivalists identified themselves with the Irish people-nation, their struggles, their forms of life, and their political aspirations, they continued to regard their aboriginal brethren with a settler’s gaze. . . . which bore a predictably colonial impress” (106).

86 Modern Mythmakers

While the tradition of revisionist mythmaking did not begin with Yeats and Joyce, their work was recognized at the time as being representative examples of the method. For example, in a short article written for The Dial in 1923, T.S. Eliot argued that more authors should follow the lead of Yeats and Joyce and embrace this literary method. Believing that the modern world required a new kind of literature, Eliot asked writers to follow Yeats and Joyce’s lead by turning away from the “narrative method” and embracing the “mythical method” of storytelling (177).

Eliot argued that the mythical method was a valuable tool for modern authors because it was “a way of controlling, of ordering, of giving a shape and a significance to the immense panorama of futility and anarchy which is contemporary history” (176). With the Irish War of Independence having just ended and civil war raging in Ireland, combined with the recent conclusion to World

War I, there was a serious need for order, unity, and stability. While myth could not literally create order in Ireland, or the rest of the world, Eliot believed that using myth was a way to make sense of the chaos. As for Yeats and Joyce, they saw myth as a means of establishing a national literature in Ireland, which was a way of ordering Irish identity and making sense of the colonial experience. Emphasizing the role that literature plays in society, Eliot noted that for these authors, using the mythical method was a step toward “making the modern world possible for art” and “order and form,” which it currently lacked (177). Interestingly, Eliot’s essay reveals an early recognition of the cultural project that Yeats and Joyce were pursuing while also realizing the role that myth played in this process. Eliot concluded his essay by calling for others to use the mythical method: “In using the myth, in manipulating a continuous parallel between contemporaneity and antiquity, Mr. Joyce is pursuing a method which others must pursue after him. . . . It is a method already adumbrated by Mr. Yeats, and of the need for which I believe Mr.

87 Yeats to have been the first contemporary to be conscious” (177). Eliot did not spend much time exploring the specific ways in which this mythical method was being employed by these authors, but he suggested that both were manipulating myth in the same manner. In reality, Eliot’s argument is actually an oversimplification of revisionist mythmaking and ignores the unique ways that these two authors approached this method. The different methods employed by each author are significant and require analysis because they reveal, especially in the characterizations of their culture heroes, their individual goals for Ireland.

While Yeats’s interest in myth was driven by his desire for a return to order, he had been fascinated with the genre since childhood. In “Reveries over Childhood and Youth” (1914),

Yeats explains that he began reading myths at a young age and quickly felt a connection with the stories. Recounting his favorite works to read as a child, Yeats names the Iliad, Grimm’s Fairy

Tales, and the work of Hans Christian Anderson, all of which he claims to have read repeatedly

(Autobiographies 68). In addition to his reading, he was exposed to the oral tradition of Irish fairy tales by his mother, promoting an interest in reading these stories. The most important collection of Irish myths that he read in his youth was Standish O’Grady’s History of Ireland:

Cuculain and His Contemporaries (1880), which introduced Yeats to the literary tradition of mythic Ireland. As he discovered the rich history of Irish mythology he recalled the fairy stories that his mother told him as a child and felt inspired to work toward preserving these stories. Like the other members of the Irish Literary Revival, he believed that these stories were a significant part of Ireland’s history and cultural identity, and that they were in danger of disappearing through the process of colonization. In “The Trembling of the Veil,”36 Yeats explains that his first attempt to preserve these myths prompted him to scour the countryside “to gather folk- belief, tales of the faeries, and the like” with Lady Gregory, which they then copied and

36 “The Trembling of the Veil” is the second section of Yeats’s Autobiographies (1936).

88 published (Autobiographies 283). It was not long before Yeats moved beyond wanting to simply copy the original myths for preservation. The characters, places, and tales found in these myths inspired him, so he used this inspiration to create new works based on the original myths.

Meanwhile, the author’s involvement in Irish politics was growing, and he began to think that these stories might have something to contribute to the Irish cause. Specifically, thanks in large part to the influence of men like John O’Leary, Yeats believed that Irish mythology could be used to establish a unifying culture in Ireland that could then be used to promote anti-colonial ideals. In “The Trembling of the Veil,” he explains why the creation of a new Irish mythology was linked to his vision for an independent Ireland:

Might I not, with health and good luck to aid me, create some new Prometheus

Unbound; Patrick or Columcille, Oisin or Finn, in Prometheus’ stead . . . . Have

not all races had their first unity from a mythology that marries them to rock and

hill? We had in Ireland imaginative stories, which the uneducated classes knew

and even sang, and might we not make those stories current among the educated

classes, rediscovering for the work’s sake what I have called ‘the applied arts of

literature’. . . and at last, it might be, so deepen the political passion of the nation

that all, artist and poet, craftsman and day-labourer would accept a common

design? (Autobiographies 166-67)

Yeats, describing the motives behind his cultural project for Ireland, recalls his original desire to create a hero as grand and unifying as Prometheus—a hero whose actions would shape the whole culture of Ireland, unifying the people under the social code established by these myths. He argued that myth had, in the past, successfully united communities and nations, just as he planned to do with Ireland. The stories were already there, remembered by what Yeats refers to

89 as the “uneducated classes” but forgotten by the rest. Identifying this loss of culture, he declared that if these stories were reclaimed and the Irish were reminded of their culture it would “deepen the political passion of the nation” and unite the people (Autobiographies 167). The author believed that a society’s myths carry with them the beliefs and concerns of the population and therefore have the ability to transmit political messages. Stories, according to Yeats, could change the Irish in significant ways because the images created by these stories, “might move of themselves and with some powerful, even turbulent life, like those painted horses that trampled the rice-fields of Japan” (Autobiographies 167). In other words, the ideas and beliefs located in myths had the power to inspire action.

Reflecting on his part in reestablishing Ireland’s national mythology Yeats admitted, “I used to tell the few friends to whom I could speak these secret thoughts that I would make the attempt in Ireland but fail, for our civilization, its elements multiplying by division like certain low forms of life, was all-powerful; but in reality I had the wildest hopes” (Autobiographies

167). While this appears to be an admission of failure on Yeats’s part, he follows this statement with a reaffirmation of his belief in the necessity of this cultural project: “To-day I add to that first conviction, to that first desire for unity, this other conviction, long a mere opinion vaguely or intermittently apprehended: nations, races, and individual men are unified by an image, or bundle of related images” (167). He was only halfway done with Cuchulain’s story when he made this optimistic declaration, and he would go on to write three more Cuchulain plays after this, each one building on his belief that these myths could unify his nation by establishing a clearly defined Irish identity. To define what it meant to be Irish in a nation moving toward independence, Yeats wrote and produced plays based on these ancient stories in an effort to inspire Ireland to embrace Cuchulain as a national culture hero.

90 Joyce, too, was very interested in the literary tradition of mythology as a means of establishing an Irish identity. However, Joyce’s unique role as a self-imposed exile from Ireland, along with his antagonistic relationship with the Irish Literary Revival, has prevented some scholars from considering the author’s engagement with mythology. If we are to fully understand

Joyce’s literary contribution then we must consider what drew him to mythology. While the author chose to live outside of Ireland, this did not mean that he isolated himself from Irish culture or current events. Thanks in part to accounts by Joyce’s brother Stanislaus, we know that

Joyce received the United Irishman every week and read it faithfully to keep up to date with Irish matters.37 While this is not the only example of the exile’s effort to stay connected to his homeland, it shows that he was making a serious effort to stay informed. Despite appearances,

Maria Tymoczko argues in The Irish Ulysses (1994), “Joyce situated himself in the cultural spectrum in such a way that he was among the best informed of those who used popular vehicles to instruct themselves about Irish literary and historical tradition” (254). The question that remains is why he chose to explore these subjects through mythology. It has long been accepted that Joyce used the Odyssey to shape the narrative structure of Ulysses, but this decision was much more than a matter of organization. While, as Eliot argued, mythology provided the Irish author with a way to order the themes and narrative of Ulysses, Tymoczko explains that it “also serves to make connections, to establish equivalences, to coordinate--and also to disrupt connections, to deny likeness, to establish differences and conflicts” (Irish Ulysses 339). In other words, he used myth to carefully craft his conflicted and evolving understanding of Irish identity.

Rather than relying on myth to look backwards, Joyce manipulated myth to push Ireland into the future.

37 This weekly publication provided Joyce with a wealth of knowledge. As Maria Tymoczko notes, “[n]o other periodical or popular source has a comparable range and depth of coverage of Irish cultural topics” (Irish Ulysses 254).

91 More than a simple return to the past, Yeats and Joyce both looked to myth as a means of rebuilding and redefining Irish identity. Jack Zipes’s theory regarding the role of myth in society explains why these authors were drawn to myth to fulfill this goal. According to Zipes, myths are important because they are “vital to the survival of a community and the preservation of its values and beliefs” (11). In this manner, myths actually help form and nurture the communities that they represent because these stories spread the cultural values that define the community.

However, these myths must be disseminated to the community for them to have any power, a process that colonization hinders as it works to replace native culture with the colonizer’s culture.

The erasure of native culture means the erasure of the native population’s history and the destruction of the communities established before colonization. Conversely, reviving these myths can be a means of restoring native culture, which is key to reforming the communities threatened by colonial rule. In “Heroic Styles: The Tradition of an Idea” (2003), Seamus Deane explains that Yeats and Joyce were attempting to reform the damaged community of Ireland in their works. Deane argues that despite their differences, both authors believed that Ireland “must be recovered and restored” through the reestablishing of communities (21). Furthermore, Deane suggests that Yeats and Joyce both believed that these communities “underwent their restoration in literature” (21). More specifically, they saw the reformation of community possible through myth.

The creation of a stronger sense of community in Ireland was one goal of the Irish

Literary Revival. This desire for a communal life was a large part of Yeats’s faith in nationalism.

Dwan explains that Yeats believed that the epic tradition of myths promoted the value of the community over the individual: “the individual’s relation to his community, the goods internal to this form of life, and the relation between this society and nature itself found its ultimate

92 articulation and synthesis in epic art” (99). These communal qualities appealed to Yeats and motivated his reliance on myth to achieve his nationalistic goals.38 Because of Ireland’s mythic history, he believed that the nation had a natural inclination for these communal values passed down through the epic tradition. However, he also believed that modern Ireland had lost this tradition through the experience of colonialism, and that it was in need of restoration. Yeats hoped to revive this epic tradition because he believed a mythological coherence could aid in displaying the virtues of order and unity. His fascination with myth indicated a desire for a return to the past values of an ancient Ireland, as he believed that this was a way to secure the future of the nation.

Joyce expressed a similar desire to make myth relevant again in modern Ireland. In a letter to Carlo Linati in 1920, the author explains that his intention while writing Ulysses was to

“transpose the myth [of Odysseus] sub specie temporis nostri” (Letters I 147). According to

Joseph Mali’s translation of this phrase, Joyce’s goal was to “make ancient myth meaningful and significant for our time” (35). Despite his own reverence for the mythic tradition, he did not assume that contemporary readers would be interested in this ancient form. Therefore, in order to achieve his goal of making myth relevant again, he drastically revised his source material to appeal to modern readers. And, rather than trying to update a myth firmly located in a pre- colonial Irish past, Joyce chose a story that took place across the globe and that was well known throughout Europe. By relocating the Odyssey in twentieth century Dublin he not only recreated and updated the original myth, but he also rebranded a myth famously born out of the Greek tradition—a culture largely considered as the foundation of Western civilization—as Irish.

Rather than trying to rediscover a pre-colonial past for Ireland, Joyce instead sought to build a

38 Yeats’s vision of unity and communal life wavered throughout his life, as Dwan notes, the Irish author was torn between his early promotion of “communitarian values” and the “vigorous individualism expressed in much of his subsequent work” (110).

93 wholly new cultural identity for an Ireland that was tied to the rest of Europe. This allowed him to redefine Ireland and combat the colonial narrative that insisted that the nation lacked a civilized cultural identity. In “Mythology and Counter-History: The New Critical Art of Vico and Joyce” (1987), Joseph Mali explains that Joyce understood myth as a subversive tool that allowed him to “narrate those forbidden ‘true stories’ which have been systematically suppressed and omitted from the official, homogenous histories of nations, religions, social and political institutions, and so forth” (41). Transforming the everyday experiences of average Irish men and women into an epic that might rival the source material that inspired it, Joyce’s novel represented the experience of colonial Ireland from the perspective of the colonized. The self-representation that Joyce was concerned with is a crucial aspect of any cultural contribution to decolonization because it provides an opportunity to defy the discrimination and dehumanization of native populations perpetuated by colonial rule.

Both Yeats and Joyce participated in the vital project of self-representation through their use of revisionist myth. Yeats’s reviving of ancient Irish myths directly opposed the colonial assertion that the Irish had no culture. In Irish Classics (2000), Kiberd argues that these stories had, over time, become “truly subversive, surviving only on the very margins of society” because overt attempts to engage in Irish tradition were identified with “defiance, irrationalism and commotion” (404-05). Pre-colonial myths were seen as radical because their very existence as cultural artifacts defied the colonial notion that the Irish were blank slates when the English arrived. We know that part of the power that a colonizer has over the colonized comes from the narrative that the latter needs the former to survive and that colonization improves a nation by bringing it into the civilized world. Cultural artifacts like the ancient myths that Yeats was working to revive served as evidence against this false narrative. As Mali explains, myth serves

94 as a way to “challenge the official modes of history” and make “history anew” for native communities by challenging the history written by the colonizer (33). In this way, pre-colonial myths like those that inspired Yeats’s Cuchulain plays were valuable simply because they existed. However, this was not the only way that the mythic tradition was beneficial to Irish decolonization.

Beyond providing a means of subverting colonial narratives, the mythic tradition offered another valuable tool for imagining Irish nationalism: the culture hero. In Calibrations (2003), postcolonial scholar Ato Quayson explains how culture heroes contribute to national identities as an invaluable part of cultural decolonization. Quayson defines the trope of cultural heroism as a

“mode of characterization of agency whose typology involves some of the heroic associations of priests, traditional rulers, medicine men, hunters, politicians, and even thieves and popular rogues” (36). In other words, a culture hero is a figure possessing the particular and unique qualities considered heroic by the community it represents. While culture heroes are often found in literature, Quayson notes that they are also articulated in politics and what he refers to as “the genres of everyday life,” namely “urban stories and myths, rumor, [and] sensational stories and folktales” (36). Taken from these various sources, culture heroes are appropriated and very carefully shaped to represent the values and needs of the nation. In the case of a colonized nation, Quayson explains that the native population looks to these culture heroes as models for the formation of an anti-colonial national identity because culture heroism “is a threshold that reveals important structural ideas about the nation-state form” (32). For Yeats and Joyce, the culture hero was used as a way of understanding and articulating the Irish experience while providing a model for a developing national identity. Cuchulain and Odysseus were chosen for

95 this task because of the qualities they possessed, and then they were revised and reshaped to fit each author’s vision for Irish identity.

Cuchulain: The Irish Defender

Yeats first discovered Cuchulain’s heroic potential from reading O’Grady’s retelling of the Ulster Cycle myth in History of Ireland. Yeats noted that when he first read the book in his teens he felt that O’Grady had “made the old Irish heroes, Finn, and Oisin, and Cuchulain, alive again” (Autobiographies 183). Later in life, when he sought inspiration for his own work, he was drawn to each of these heroic figures, but it was Cuchulain who inspired him the most. When he started working on the plays he turned to O’Grady’s book along with Lady Augusta Gregory’s

Cúchulainn of Muirthemne: The Story of the Men of the Red Branch of Ulster (1902), which is a translation of Cuchulain’s heroic deeds from the Ulster Cycle epic, Tain bo Cuailnge.39 While

Yeats was originally inspired by O’Grady’s book, he described Gregory’s translations as

“keeping closer to the Gaelic text, and with greater powers of arrangement and more original style” (Autobiographies 183). In both versions Yeats found a pre-colonial hero who possessed the qualities that he believed would make a suitable culture hero for modern Ireland.

It is important to consider why Yeats chose Cuchulain to be the model for his culture hero over other equally qualified Irish heroes like Finn McCool and Oisín. After all, any one of these heroes could have suited the author’s commitment to recovering pre-colonial Irish culture.

Because Yeats believed that he could encourage the Irish to care about their cultural history once again by revising pre-colonial myths for modern audiences, it was important that he base his culture hero on an distinctly Irish figure. In The Unappeasable Host: Studies in Irish Identities

(1998), Robert Tracy explains that one reason Yeats was drawn to Cuchulain over other Irish

39 The Tain bo Cuailnge survives in two variant versions; the first being partially found in the twelfth-century Book of the Dun Cow and the fourteenth-century Yellow Book of Lacan; the second survives as a complete version in the twelfth-century Book of Leinster.

96 heroes was because he was “like Achilles, pure hero, apparently indifferent to his own physical survival, eager for the glory . . . a hero looking for a poet (as Yeats was a poet looking for a hero)” (121). Cuchulain, with his miraculous exploits, his sacrificial nature, and his charismatic personality, was an obvious choice for an author trying to inspire a nation because he naturally possessed the qualities of a great warrior. In fact, the hero had already caught the attention of young revolutionaries in Ireland. As Kiberd notes in Inventing Ireland, even before Yeats’s plays were produced, the Cuchulain of O’Grady’s History of Ireland had started attracting the attention of young revolutionaries because of his steadfast defense of the land and his rebellious attitude toward an authority that threatened to control him. Kiberd suggests that Irish militants, looking for a hero to appropriate as a “symbol for masculinity,” found Cuchulain appealing because some of his most famous deeds included protecting his people and his territory (25). However, these were not the only qualities that Yeats wanted his hero to possess, as the plays reveal a more complicated and introspective version of the mythic Cuchulain.

Yeats’s plays do not simply focus on the hero’s military victories; instead, they explore the emotional and mental struggles that he faced on his journeys. As Kiberd explains, Yeats was drawn to Cuchulain “not for bravery in battle but for willingness to enter into the abyss of his own self” (Irish Classics 404). While the plays do feature episodes in the hero’s life when he proved himself through battle, these moments are often followed by introspection and even regret. Some of this self-reflection is present in the original myths that inspired Yeats, but he emphasized these moments even more in his revisions in order to shape Cuchulain into a culture hero who relied on more than physical strength. In this way, the hero would be more relatable to the average Irishman living during the uncertainty of the twentieth century. As Ellmann explains in Yeats: The Man and the Masks (1948), Yeats’s revisions were a reflection of modern Ireland:

97 “The man who emerges from his poetry is a modern man though his name be Cuchulain. . . . He walks a tightrope between false choices, he is torn by an inner division” (294). The culture hero that appears in the plays is a multilayered, complex man searching for the best way to serve his people. Cuchulain models the experience of the Irish, including Yeats, who were trying to discover what it meant to be Irish under colonial rule and how to contribute to the anti-colonial movement. The author’s manipulation of the original myths was meant to shape the nation’s identity and the course of the Irish cause.

While the Cuchulain of the original myths is a mighty warrior, Yeats’s revisions suggest that the hero’s military prowess is not always a good thing. Cuchulain is easily angered, and his destructive fury is often uncontrollable and results in tragedy. As Joseph Campbell explains in

The Hero With a Thousand Faces (1973), one of the hero’s most notable features was his tendency to “suddenly burst like an eruption, both overwhelming himself and smashing everything around” him (330). When Cuchulain becomes violent he is likely to lose control.

Yeats was drawn to this aspect of the myths because it allowed him to critique the use of violence in the Irish cause and to suggest that Irish rebels carefully consider the cost of a bloody revolution. Cuchulain was not an infallible hero, and the plays encourage audiences to learn from his mistakes. As Nicholas Andrew Miller explains in Modernism, Ireland and the Erotics of

Memory (2002), the hero was not intended to be a perfect model. Rather than an infallible hero,

Yeats’s Cuchulain often embodied undesirable qualities and made bad decisions that he hoped his audience would recognize and avoid in their own lives. However, while the culture hero has flaws, he is far from being a failure. As Miller argues, Yeats used the hero’s complicated nature to “emphasize the problematics of memory, historicism, and the representation of identity”

(138). Cuchulain makes mistakes, as all people do, but he also works to correct them and to learn

98 from his past. Throughout the play cycle, the hero is aware of his own history and expresses a desire to grow and improve as he matures.

This focus on the hero’s ability to mature and grow is one aspect of Yeats’s revisionist myths that is particularly unique and important. Unlike his predecessors who translated the

Ulster cycle myths into prose, Yeats reimagined the life of the hero as a series of plays. The author believed that the dramatic form emphasized the passage of time and the process of aging in a way that previous versions did not. In a letter to Frank Fay, he emphasizes his desire to focus on the fact that the hero’s actions are informed by his past experiences in the first play, On

Baile’s Strand: “Remember however that epic and folk literature can ignore time as drama cannot—Helen never ages, Cuchulain never ages. I have to recognise that he does, for he has a son who is old enough to fight him. . . . He lives among young men but has himself outlived the illusions of youth” (Letters 424). Yeats believed that the mythic heroes of ancient epics were difficult to relate to because they were timeless and unaffected by history, so he wanted

Cuchulain to be less mythic and more realistic. He needed his audience to relate to the hero, and to do that he had to make the man believable. While this did require some revision, Cuchulain was easily shaped into Yeats’s vision because of the qualities that attracted the author to the hero in the first place. His strong desire to defend his people, coupled with his fallible and reflective nature made Cuchulain the perfect model for Yeats’s culture hero.

Odysseus: A Complete and Cosmopolitan Hero

While Yeats was shaping Cuchulain into an Irish-inspired culture hero, Joyce was looking outside of Ireland for inspiration. Borrowing from Greek mythology, the exiled author reimagined Odysseus as a modern Irish culture hero in the form of Leopold Bloom. Driven by a desire to escape the oppressive weight of Irish history and to make Ireland relevant on a global

99 level, Joyce rejected the pantheon of heroes featured in pre-colonial Irish myths. In Reading

Joyce’s Ulysses (1987), Daniel R. Schwarz argues that Joyce’s discomfort with Irish myth was based on a belief that the Irish tradition was not sophisticated enough for his grand epic. Schwarz writes, “[In Ulysses] Joyce is consciously substituting what he regarded as this more civilized

European tradition for the emphasis of Yeats and the Celtic Renaissance on the folk legends and the myths of the Irish gods” (37). However, this is not necessarily true. After all, Joyce would fully embrace the rich history of Irish folklore in Finnegans Wake (1939) by modeling the novel’s titular hero on Finn McCool. And while he chose the Odyssey as his model for Ulysses, the novel is filled with several references to Irish heroes and legends, revealing that the author had a deep knowledge of the mythical tradition in Ireland.40 It was not that he regarded Irish mythology as somehow inferior to the Greek tradition, but that he believed the best model for his culture hero at the time did not exist in Irish mythology. Yeats was convinced that colonial

Ireland needed a purely Irish hero, but Joyce believed this was detrimental to the cause. When

Joyce met Yeats in 1902 he expressed his skepticism for the older man’s use of Irish folklore, claiming that it was hindering his work. Similarly, when reviewing Lady Augusta Gregory’s

Poets and Dreamers in 1903, he complained about the insistence that there was some value to be found in collecting and publishing the tales only remembered by “old men and old women in the

West of Ireland . . . full of stories about giants and witches, and dogs and black-handled knives”

(Critical Writings 103). It was difficult for Joyce to separate these ancient stories from an Irish history that included other outdated traditions like those promoted by the Church. It was more appealing to him to search for his mythical model outside of Irish history. During Ireland’s

40 Tymoczko rightly argues that “the view of Joyce as an author anti-pathetical to the Irish cultural revival and uninterested in Irish tradition or mythos must be reevaluated” (Irish Ulysses 254).

100 struggle for independence, Joyce was convinced that a more worldly culture hero was required to inspire the nation.

Joyce first discovered the Odysseus myth at a young age and was immediately intrigued by the hero. According to Bowker, when assigned Alexander Pope’s Essay on Man during his schooling at Belvedere, Joyce also read the author’s translation of the Odyssey, suggesting an early interest in the epic (52). Bowker also notes that Joyce revealed to his language student

Georges Borach that he had been “entranced as a twelve-year-old schoolboy . . . by the mysticism of Ulysses” (235). As an adult, the multilingual author explored other versions of the epic, including the Greek text. According to R. J. Schork’s Greek and Hellenic Culture in Joyce

(1998), when Joyce started working on his novel he “briefly tried to work with the Homeric text,” but he did not have enough familiarity with the language to truly read it. Rather, Schork explains, “with the appropriate lexical assistance and syntactical clues, he would have been able to decipher the meaning of individual words and to explain how they functioned in the context”

(85). While Joyce displayed a desire to engage with the Greek text, he relied more on Victor

Berard’s Les Peniciens et l’Odyssee, Samuel Butcher and Andrew Lang’s prose translation of the epic, and an extensive study of classical mythology to write Ulysses. As for his readers, the author admitted that an English translation of the myth would provide an adequate key to understanding the novel. In a 1921 letter to Mrs. William Murray (Aunt Josephine) Joyce advises, “If you want to read Ulysses you had better first get or borrow from a library a translation in prose of the Odyssey of Homer” (Selected Letters 286). While it was not necessary for readers to have a deep understanding of the myth, he insisted that they should have at least some familiarity with the story of Odysseus to fully appreciate his novel as a modern Irish epic modeled on the Greek tradition.

101 It was necessary to Joyce that his readers identify Ulysses as an epic because despite the mythic tradition that existed in Ireland, he felt that the nation lacked a national epic in the vein of the Odyssey or the Aeneid. As Dr. Sigerson astutely points out in the novel itself, “Our national epic has yet to be written” (192; 9.309). Joyce intended to fill this gap with Ulysses because an epic might help inspire national pride and unity in Ireland. In Joyce’s Ulysses as National Epic

(2002), Andras Ungar explains why Joyce believed Ireland required an epic. The concern of the epic is, according to Ungar, the writing of a nation’s history for the purpose of the “establishment of legitimacy” (2). The epic is used as a means of recording and legitimizing important moments in a nation’s history. In Ulysses, Joyce focuses on a single day in Ireland’s history to represent the nation’s struggle under colonial rule. Although the novel only covers the action of one day, it manages to tell the colonial history of Ireland. As Ungar affirms, “Ulysses recovers the claims of the epic to represent historical events and the communal ‘we,’ a premise of coherent narrative representation both for historians concerned with collective agency in the past and for nationalists concerned with future communal self-definition” (1). In other words, the epic is more than just a means of recording the past, as it is also used as a means of addressing the present and the future of the nation it represents. Shaping Ulysses in the tradition of the epic allowed Joyce to gesture toward the future rather than look to the past. And, by choosing the

Odyssey as his model, the author took on the biggest epic imaginable. Discussing Joyce’s novel in The Ulysses Theme: A Study in the Adaptability of a Traditional Hero (1968), W.B. Stanford claims that “no author in ancient or modern times has attempted to rival the comprehensiveness of Homer’s account until the present century” (211). By tackling such a grandiose and classical work, Joyce’s epic openly defies the supposed superiority of English culture by suggesting that

Ireland’s history is as epic as Greece’s. It is in this tradition that Joyce sought to create his own

102 Irish national epic starring a new kind of epic hero to inspire and unify the people. The epic hero was particularly suited for this project because, as David Quint explains in Epic and Empire

(1993), the epic hero is a “hero deliberately created for political reflection” (8). More than just a representation of the nation’s values, by modeling his culture hero on Odysseus, Joyce created a culture hero capable of representing his political beliefs and concerns.

While Joyce was drawn to the Odyssey partly because of its grand epic status, he was primarily impressed with the unique qualities of its hero. Schwarz argues that the Irish author saw the Odyssey as a story that stressed “how an individual man uses his intelligence, judgment, and inner strength to overcome obstacles, and, finally, to accomplish his goal” (37). In a conversation with Georges Borach, Joyce claimed that the “most beautiful, most human traits are contained in the Odyssey” (qtd. in Bowker 222). The author wanted his culture hero to have the kind of human compassion that he found in the Greek epic. Rather than the overzealous

Cuchulain, who was concerned mainly with fighting wars, or the artistic, brooding Stephen

Dedalus, Joyce wanted a more well-rounded hero. Odysseus, as opposed to Cuchulain or

Stephen, is the more mature, complete man, better suited for the author’s goals. Recalling a conversation he had with Joyce in 1918, Frank Budgen explains that Joyce believed Odysseus to be the most “complete all-round character” in literature, and that is what he wanted his hero to be as well (16). Joyce believed that Odysseus was complete because he was “son to Laertes, but father to Telemachus, husband to Penelope, lover of Calypso, companion in arms of the Greek warriors around Troy and King of Ithaca. He was subjected to many trials, but with wisdom and courage came through them all” (Budgen 16). In addition to this, while Odysseus was also a conscientious objector to war, once he was drafted he dedicated himself to the cause. Odysseus was a man of the people. After all, as Ellmann notes, the hero “was not a god, for he had all the

103 defects of the ordinary man, but was kindly” (James Joyce 436). Joyce’s notebooks also reveal that he viewed Odysseus as a cosmopolitan hero. For example, while studying Greek, the author made note of this sentence that describes the difference between Achilles and Odysseus:

“Achilles was the most fearless [aphobotatos] of the Greeks, but Odysseus had circled the world

[kosmogyrismenos]” (qtd. in Schork 74). As Schork explains, the choice of the word kosmogyrismenos to describe Odysseus is indicative of the way that Joyce viewed the hero: “The

Greek noun kosmos means order, discipline, ornament. . . .The second element, gyros, is the

Greek word for ring, or circle,” suggesting that Odysseus was “not merely a world traveler; he was also well rounded in the ways of the world” (82-83). For Joyce, Odysseus truly was a complete hero who possessed all of the qualities he believed a modern Irish culture hero required. That being said, the author did make some necessary adjustments when shaping

Leopold Bloom.

The hero that emerges from the Greek model is, understandably, somewhat different than the original. The Odysseus-like Bloom is as complete as the original Homeric hero but uniquely

Irish and modern and possessing the characteristics that the author wanted Ireland to value. Just as Yeats revised Cuchulain to fit his personal ideas of heroism, Joyce adjusted his epic hero to emphasize certain qualities over others. Schwarz notes that Joyce redefined the “traditional concept of a hero to emphasize not only pacifism, but commitment to family ties, concern for the human needs of others, sense of self, tolerance, and decency” (38). While these qualities were already present in the Odyssey, he placed even more importance on them in his novel by omitting certain details and emphasizing others. As Schwarz argues, “Heroism for Joyce is a set of personal values that makes it possible to improve the quality of life ever so slightly for others . . . a domestic figure concerned with restoring his home and family” (38). He shaped both his novel

104 and his hero to emulate these concerns as much as possible. According to Ellmann, Joyce’s goal for Bloom was simple; he wanted Bloom to be “heroic as well as good and complete” (James

Joyce 30). Bloom is a family man whose heroic quest is primarily concerned with domestic matters, but he is also an Irish citizen who understands the nation’s colonial oppression as much as Joyce did. His hero is not ignorant of the political struggles of Ireland, but he is also an outsider in his own nation. Bloom is a uniquely hybrid hero, complicating his Irish identity, a fact that the other Dubliners in the novel are fully aware of. However, while this does serve to isolate Bloom from the nationalist movement in Dublin, it also allowed Joyce to critique it through his culture hero. The hero that emerges from the novel is not only a “cultured allroundman” (Joyce, Ulysses 235; 10.581) in the sense that he is balanced and well travelled; he also serves as an Irish everyman through which Joyce could speak to Ireland.41

Through the practice of revisionist mythmaking, Yeats’s Cuchulain and Joyce’s Leopold

Bloom emerge as two distinctly different Irish culture heroes for the twentieth century. Their reliance on the mythical method allowed them to create a coherent understanding of Irish identity that suited their individual concerns for Ireland by providing a sense of order to the chaotic state of Irish nationalism. Revising the Ulster Cycle myths of Cuchulain as plays contributed to

Yeats’s goal of reviving the pre-colonial culture of Ireland. As he worked on the plays his culture hero took shape, representing the author’s personal struggle with the Irish cause and his hopes for the nation. Wanting to distance himself from Yeats and the rest of the Irish Literary Revival,

Joyce took a different approach by appropriating the Greek Odyssey. Choosing a non-Irish myth allowed the exiled author to promote an understanding of Irish identity that engaged with a larger

European cultural tradition. Myth provided each author with a model for heroism that they could

41 All Ulysses citations include the page numbers from the complete and unabridged edition first published in the United States in 1961 followed by the episode and line numbers from the 1986 Hans Walter Gabler corrected text edition.

105 then use to inspire national pride in a nation that was beginning to define itself in opposition to its English master. While revisionist mythmaking was not the only contributions these authors made to the formation of Ireland’s cultural identity, these works stand out because of their culture heroes. Used as a way to create a model for Irish men and women to aspire to, these culture heroes left lasting impressions on Ireland’s identity that can still be seen today. Following independence, the Irish relied on culture heroes like Cuchulain and Bloom to rally around and to define their experience as a new nation, making Yeats and Joyce representatives of Irish literature and inspiring Ireland’s future.

106 Chapter 4

Yeats’s Cuchulain Cycle

W. B. Yeats is more often remembered as a poet than a playwright, but his work in the theater was a central part of his artistic identity during his lifetime. His promotion of the Irish

National Theatre and the running of the Abbey Theatre allowed Yeats to communicate directly with the Irish public. Drama provided, for a time, a more immediate way of speaking to the Irish people than poetry, as his audiences did not need to purchase his publications or even know how to read in order to receive his message. While Yeats would eventually reject these public performances of his work, his early plays were fairly accessible and entertaining. The form and style of his plays varied over the years, but the theme was consistent: Irish mythology. The playwright was dedicated to bringing these ancient stories to the stage, finding inspiration in a wide variety of myths for his contemporary audiences. The myths that he returned to most often were those dealing with the Ulster cycle hero Cuchulain. Renowned as the Hound of Ulster,

Cuchulain was an attractive hero to the author and Irish revolutionaries. In addition to several poems, Yeats wrote five plays that dealt with different episodes in the hero’s life with the shared purpose of shaping and promoting Cuchulain as a new culture hero for Ireland. These plays reflect the struggles of an author and a nation fighting for independence while simultaneously trying to establish and maintain a distinctly Irish identity. Irish decolonization was not a simple or even a unitary effort, and it was not always clear what path the Irish should take to achieve independence. With so much uncertainty in Ireland’s future, Yeats believed that he could be a voice to guide the nation, whether the nation wanted this guidance or not. These struggles—

107 defining Irish identity, moving toward independence, and Yeats’s role in the formation of a postcolonial Ireland—are all on display in the Cuchulain plays. Through his shaping of the culture hero, Yeats presents an unstable and uncertain picture of Irish identity that represents the complex realities of the colonial experience.

While the plays are not strictly autobiographical, they do expose how the author felt about the Irish cause at the time each work was composed. Yeats’s feelings toward decolonization vacillated throughout the years, resulting in a complex picture of the Irish cause in the plays. Similarly, the culture hero that emerges from the plays is not necessarily a consistent representation of the Hound of Ulster. Cuchulain changes drastically from one production to the next depending on Yeats’s ever-changing relationship with his Irish audience.

In the order in which they were written, readers note that Yeats’s culture hero appears chaotic and unpredictable, much like Ireland itself. In an attempt to impose some kind of order to his plays, with all but the final Cuchulain play completed, Yeats collected and published the plays in

1934 along with the rest of his drama. In the publication, simply titled Collected Plays, rather than arranging the plays in the order they were originally written and performed, Yeats placed them in the order of the events of Cuchulain’s life. Considered in this order, Cuchulain’s journey takes on a different meaning and reveals how the author wanted his culture hero to appear to readers, as he encouraged them to read the plays as an organized cycle that tells the story of the hero’s life. In order to fully understand the complexities of the culture hero, the plays should be considered in both the order they were written and the order Yeats organized them later in life.

This chapter will analyze the plays from both perspectives, with the goal of assessing the culture hero that arises from these works. In turn, this will demonstrate how Yeats viewed the Irish cause and his role in the decolonization process and the shaping of Ireland’s post-colonial future.

108 Cuchulain’s Dramatic Evolution: Charting Yeats’s Struggle

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries Cuchulain emerged as a figure of importance in Irish literary circles. Following the publication of Standish O’Grady’s History of

Ireland: Cuculain and His Contemporaries (1880) and Lady Augusta Gregory’s Cúchulainn of

Muirthemne: The Story of the Men of the Red Branch of Ulster (1902) revivalists took new interest in bringing back the ancient stories and traditions of a pre-colonial Ireland, and the Ulster cycle of mythology found a new audience. The members of the Irish Literary Revival translated and revived the Ulster cycle epic, Tain bo Cuailnge, with the intention of transforming the myths in a way that would appeal to contemporary readers. A fair amount of revision was required to satisfy their goals because, as Maria Tymoczko notes in Translation in a Postcolonial Context

(1998), the Tain is not necessarily appropriate as a “document of cultural nationalism” (66).

Referring to the original version of the epic, Tymoczko argues that it can be summed up

“somewhat irreverently by saying that the greatest Irish hero tale is unliterary, raunchy, and weird” (66). Translations like O’Grady’s and Gregory’s reworked the epic in order to make it more palatable to contemporary readers, and the majority of the revisions they made were in the service of foregrounding individual heroes like Cuchulain. It seems that their revisions succeeded in this task because after reading these translations Yeats become fascinated with the

Hound of Ulster, deciding that he was the perfect figure to serve as a new Irish culture hero. In

“The Sons of Cuchulainn: Violence, the Family, and the Irish Canon” (2006), Gerardine Meaney explains that in Yeats’s plays Cuchulain is “the symbolic hero of the revolution” (245). As a culture hero in the making, Cuchulain had the potential to function as a model for Irish identity and serve, in part, as an example for young Ireland to learn from. Promoting Ireland’s pre- colonial culture was the primary concern of the Cuchulain plays, but they also allowed Yeats to

109 express his complex, and sometimes contradictory, feelings about the anti-colonial cause.

Because of this, the hero’s journey in the plays provides a record of Yeats’s reaction to Ireland’s transition from a colonial to post-colonial state.

At first glance, it seems like Yeats chose random moments in Cuchulain’s life for each of his plays. He did not work through the hero’s life chronologically or thematically, and the cycle lacks a basic order or coherence. Consequently, Cuchulain does not grow and evolve consistently. In one play audiences would see a brave, confident Cuchulain on stage, only to find the hero regressing to childish naiveté in the next play. These inconsistencies can partially be explained by the fact that Yeats was deeply affected by the volatile state of Ireland during his lifetime, causing his opinions of the anti-colonial movement to waver while he composed the

Cuchulain cycle. Motivated by a desire to express his thoughts and concerns about Ireland in his work, each of these plays reflect the author’s current state of mind.

By looking at his first Cuchulain play, On Baile’s Strand, it is clear that Yeats was not concerned with creating a chronological narrative. Instead of starting at the beginning of

Cuchulain’s life, or providing a generic origin story, Yeats introduced the Hound of Ulster to

Irish audiences with death rather than birth. Originally written and performed in 1904 at the

Abbey Theatre, and then heavily revised and debuted again in 1906, On Baile’s Strand focuses on a tragic episode in the hero’s life that results in his son’s death and his own premature demise.

The political climate in Ireland at the time partly explains why Yeats began his cycle with this particular episode. At this time in his life the young author was already deeply invested in the

Irish cause under the influence of John O’Leary and Maud Gonne, but he had not witnessed any real progress in the movement, and his frustration with the Irish people was growing. There had been little progress toward Irish independence since Charles Stewart Parnell’s failed attempt to

110 pass Home Rule, and the disillusionment and hopelessness left behind after his death in 1891 still lingered. Sensitive to this ambivalent and defeated atmosphere in Ireland, Yeats’s early optimism for his literary project was faltering, and this affected his work. One of the few places that he believed the Irish could be reached was the stage, and while he wanted his culture hero to be inspiring to his audiences he also needed to make him relatable. At the time, the feeling of hopelessness that Cuchulain experiences in this play must have seemed a very relatable subject not only for Ireland but for Yeats as well.

The tragedy of On Baile’s Strand is partly caused by Cuchulain’s decision to swear loyalty to the High King of Ulster, Conchubar, despite the fact that the hero is a king in his own right. In Richard Ellmann’s early exploration of Yeats’s work, Yeats: The Man and the Masks

(1948), he argued that Cuchulain’s tragic fall is caused by “his listening to the voice of reason; instead of following his impulse to make friends with the unknown warrior” (166). While it is true that the Hound of Ulster is led astray by the words of others, ignoring his own instincts, there is more to this tragedy than a simple divide between reason and instinct. In “The Death of

Cuchulain’s Only Son” (2014), Elizabeth Cullingford reconsiders the tragic element of the play and concludes that “Cuchulain’s anguish is the result of his hamartia, which Aristotle defines not as a fatal flaw but as a tragic error” (45). Cullingford’s tragic error theory allows for a more nuanced reading of this important episode in the hero’s life than Ellmann’s and puts the focus on the fatal decision that he makes in this play. The tragic error that Cuchulain makes is not that he simply ignores his instincts; instead, the root cause of this error is his decision to bow down to the High King. In other words, the hero’s real mistake is bending his knee to another rather than maintaining his independence and freedom as a celebrated warrior and leader in Ulster. While

111 Conchubar has established himself as the High King of Ulster, Cuchulain is a king in his own right and is not automatically required to swear allegiance to the other man.

The list of characters at the start of the play notes that Cuchulain is King of

Muirthemne—a kingdom in Ulster—and Yeats quickly establishes the fact that the hero is both well known and revered for his heroic deeds and conquests. Speaking with Conchubar,

Cuchulain lists some of his famous feats to make a case for why he should not bow down to another man:

I whose mere name has kept this country safe,

I that in early days have driven out

Maeve of Cruachan and the northern pirates,

The hundred kings of Sorcha, and the kings

Out of the Garden in the East of the World.

Must I, that held you on the throne when all

Had pulled you from it, swear obedience

As if I were some cattle-raising king? (On Baile’s Strand 157)42

This boasting is partly motivated by the hero’s need to establish the fact that he is not only as great a man as Conchubar but also that he has helped the High King maintain his throne by protecting Ulster from outside invaders. Yeats also uses this opportunity to educate his audience about the Hound of Ulster’s legendary status and catch them up on what has happened before the action of this play. While audiences may have recalled the myths of Cuchulain from their childhood, or have read the recent translations by O’Grady and Gregory, Yeats could not assume that everyone knew the specific details of each myth. While On Baile’s Strand does not provide

42 All quotations from the plays are from The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats: Volume II, The Plays (2001). Edited by David R. Clark and Rosalind E. Clark, this is the definitive edition of Yeats’s plays.

112 an origin story for Cuchulain, Yeats does take the time to describe some of the more notable events from the hero’s life to ensure that he appears appropriately impressive to his audiences. In addition to establishing Cuchulain’s heroic qualities, Yeats must also explain his less attractive personality traits that have led Conchubar to feel the need to control him. While Cuchulain is a powerful and celebrated warrior, he is an unpredictable and wild man who cannot control his own strength. As Conchubar notes,

But every day my children come and say:

‘This man is growing harder to endure.

How can we be at safety with this man

That nobody can buy or bid or bind?

We shall be at his mercy when you are gone;

He burns the earth as if he were a fire,

And time can never touch him.’ (157)

The High King and the sons who will succeed him after his death need to tame the wild

Cuchulain so that he will not threaten the rule and order that has been established in Ulster.

Securing Cuchulain’s fealty will also guarantee that the hero will fight for whatever cause

Conchubar supports, so he will never have to worry that the headstrong warrior will choose to oppose him or simply not participate in a battle that he deems unworthy of his time. In other words, Cuchulain will no longer have the freedom to make his own decisions. While this may seem like a bad thing, the High King manages to convince Cuchulain to recognize his reign by arguing that the hero needs his wisdom and guidance, an argument made even more convincing when the other kings agree. Conchubar tells Cuchulain, “I need your might of hand and burning heart, / And you my wisdom,” and the other kings support this claim, telling him to “take the

113 oath. / There is none here that would not have you take it” (160-61). The Hound of Ulster is persuaded by these arguments and decides to follow the desires of the community. He concedes that Conchubar is the wiser man and takes the oath, placing his destiny in the hands of another with disastrous results.

Cuchulain’s decision to pledge his loyalty to Conchubar results in two tragic deaths. Not only does the hero kill his own son, but he also meets his own death at the end of the play.43

However, Yeats’s decision to kill Cuchulain at the end of On Baile’s Strand is not in keeping with the original myth that inspired the play. Though these revisions might seem small or inconsequential, the changes he made emphasize the cost of Cuchulain’s decision to bind his will to Conchubar. Yeats made these choices deliberately to shape his culture hero’s story. In

Gregory’s Cuchulain of Muirthemne this episode in Cuchulain’s life is titled “The Only Son of

Aoife,” and it relates the story of how the hero unwittingly kills his only son. Both the original myth and the play tell the same basic story of the son’s death: a mysterious boy comes to Ulster to challenge Cuchulain in battle, the hero accepts the challenge and kills the boy, he then learns that the young warrior was actually his son born from a brief affair with a Scottish queen named

Aoife, and this realization causes him to lose control and fight the waves. While Gregory’s translation is very clear about the fact that Cuchulain does not die at this moment, Yeats’s play suggests that he does dies fighting the waves. In addition to this revision Yeats added two major characters to the myth, the Fool and the Blind Man, to more fully establish the power dynamic between Conchubar and Cuchulain. The Fool and the Blind Man set up the events about to unfold at the start of the play and provide helpful commentary on the action, but they also serve as symbolic reflections of the other two men: Cuchulain is the Fool and Conchubar is the Blind

43 Although Yeats reveals in The Only Jealousy of Emer that Cuchulain is not technically dead after his fight with the waves, audiences were led to believe that he was killed at the end of On Baile’s Strand.

114 Man. In a 1910 letter to Gordon Craig, Yeats described the purpose of these characters: “[The

Blind Man] is the shadow of Concubar [sic], the High King, as the Fool is Cuchulain’s shadow.

In a sense they are reason and impulse, policy and heroism, the cold and the hot, the mind and the senses and a thousand other things that should suggest themselves to the imagination when the curtain falls” (qtd. in Plays 850). In the play these qualities are divided between these characters and pitted against one another. While there is a suggestion that Yeats wanted the Irish to possess both sets of qualities, the coming together of Cuchulain and Conchubar only benefits one man, revealing that there is more to this symbolic relationship than a desire for compromise.

The combative and oppressive relationship between Cuchulain and Conchubar, and the

Fool and the Blind Man, is a powerful metaphor for the relationship between Ireland and

England at the time the play was written. Cuchulain swears his loyalty to Conchubar on the assumption that he will benefit from the older man’s wisdom and that his decision will aid the community. However, while Conchubar claims to want to combine forces, bringing together wisdom and physical might, there is the possibility that he actually wants to control, exploit, and then destroy Cuchulain. With this in mind, the two men emerge as symbols of the colonization of

Ireland, with Conchubar representing England and Cuchulain as Ireland. This is a convincing metaphor, and according to Meaney, contemporary audiences were quick to recognize the political commentary. As Meaney explains, “The parallels with the colonial situation were obvious when the play was first staged” (247). Irish audiences identified Ireland’s submission to

England in Cuchulain’s acceptance of “the false authority of the king” and the betrayal of his own nature and the destruction of his descendants “in the interests of that king” (Meaney 247).

While the High King claims that his sovereignty over Cuchulain will benefit both of them, the reality is that Conchubar immediately takes advantage of the hero’s oath to force him into killing

115 his only son and therefore destroying his heir and future. The tragic conclusion of On Baile’s

Strand is caused not only by the fact that Cuchulain fails to recognize that the boy is his own son but also because he falls victim to the false authority of Conchubar.

When the young warrior arrives in Ulster he refuses to provide his name, and Cuchulain is completely unaware of the fact that he even has a son, so he does not suspect the stranger’s true identity.44 Earlier in the play Yeats explains that Cuchulain has no children, and it is believed that he never will. A conversation between Conchubar and Cuchulain reveals that the latter has only ever been with one woman whom he wanted to have a child with: “You’d sooner that woman of the camp / Bore you a son than any queen among them” (On Baile’s Strand

159).45 The woman that the High King refers to in this passage is Aoife, a Scottish warrior and past lover. Yeats spends some time establishing the fact that the Hound of Ulster loved this fierce woman, but that he has no reason to believe that the two share a child. Although it is common knowledge that Aoife despises Cuchulain and has sent a warrior to slay him, he believes this is simply because he did not stay with her permanently, choosing to return to Ulster instead. Partly because of his past affection for Aoife, when he meets Conlaoch he feels a connection with him and decides to refuse the challenge. Instead, Cuchulain attempts to befriend Conlaoch, explaining that he has a “head like a woman’s head I had a fancy for” (166). The hero begins to trade gifts with the boy, who is eager to become friends as well, but Conchubar is unsettled by this friendship: “No more of this. I will not have this friendship. / Cuchulain is my man, and I forbid it. / He shall not go unfought” (168). Perhaps recognizing Conlaoch’s true identity, and

44 Yeats does not give the boy’s name at any time in his play, but Gregory reveals that it is Conlaoch. For simplicity’s sake I will refer to Cuchulain’s son by his name from this point forward. 45 Although Cuchulain is married during this episode in the original version, Yeats does not mention this in his play. It is unclear whether or not Yeats wanted the hero to be unmarried at this point, or if he simply did not believe it necessary to mention his wife. Either way, the original myth establishes the fact that Emer, Cuchulain’s wife, is barren and cannot provide him a son. The only son that Cuchulain ever has is the one he shares with Aoife.

116 the threat that a son of Cuchulain might pose to his reign, the High King ignores the hero’s desire to befriend the boy. It is also possible that Conchubar refuses to allow this friendship because he believes if Cuchulain ignores the young warrior’s challenge Ulster will be seen as weak. His motivation is unclear, but no matter the intention the result is the same: Cuchulain must fight

Conlaoch.

While Cuchulain initially refuses to follow Conchubar’s order, he is eventually convinced that he has to accept the young warrior’s challenge. It is not surprising that the proud Hound of

Ulster would have some difficulty accepting his very new position as a subordinate to

Conchubar, but his refusal to follow orders goes too far when he loses his temper and attempts to attack the High King. Claiming that Cuchulain is under the spell of a witch that the young warrior has used to weaken him, Conchubar urges the hero to accept the challenge. The first time

Conchubar suggests that witchcraft is involved, when Cuchulain first felt friendship toward the boy, the hero denies this accusation without a second thought. However, the next time the High

King makes this accusation Cuchulain accepts it as truth. So why does this second attempt succeed? What convinces Cuchulain that he is indeed under a spell? The answer is found in a speech given by a character referred to as the First Old King. He persuades Cuchulain with these words:

Some witch has worked upon your mind,

Cuchulain.

The head of that young man seemed like a woman’s

You’d had a fancy for. Then of a sudden

You laid your hands on the High King himself! (168)

117 The First Old King’s words are persuasive because they suggest that Cuchulain has been coerced into breaking the vow he just made to serve Conchubar. This accusation of betrayal is too much for the young hero to ignore, and so he must defeat Conlaoch to remain a respected and honorable subject of Ulster. Despite the boy’s feeble attempt to deny these claims of witchcraft—“But . . . but I did not”—he is forced to face his father in battle (172). After this moment, there is no turning back for either father or son. All of the characters, except for three nameless women, leave the stage to witness the battle.

While the fight is taking place offstage the three women remain to speak to the audience.

They provide a grave prophecy that “Cuchulain has gone out to die,” which suggests that the

Hound of Ulster will be defeated by the younger warrior (169). The Blind Man made a similar claim at the start of the play when the audience first learned that Conlaoch’s mother is Aoife. He tells the Fool that a mysterious boy has traveled to Ulster to kill Cuchulain, but that there is more to the story than anyone realizes. The Blind Man knows the boy’s true identity, but he does not share this information with Cuchulain. He teases the Fool with the information, telling a story of how he used to live among Aoife’s people, but he does not explicitly state that Conlaoch is

Cuchulain’s son. When the Hound of Ulster returns to the stage victorious, having killed

Conlaoch, the Fool and the Blind Man are there to greet him. Because the Fool has been listening to the Blind Man’s story about Aoife’s son, he repeats what he has been told without knowing what he is revealing. The Fool’s seemingly innocent words cause Cuchulain to arrive at the horrible realization that he has just killed his own son:

BLIND MAN. Somebody is trembling, Fool! The bench is shaking. Why are you

trembling? Is Cuchulain going to hurt us? It was not I who told you,

Cuchulain.

118 FOOL. It is Cuchulain who is trembling. It is Cuchulain who is shaking the

bench.

BLIND MAN. It is his own son he has slain. (173)

This revelation is difficult for the hero to process, but he quickly concludes that Conchubar is to blame. Striking the High King’s chair, the hero screams the accusation “‘Twas you who did it— you who sat up there / With your old rod of kingship, like a magpie / Nursing a stolen spoon”

(173). The hero’s willingness to trust the High King resulted in the destruction of his family line and his future, so he blames Conchubar’s reign for his misfortune. The hero is incapable of looking inward and considering his part in this tragedy. In this way, the hero’s behavior in On

Baile’s Strand was Yeats’s way of critiquing what he saw as Ireland’s ambivalent and self- destructive attitude toward colonial rule. Cuchulain willingly bends to Conchubar’s will, and it is only when this leads to tragedy that he realizes that he was wrong to accept the other man’s authority. However, rather than accepting that he is to blame for allowing himself to be misled,

Cuchulain redirects the blame and loses control completely. The only way that the hero knows how to deal with his failure is through violence, but Yeats shows that this is ineffective and only leads to more death.

Yeats symbolizes the failings of the anti-colonial movement in Ireland through the destructive conflicts between fathers and sons in the play. As a father, Cuchulain is easily misled, violent, and destructive. In an uneven battle that he initially wants no part of, he kills his only son. But the hero’s son is not only the future of his own familial line because he also serves as a powerful symbol of Ireland’s future generations. In this play Cuchulain is the failed father that

Ireland so often felt like to its people, Yeats included. While Ireland is more often described in terms of motherhood, there was also a trend of seeing the nation as a failed father. As Meaney

119 explains, “If official nationalism demanded Ireland be loved as a mother, and modernist exiles fled it as a suffocating one, there has always been another strand, not far below the surface and often in the same texts, that has hated it as a bad father” (244). Cuchulain fails as a father when he ignores his intuition and the Conlaoch’s insistence that he has not bewitched him. The hero clearly feels a strong connection to the boy and wants to mentor him as a father would. When he rejects Conlaoch and kills him in battle, he has destroyed both of their futures. Conlaoch will never grow into a man, and Cuchulain’s own life is cut short with no potential for an heir to follow in his footsteps. Yeats felt that Ireland did the same thing to its children, cutting them down before they could grow into men capable of leading the nation to independence. In The

Myth of Manliness in Irish National Culture (2011), Joseph Valente argues that On Baile’s

Strand is about much more than the mythic Cuchulain and his tragic fall because of the symbolic meaning that Yeats attached to the story in the play. Valente writes, “[Cuchulain’s] unwitting extinction of his own lineage at the request of Conchubar functions as a dramatic emblem of cultural self-immolation or self-eradication” (177). It is difficult to disagree with Valente’s thoughtful assessment considering the fact that Yeats was consciously working to rebuild an

Irish culture that he believed was on the brink of extinction. When the Hound of Ulster follows the High King’s order he destroys his own present and future. In his acceptance of Conchubar’s reign, Cuchulain also becomes a metaphorical son in his relationship with the ruler. Yeats shapes his culture hero as misguided and tricked, but his first impulse is to show compassion and understanding to the boy. In other words, Cuchulain is molded into the role of a bad father by the other father figure in the play: High King Conchubar. Just as Ireland was seen as the wild and rebellious child of England, Conchubar seeks to tame his wild son. In both the original myth and in Yeats’s version, the High King is described as a father figure to the hero, but he misuses this

120 authority to master Cuchulain and lead him astray. Recalling Yeats’s disappointment in the ambivalence of the Irish suggests that these father-son relationships are apt metaphors for how he felt about Ireland at this time. Cuchulain suffers because he lets Conchubar control him, just like the Irish people continued to accept English authority despite the fact that it was destroying the future of the nation. If the Irish remained complacent under England’s control Yeats believed that Ireland’s suffering would never end.

Yeats was very critical of what he perceived as the ambivalence of the Irish people toward their own subjugation, and he feared that this would ultimately result in the nation’s self- destruction. The author expresses this fear in the final moments of the play when he chooses to end his hero’s life. After Cuchulain discovers that he has killed his own son, he runs offstage to seek vengeance against Conchubar. While the hero’s willingness to act may seem like what

Yeats wanted for Ireland, the fact that this act leads to his death shows that he wanted more than just action from the Irish. He wanted cautious, planned, and organized resistance to colonial rule, which is not the behavior that Cuchulain models. Through the dialogue of the Fool and the Blind

Man the audience learns that Cuchulain runs past Conchubar and into the sea to fight the waves.

Hearing the description provided by the Fool—“O! he is fighting the waves!”—the Blind Man explains that the hero “sees Conchubar’s crown on every one of them” (On Baile’s Strand 173).

While Yeats does not offer any clarification for why Cuchulain sees Conchubar in the waves,

Gregory’s version explains that the High King ordered a druid to place an enchantment on the hero in order to redirect his rage so that he would not kill everyone in his blind rage. One of

Cuchulain’s less desirable qualities is the fact that he tends to lose control when fighting. He cannot control his emotions and often morphs into a wild killing machine that cannot be stopped.

As Valente describes, “In the heat of battle, and the grip of rage, the Hound convulsively

121 morphed into a towering, distorted, preternaturally violent figure, much as the Incredible Hulk does, only in far more graphic bodily detail” (Myth of Manliness 143). In the original myth this causes Cuchulain to kill innocent people, so it is necessary to divert his rage to maintain the safety of not only Conchubar but also anyone nearby. In Yeats’s version, this fight with the waves is more than a useful diversion because it also leads to his death. When the Fool states,

“The waves have mastered him” the prophecies of the three nameless women and the Blind Man are legitimized (On Baile’s Strand 174). But instead of mourning the loss of the great hero the

Blind Man quickly decides to take advantage of the chaos by stealing food out of the nearby homes. The play ends with him telling the Fool that they will “put our hands into the ovens” to take whatever might be cooking (174). Yeats’s ending suggests that Ireland’s heroes should not throw their lives away for foolish reasons because doing so will result in the common people quickly forgetting them after their death. Cuchulain accomplishes nothing in this play because he is blinded by his rage and passionate desire for revenge. The hero dies, is immediately forgotten, and his enemy is untouched.

Yeats’s tragic ending to this already heartbreaking episode in Cuchulain’s life articulated his belief that Ireland’s passionate desire for independence would only lead to destruction if it were misdirected. After so many centuries of ambivalence, loyalty to the Crown, and disorganized rebellions, Yeats believed that the Irish cause was destined to fail just as Cuchulain was mastered by the waves. However, this pessimism was soon replaced by a newfound optimism for Ireland’s future. While his first play expresses little faith in the Irish people, the success of On Baile’s Strand prompted the author to reevaluate this opinion. The play was well received and enjoyed by Irish audiences, resulting in a new surge of optimism and hope for

Yeats’s cultural revival. While he was still skeptical about the anti-colonial cause in Ireland, he

122 was once again convinced that his work could influence Irish audiences and therefore direct the course of the movement. With that motivating him, Yeats set about writing the next Cuchulain play. The Green Helmet, performed for the first time in 1910 at the Abbey Theatre, is a more lighthearted and optimistic representation of the culture hero than the previous play. The last time audiences saw Cuchulain he had died foolishly fighting the waves, but in this second play he is a levelheaded and clever hero. The action of The Green Helmet takes place before the events of On Baile’s Strand, so Yeats was able to go back in time to establish some of

Cuchulain’s history to more fully develop his culture hero while also giving some advice to the leaders of the Irish cause.

Yeats’s advice for the Irish cause in The Green Helmet is clear: the Irish needed to unite in order to achieve independence. This heroic farce—as Yeats describes it—features a pair of men who find themselves in need of Cuchulain’s bravery when a mysterious figure threatens their lives. The hero tries to help the men, but petty squabbling hinders his attempts. Based on two tales in Gregory’s Cuchulain of Muirthemne—“Bricriu’s Feast, and the War of Words of the

Women of Ulster” and “The Championship of Ulster”—the play concludes with Cuchulain being honored as the greatest hero in Ulster. After completing a series of trials, the Hound of Ulster is officially recognized for his impressive accomplishments: “Of all the heroes of Ulster, whatever may be their daring, there is not one to compare with you in courage and in bravery and in truth”

(Gregory 76). In the original myth, Cuchulain must perform a variety of physically demanding feats before being named the Champion of Ulster, but Yeats’s version ignores the hero’s physical might and instead praises his quick thinking and desire to unite his people. While Cuchulain’s physicality was the focus of his heroic virtues in On Baile’s Strand, the tragic nature of that play suggested that fighting is not always the best way to solve a problem. In Imagining Ireland in the

123 Poems and Plays of W. B. Yeats (2011), Anthony Bradley explores this shift in the hero’s representation. Bradley notes that while the play is “set in ancient Ireland, the virtues of its hero,

Cuchulain, are less those of the warrior, and more of a cultural hero who might redeem contemporary Ireland through his example of selflessness, in opposition to widespread mean- spiritedness, divisiveness, and venality” (44). Since Parnell’s death Yeats had witnessed a growing division among the Irish people, even within the anti-colonial movement, and he was keenly aware of the fact that a united Ireland had a better chance at achieving and maintaining independence. Through the characterization of Cuchulain, The Green Helmet promotes this ideal.

The play opens with Laegaire and Conall, distinguished men in the community, who have isolated themselves in a house as they wait for their death. Through the arrival of Cuchulain the audience learns that the two men and the land itself has been cursed because of a debt they owe a mysterious Red Man. The hero’s appearance on the scene comes as a great surprise to Laegaire and Conall, as they had just noted that Cuchulain had left Ulster and seemed unlikely to return anytime soon:

For he will never come home, he has all that he could need

In that high windy Scotland—good luck in all that he does.

Here neighbour wars on neighbour, and why there is no man

knows,

And if a man is lucky all wish his luck away,

And take his good name from him between a day and a day. (The Green Helmet

242)

This description of Ulster as divided and self-destructive parallels how Yeats saw Ireland in

1910, and the hero’s efforts in the play call to mind the author’s desire to “bring the halves

124 together” (Autobiographies 105). Notably, Cuchulain restores order not with his sword but with patience and wisdom. Yeats wanted to persuade his Irish audience to unite and oppose English rule together, but he wanted young nationalists to carefully consider the means of achieving this freedom before recklessly rushing into battle. Inspired by conversations with O’Leary and his involvement with organizations like the Young Ireland Society and the National Literary

Society, Yeats was convinced that intellectual efforts were the key to reclaiming Ireland from

English rule.

In stark contrast to Cuchulain’s behavior in On Baile’s Strand, the hero learns to use his intellect to solve his problems in The Green Helmet. Although Cuchulain’s first reaction after learning of Laegaire and Conall’s plight is to meet the challenge with his sword, he quickly reassesses the situation and realizes that the best solution is to avoid violence. The Red Man has come to Ulster seeking the debt that is owed him, and that debt is a head. Laegaire and Conall confide in Cuchulain that one year ago they played a game with the Red Man described as “[a] head for a head” (245). This simple game—one man would cut off the Red Man’s head, and in return the Red Man would cut off that man’s head—proves too good to be true as the Red Man does not die when his head is cut off. He leaves Laegaire and Conall dumbfounded and afraid, warning them that in a year he will return for the head he is owed.46 Once Cuchulain and the audience understand the situation, the Red Man mysteriously appears onstage, but instead of taking a head he leaves the men a gift: a green helmet meant to worn by the best and bravest among them. Laegaire and Conall immediately claim that they are most deserving of the helmet, insulting one another to prove their worth, but Cuchulain comes up with a wiser solution. Taking

46 This story is remarkably similar to the Arthurian legend of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. This is no coincidence, as Joseph Campbell explains, the Ulster cycle myths were ancient enough to serve as a major influence for the development of the Arthurian legends—“the court of Conchobar serving as model for that of King Arthur and the deeds of Cuchulainn for those of Arthur’s nephew, Sir Gawain” (Hero with a Thousand Faces 330).

125 the helmet from the others, the hero explains his plan: “I did not take it to keep it— / the Red

Man gave it for one, / But I shall give it to all—to all of us three or to none” (248). Filling the helmet with ale, Cuchulain drinks from it and passes it to the other men. While they momentarily agree on this compromise, the hero’s efforts are thwarted with the arrival of the three men’s charioteers, stable boys, scullions, and wives. As predicted at the beginning of the play, the people begin arguing, neighbor against neighbor, each claiming that their man is the greatest of all. While Cuchulain tries to calm the situation, claiming he has turned the helmet into “a cup of peace,” the people will not listen to reason (250). It is clear that the fighting will continue forever, so the hero throws the helmet into the sea and admonishes the rowdy group for their pointless arguing:

Townland may rail at

townland till all have gone to wrack,

The very straws may wrangle till they’ve thrown down the stack;

The very door-posts bicker till they’ve pulled in the door,

The very ale-jars jostle till the ale is on the floor,

But this shall help no further. (253)

However, Cuchulain’s wise words do not stop the fighting because the wives draw daggers and threaten violence against one another in a misguided attempt to defend their husbands’ honor. It is not until the Red Man reappears onstage that they are finally quieted. The outside threat of the

Red Man redirects their attention as they quickly realize that their lives are in danger. Rather than joining forces to find a solution to their problem they have wasted their time fighting one another. This is exactly what Yeats feared was happening in Ireland.

126 Ever since Parnell’s disastrous fall from power, Yeats saw Ireland as a nation torn apart by feuding politics that were barring the path to independence. The author personally experienced some of these divisions as he struggled to unite the efforts of the National Literary

Society, but he remained hopeful that the theater could bring the people together. As he expressed in the 1903 edition of Samhain, he wanted Irish theater to be a “place where the mind goes to be liberated” (9). In The Green Helmet, Yeats tries to liberate the minds of his audience by showing the weakness of a divided Ireland and promoting the values of compromise and unity through Cuchulain’s heroic actions.

The play concludes with an unexpected twist that strengthens Yeats’s message to his audience. To satisfy the Red Man’s demands, Cuchulain bravely kneels down to offer his own head to repay the debt. The Hound of Ulster is willing to give his own life to end a conflict he did not initiate, but the play does not recklessly celebrate this sacrificial act. Instead, Yeats emphasizes the cost of such a sacrifice, noting that the death of the hero would be deeply felt by the community. Cuchulain’s wife sobs and begs her husband to change his mind, but he is convinced that he must sacrifice his life to protect Ulster. The hero believes that this is the only way to end the conflict, but the Red Man surprises everyone by revealing that his death is not necessary. He explains that all of this was simply a test to discover a champion to wear the helmet, which he then places on Cuchulain’s head. The play ends with this moment of triumph for the hero, but it is also a moment of hope for Ulster. Cuchulain has survived a great trial so that he may better defend his people in the future. As opposed to the tragic conclusion of the previous play, Yeats leaves audiences with an optimistic look into the future if the Irish could emulate the actions of the culture hero rather than fighting amongst themselves as the lesser characters in the play do.

127 The Green Helmet celebrates wisdom over physical might and discourages recklessness while also promoting action. Yeats wanted the Irish people to resist colonial rule, but he believed that this could only be done if Ireland was united as one nation against the English. At this time in his life he was fully dedicated to and optimistic about the value of creating art that promoted a moral model of unity for his audiences. In “Estrangement,”47 he expressed a strong belief that

“the need of a model for the nation, of some moral diagram, is as great as in the early nineteenth century, when national feeling was losing itself in a religious feud over tithes and emancipation”

(Autobiographies 364-65). Yeats believed that proper moral models, created through works like

The Green Helmet that promoted compromise and unity, would “bid the people love and note hate” (365).

Unfortunately, the optimism that Yeats felt when writing The Green Helmet did not last long, and when he returned to the subject of Cuchulain in 1916 he had a much lower opinion of his Irish audience. In “Yeats’s Last Play” (1971), K. P. S. Jochum explains that after 1910 Yeats grew discouraged with his Irish audience, “as they favored a more realistic trend he had not anticipated” (221). This shift caused Yeats to concentrate on writing plays for smaller drawing- room performances, believing that the general public was unwilling or incapable of appreciating his work. Instead of writing popular plays that were entertaining and accessible, he turned his attention to writing experimental plays with the intention of influencing the supposedly more educated upper classes that he believed had the power to enact real change in Ireland. With this in mind, Yeats critiqued the anti-colonial movement in his next play by depicting an episode from Cuchulain’s youth and reimagining his culture hero as foolish, ignorant, and immature.

Convinced that his cultural revival was failing because the Irish rejected his work, the author funneled his frustrations into his culture hero as he struggled with his diminished role in Irish

47 “Estrangement” is a collection of extracts from a 1909 diary that Yeats published in Autobiographies (1936).

128 politics. As the author lost faith in the Irish, he also lost faith in his hero’s ability to reach them.

While this pessimistic attitude is a noticeable shift from the confidence displayed in The Green

Helmet, it is not surprising considering the fact that Yeats believed the Irish cause was stagnant at the time he was working on his next play in 1916. Isolated from the movement and from

Ireland—Yeats was living in London at the time—he had no idea that the Easter Rising was on the horizon, believing instead that the Irish were ambivalent and unwilling to oppose the English.

Discouraged and frustrated with the Irish, Yeats wrote At the Hawk’s Well, a Japanese

Noh inspired play featuring an immature and overzealous Cuchulain. The first performance took place on April 2, 1916, just three weeks before the Easter Rising, in a London drawing room for a small audience. According to Yeats, he only invited those “who cared for poetry” to attend the performance (qtd. in Plays 691). Convinced that Abbey Theatre audiences would not appreciate or understand the play, he limited his audience. The play was later published in 1917, but it was not performed at the Abbey Theatre until 1930. Whether or not audiences would have understood the work in 1916 is impossible to say, but At the Hawk’s Well is certainly not an accessible play by normal standards. The story is difficult to follow at times because of the limited use of dialogue and the highly symbolic nature of the play. Although the play is loosely inspired by the Cuchulain legend, this would not have helped audiences follow the plot because

Yeats invented the story, meaning that while the characters and the circumstances of the play are familiar, the story itself does not exist in the original myths, and the style of the play was deliberately abstract. As Bradley notes, Yeats utilized the Noh form to make the play “minimalist and ritualized, the actors wear masks, and the action is expressed through music and dance as well as the spoken verse of the dialogue. . . . The form is aristocratic rather than popular, and is by nature symbolic” (79). Diverging from the entertaining quality of the previous two plays,

129 Yeats turned away from the audiences he believed had turned their back on him. The result is a highly stylized, abstract play and a foolish, immature Cuchulain.

While Yeats expresses his disappointment with the Irish people through Cuchulain’s failure in At the Hawk’s Well, he does not treat his hero with total contempt. The source of

Cuchulain’s failure stems partly from youthful folly and partly from the supernatural forces at work that are beyond his control. He is incapable of achieving his goal—drinking from the well of immortality—but he was never supposed to be seeking this in the first place. Although the specific events of the play are a complete fabrication on Yeats’s part—there is no quest for the well in the original version—the circumstances surrounding his experience are based on

Gregory’s description of the hero’s journey to Scotland where he first meets Aoife, the future mother of his only son. Cuchulain is away from Ulster in an attempt to complete a series of quests in order to woo his future wife, Emer, but in Yeats’s play he has been distracted by a tale of a mysterious well that grants eternal life. Unable to resist the adventure, and the promise of immortality, Cuchulain finds himself in a cave inhabited by the Old Man and The Guardian of the Well. Explaining his sudden appearance to the Old Man, Cuchulain shares what he knows about the well: “He who drinks, they say, / Of that miraculous water lives for ever” (At the

Hawk’s Well 301). What the Hound of Ulster does not know is that the Old Man has been waiting for the empty well to fill with water for the last fifty years. Every time the well fills with water the Old Man is enchanted, and he falls asleep. When he wakes the stones are wet, but the water is gone. Despite the fact that the Old Man has failed to drink from the well, he continues to hold on to a desperate hope that the next time he will succeed.

Although the Old Man shares his sad tale with Cuchulain, his words do not discourage the confident hero. It is fairly obvious at the start of the play that Cuchulain will not be able to

130 drink the water of immortality, but he is convinced that where others have failed he will succeed.

In many ways, the conversation that the two men share demonstrates how Yeats perceived the divide between the young and the old in Ireland. The Old Man tries to discourage the young hero by arguing that it will be impossible for him to prevail when he has personally failed so many times: “O, folly of youth, / Why should that hollow place fill up for you, / That will not fill for me?” (301). Fully confident, Cuchulain boasts that he is sure to overcome the trial of the well: “I will stand here and wait. Why should the luck / Of Sualtim’s son desert him now? / For never /

Have I had long to wait for anything” (301-02). Trusting completely in his good luck, Cuchulain ignores the Old Man’s warnings. Much like the young nationalists Yeats criticizes, Cuchulain cannot imagine a scenario where he will not succeed, and rather than listening to the advice of those older and wiser than him he rushes headfirst into conflict. Lacking faith in the younger generation, Yeats believed that they would never produce real results. They would fail just as the generations before them had failed. Once again, it is important to recall the fact that Yeats had no idea just how wrong he was about these men, as they would rise up and sacrifice their lives just a few weeks after his play was performed. And yet, while Yeats was shocked when the Easter

Rising occurred, the ending of the play seems to intuit the chaotic violence of the rebellion.

The play ends when the battle hungry Cuchulain races offstage to fight Aoife’s approaching army, without any recognition that he has missed his opportunity to drink from the well of immortality. Part of Yeats’s critique in At the Hawk’s Well focuses on the fact that

Ireland was not properly focused on Irish independence. Remembering that in the source material for the play Cuchulain is meant to be on a journey to win the hand of Emer, Yeats portrays the well of immortality as a diversion from his true goal. Convinced that he was losing his Irish audience as they strayed from the anti-colonial cause, he chose to represent his hero as

131 being lost and distracted in this play as a means of commenting on his relationship with Ireland.

The first few lines spoken by the hero in the play highlight this point: “Then speak to me, / For youth is not more patient than old age; / And though I have trod the rocks for half a day / I cannot find what I am looking for” (300). While the promise of immortality provides a momentary distraction, it is an unattainable goal, and so the hero quickly turns his attention to an adversary he can master. After being draw away from the well in search of yet another unreachable target—an enchanted vision of a hawk draws Cuchulain out of the cave just as the water appears—he returns to the cave momentarily before hearing the sound of an approaching army. He ignores the Old Man’s cries of despair and enthusiastically rushes outside again to defeat Aoife and her army as he bellows “[t]he clash of arms again!” (305). Without stopping to reflect or consider what his actions will mean, the Hound of Ulster rushes into danger, believing that he will emerge victorious despite the odds set against him and his recent failures. At this point in his life, this is the only way that Cuchulain knows how to react. As Ellmann argues,

“Cuchulain returns from his fruitless pursuit of the hawk woman to find the well dry and to learn that the people of the hills are roused against him and that the rest of his life must be continual warfare” (Man and the Masks 218). While this is a condemnation of the young Cuchulain’s recklessness behavior, the other figure in the play is also denied a happy life. Cuchulain fails to drink the water and immediately leaves the cave to fight, but Yeats asks who the bigger fool is: the brash young warrior or the hopeless Old Man? This question takes on an added significance when applied to Yeats’s personal experiences as a fifty year old man looking back on a life dedicated to writing for a cause that no longer seemed to want him.

In At the Hawk’s Well Yeats criticizes the youthful Irish nationalists through the actions of Cuchulain, but he also appears to be critiquing his own life and his role in the movement. By

132 describing the Old Man as waiting exactly fifty years to drink from the well of immortality it becomes clear that the Old Man is a representation of the author because he was exactly fifty years old at the time. The Old Man symbolizes the aging Yeats—more experienced but not necessarily wiser. Out of touch with Irish politics and struggling to find an audience for his culture hero, Yeats was seriously questioning his role in the Irish cause in 1916. Had he wasted his time contributing to a hopeless cause? The Old Man, while more mature and experienced, is not necessarily the wiser of the two men in the play. When the well dries up before the Old Man has a chance to drink from it, he mourns the loss by reflecting on his wasted life:

The accursed shadows have deluded me,

The stones are dark and yet the well is empty;

The water flowed and emptied while I slept.

You have deluded me my whole life through,

Accursed dancers, you have stolen my life.

That there should be such evil in a shadow! (At the Hawk’s Well 305)

The Old Man is fully aware of the fact that he has spent his life on a hopeless dream, but he will continue to wait for it to come true until his life is over. Blaming the “accursed dancers” who put him to sleep every time the well fills with water is a feeble attempt to redirect the responsibility for his failure, but it is clear that the Old Man himself is to blame because he made the choice to obsess over a well of empty promises. Much like the Irish people and the hope for independence left Yeats disappointed, the well withholds its treasure from those seeking it. In this play both the hero and his creator appear as lost and misguided as Ireland seemed in 1916. However, Yeats’s assessment of Ireland failed to recognize that a revolution was brewing in Dublin.

133 Yeats was dumbfounded when he first received news of the Easter Rising and had a difficult time processing his feelings about the rebellion and those who lost their lives in the name of Irish independence. The author was also unsettled by the violence and the initial lack of support from the Irish public. From Yeats’s point of view, it seemed as though people had to die before the general public would care about independence. It was not until the leaders of the

Rising were executed that most people expressed approval for the cause, and while these events were partially responsible for garnering the necessary support to launch a full-scale rebellion in

1919, the threat of future violence left Yeats unsure about the cost of independence. This pushed him further away from the movement and had a profound impact on the next appearance of his culture hero. The fourth Cuchulain play, The Only Jealousy of Emer, shares the same experimental quality and a disdain for large audiences as the previous play. Still convinced that the Irish public did not, or could not, appreciate his work, he wrote this play, and three others published in Four Plays for Dancers (1921), with a small audience in mind. In 1937 Yeats wrote notes for many of his plays that were never published, and in those notes he explains some of the motivations behind the abstract style of The Only Jealous of Emer. According to Yeats,

While writing these dance plays, intended for some fifty people in a drawing-

room or a studio, I have so rejoiced in my freedom from the stupidity of an

ordinary audience. . . . I knew that I was creating something which could only

fully succeed in a civilisation very unlike ours. I think they should be written for

some country where all classes share in a half-mythological, half-philosophical

folk-belief which the writer and his small audience lift into a new subtlety. All my

life I have longed for such a country. (qtd. in Plays 694-95)

134 While The Only Jealousy of Emer was first published in January 1919, it was not performed at the Abbey Theatre until 1926. Once again, Yeats wrote a play that condemned the supposed ineptitude of the Irish people just as they were rallying together against English rule, as the War of Independence officially began the same month that The Only Jealousy of Emer was published.

Yeats wrote this play with the belief that Ireland did not appreciate his culture hero or his message, but he still hoped that they might mean something in the future.

While the Easter Rising had renewed the hopes of the anti-colonial movement in Ireland,

Yeats remained skeptical about the chances of success and feared how a violent struggle would impact the future of the nation and its people. Despite his personal doubts, Yeats decided this was the right time to write a play that resurrected Cuchulain after his premature death in On

Baile’s Strand. While The Only Jealousy of Emer is a tale of rebirth and a new beginning for the hero, it comes at a great cost to his wife Emer. Although Yeats invented the specific details of the play’s plot, because Cuchulain does not die fighting the waves in the original myth and therefore does not need to be resurrected, it is loosely based on a tale of the same name in

Gregory’s translation. The focus of the original myth is the competing women in Cuchulain’s life: his wife and his two mistresses, Eithne Inguba and Fand. This episode in Cuchulain’s life creates a rift between him and his wife, just as in the play, but the resurrection of the hero and his wife’s sacrifice are unique to Yeats’s version. It is significant that in 1919, just as a revolutionary war was breaking out in Ireland, the author would choose to save his hero from the waves that mastered him in On Baile’s Strand and that doing so requires a high price from the woman who loves him best. The War of Independence had begun, but whether or not the Irish would succeed was not certain, and even if independence was won peace was not guaranteed. Not only that, but after the Easter Rising the author was more aware of the fact that he was no longer in touch with

135 the movement in Ireland, and he believed the nationalists had little interest in hearing his opinions. Questioning everything, and wondering if he had wasted valuable time and energy on a movement that didn’t seem to want him, Yeats yearned for some kind of regeneration for his nation and for himself. On the brink of decolonization, Ireland was transforming into something entirely different than what it had been under English rule. This doubt and anxiety is present throughout the fourth Cuchulain play, culminating in Emer’s tragic sacrifice.

In the play, Emer must make a great sacrifice to revive her husband. After revealing that the Hound of Ulster is not technically dead—he is enchanted and incapable of waking after his traumatic experiences in On Baile’s Strand—Emer is approached by a mysterious figure who claims to have the power to awaken her husband and return him to his former self. This figure,

Bricriu of the Sidhe, explains that if Emer pays the appropriate price he will bring Cuchulain back. His request his simple: “You spoke but now of the mere chance that some day / You’d be the apple of [Cuchulain’s] eye again / When old and ailing, but renounce that chance / And he shall live again” (323). Through a conversation with the hero’s mistress, Eithne Inguba, the audience learns that Cuchulain has been unfaithful throughout his marriage, but Emer has never cared because she has always believed that as his first love he would return to her side at the end of his life. If she makes this bargain with Bricriu, she will lose that hope, but he will live again.

At first, she refuses to pay this high price, but once it is revealed that Cuchulain is trapped by the supernatural being Fand—the Woman of the Sidhe from At the Hawk’s Well—Emer gives in to save her husband because she would rather her husband ends his days with a human mistress than a supernatural one. When Cuchulain awakens he finds comfort in the arms of Eithne

Inguba, believing that she has rescued him from his deathbed, and Emer watches in silence. A chorus of musicians conclude the play by singing of Emer’s loss: “O bitter reward / Of many a

136 tragic tomb!” (328). While the Hound of Ulster is resurrected, with a heroic future ahead of him,

Emer has lost everything to bring him back. Despite the fact that his resurrection would be impossible without Emer, she receives no praise or reward for the role that she has played.

Stuck in limbo between life and death, Cuchulain has no control in this play and instead must rely on the women in his life to save him. Up until this point, Yeats has represented his culture hero as a man of action, never faltering or waiting for others to step in and guide him. He has managed to avoid death after the waves mastered him in On Baile’s Strand, but he is trapped in a supernatural coma that he cannot break free from on his own. Although he is the focus of the action his role is passive, and he remains silent for most of the play. By 1919 Yeats was convinced that Ireland was in dire need of guidance and support, which explains why he would choose to keep his culture hero powerless for the majority of the play. While Cuchulain had displayed wisdom and patience in the past, particularly in The Green Helmet, the death of his son was so traumatic that he lost control. In order to recover from this experience and reclaim his heroic composure he required the guidance of his wife, who was willing to sacrifice her own happiness for the sake of others. As James P. Farrelly argues in “Cúchulainn: Yeats’s ‘Mental

Traveller’” (1970), Emer acts as a “figure of objectivity, conscience, and social responsibility”

(35). Just as Cuchulain needs Emer to survive, Yeats believed Ireland, independent or not, would fail without the right person leading the people. Rather than trying to direct the immediate actions of the anti-colonial movement, believing that he was too far removed from it now, he turned his attention to imagining Ireland’s future. In “The Rebirth of Tragedy: Yeats, Nietzsche, the Irish National Theatre, and the Anti-Modern Cult of Cúchulainn” (2004), Michael Valdez

Moses explains that by 1919 Yeats was becoming more concerned with building a “symbolic relationship with the emergent ‘postcolonial’ nation-state” in order to “project an alternative

137 vision of community, one knowingly at odds with the actual ‘state’ of the Irish nation” (572).

Although he was no longer directly involved with the movement, he remained devoted to contributing to the nation’s cultural identity but with the frustrating realization that he could not control how the Irish received and understood his work. After the Easter Rising Yeats started to realize that his culture hero no longer belonged to him but to the nation itself. In The Only

Jealousy of Emer Yeats tries to come to terms with this fact. According to Moses, “[I]n order to preserve Cuchulain as a national symbol, Yeats must, like Emer, give him up to the young nationalists” (575). And this is precisely what Yeats did for a time. With the hero revived and

Ireland well on its way to independence, Yeats turned his attention away from the Cuchulain cycle until 1939.

Written on his deathbed, the last play in the Cuchulain cycle conveys Yeats’s final assessment of Ireland. The Death of Cuchulain opens with a “very old man looking like something out of mythology” directly addressing the audience (545). This monologue introduces the play and serves as a way for the author to speak candidly to the audience. Yeats, speaking through the Old Man, describes himself as “out of fashion and out of date like the antiquated romantic stuff the [play] is made of” (545). While writing this play Yeats knew that he was dying, and after spending the last years of life isolated from any real involvement in Irish politics he worried that his relevance in Ireland was waning. Despite his desire to remain relevant, he still maintained the belief that his plays should be performed for smaller audiences because he remained convinced that the general public did not appreciate drama. The Old Man explains, “I wanted an audience of fifty or a hundred, and if there are more I beg them not to shuffle their feet or talk when the actors are speaking” (546). While the opening of The Death of Cuchulain is pessimistic about the likelihood of general audiences appreciating the play, the rest of the

138 production is a celebration of life and the culture hero’s legacy. Rather than lingering on the past,

Yeats expresses a desire to move forward in this play, looking toward Ireland’s future with hope.

Motivated by a renewed sense of purpose and optimism at the end of his life, Yeats gave his culture hero a death that is less of an end and more of a beginning. As with the previous plays in the cycle, Yeats made some key revisions to make Cuchulain’s fate fit with the narrative of

Ireland’s culture hero thus far. Almost reminiscing with the audience, Cuchulain recalls the major events of his life from the previous plays. He mentions meeting Aoife on the battlefield in

At the Hawk’s Well, his premature death fighting the waves in On Baile’s Strand, and his miraculous return to the living world in The Only Jealousy of Emer. The major change that Yeats made to the original myth for his play was the specific way that the hero meets his death. Most of the basic details are the same—Cuchulain enters a battle he knows he will not survive, he receives several mortal wounds, he ties himself to something so that will die on his feet, and then a final blow is delivered—but the revisions that Yeats made result in a very different kind of death for the hero. In both versions some kind of magic is used to lead Cuchulain to his death, but he has accepted his fate and does nothing to avoid it, insisting that he would rather die fighting than flee from a battle. In the play the hero ignores a letter from Emer warning him that his death is waiting for him. While this may be interpreted as reckless folly, Yeats does not criticize Cuchulain’s choice. When the hero proudly asserts, “I make the truth,” he is expressing his refusal to allow others to dictate his behavior (549). He will fight because his people need him to fight, even if that means he will die. A few years earlier it was likely that Yeats would have condemned this behavior, but at the end of his life he believed that dying was simply a step toward something greater.

139 Although Cuchulain dies in this final play, Yeats insists that the hero will live on through the legacy he leaves behind. It is likely for this reason that the author downplays the seriousness of his death. Defying convention, Yeats wrote a very unceremonious death for the Hound of

Ulster. Described as “singularly unheroic” by Nicholas Andrew Miller, Cuchulain’s death lacks the grandeur that you would expect from an epic hero’s death (144). In the original myth, while the hero dies in a defenseless state, he is cut down by a worthy foe. As Gregory describes it,

“Lugaid came and lifted up Cuchulain’s hair from his shoulders, and struck his head off” (256).

The Hound of Ulster killed Lugaid’s father, so the son is seeking revenge for his death. Because of this, it feels appropriate and even honorable that Lugaid is the one to take Cuchulain’s head.

However, in the play, it is the Blind Man from On Baile’s Strand who kills the mighty hero.

After sharing a short conversation with Aoife, Cuchulain is left alone on the stage, tied to a pillar-stone with his hands bound behind him. He is already dying from the wounds he has received in battle, but the Blind Man is responsible for striking the deathblow. The Blind Man is a fellow countryman, so the death is an act of betrayal to both Cuchulain and Ulster. He explains that Cuchulain’s enemy, Maeve, has him offered twelve pennies to bring her the Hound of

Ulster’s head. However, while Cuchulain notes that twelve pennies is a rather small sum to buy his life, he accepts his fate and even seems to encourage the man: “Twelve pennies. What better reason for killing a man? / You have a knife, but have you sharpened it?” (The Death of

Cuchulain 552). In his final moments the hero bravely faces his death and seems satisfied with the life he has led thus far. Cuchulain is confident that not only will he be remembered as

Ulster’s greatest hero and defender but also that he will live on in a new form: an everlasting bird. As he waits for death he reassures both the Blind Man and the audience that death will not truly be the end for him:

140 CUCHULAIN. There floats out there

The shape that I shall take when I am dead,

My soul’s first shape, a soft feathery shape,

And is not that a strange shape for the soul

Of a great fighting-man?

BLIND MAN. Your shoulder is there,

This is your neck. Ah! Ah! Are you ready, Cuchulain?

CUCHULAIN. I say it is about to sing. (552)

These are Cuchulain’s last words in the play, but he reappears in his new form before the play ends. When Emer performs a dance of mourning for her dead husband she is rendered motionless upon hearing the faint sound of a bird singing in the distance. The bird, as Cuchulain previously indicated, is his soul’s shape that lives on even though his body has died.

Transforming the culture hero into a bird is an important key to understanding Yeats’s final message. The author often used a bird to symbolize the immortal quality of art, so it is telling that he describes Cuchulain’s soul in this way. As the author grew older and more convinced that contemporary audiences did not appreciate his work, he relied on the belief that future generations would value his contributions to Ireland’s national culture. Yeats believed that art was like an everlasting bird flying into the future beyond the artist’s lifetime granting a kind of immortality to the artist. Through his work he would live on after his death, and he believed that his culture hero possessed this immortal quality as well. Trusting that he had firmly established Cuchulain as a lasting icon in Ireland, Yeats celebrates this fact in The Death of

Cuchulain. Although Cuchulain’s physical body is dead, he is reborn as the bird to indicate his immortal existence. The Hound of Ulster may have died unceremoniously, but his death is not

141 unheroic because he has lived a noteworthy life that guarantees that he will be remembered as a legend. When Emer hears the bird’s song she stops her dance of mourning to listen to her husband’s soul, and is reminded of this fact. She seems to be comforted knowing that his heroic legend will live on and that he will be celebrated long after his death, so her mourning ceases and she exits the stage. As Brendan Kennelly argues in “The Heroic Ideal in Yeats’s Cúchulainn

Plays” (1965), “the play concludes with a lyrical affirmation of the value of the heroic life” (20).

What matters is how Cuchulain lived his life, not how he died.

However, Cuchulain’s transformation is not the only way that Yeats proved the hero’s legendary status. In the final lines of the play he provides concrete evidence for his culture hero’s impact and legacy in modern Ireland. After Emer has left the stage all that remains are three musicians—a Singer, a Piper, and a Drummer—dressed in “ragged street-singers’ clothes” (The

Death of Cuchulain 553). Recalling the Easter Rising, the Singer tells the audience how the mythic Cuchulain inspired the nation:

What stood in the Post Office

With Pearse and Connolly?

What comes out of the mountain

Where men first shed their blood?

Who thought Cuchulain till it seemed

He stood where they had stood? (554)

While Yeats had good reason to say that Cuchulain was with the rebels in Dublin because Patrick

Pearse openly idolized the hero, Pearse’s Cuchulain was not Yeats’s version of the hero.

Cullingford explains how Pearse interpreted the Hound of Ulster’s heroism:

142 Padraig Pearse, who saw the road to victory as leading inevitably through the

valley of defeat, took Cuchulain as his role model, mainly because of his reckless

courage and his willingness to die young in pursuit of honor. Few critics have

noted, however, that Pearse’s Cuchulain is very different from Yeats’s Cuchulain:

he is either a brave and beautiful prepubescent boy, a creation of Pearse’s

undeniably homoerotic imagination, or he is the sacrificial Christ-figure later

memorialized by Oliver Sheppard’s statue in the General Post Office. (“Death of

Cuchulain’s Only Son” 45)

Yeats rejected this sacrificial representation—yet another reason he downplays Cuchulain’s death and focuses more on his life and legacy—but he had to acknowledge that a version of his culture hero had been in the hearts and minds of the anti-colonial rebels who fought for Ireland’s freedom just as Cuchulain had fought and died for Ulster. Earlier in his life Yeats was not as enthusiastic about the possibility that his work had inspired violent revolution, but in this final play he accepts the impact that his culture hero may have had on the rebels’ imaginations.

Rather than questioning the way that independence was won, in his final play Yeats focuses on the fact that Cuchulain has found a permanent place in Irish history thanks to his efforts to revive and establish him as Ireland’s culture hero. As the Singer explains in his final verse, “A statue’s there to mark the place / By Oliver Sheppard done” (The Death of Cuchulain

554). Sheppard’s sculpture, titled “The Dying Cuchulain” and depicting the final moments of the hero’s life, was completed in 1911 and later installed in the General Post Office in 1935 to commemorate the Rising. In Modernism, Ireland, and the Erotics of Memory (2002), Nicholas

Andrew Miller explains that the statue was placed in the Post Office because it “fulfills the function of conventional memorial, juxtaposing the methodological goals of historicism and

143 idealism as counterparts in the formation of national identity” (129). However, just as Yeats disagreed with Pearse’s interpretation of Cuchulain, he was not necessarily a fan of the work.

Yeats’s primary objection to the statue was the fact that, like Pearse, it celebrated the hero as a martyr. Miller writes, “If Cuchulain is somehow an exemplary Irish hero, it is not because his acts are appropriately sacrificial; Yeats’s point, after all, is that they are incommensurable with the commemorative valuation of sacrifice” (148). The fact that the Hound of Ulster was used as a way of memorializing the Easter Rising, however, did prove that he had become a cultural touchstone in Ireland. Recognizing that the culture hero had not always been interpreted the way that he wanted, Yeats used The Death of Cuchulain to make one last attempt at emphasizing the heroic qualities that he believed were worthy of praise. Although Yeats often felt that the Irish rejected him and his national culture, the statue seemed to be proof that his culture hero now served as the symbol of the movement. He celebrates this fact at the end of his last play, calling to mind the peace that he claimed to have finally grasped at the end of his life: “It seems to me that I have found what I wanted” (Letters 922). At the end of his life, Yeats appears to have accepted his role in Ireland’s decolonization, believing that his culture hero would live on in the hearts and minds of the Irish people he had struggled to represent.

Cuchulain’s Heroic Evolution: Charting Ireland’s Revolution

While the Cuchulain cycle provides a useful way of charting Yeats’s evolution as a postcolonial author, this is not necessarily what he was hoping to reveal when he wrote the plays.

His careful arrangement of the plays in the 1934 publication suggests that he wanted to call attention to the fact that the cycle told an ongoing story of the hero’s development rather than focusing on his own evolution as a playwright. As The Death of Cuchulain shows, Yeats believed that his culture hero was the mythological match for Irish revolutionaries like Patrick

144 Pearse and James Connolly. Reading the plays as Yeats organized them encourages this interpretation and allows for an analysis that focuses on the ways in which Cuchulain’s story is also the story of Ireland’s decolonization and the evolution of the nationalists who fought and died for the nation’s independence. As argued in the previous section, Yeats’s personal opinions of the anti-colonial movement significantly shaped the plays and resulted in both an inconsistent cycle and a conflicted representation of the Irish cause. Reconsidering the plays in this order provides stability and reveals the ways in which the culture hero’s story is bound to Ireland’s anti-colonial identity. As Cuchulain matures, he grows from an ignorant and egotistical youth into a fully realized hero, just as the Irish cause evolved into a full-scale revolution that ultimately claimed Ireland’s independence. While Yeats often worried that young Irish nationalists were leading the movement in the wrong direction, these men would eventually fight and die for the Irish cause. Influenced by his opinions of the movement, Yeats’s Cuchulain cycle tells the story of a complicated Irishman who grows and changes over time, eventually emerging as a culture hero worthy of the praise that ensured his legendary status.

Although Yeats eventually celebrates Cuchulain as a mature and thoughtful hero, his journey there is slow and frustrating at times. The hero’s story begins with At the Hawk’s Well, which is as close as Yeats gets to an origin story for Cuchulain. While the play is not about

Cuchulain’s birth, or the first realization of his power, it recounts the moment in the hero’s life when he must leave behind boyhood and enter adulthood via marriage. The young warrior is not yet a husband or a representative of his community. While he has been recognized as a noteworthy fighter on the battlefield, his greatest achievements are still ahead of him. Because of this, At the Hawk’s Well represents Cuchulain’s last chance to have a completely reckless adventure with no consequences to anyone other than himself. Throughout the play Cuchulain

145 appears as an ignorant and arrogant young man who is easily distracted and manipulated, but his biggest defeat occurs at the end. Although the young warrior triumphantly exits the stage seeking his next battle, in reality he has accomplished nothing worth celebrating on his visit to the well of immortality. While the Old Man cries in anguish for his lost opportunity, Cuchulain remains unconcerned about his own loss. At this point in his life, the young hero is incapable of reflecting on his decisions or considering the consequences of his actions. He quickly moves on to the next adventure, but this constant momentum is not necessarily a good thing.

Cuchulain’s youthful ambition will not allow him to turn away from a fight, ensuring that the hero is destined to a life on the battlefield. His overwhelming desire to prove himself has led the hero astray, and it is unclear if he will ever find peace in his life. At the Hawk’s Well establishes that one of Cuchulain’s biggest flaws is his impulsive tendency toward violence without considering the consequences. The moment he appears on stage the Old Man identifies this obvious flaw: “What mischief brings you hither?—you are like those / Who are crazy for the shedding of men’s blood” (300). Cuchulain does not deny the accusation because he is proud of his fighting prowess and sees no problem with his behavior. Up until this point in his life, he has always proven his worth in battle and this has served him well. When he fails to drink the water of immortality he moves on to the next conquest, and while this is not a problem in his youth

Yeats warns that this will not always be enough. The play ends with a song as Cuchulain rushes off to battle, leaving the audience with Yeats’s final assessment of what has taken place. The singers criticize Cuchulain’s overzealous temperament and lust for battle and instead celebrate the virtues of patience and domestic bliss in the final verses of their song:

‘The man that I praise’,

Cries out the leafless tree,

146 ‘Has married and stays

By an old hearth, and he

On naught has set store

But children and dogs on the floor. (306)

While Cuchulain manages to escape the Old Man’s life of endlessly waiting for the well to fill with the water, he seems cursed to live out his days on the battlefield. Yeats feared that the young Irish nationalists leading the charge against English rule were incapable of looking past the immediate battles facing them and were headed toward the same fate as Cuchulain. Just as the Old Man tries to show Cuchulain the error of his ways, Yeats urged the younger generation to consider the future of the nation and the cost of the violence used to secure independence. Age and experience had made Yeats skeptical about the possibility of success in the years leading up to the War of Independence, but the youthful enthusiasm of the rebels would not be dissuaded as they took up the Irish cause with confidence.

Just as the cause for Irish independence eventually developed into an organized effort,

Yeats’s culture hero grew and matured over time. The next play in the cycle shows the beginning of this growth as Cuchulain exhibits some newfound wisdom and diplomacy. As opposed to At the Hawk’s Well, in The Green Helmet the culture hero serves as a strong example for the Irish to emulate because of his thoughtful consideration for the wellbeing of Ulster’s future. Although the anti-colonial movement managed to garner enough support from the Irish people to launch a revolution, the nation was anything but united in this effort. Some Irishmen, especially

Protestants living in the northern counties, remained loyal to the English and resisted the War of

Independence, while some Unionists joined the war effort for the English and fought against their own countrymen. This lack of unity in Ireland greatly concerned Yeats, and he decided to

147 address it in The Green Helmet. Not only do the men—and their wives and servants—argue over the helmet, but also Conall and Laegaire admit at the start of the play that the nation is currently divided as “neighbour wars on neighbour” (The Green Helmet 242). When Cuchulain returns from his brief absence from the country, Conall urges him to leave, claiming that it is an

“unlucky country that was made when the Devil spat” (244). Despite this, the maturing Hound of

Ulster decides to stay and face the challenge of unifying his people.

When Cuchulain learns of Conall and Laegaire’s problem, and the threat the mysterious

Red Man poses for the community, he confidently faces the challenge set before him. However, the hero quickly learns that his usual way of dealing with problems will not work with the Red

Man. In the previous play Cuchulain faced his problems with violence, but when the Red Man appears he laughs at the hero’s meaningless threats. After the helmet is given to the men

Cuchulain decides to use his wisdom and his words rather than his fist, and he manages to convince Conall and Laegaire to share the helmet and to use this peaceful gesture to ward off the

Red Man. In this play Cuchulain learns the valuable lesson that violence does not always work, and that some foes must be defeated by other means. According to Yeats, this kind of united effort was exactly what Ireland needed. If the anti-colonial movement united the Irish people,

Yeats believed that a more promising and peaceful future could be achieved. As the young Irish nationalists leading the charge against English rule grew and matured, Yeats hoped that they would become more like the culture hero he created as inspiration.

This play, more than the others, highlights Cuchulain’s virtues as a heroic figure that possesses both physical prowess and a sound intellect. As Jochum correctly notes, Cuchulain now “possesses courage, wisdom, and integrity, as well as full knowledge of himself and others”

(221). The hero has matured since his frivolous behavior in At the Hawk’s Well. Although Yeats

148 does not indicate exactly how much time has passed since the previous play, we know that he has completed his adventure with Aoife, returned home to marry Emer, and then left for Scotland once again before the start of The Green Helmet. Cuchulain is now a husband in addition to being a great warrior. He is seemingly no longer willing to carelessly take unnecessary risks, especially when other people’s lives are involved. At the end of the play, after Cuchulain has bravely offered his life to pay the debt that Laegaire and Conall rightly owe, the Red Man praises the hero’s virtues as he places the green helmet upon his head:

I have not come for your hurt, I’m the Rector of this

land.

And with my spitting cat-heads, my frenzied moon-bred band,

Age after age I sift it, and choose for its championship

The man who hits my fancy

[He places the Helmet on Cuchulain’s head

And I choose the laughing lip

That shall not turn from laughing, whatever rise or fall;

The heart that grows no bitterer although betrayed by all;

The hand that loves to scatter; the life like a gambler’s throw;

And these things I make prosper, till a day come that I know,

When heart and mind shall darken that the weak may end the

strong,

And the long-remembering harpers have matter for their song. (The Green Helmet

255)

149 While this moment marks a brief period of peace and prosperity in the nation, the Red Man’s speech predicts a darker time in the future. His final words, which end the play, foreshadow the hero’s death that will come at the hand of a weaker and less deserving opponent. This prediction will come true when the Blind Man from On Baile’s Strand kills Cuchulain. The Green Helmet marks the high point of Cuchulain’s life when he is at the height of power, admired and honored by his people for his physical strength and his intellect, and it is from this high point that the hero will experience the greatest tragedy in his life in the next play. Yeats’s hope that Ireland would achieve independence was always marked by a lingering fear of what the future would bring, believing that young Ireland was still lacking the necessary qualities to thrive without England’s ruling power. Just as Cuchulain falls from grace by killing his only son, Yeats believed that

Ireland was doomed to destroy its own future if it continued on its current path.

While Yeats wanted Ireland to be an independent nation, he often wondered if the Irish were capable of ruling themselves, and this trepidation is expressed in On Baile’s Strand.

Crowned by the Red Man in The Green Helmet, the next play in the cycle tells how the hero falls from glory. Yeats explained that the action of The Green Helmet was “meant as an introduction to On Baile’s Strand,” implying that it was important to the author that he establish Cuchulain’s heroic fame first in order to ensure that the hero is at the highest point in his life when it begins to unravel (qtd. in Plays 863). After Cuchulain is recognized as the greatest hero in Ulster, High

King Conchubar decides that he must take control of Cuchulain before he becomes too powerful, but there is also a suggestion that the older and wiser man wants to harness the younger man’s strength for the greater good. While Conchubar may be partly motivated by a desire to strengthen his rule over the people of Ulster, there is evidence for a more generous reading of his intentions.

In the original myth, Conchubar is a father figure to the orphaned Cuchulain, and he seems to

150 have the young hero’s best interests at heart, but he is also a responsible and dedicated leader to his people. The fact is that Cuchulain, while certainly more mature and levelheaded than he was in At the Hawk’s Well, is still an unpredictable force with the potential to lose control and harm his own people. Although Cuchulain shows great wisdom in The Green Helmet, he is much younger than the High King and therefore lacking the same level of experience that Conchubar possess. Not only that, but the hero has become overly confident because of the praise he receives from those around him, making him unwieldy. Cuchulain has become too proud, letting fame go to his head, and he needs the older and wiser Conchubar to give him perspective.

Although the Fool praises Cuchulain for protecting the people and defeating numerous enemies, the Blind Man counters this praise with a poignant observation: Cuchulain is only interested in fighting the grandest and fiercest opponents. The hero has lost sight of the smaller battles that the common people fight on a daily basis because he is more concerned with gaining fame. When the Fool asks if Cuchulain knows that a mysterious boy has come seeking his death, the Blind Man explains that the great hero would never notice such a small thing:

How would he know that with his head in the clouds?

He doesn’t care for common fighting. Why would he put himself

out, and nobody in it but that young man? Now if it were a white

fawn that might turn into a queen before morning— (154)

Using a bit of humor, the Blind Man makes a powerful point about Cuchulain’s priorities. He only cares for over-the-top adventures and ignores anything else to his detriment. His head is in the clouds, and he lacks awareness and perspective. After all, he is completely oblivious to the fact that the young man who has come to kill him is his own son. If Cuchulain paid more attention to his surroundings and fostered a better relationship with the common people living in

151 his community he may have learned the truth before it was too late. The Fool tries to approach the hero about the rumor that the Blind Man hints at, but he is too afraid to even speak to him because he believes Cuchulain will kill him. The hero’s inability to control himself leads him to his needless death, calling to mind Yeats’s concern for the young rebels who died in the Easter

Rising. Even after Yeats came to terms with the rebellion, he continued to question the necessity of the lives that were lost and wondered if he could have “done anything to turn those young men in some other direction” (Letters 614).48 Whatever this “other direction” may have been, Yeats remained uncomfortable with the violence required to achieve independence because, according to Elizabeth Cullingford, he had inherited from O’Leary the belief that “the end never justifies the means” (Yeats, Ireland and Fascism 12). With this in mind, Cuchulain’s recklessly violent behavior and needless death in On Baile’s Strand can be interpreted as a call to young nationalists to carefully consider the cost of violence.

In On Baile’s Strand Conchubar tries to control Cuchulain for the greater good of Ulster, but both men use violence to solve their problems. Cuchulain is persuaded to swear allegiance to the High King because he believes that both men will benefit from this arrangement. Conchubar tells the younger man, “I need your might of hand and burning heart, / And you my wisdom”

(160). However, when Conlaoch appears Conchubar insists on violent action, which leads to the hero losing control and recklessly fighting the waves until he dies. One of the reasons that this tragedy occurs is because both Conchubar and Cuchulain rely on violence to solve their problems in this play. In The Green Helmet Yeats showed how violence is not the only way to handle a situation. And while Cuchulain exemplifies this belief in that play, he seems to have lost this wisdom in On Baile’s Strand. Discussing the role of violence in the Cuchulain cycle,

Cullingford argues that “[f]or Yeats, tragedy subsumes epic: the heroic code with its emphasis on

48 Taken from a letter written to John Quinn after the leaders of the Rising were executed in May 1916.

152 war and violence as the constitutive elements of masculinity is seen to produce stultifying and inhumane consequences. War normally entails the premature death of sons rather than the appropriate or timely death of fathers” (“Death of Cuchulain’s Only Son” 46). Conchubar, despite all of his wisdom, is just as battle hungry as Cuchulain, as he insists that Conlaoch must be killed to preserve Ulster’s honor. And, just as Cullingford argues, this predilection for warfare leads to the untimely death of sons in the play.

The tragic mistakes made in On Baile’s Strand result in Cuchulain’s famous battle with the waves because he is incapable of dealing with the death of his son. Rather than taking a moment to reflect on what has happened, the hero immediately lashes out on Conchubar. His rage is redirected to the waves because he has lost control, showing that while Cuchulain has matured over the course of the cycle he is still lacking in many ways. In reality, the hero is just as much to blame for the death of his son because he dealt the killing blow, even if the High King prompted him to do so. The fact that Conchubar leads him to this tragic fate suggests that even the wisest men are fallible. While On Baile’s Strand ends in the waves mastering Cuchulain, and his temporary death, this paves the way for the hero’s future growth in the final two plays. The death of Cuchulain’s son and his fight with the waves can be considered tragic failures, but there is more than that to Yeats’s adaption of this myth. Nicholas Andrew Miller provides some insight into why this failure is such a powerful image in regards to Ireland’s colonial situation.

As Miller explains, “Because it couples blind courage and pathetic futility at such a visceral level, the image of Cuchulain fighting the sea has become a curiously negative emblem of Irish political identity” (129). After centuries of failed rebellion after failed rebellion many Irishmen may have very well felt like fighting England was akin to Cuchulain pointlessly fighting the sea.

153 Yeats certainly had his own doubts about this, prompting him to repeats this question in “Easter,

1916” when he asks, “Was it needless death after all?” (Collected Poems 67).

While Cuchulain fails in this play, Yeats’s culture hero is much more than a symbol of failure. According to Miller,

The futile inadequacy of Cuchulain’s defiance of the sea may, for many, seem a

particularly eloquent symbolic expression of the condition of Irish political

identity. Yet the clichéd sentimentalism and negativity implicit in this reading of

the Cuchulain image is at a sharp variance with Yeats’s own employment of it.

Yeats’s Cuchulain is not reducible to the value of noble failure; nor does his

‘bitter tide’ consume itself in the trivial banality of a ‘sea of troubles’. (131)

Although Cuchulain’s fight with the waves does, to a certain extent, reflect Yeats’s frustration with Irish politics, Miller is right to call attention to the fact that Cuchulain’s fight with waves is more than just a brash, violent act because it serves an important function in the hero’s journey.

The tragic error made in this play provides the hero with the opportunity to grow in the future.

He will be revived in the next play, and he will learn from his mistakes. Without this epic failure the final moments of Cuchulain’s life would lack the heroic redemption that solidifies his legendary status as a culture hero. That being said, this play does provide a warning to the Irish rebels ready and willing to give their lives to the cause. While their strength may be capable of matching English forces, the nation would need more than that to succeed after independence was won. Likewise, as the fall of Parnell made clear, intelligent and politically savvy leaders will also need more than their wisdom to defeat England. Yeats seems to be saying that Ireland, divided and undeveloped, will fail as a post-colonial nation if it does not evolve and mature. Like

Cuchulain, the nation will end up destroying its future if violence is the norm. With the

154 possibility of independence on the horizon, Yeats urged the movement to focus on how the nation would be ruled.

In The Only Jealousy of Emer Yeats further explores the possibilities of a post-colonial

Ireland. This play foregrounds the women in Cuchulain’s life and further explores the role of sacrifice and support in the Irish cause. Directly following the events of On Baile’s Strand, The

Only Jealousy of Emer tells how the hero returns to the living world. Emer’s sacrifice ensures that Cuchulain will be able to defend his people in the years to come, even though she will not be by his side when he dies. Emer displays great maturity and wisdom that is a striking contrast to her husband’s behavior. Unlike Cuchulain, Emer has no concern for her own fame or renown in the community. This is noteworthy because in The Green Helmet she was, until the end, very concerned with her husband’s fame because she wanted to share the spotlight with him. Once she is confronted with the very real possibility of his death she realizes that this fame is meaningless, but Cuchulain is slower to learn this lesson. In “‘The Age-Long Memoried Self’” (2014),

Gregory Castle notes that Emer’s sacrifice ensures that Cuchulain’s dream of fame is secured.

Castle writes, “by renouncing her love for him, she refuses her own fame, her own claim to futurity, in order to guarantee his in trust” (143). Despite Emer’s importance in this play

Cuchulain remains completely unaware of the sacrifice she has made and fails to appreciate her contribution to Ulster’s future stability. Unlike his hero, Yeats was very aware of the sacrifices that women made for Ireland. Partly because of his close relationships with women like Lady

Augusta Gregory and Maud Gonne, Yeats understood the invaluable role that women played in

Ireland’s emancipation, even if others did not immediately recognize these sacrifices. Just like

Emer’s contribution is initially overlooked, many of women who participated in the Irish cause struggled to gain the recognition they deserve. As Mary McAuliffe laments in “Our Struggle

155 Too” (2016), “the contribution made by women to the feminist, nationalist, and socialist revolutionary politics of early twentieth-century Ireland is often overlooked” (29). Yeats’s condemnation of Cuchulain’s ignorance in The Only Jealousy of Emer can also be read as a call for the men of the Irish cause to recognize the role that women play in the building of the nation.

Emer makes it possible for the Hound of Ulster to have a second chance with the hope that he will make the most of the gift he has been given. Sacrifices would be made to give Ireland the independence it deserved, and it was ultimately up to the Irish people to rebuild the post-colonial nation in a way that would honor those who made it possible. With this in mind, in the final plays in the cycle Yeats turned his attention to the future difficulties faced by post-colonial

Ireland.

In the last Cuchulain play, the hero reviews the failures and accomplishments in his life as he nears death, but the real focus of The Death of Cuchulain is the future. Yeats originally chose to shape Cuchulain into his culture hero not because he made perfect choices but because he met dangerous obstacles head on. Beyond this, what makes Cuchulain a strong and compelling hero is the fact that he eventually learns to reflect on the past in order to grow and learn from his mistakes. Although this self-awareness comes at the end of his life, the hero uses his final moments to protect his people from outside invaders and is eventually granted a kind of eternal life because of his heroism. Cuchulain is fully aware, even before entering the battlefield, that he is going to die, and he uses his final moments to recognize those he has wronged and those who aided him throughout his life. He comes to terms with Aoife and the son he killed, while also realizing that it was Emer, not Eithne, who saved him from an early demise in the previous play. Speaking with Eithne, he fully acknowledges his wife’s sacrifice: “When I went mad at my son’s death and drew / My sword against the sea, it was my wife / That brought me

156 back” (The Death of Cuchulain 548). The Hound of Ulster’s newfound ability to appreciate his wife’s heroism is an important step in his journey because it suggests that he is no longer obsessed with his own fame. Castle notes that in this moment Cuchulain “appears to have reached a point of self-recognition that makes no demand of recognition from others” (“Age-

Long Memoried Self” 144). His mistress is distressed by this newfound clarity and awareness, claiming “You’re not the man I loved, / That violent man forgave no treachery” (The Death of

Cuchulain 548). The hero’s ability to forgive those who have wronged him and to acknowledge his faults is so shocking that his mistress thinks he is simply afraid to die. That is far from the truth, however, as Cuchulain bravely goes out to meet his death in battle.

Ready to face his death, Cuchulain has finally become self-aware and perceptive, which is what Yeats wanted for Ireland and its future. Perhaps the most notable change in the hero is his readiness to accept responsibility for his past actions and decisions. After receiving several life-threatening wounds, Cuchulain meets Aoife and discusses the death of their son, which he now takes full responsibility for:

And now I know your name.

Aoife, the mother of my son. We met

At the Hawk’s Well under the withered trees.

I killed him upon Baile’s Strand, that is why

Maeve has parted ranks that she might let you through.

You have a right to kill me. (550)

While Cuchulain has the details wrong—Maeve has other plans for how to kill him—his final conversation with Aoife reveals a matured man who is willing to accept the blame for his violent mistakes. Although he admits that Conchubar commanded him to fight Conlaoch, he no longer

157 claims that the High King was responsible for his death. He takes the blame for his actions, providing both him and Aoife a final moment of reconciliation before the Blind Man appears to deliver the killing blow. This moment, along with Cuchulain’s conversation about his wife with

Eithne, are rare examples of reflection and tenderness in the cycle. This is important for the hero’s evolution because, as Castle argues, this “corrective gaze that he casts upon his life is a purifying heroic act, which triggers a flash of knowledge that will echo like thunder into his future renown” (“Age-Long Memoried Self” 144). These conversations ensure that the hero will be remembered not as the overzealous and violent young man he once was but as the thoughtful and inspiring hero he became. With his legacy firmly established, and his final words spoken,

Cuchulain is able to accept his death with the same optimism that Yeats expressed in his final days. As Bradley argues, “In the figure and actions of Cuchulain, Yeats presents to himself and his audience an image of heroism now conceived of as facing one’s death (and not merely an enemy) with resolution and composure, with a fortitude that faces up to the ignobility that threatens every life at its close, and with the certainty that such heroism inspires those who come after” (173). The Death of Cuchulain concludes the cycle with the hero’s death, but his legacy will persist just as Yeats believed the Irish would also remember him after he died.

Yeats believed that establishing Cuchulain as a culture hero would ensure his legacy and inspire and guide the Irish as they worked to build a post-colonial nation. Believing that the only way that he could help his nation was through his art, he left behind this final play in the

Cuchulain cycle to conclude the culture hero’s story and to celebrate his evolution toward maturity. While he began his journey as an ignorant and unpredictable warrior, much like how

Yeats viewed the Irish rebels initially failing to mount a successful campaign for independence—as evidenced in the Easter Rising—Cuchulain concludes his life as a thoughtful

158 and self-aware hero who uses his final moments to protect and inspire his people. When Yeats asks in his final play, “What stood in the Post Office / With Pearse and Connolly?” he knows that the answer is Cuchulain because Oliver Sheppard’s “statue’s there to mark the place” (554).

However, Cuchulain “stood where they had stood” not just because of the statue in the General

Post Office, but also because the culture hero faced similar trials as the young men and women who fought and died for the right to rule their own nation (554). Consequently, Cuchulain’s cultural relevance is seen throughout Ireland today. While Yeats may not have physically led the revolution against English colonialism, the specter of his culture hero was felt among the rebels and his legacy persists.

159 Chapter 5

Joyce’s Irish Epic

Introduced to the world in 1922, James Joyce’s Leopold Bloom has consistently captured the imagination of readers and scholars alike. Literary critics are absorbed by the difficult task of defining Bloom’s multifaceted character, describing him as everything from a modern androgynous anti-hero to Joyce’s Irish Jew.49 There are countless studies focused solely on dissecting every detail of Bloom’s behavior in Ulysses. Along with famous literary figures like

King Arthur and Hamlet, Harold Bloom devoted a volume of his Major Literary Characters series to Joyce’s culture hero. Much like his creator, there is something about Bloom that continually draws scholars to re-read him in every conceivable light, resulting in an almost overwhelming amount of published scholarship on the subject. When looking at the body of work dedicated to understanding this Irish Odysseus it is easy to see that Bloom is a fascinating and mystifying subject to Joyce scholars, but he is just as puzzling to the Dubliners in Ulysses.

Lenehan, one such Dubliner, struggles to find the words to describe Bloom’s unique character but is only able to conclude, “He’s not one of your common or garden . . . you know . . . There’s a touch of the artist about old Bloom” (235; 10.581-583).50 Lenehan fails to pinpoint exactly what it is that makes Bloom different, just as scholars struggle to define what is not “common or garden” about this man. Not unlike Ulysses itself, Bloom resists labels, transforming throughout

49 See Piotr Sadowski’s “Leopold Bloom: The Modern Androgynous Anti- Hero” in Gender and Literature: A Systems Study (2001) and Daniel R. Schwarz’s “Joyce’s Irish Jew: Bloom” in Reading Joyce’s Ulysses (1987). 50 All Ulysses citations include the page numbers from the complete and unabridged edition first published in the United States in 1961 followed by the episode and line numbers from the 1986 Hans Walter Gabler corrected text edition.

160 the day in order to play whatever role best suits Joyce’s needs. According to Hugh Kenner in

“The Hidden Hero” (1987), these roles range from “kindly catkeeper . . . Eloquent Jew . . . unctuous lightbreakfastbringer . . . [and] incipient cuckold” (50). In addition to these numerous and multifaceted roles Bloom also fills the important role of the hero in Joyce’s revisionist myth.

While much has been written about Joyce’s appropriation of Homer’s Odyssey, and the ways in which Bloom does or does not fit the heroic model established by the original Odysseus, there is a lack of scholarship dealing specifically with Bloom’s most important role: Irish culture hero.

Through Joyce’s careful and deliberate revisionist mythmaking, Bloom emerges as a distinctly

Irish culture hero, which I believe is what has made him such an enduring literary figure. This chapter will examine how Joyce revised the original Odysseus myth to suit his desires for a cosmopolitan, national identity for a postcolonial Ireland.

In order to promote a cosmopolitan Irish identity in Ulysses Joyce deviated from the path established by the members of the Irish Literary Revival, rejecting the myths of Ireland’s past and looking to a more widely known mythic tradition: Homer’s Odyssey. By choosing to revise a

Greek myth rather than an Irish myth Joyce could resist the nostalgia for Ireland’s past that he distrusted while still creating the epic he believed Ireland needed. In Ulysses, Joyce created a new kind of epic with the intention of promoting Irish culture on an international level to show the world a more realistic representation of the Irish. Joyce chose Odysseus as his heroic model for Bloom because he believed he was the most complete man in literature. Odysseus, because of his unique characteristics, proved to be an ideal source for heroic inspiration in a nation that needed a unifying force. While no one is debating Odysseus’s claim as a heroic figure, this does not necessarily validate Bloom’s heroic claim. In fact, Bloom’s personality and actions are, at times, difficult to reconcile with the image of an epic hero. One could argue that there is nothing

161 particularly heroic about writing dirty letters to several women under a pen name for a bit of sexual excitement. Nor is there much heroism in what Margot Norris, in Virgin and Veteran

Readings of Ulysses (2011), describes as “Bloom’s low-risk maneuvers of using female strangers as masturbatory props” (17). Bloom also defies heroic expectations by being an outspoken pacifist, a socially awkward outsider, and an emotional and sensitive husband and father. At first glance Bloom is an unheroic nobody very different from traditional heroes like Cuchulain or

Odysseus, but while Bloom doesn’t carry a weapon or seem particularly brave he does posses the qualities that Joyce believed were heroic. It is precisely the qualities that don’t adhere to traditional representations of heroism that make Bloom a hero, even if this defies readers’ expectations. As Kenner notes, “Joyce is as cunning as his mythical hero, whose normal strategy was to withhold his identity” (45). Bloom is an unsuspecting hero, but he is a hero nonetheless.

And while Bloom certainly has flaws, these flaws are important to understanding how Joyce shaped him from the Odysseus model and into an Irish culture hero. Joyce wanted a hero with flaws in order to ennoble him to the common man as an everyday hero.

A Heroic Everyman

At first glance Bloom appears to be a relatively average man. Although he is the hero of

Joyce’s epic he is not distinguished in any way, and he is not a king or a leader of men. He is simply a man. As Richard Ellmann notes in Ulysses on the Liffey (1972), Joyce shaped Bloom as an everyman in order to show that a “measure of heroism could be elicited from the vulgar circumstances of everyday life just as from the days of clanking mail. The task was to exhibit heroism of a new kind” (30). Bloom’s heroism stems from his domestic and intellectual victories rather than traditional physical feats. Unlike Yeats’s Cuchulain, who eventually matured into a more intellectual hero, Joyce’s culture hero is already evolved and complete. Bloom’s life

162 experiences have taught him a great deal, and he is ready to impart his wisdom on others. In

Mythic Worlds, Modern Worlds (1993), Joseph Campbell describes Bloom as “a mature man with many rambling intellectual interests, who knows how to assimilate and relate what he knows to living life” (50). While a traditional hero would learn and evolve by training at arms or fighting on the battlefield, Bloom’s training and experience has humbler origins. As Ellmann argues, Bloom is “untrained by anything but natural ingenuity,” with the wherewithal to “recoup in the mind what he loses in the flesh” (Liffey 30). In other words, Bloom possesses qualities that any person could realistically aspire to in his or her own life. The average Irishman would have a difficult time aspiring to become the next Cuchulain or Odysseus, but Bloom is in reach as a relatable culture hero. He is not particularly passionate about his job, he is not wealthy, he has no special powers or supernatural gifts of any kind, and he is not even popular. However, despite appearances Bloom is not an average Dubliner. It is just that his extraordinary, heroic qualities are a bit unassuming and difficult for his peers to recognize. Bloom, although lacking the traditional heroic qualities of figures like Odysseus or Cuchulain, is extraordinary in his own way. Bloom is an untraditional hero perfectly suited to fit the untraditional epic that Joyce created for Ireland.

Joyce drew his inspiration for his epic novel from Homer’s Odyssey, but like any revisionist myth he took certain liberties with the story and crafted something new from the source material. Although inspired by the Greek myth, Ulysses is not a simple or straightforward retelling of Odysseus’s journey. While Yeats’s Cuchulain cycle is easily recognizable as a revision of the Ulster cycle myth, Joyce significantly diverged from his source material. Joyce’s revision is much more than an update or a restructuring of the myth, although the novel does share important elements with the original. As W. B. Stanford explains in The Ulysses Theme: A

163 Study in the Adaptability of a Traditional Hero (1968), “Sometimes the Odyssean order is dislocated or telescoped, and sometimes the analogies are rather far-fetched. But Joyce kept the parallelism constantly in mind, both as a structural model and as a symbolical undertone” (213).

While Joyce departs from Homer’s myth in significant ways, the Odyssean narrative is constantly at work beneath the surface of the story unfolding in the novel. Likewise, while

Bloom is not immediately recognizable as a revisionist version of Odysseus, he possesses many of the hero’s qualities in his own unique way. Stanford argues that although the “basic humanistic elements in conduct, motive, and environment, are identical for the Prince of Ithaca and for this humble citizen of Dublin” Bloom is not “simply a Ulysses in modern dress” (214).

Joyce’s culture hero is much more than an updated version of the Greek hero from the original myth. Unlike Yeats, who believed it was important to shape a culture hero with traditional qualities that audiences would easily recognize as heroic, Joyce was not interested in traditional forms of heroism and used Bloom to experiment with a new understanding of the epic hero. In

“A Hero for Our Time: Leopold Bloom and the Myth of Ulysses” (1972) Morton Levitt explains that making Bloom the novel’s hero was a way for Joyce to criticize and revise classical heroic ideals to better suit the concerns of the twentieth century. Levitt writes, “In a world suddenly bereft of Homeric virtues, in a world in which ambiguity is everywhere, Leopold Bloom— neither a powerful man nor god-man—is more of a hero than he could ever imagine” (137).

Bloom’s unusual heroism transforms the very concept of the epic hero and makes Ulysses more than a simple adaptation. This, according to Levitt, is part of the reason that Ulysses transcends its source material, as the novel became “a new myth of its own, borrowing from the old yet perfectly appropriate to its own time, and Bloom is its indispensable, albeit not unambiguous hero” (142). In an effort to shape a culture hero appropriate for twentieth-century Ireland, Joyce

164 reconsidered what it meant to be a hero with Bloom and shaped a cultural icon purposely crafted to comment on the nation’s colonial condition.

Bloom’s Heroic Hybridity

Bloom’s heroism largely stems from the subtle yet significant ways in which he differs from the other Dubliners in the novel. While Bloom is a natural born Irish citizen, his father was originally from Hungary, a fact that causes some Dubliners to mistake him for a foreigner because of his appearance. In addition to this, his father was Jewish, and although Bloom does not practice the religion he is still branded an outsider because of his ancestry. As Bloom has lived his whole life in Ireland he considers himself Irish through and through and shares many of the same cultural habits as his peers in Dublin. But Bloom’s complex background confuses and frustrates others. Ned Lambert aptly expresses this confusion in the “Cyclops” episode when he asks, “Is he a jew or a gentile or a holy Roman or a swaddler or what the hell is he?” (337;

12.1631-632). Bloom’s fellow Dubliners distrust him because of his multicultural background.

While their suspicions are misguided, they are right about the fact that Bloom is difficult to label.

He is identified as an outsider because he looks different than other Irishmen, and his Irish heritage is called into question. However, while these differences cause Bloom grief in the novel,

Joyce celebrates his hero’s hybridity. In fact, it is precisely because of Bloom’s hybridity that he is the hero of Ulysses.

Although Ulysses opens with Stephen and seems to be establishing him as the hero of the novel, in the fourth section Bloom appears rather unexpectedly and takes the heroic role away from the younger man. One reason for this switch in perspective is that Joyce is following the original narrative structure of the Odyssey, which opens with Telemachus’s journey to find his father before turning to the hero’s tale. However, unlike the Greek myth, Joyce makes no

165 mention of Bloom in Stephen’s episodes in the novel, so his appearance is much more jarring and unexpected. Joyce’s shift from Stephen to Bloom serves, in part, as a way to guide readers to understanding that Stephen, while important to Bloom’s story, is not the hero of Ulysses. While

Stephen’s familial and cultural history is tightly bound with Ireland and colonization, Bloom’s own heritage is much more nuanced and global, making him better suited to promote Joyce’s unique brand of nationalism. In Joyce’s Revenge: History, Politics, and Aesthetics in Ulysses

(2002), Andrew Gibson pinpoints Stephen’s shortcomings and argues that while the younger man is sufficiently concerned with issues of national liberation and revenge to be an Irish culture hero, he is “a limited vehicle for them. For antagonism traps him in particular structures of thought and freedom” (13). The cause of Stephen’s antagonism stems from the powerful grip of

Irish colonial history, which is a weakness that Stephen himself identifies early in the novel.

Speaking with Mr. Deasy, he describes history as “a nightmare from which I am trying to wake”

(34; 2.377-76). Aware of the suffocating effect of Ireland’s long and complex history, Stephen is nonetheless incapable of waking from this nightmare in his current state. Bloom on the other hand is not haunted by the same nightmare because he does not feel the burden of Irish history in the same way that Stephen does. Bloom’s roots are not as deeply tangled in Irish history, politics, or religion. Because of his hybrid identity, Bloom is uniquely capable of critiquing the colonial limitations of Ireland while also understanding the everyday implications of this condition.

Compared to Stephen, Gibson concludes that “Bloom is an effective weapon against the ideological and discursive formations of the two imperial masters in Ireland, for he is both intimate with those formations and yet, by virtue of his Jewishness and foreignness, the source of a doubly alienated and alienating perspective on them” (56). Aided by the unique circumstances of his racial and cultural identity, Bloom is aware of the liminal space that he occupies not only

166 because of his heritage but also because of the colonial condition in which he and the other

Dubliners live.

As a phenomenon born from colonial contact, hybridity is an important aspect of the colonial experience, and Joyce explores the implications and uses of hybridity through Bloom’s complex heritage in the novel. Homi Bhabha’s discussion of hybridity in The Location of

Culture (1994) can help illuminate the significance of Joyce’s decision to shape his culture hero as a hybrid figure. According to Bhabha, hybridity encourages the “revaluation of the assumption of colonial identity through the repetition of discriminatory identity effects” (159).

Bhabha goes on to explain that the revaluation that hybridity makes possible is a powerful tool against colonial rule because it

displays the necessary deformation and displacement of all sites of discrimination

of domination. It unsettles the mimetic or narcissistic demands of colonial power

but reimplicates its identifications in strategies of subversion that turn the gaze of

the discrimination back upon the eye of power. . . . If the effect of colonial power

is seen to be the production of hybridization rather than the noisy command of

colonialist authority of the silent repression of native traditions, then an important

change of perspective occurs. (159-60)

Bhabha is describing the way that colonizers rely on discrimination to legitimate and perpetuate the process of colonization while ensuring the subordination of the colonized population. Used in this way, discrimination also helps to establish the illusion that there is no native culture to speak of because the colonizer’s culture apparently remains homogenous and unchanged after encountering native populations. The colonizer’s culture is seen as united and stable. This, in turn, is considered a reflection of the permanence of the colonizer’s unassailable rule. However,

167 the reality is that both the native’s and the colonizer’s cultures are hybridized through the process of colonization, and once the colonized population realizes this fact the people are more capable of seeing the contradictions and falsehoods perpetuated by colonialism. The difficulty of this process arises from the inability of the colonized to recognize and deal with hybridity. Joyce uses his hybrid hero to confront these falsehoods.

In Ulysses, Stephen wants to wake from the nightmare of his history, but Bloom is already awake. Stephen struggles to sort through the violent and traumatizing experience of the colonial contact that creates hybridity. He is aware of the influence of British culture in Ireland, just as Joyce was, but he can only respond to this knowledge with anger and resentment. He is incapable of manipulating hybridity to his advantage and is instead crushed by the overwhelming weight of the struggle itself. Bloom is not burdened by the same centuries-long trauma that

Stephen is, and he is capable of using his hybrid experiences a lens to critique the colonial situation in Ireland. Joyce celebrates Bloom’s hybridity by showing how his unique experiences have allowed him to achieve the heroic qualities that allow him to surpass his Dublin peers because of his ability to see through the illusion instituted by colonial rule. Bloom’s hybridity is, for the most part, invented by Joyce because Odysseus does not possess this characteristic in the original myth. While Stanford toys with the idea of Odysseus being a “half-breed” he makes this claim only in terms of morality, claiming that the hero was “the grandson of a nobleman, on the one side, and of a professional trickster on the other” (12). From his maternal grandfather

Odysseus supposedly inherited “knavish propensities,” and from his paternal side he was granted a highly respected place in the community, resulting in what Stanford describes as an “unusually complex personality” (Stanford 12). The only real comparison to be made to Bloom’s hybridity is what Stanford describes as Odysseus’s “dubious ancestry” (14). That being said, when

168 Odysseus officially introduces himself to the Phaeacians he seems proud of both aspects of his heritage: “I am Odysseus, son of Laertes, who am in men’s minds for all manner of wiles, and my fame reaches unto heaven” (Butcher and Lang 115).51 While there are subtle ways in which the Greek hero’s ancestry impacts his journey, there is little evidence to suggest that it held him back in any way. As opposed to the Greek hero’s experience, Bloom’s hybrid nature has a much more significant impact on his life and has shaped him in ways that result in a very different kind of man than the original Odysseus.

Perhaps the most striking difference between Bloom and Odysseus’s experiences is the role that religion plays in their lives. Because of Bloom’s unique background and influences he has evolved into a distinctly non-religious culture hero, which is in stark contrast to Odysseus’s steadfast loyalty to the Gods in Homer’s work. According to Stanford, “The one salient characteristic of Homer’s Ulysses which is lacking in Leopold Bloom is piety. He is no longer the god-fearing, god-resembling, god-beloved man. Originally a Jew, then vaguely Protestant and Catholic in turn, Bloom is now simply not interested in God, and, so far as Joyce’s indications go, God shows no interest in him” (213). As Stanford notes, Odysseus is well known for his pious nature and his absolute faith in the gods. Although the gods do not always treat him kindly the hero maintains his faith throughout his journey and often prays to the gods and puts his life in their hands. Odysseus has a particularly strong relationship with the goddess Athene, and prayers like this one are common throughout the epic: “Listen to me, child of Zeus, lord of the aegis, unwearied maiden; hear me even now, since before thou heardest not when I was smitten on the sea, when the renowned Earth Shaker smote me. Grant me to come to the

Phaeacians as one dear, and worthy of pity” (89). Despite Bloom’s Jewish background, and the

51 Throughout this chapter I reference the Samuel Butcher and Andrew Lang translation of the Odyssey because this is the English prose translation that Joyce referenced when writing Ulysses.

169 various religious encounters he has in the novel, he is not a religiously devout man. For example, when Bloom briefly attends a church service in the “Lotus-Eaters” episode he does so not to pray or to worship. Instead, it seems as though he slips inside the church on a whim during his wandering. Inside the church Bloom considers the ritual of the service from the view of an outsider who lacks the “Blind faith” that he observes in the congregation of worshippers (81;

5.367). Joyce’s culture hero seems to treat religion like a curiosity that he is not interested in personally participating in. He makes several references to prayer and supplication throughout the novel—especially in the “Circe” episode—but these moments are not meant to suggest that

Bloom shares Odysseus’s faith and sincere reliance on a higher power. Because Joyce believed that Ireland’s religious devotion was part of the reason the nation was incapable of achieving independence, it was imperative that he shape his culture hero as a man unburdened by religious institutions in order to transcend the paralyzing effect of the Church in Ireland. As Dominic

Manganiello notes in Joyce’s Politics (1980), “Joyce’s hopes for the spiritual liberation of his country culminated in Ulysses” (98). While Bloom is by no means ignorant of the significance of the religious culture and history in his nation, he is free from its controlling power and the guilt that even the enlightened Stephen carries with him. Unlike the mythological Odysseus, the modern Irishman couldn’t expect a spiritual force to intervene in his life, and so Joyce altered the hero to distance him from religion. Joyce’s choice allowed Bloom to see the Irish situation with a mind free from religious influences, but it also created conflict for the culture hero and isolated him from his peers.

Bloom’s View from the Outside

Although Bloom is constantly surrounded by people in the crowded streets of Dublin, his mixed heritage and unique personality isolates him from his peers throughout the day. More

170 often than not, Bloom is left alone with his thoughts because the other Dubliners have a difficult time conversing with him. In part because of his hybrid nature, Bloom does not fit in with the strictly defined social circles in Dublin. He spends his day moving among various groups— funeral mourners, newspaper colleagues, pub regulars, overzealous nationalists, etc.—but he is never fully accepted into any of them. The culture hero can carry on casual conversations, as he does on several occasions, but he lacks intimate relationships outside of his family. While this may seem odd for a hero, Joyce is accurately portraying one of Odysseus’s qualities from the original myth. Stanford describes the Greek hero as a lonely figure in both the Iliad and the

Odyssey, arguing that a “marked degree of separateness, and often even of loneliness, is the common fate of those gifted like Odysseus with an abnormal degree of intelligence and subtlety”

(43). In other words, Odysseus’s extraordinary nature makes it difficult for him to relate to people on a deeper level. Joyce takes this idea to a more extreme level with Bloom, shaping him into a man whose differences elicit suspicion and confusion from those around him. Bloom’s situation certainly results in more animosity than Odysseus experiences, but Stanford argues that the Greek hero was not immune to derision from his peers. Stanford explains that the hero was

“tainted with a reputation for deceitfulness and trickery” (43). Like Odysseus, Bloom’s reputation precedes him and causes rifts between him and the other men in Dublin.

As hard as Bloom tries to socialize with his fellow Dubliners, they avoid him because of the qualities that, to them, seem foreign. While Odysseus was isolated from the common man because of his heroic qualities, he also elicited respect and admiration. Similarly, Yeats’s

Cuchulain was feared because of his brute strength, but his heroic deeds impressed the people and earned him recognition and esteem. This is not true for Joyce’s culture hero, as he remains an outsider for most of the novel. Although men like Martin Cunningham—and Stephen at the

171 end of the novel—give Bloom a chance, most people dismiss him. Unlike Odysseus and

Cuchulain, who gain respect for their heroic deeds, Bloom is ostracized because of the qualities that Joyce believed were heroic. The Dubliners fail to appreciate his nuanced opinions on drinking, nationalism, and religion, despite the fact that these opinions make him the hero of the novel. In response to his abnormal behavior, Bloom experiences a variety of microaggressions throughout the day, but the “Cyclops” episode contains the most blatant example of the isolation and ridicule that he is subjected to in Dublin.

The events that take place in “Cyclops” stand out because Bloom’s mistreatment escalates to a rare moment of violence in the novel. In The Subaltern Ulysses (1994), Enda Duffy argues that this episode functions as something like an epiphany for Bloom because he is “forced toward a moment of coming to consciousness, a glorious moment in which his own field of vision of the reality of his situation is brought home to him” (129). Although this is certainly not the first time in the novel that the culture hero is conscious of his status as an outsider, Duffy is right to single out this episode because it is the moment when Bloom and the reader are forced to consider the dangers of being viewed as a foreigner in the world of the novel. Much like

Odysseus’s encounter with the Cyclops in the original myth, Bloom finds himself in enemy territory when he attempts to engage in friendly conversation with the men in Barney Kiernan’s pub. While the circumstances of Bloom’s pub visit are vastly different than Odysseus’s decision to explore the land of the Cyclopes, the overall experience that each hero has is similar.

Odysseus describes the inhabitants of the land of the Cyclopes as “a froward and a lawless folk, who trusting the deathless gods plant not aught with their hands, neither plough: but, behold, all these things spring for them in plenty” (Butcher and Lang 117). Joyce took this description and cleverly applied it to the men who waste away their afternoon in the pub buying drinks for one

172 another, or, in the case of men like the unnamed narrator, hanging around receiving free drinks from whoever happens to be in the pub at the time. These men, Joyce’s Cyclopes, are oafish and difficult to be around unless you are one of their kind. When Bloom reluctantly enters the pub in search of Martin Cunningham he is pulled into a hostile environment just like Odysseus experiences when he enters Polyphemus’s den. Like Bloom, Odysseus goes inside the den with innocent intentions despite the fact that it is dangerous territory. Odysseus ignores his crew’s suggestion to quickly leave the island after stealing resources, and he instead decides to wait and

“see the giant himself, and whether he would give me gifts as a stranger’s due” (Butcher and

Lang 120). The Greek hero assumes that Polyphemus will receive the men with hospitality, but instead of treating his guests he eats them. The custom of hospitality is also tested in Joyce’s version of the episode when Bloom is offered a drink after he enters the pub. The difference is that Bloom politely refuses to drink, an act that is met with scorn and derision because the men believe he simply doesn’t want to return the favor later by buying them a drink when it is his turn to do so. Both heroes initially fail to adhere to the customs of their enemies, which puts them in a dangerous position.

However, while Odysseus is only in danger because he wandered uninvited into

Polyphemus’s home, Joyce’s Cyclops disliked Bloom before he even entered the pub. When the

Citizen notices that Bloom is pacing outside of the pub—he’s waiting for Cunningham to arrive—he is unreasonably irritated and suspicious of his presence. It is as if Bloom’s very existence is troubling to him. The Citizen angrily questions his fellows about Bloom’s appearance outside, “What’s that bloody freemason doing . . . prowling up and down outside?”

(300; 12.300-1). The Citizen’s choice of words to describe Bloom speaks volumes about the kind of reputation the outsider has in the community. The Citizen is repeating potentially false rumors

173 that Bloom is a freemason, but whether this information is accurate or not is less important than what this implies about the common assumptions made about his character. Throughout this episode most of the men in the pub express deep distrust and animosity toward Bloom that slowly reveals itself to be largely based on a xenophobic attitude toward immigrants. After

Bloom is “invited” into the pub, it is nearly impossible for him to get a word in among the men who have gathered to socialize. Even the nature of his invitation is suspect. As he steps inside a growling dog and the not-so-reassuring words from the Citizen greet him: “Come in, come on, he won’t eat you” (303; 12.408). Of course, just like in Homer’s myth, Joyce’s modern Cyclops has every intention of eating his prey once he is inside. The instant that Bloom attempts to join in the conversation, he is ridiculed by the narrator and the Citizen wastes no time starting an argument with him:

So they started talking about capital punishment and of course Bloom comes out

with the why and the wherefore and all the codology of the business and the old

dog smelling him all the time I’m told those Jewies does have a sort of a queer

odour coming off them for dogs . . . . So of course the citizen was only waiting for

the wink of the word and he starts gassing out of him. (304-05; 12.450-80)

This narration reveals two important points: Bloom is immediately disliked and considered an outsider because of his Jewish heritage, and the Citizen jumps at the chance to argue with Bloom in order to tear him down. While Bloom attempts to have a civil conversation, the Citizen rarely lets him finish a thought, cutting him off, ridiculing his observations, and failing to truly hear him. All the while Joyce’s hero fights to make his voice heard, protesting the Citizen’s constant interruptions and dismissals—“You don’t grasp my point, says Bloom. What I mean is . . .”—but he is ultimately ignored by all the men and the conversation moves on to another subject (306;

174 12.522). Just as Polyphemus immediately identifies Odysseus as nothing more than a potential meal, the Citizen is unwilling to see Bloom as anything other than an outsider who doesn’t belong in the conversation or in Ireland altogether.

While the Citizen disagrees with Bloom’s viewpoints, it is his multicultural background that is the initial source of his scorn. It quickly becomes abundantly clear that no matter what

Bloom says or does the Citizen will end up attacking him. He intentionally brings up subjects that are meant to belittle Bloom’s heritage to make him feel uncomfortable and unwanted in the pub. The Citizen casually makes xenophobic comments in front of Bloom, such as “[t]hose are nice things, says the citizen, coming over here to Ireland filling the country with bugs” (323;

12.1141-42). The narrator has no trouble seeing that these comments are directed at Bloom, who he believes intentionally ignores the insults: “So Bloom lets on he heard nothing and starts talking with Joe” (323; 12.1143). In this moment the culture hero displays the same wisdom that

Odysseus does when engaging with Polyphemus. For example, when the Cyclops tries to discover the location of Odysseus’s ship—and the rest of his tasty crew—the hero sees through the trap and does not take the bait: “So he spake, tempting me, but he cheated me not, who knew full much, and I answered him again with words of guile” (Butcher and Lang 122). Odysseus remains calm and collected until he can think of a plan to escape Polyphemus, just as Bloom eventually stands up for himself against the Citizen’s repeated attacks. Both heroes ultimately triumph over their Cyclops, but, unlike Odysseus’s stabbing of Polyphemus, Bloom does not use violence to beat the Citizen.

Rather than stabbing the Citizen in the eye Joyce’s culture hero uses words to stand up to his bully. Ever since Bloom entered Barney Kiernan’s pub the Citizen has continually called attention to the other man’s heritage as a way of insulting and ostracizing him. The Citizen’s

175 taunting in the “Cyclops” episode brings attention to Bloom’s suffering as an outsider in Dublin.

In Joyce, Race, Empire (1995), Vincent Cheng explains how Bloom’s identity is a source of pain and isolation throughout the novel because he is

in the unenviable position of being unable to choose (or even wish) to become

Irish, since he was born in Ireland and already is Irish; yet he is, nonetheless,

unceasingly typed as a foreigner always belonging somewhere else, essentialized

within another static, reified “natural” state (Jewish heritage) that he didn’t choose

either. (197)

Cheng’s observations reveal an important point about hybridity by calling attention to the fact that it creates tension and confusion regarding an individual’s identity. In Bloom’s case, he seems comfortable and confident about his nationality and his ancestry, but it is clear that men like the Citizen are unwilling to accept him as Irish, which causes him distress and threatens his safety in the “Cyclops” episode. After repeatedly suggesting that Bloom is not truly Irish, the

Citizen openly confronts the issue of his nationality, but the hero responds with confidence:

—What is your nation if I may ask, says the citizen.

—Ireland, says Bloom, I was born here. Ireland.

The citizen said nothing only cleared the spit out of his gullet and, gob, he spat a

Red bank oyster out of him right in the corner. (331; 12.1430-33)

Although the Citizen is apparently not impressed with Bloom’s self-assured declaration, the very fact that the hero responds with such confidence is a departure from his previous sheepishness.

Rather than trying to convince the men in the pub that he is purely Irish, he embraces his hybridity and reveals the usefulness of his unique, global perspective. In allowing Bloom to stand up for himself Joyce is able to cleverly critique the xenophobia of the brand of Irish

176 nationalism that the Citizen represents. Bloom’s hybridity allows him to see the faults in this kind of thinking. As Gibson argues, “Bloom’s position as both insider and outsider is a principal source of his sanity, openness, moderation, and psychological resilience” (58). Prompted by the

Citizen’s accusations, Bloom points out the fact that he may understand persecution better than the average Irishman precisely because of his complex identity:

—And I belong to a race too, says Bloom, that is hated and persecuted. Also now.

This very moment. This very instant.

Gob, he near burnt his fingers with the butt of his cigar.

—Robbed, says he. Plundered. Insulted. Persecuted. Taking what belongs to us by

right. At this very moment, says he, putting up his fist, sold by auction off in

Morocco like slaves or cattle.

—Are you talking about the new Jerusalem? says the citizen.

—I’m talking about injustice, says Bloom. (332; 12.1467-74)

This exchange, related by the unnamed narrator, shows Bloom’s attempt to claim his place among the men in the pub while also taking a stand against the Citizen’s ignorant dismissal of outsiders like himself. This moment can also be read as Joyce making a case for his culture hero as a model for the kind of anti-colonial nationalism that he believed Ireland needed to achieve and maintain independence. According to Joyce, a cosmopolitan and open-minded nationalism would serve Ireland’s anti-colonial cause much better than the limited and insular nationalism that the Citizen represents. Rather than emulating figures like the Citizen—or Yeats’s purely

Irish Cuchulain—Joyce encourages the Irish to look up to more complex and diverse culture heroes like Bloom.

177 Much like Odysseus’s triumph over Polyphemus, Bloom’s speech marks an important victory for the culture hero because he reveals the hypocrisy and narrow-mindedness of the

Citizen’s brand of Irish nationalism. However, the battle is not over yet. Following in Odysseus’s footsteps, Bloom throws one too many insults at his enemy, resulting in a violent outburst.

Odysseus’s ill-fated boasting as he escapes the land of the Cyclopes causes Polyphemus to throw a rock at his ship and to convince Poseidon to hinder the hero’s journey home, just as Bloom’s final words cause the Citizen to throw a biscuit tin at him as he leaves the pub. Both Polyphemus and the Citizen lash out because they believe they have been insulted in a very personal way. Not only has Odysseus stabbed the Cyclops in the eye, but he also boasts of his victory: “Cyclops, if any one of mortal men shall ask thee of the unsightly blinding of thing eye, say that it was

Odysseus that blinded it” (Butcher and Lang 128). Odysseus’s foolish decision to reveal his true identity to Polyphemus is the source of many of his woes throughout his journey, but Bloom’s words are not as unwarranted as the Greek hero’s. Unlike Odysseus, Bloom remains the victim throughout his encounter with the Citizen. After being continually insulted, the Citizen throws one last racist jibe at Bloom as he is leaving the pub, prompting him to retort, “Mendelssohn was a jew and Karl Marx and Mercadante and Spinoza. And the Saviour was a jew and his father was a jew. Your God. . . . Your God was a jew. Christ was a jew like me” (342; 12.1804-90). Not surprisingly, the Citizen’s narrow view of the world cannot handle Bloom’s retort, and he uses violence in an attempt to silence the other man. In another careful revision, Joyce alters the seriousness of this moment by reducing the Cyclops’s violence to the almost comedic throwing of a biscuit tin. In the original myth Polyphemus’s wrath has serious consequences and leads to the eventual deaths of every crewmember except Odysseus. In Ulysses the scene ends with “all the populace shouting and laughing and the old tinbox clattering along the street” (344; 12.1856-

178 57). While the distrust and full-fledged hatred that the Citizen expresses here may prove troubling for Bloom in the future, for now he has escaped more or less unharmed. This revision may seem insignificant, but it reveals an important point about Bloom’s hybridity and Joyce’s advocacy for a more inclusive version of Irish nationalism as a means of resisting colonial rule.

The various changes that Joyce made to this episode provide a strong argument for the necessity of hybridity in Ireland’s anti-colonial movement. As Cheng notes,

Ulysses repeatedly reminds us that it is very important to be self-consciously

vigilant about the forms such ‘national consciousness’ (to use Fanon’s phrase)

takes, within the range of possible nationalisms in the plural: for one must be

aware of the pitfalls and limits of certain very alluring but limited nationalist

visions – or else one is doomed to failure by reproducing the same binary

hierarchies inherited from one’s oppressors. (218)

Motivated by his own complex heritage, Bloom embodies this self-conscious critique of Irish nationalism in the novel. This is an extremely important quality for Joyce’s culture hero to possess. After all, it is Bloom’s ability to think critically that allows him to see the world in more nuanced terms, which results in a very different kind of Irish anti-colonial nationalism than the kind perpetuated by the Citizen. Choosing to model Bloom after the Greek Odysseus and then revising the original myth to give him a more pronounced multicultural ancestry allowed Joyce to make his culture hero more than just a homogeneous Irish hero that lacked the hybridity that colonization produced in Ireland.

A Peaceful and Tolerant Hero

One of Bloom’s unique stances in regards to Ireland’s anti-colonial struggle is his belief in a non-violent revolution. Unlike the violent Citizen, Bloom tries to use reason to win his

179 arguments and believes that Ireland could do the same. Despite the repeated attacks the men in

Barney Kiernan’s pub send his way Bloom manages to remain relatively cool and composed as he struggles to voice his controversial but important opinions. In Inventing Ireland (1995),

Declan Kiberd provides the astute observation that Bloom’s stand against the Citizen is more than just an example of the culture hero standing up for himself because he is also promoting a new kind of nationalism. Kiberd argues that “Bloom, as an internationalist, profoundly tests the

Citizen’s tolerance, enabling Joyce to do two things with their scenes – to distinguish Bloom’s liberationsim from the Citizen’s nationalism, and to show how closely the latter’s ideas were based on English models which he claimed to contest” (350-51). While this is one of the most important points that Joyce tries to make with his culture hero, he does not allow Bloom to use force to make his argument. Although he is not heard, Bloom never resorts to violence. The culture hero continues to express his beliefs as he abstains from drunkenness, promotes the values of love as opposed to hatred, and advocates for the importance of religious tolerance, all of which anger the Citizen. While it may be easy to read Bloom’s interaction with the Citizen as a failure on his part—he is incapable of changing the Citizen’s mind and is physically attacked— it is Bloom who has actually triumphed because he does not resort to violence.

While Bloom inherits some of his passive nature from Odysseus, this emphasis on non- violence is more of a departure from the original myth than a faithful retelling. John Turner, in

“How Does Leopold Bloom Become Ulysses?” (2014), explores Joyce’s decision to omit nearly all of the violence from the Greek myth, concluding that, “For Joyce, the myth is unacceptably violent,” an observation that is easily backed up by Joyce’s own documented fear of violence in his personal life (42). The significance of Bloom’s passivity, however, is about much more than

Joyce’s personal anxieties because he is speaking on the much larger issue of national liberation.

180 Rather than promoting the anti-colonial rebellion taking place in Ireland, Joyce envisioned another path that would lead to freedom without the suffering and loss of lives. In revising the

Odysseys’ violent episodes Joyce imagines a different course for the Irish revolution that would be, in his opinion, more productive in the long run. As Turner notes, “Joyce argues that myth— unlike history—can be cured of its ills” (42). While history cannot be changed, myth is easily manipulated, and through myth a new way of seeing the world can emerge. By shaping his culture hero into a non-violent man who uses his mind to fight his battles Joyce hoped to promote a more peaceful Irish nationalism for the future.

Bloom is not a warrior brandishing a sword, and while he may not have inspired military action like Cuchulain, Joyce gave his hero plenty of qualities to be admired. His speech on peace and love in “Cyclops” is particularly inspiring, even if his audience ridicules his opinions.

Responding to John Wyse’s claim that injustice should be met with force, Bloom argues “But it’s no use . . . . Force, hatred, history, all that. That’s not life for men and women, insult and hatred.

And everybody knows that it’s the very opposite of that that is really life” (333; 12.1481-83).

When pressed to explain what life really is, he responds without hesitation: “Love, says Bloom. I mean the opposite of hatred” (333; 12.1485). The culture hero’s speech is a clear descendent of

Joyce’s 1898 “Force” essay in which he criticized the use of force to free the oppressed. Twenty- four years after penning that essay Joyce was still promoting an Irish nationalism that was built on compassion as opposed to hatred, and so he imbued his culture hero with these same beliefs.

Bloom does not simply preach about compassion and understanding, he lives these virtues in every aspect of his life, as evidenced by his small acts of kindness throughout the novel. He goes out of his way to help Paddy Dignam’s grieving family, he is polite to everyone he meets (even when he is not treated with the same courtesy), he is a caring husband, father, and cat owner, and

181 the kindness he displays toward Stephen goes above and beyond his personal desire to find a companion. While Odysseus is by no means depicted as a warmonger in Homer’s epic, he is not the pacifist that Joyce’s hero is. Although some iterations of the myth claim that Odysseus tried to avoid the Trojan War altogether, he has no problem turning to violence in the Odyssey more than once. Throughout his journey he uses his cunning to solve many of his problems, but there is still a warrior’s spirit in the man that pushes him toward violence from time to time. Circe comments on this less appealing aspect of his personality when warning the hero about the dangers of Scylla after he foolishly asks how to fight the six-headed monster. Circe is quick to explain why his way of thinking is so wrong: “Man overbold, lo, now again the deeds of war are in thy mind and the travail thereof. Wilt thou not yield thee even to the deathless gods? As for her, she is no mortal, but an immortal plague, dread, grievous, and fierce, and not to be fought with; and against her there is no defence; flight is the bravest way” (Butcher and Lang 165).

Despite Circe’s clear warning, Odysseus cannot help but arm himself when faced with Scylla, betraying his reliance on violence: “In that same hour I suffered myself to forget the hard behest of Circe, in that she bade me in nowise be armed; but I did on my glorious harness and caught up two long lances in my hands” (Butcher and Lang 167). As predicted, the Greek hero is incapable of fighting the monster, and six of his men are killed in the process. This moment serves in part to teach Odysseus the limits of resolving a conflict using physical force—a fact that Bloom already understands—but violence in and of itself is not condemned in Homer’s myth as it is in

Joyce’s revision.

The most violent moment in the Odyssey occurs at the end with Odysseus’s slaying of the suitors. Homer celebrated this as a victorious moment for the hero and an important step in his return to normalcy in Ithaca, but Joyce omitted this massacre in Ulysses. His hero would never

182 use violence to defeat the Citizen or Blazes Boylan, the equivalent of Penelope’s suitors in the revisionist myth. Although Boylan is presented as Bloom’s rival throughout the novel, repeatedly showing up to serve as a constant reminder to the hero that Molly Bloom is planning to have an affair with the other man later that day, he does not get bloody revenge as the Greek hero did. At the end of the Odyssey, Odysseus becomes an avenger as he reclaims his place in Ithaca. As

Stanford puts it, in the final books of the Greek myth Odysseus becomes “the King-who-comes- into-his-own-again, the Avenger-in-disguise, the Husband-who-returns-at-last” (175). Bloom experiences a similar transformation at the end of Ulysses, but the way that he reclaims his place in bed next to his wife is very different because he does not use violence to destroy his rival. This passivity, although certainly heroic to Joyce, is so contradictory to our understanding of heroism that it is easy to mistake Bloom as a failed hero because he never actually confronts Boylan.

Momentarily viewing Bloom as a failed hero is an understandable mistake considering the fact that Joyce himself seems to go out of his way to trick his readers. Consider, for example, the moment in the “Sirens” episode when Lenehan describes Boylan as “the conquering hero” as he enters the Ormond Hotel (264; 11.340). In immediate contrast to this, the narrator describes

Bloom as “unconquered hero” (264; 11.342). While the direct comparison between the two men could be seen as a way of diminishing Bloom’s heroic claim, it is actually an early indication of

Bloom’s eventual triumph over his rival. Recalling Joyce’s appreciation for Odysseus’s heroic qualities, the suspicious reader should recognize an immediate problem with the very idea of a

“conquering hero” in Joyce’s work. Nowhere in Joyce’s long list of Odysseus’s virtues or talents is conquering included. Stanford’s analysis of the complete hero also fails to mention any inclination towards conquest. So then, what are readers to make of Bloom as the “unconquered hero”? As this description directly follows Boylan’s grand entrance, readers may be tempted to

183 read, in place of “unconquered,” “unconquering.” This, of course, would be a mistake, but this play on words is exactly the kind of trick Joyce pulls, confusing readers so that they, without realizing it, incorrectly identify this moment as proof that Boylan has conquered Bloom, when in fact it reveals the complete opposite. As the “unconquered hero,” Bloom is incapable of being outwitted and outmatched by the likes of Boylan, just as Odysseus proves himself as the only worthy husband of Penelope and the rightful ruler of Ithaca at the end of the Odyssey. Whatever

Boylan’s intentions are, he will not succeed in conquering Bloom; rather, Bloom will ultimately be victorious over Boylan.

Bloom’s victory over Boylan is significantly less dramatic than Odysseus’s slaying of the suitors, but that does not make his triumph any less significant. While the Greek hero enacts bloody vengeance against those who have wronged him, Turner argues that Bloom triumphs over

Boylan by seemingly doing nothing at all:

A book with a continuous parallel (a differential repetition) permits action to

occur even in the absence of action. If something happens in the original and then

pointedly doesn’t happen in the successor, then that inaction is something. Now,

unlike Ulysses, Bloom does nothing. (43)

Turner’s point is that the absence of action is a signal from Joyce that this particular departure from the original myth is significant. Although there are several differences between Ulysses and the Odyssey, removing the slaying of the suitors is a major revision because it is such an important moment in Homer’s text. Most readers who have even a little familiarity with the

Greek myth will know about the suitor’s fate, and they will be expecting Bloom to enact some kind of similar revenge against Boylan, especially considering the fact that Boylan gets much further with Molly than any of the suitors managed with Penelope. Despite the fact that his wife

184 and Boylan make Bloom a cuckold, he does not seek revenge the way that Odysseus does.

Instead, Joyce makes his culture hero rise above his situation and stick to his pacifist beliefs. As

Tuner notes, “Ulysses slew the suitors. Bloom, by contrast, overcomes jealousy and revenge. . . .

The remarkable thing is that Bloom forgives—and that Molly, at the end, does too” (Turner 48).

Bloom is fully aware of his wife’s date with Boylan, and Molly knows about her husband’s indiscretions as well. And yet, they both come together in their marriage bed at the end of the novel, and a kind of reconciliation occurs. Bloom travels a very different path than Odysseus in

Ulysses, and the way that he handles the “suitors” is an important key to understanding the story that Joyce is trying create with his revisions. Omitting the violence of the original myth is about much more than Bloom’s marriage; it is a message to Ireland that achieving and maintaining independence requires more than physical force.

Bloom, as opposed to Yeats’s Cuchulain, is a passive culture hero. Stanford explains that

Bloom is a unique heroic figure because he “has no desire to be a revolutionary force in his country or in the world at large. The height of his ambition—apart from making a few minor improvements in the settled order—is to make the best of things as they are, and to check disruptive passions” (222). This is what Bloom tries to do throughout the day. He uses what little power he has to make small improvements to his life and to those he encounters throughout the day. Bloom may not have a mighty sword to defend his country with, but he uses what he has to make Dublin a better place to live. His unique perspective granted by his multicultural background allows him to see the struggles that other people endure, and his altruistic nature compels him to help when he can. Joyce’s culture hero recognizes the cost of England’s oppression, but he is not blind to the other institutions that harm the Irish. Like Joyce, Bloom realizes that colonial rule is not the only enemy. He sees the damage that organized religion and

185 capitalism can do to the average person, and he understands the importance of respecting and accepting various viewpoints and beliefs. Unlike the Citizen, and the Irish nationalists he represents, Bloom is not focused on a singular issue. He is able to see the whole picture. Cheng argues that Bloom’s “self-conscious and unceasing skepticism and questioning of such constructed images” is one of the most compelling qualities that Bloom possesses because he is capable of “repeatedly both absorbing and problematizing the propagated discourse” (175). The

Irish nationalism emerging in the twentieth century was not a unitary movement devoid of opposing viewpoints and iterations, but the prevailing version that the Citizen represents was singularly focused on a specific and unrealistic representation of Irish identity that had no room for difference or varying opinions. Bloom’s understanding of Irish national identity was more open and included the differing perspectives and experiences of a multicultural Ireland. In the

“Eumaeus” episode the culture hero lays out this vision for Irish independence to Stephen: “I resent violence or intolerance in any shape or form. It never reaches anything or stops anything.

A revolution must come on the due instalments plans. It’s a patent absurdity on the face of it to hate people because they live round the corner or speak another vernacular, so to speak” (643;

16.1099-103). Bloom arrives at this conclusion regarding revolution and acceptance, according to Cheng, because he is “able to hold simultaneous perspectives, to imagine being other and thus to transcend the monologic narrowness of a single, cycloptic perspective,” and this “ability to

‘see ourselves as others see us’ extends not only to the viewpoints of others different from oneself, but even to an ability and willingness to imagine viewpoints detrimental or derogatory to oneself” (177 and 183). Once again, Bloom’s hybridity gives him a unique perspective that, as

Cheng indicates, encourages him to look for new ways of dealing with oppression. Joyce shaped his culture hero in this manner to promote his desires for an anti-colonial Irish nationalism that

186 would do more than just dismantle colonial rule. He wanted an Irish nationalism that would also be capable of freeing the Irish from the tyranny of religion and capitalism so that Ireland would thrive as a postcolonial nation, but this required a more diverse understanding of oppression and resistance. In other words, as Cheng puts it, Joyce and Bloom wanted a “more culturally inclusive alternative to the limits of Irish Nationalism” (193). The omission of the slaying of the suitors is one way in which Bloom emerges as not only a superior Odysseus but also a more nuanced advocate for Irish nationalism than Yeats’s Cuchulain. He is capable of conquering his foes without slaughtering them, which makes a better advocate for building a united Ireland before and after independence. What is truly remarkable about Bloom is that his philosophies extend to his everyday behavior as well. In particular, the culture hero possesses feminine qualities that make him sensitive to other people’s feelings. Joyce celebrates this seemingly untraditional heroic quality by showing how Bloom’s sensitivity benefits him throughout

Ulysses.

Bloom and Women

Joyce uses the female characters in Ulysses to more fully explore and define some of

Bloom’s unique heroic virtues that promote the author’s goals for Irish nationalism. While the men in Dublin often fail to recognize the culture hero’s value and charm, the women have no trouble recognizing and praising his heroic talents. Although Bloom’s flirtatiousness and his appeal to women may seem superfluous or even unheroic, in reality these are distinctly Odyssean qualities. According to Stanford, one of Odysseus’s heroic talents is his aptitude for charming women. The fact that women liked him profited the Greek hero on several occasions in both the

Iliad and the Odyssey, and it benefits Bloom as well. Throughout the day there is evidence that

Bloom has charmed three separate women: his wife Molly, his pen pal Martha Clifford, and the

187 perfect stranger Gerty MacDowell. Each of these women is drawn to Bloom for slightly different reasons, but they all agree that there is something attractive about the culture hero. Martha provides an early clue as to the source of Bloom’s charm in a letter that she has written him: “I think of you so often you have no idea. I have never felt myself so much drawn to a man as you.

I feel so bad about. Please write me a long letter and tell me more” (78; 5.249-51). Although she does not go into detail about what exactly it is that makes her feel so different about Bloom, considering the fact that the two only communicate through letters it is fair to assume that it is his skill at writing that has charmed her. She urges Bloom to write her a lengthy letter, presumably because she longs to read more of his skillful words. This is not much to go on, but it does provide some insight into Bloom’s unique appeal to women.

We learn more about Bloom’s charms from Gerty, even though she is only able to make assumptions about his character from a distance when she spots him staring at her on the beach.

First and foremost she believes that Bloom is a good person because he returns the children’s ball when they kick it too far: “luckily the gentleman in black who was sitting there by himself came gallantly to the rescue and intercepted the ball” (355; 13.349). Gerty identifies Bloom with strikingly heroic language, suggesting that there is something about him that immediately struck her as good-natured and heroic. As Gerty gets a better look at her admirer she notices that he has a unique appearance that draws her to him even more:

And while she gazed her heart went pitapat. Yes, it was her he was looking at and

there was meaning in his look. His eyes burned into her as though they would

search her through and through, read her very soul. Wonderful eyes they were,

superbly expressive, but could you trust them? People were so queer. She could

188 see at once by his dark eyes and his pale intellectual face that he was a foreigner. .

. . (357; 13.410-417)

Gerty seems to be partially attracted to Bloom because of his foreign appearance, but more than that she is intrigued by the deep and thoughtful look that he has on his face and the intense devotion to her that she perceives in his expression. Like Martha, Gerty believes that Bloom is unlike the other men she has known. He is the kind of man who could truly understand her whole being, inside and out, unlike the average Dubliner. For a brief moment, Bloom makes Gerty feel special and so she indulges him by showing off her leg while he masturbates.

Bloom’s brief experience with Gerty reenergizes him after what has been a rather difficult day so far. As he is leaving the beach he acknowledges how much this sexual release has helped him: “We’ll never meet again. But it was lovely. Goodbye, dear. Thanks. Made me feel so young” (382; 13.1272-73). In the Greek myth, Odysseus also benefits greatly from his meeting with Gerty’s counterpart, Nausicaa. When Odysseus finds himself stranded on a foreign beach the first thing he sees is Nausicaa, who he must quickly charm in order to ensure his safety. Using his quick wit and his understanding of women he is able to do just that:

So she halted and stood over against him, and Odysseus considered whether he

should clasp the knees of the lovely maiden, and so make his prayer, or should

stand as he was, apart, and beseech her with smooth words, if haply she might

show him the town, and give him raiment. And as he thought within himself, it

seemed better to stand apart, and beseech her with smooth words, lest the maiden

should be angered with him if he touched her knees: so straightway he spake a

sweet and cunning word. (Butcher and Lang 84-85)

189 As expected, Odysseus’s sweet words and compliments endear Nausicaa to him, and she uses her influence to get the hero an audience with her father, the King of the Phaeacians, and ensures his safe passage home. This is perhaps a much bigger benefit than Bloom receives from his sexual release with Gerty, but both men are greatly aided by their wooing of these women and because they possess qualities that are attractive to women.

Although Martha and Gerty provide some evidence for Bloom’s charming nature, the reader learns much more about the culture hero’s unique appeal from his wife. Molly, who has been the center of Bloom’s thoughts throughout the day, is finally given a voice in the final episode of the novel. Joyce uses this time to not only explore her inner self and private life but also to show the reader how she views her husband. It would be easy to assume that Molly is ambivalent or even antagonistic toward her husband considering the fact that she has an affair with Boylan, but the reality is much more complicated than that. It’s important to consider how

Molly’s affair functions in the novel because it has been used as a way to discredit Bloom. It may seem strange that Joyce chose to make his culture hero a cuckold, but Molly’s affair actually emphasizes Bloom’s humanity and the reality of a complicated marriage in a way that perfectly suits Joyce’s version of heroism. Joyce depicts the story of a wife who seems to love her husband but must look for satisfaction outside of her marriage because he is incapable of satisfying her, which is a fact that he is fully aware of. As Molly notes, ever since the death of their son Rudy nothing has been the same in their marriage, and Bloom has been incapable of having intercourse with his wife. This is a fact that Molly laments—“I knew well Id never have another our 1st death too it was we were never the same since” (778; 18.1449-50)—but she is unwilling to let that stop her from seeking happiness in her own way. Similarly, she is not naive about the fact that Bloom seeks his own pleasure with other women. And yet, while there is no

190 denying that Molly plans to see Boylan again as she eagerly awaits his next visit on Monday—“I hope hell come on Monday as he said at the same time four. . . . O Lord I cant wait till Monday”

(747; 18.332-33 and 754; 18.595)—she also expresses a certain amount of sincere fondness and even admiration for her husband throughout the “Penelope” episode as she fondly recalls a more passionate time in their marriage.

Early in their courtship Molly remembers that Bloom was very romantic and thoughtful:

“I liked the way he made love then he knew the way to take a woman when he sent the 8 big poppies because mine was the 8th then I wrote the night he kissed my heart at Dolphins barn I couldnt describe it simply it makes you feel like nothing on earth” (747; 18.328-31). Although

Bloom was not her first romantic encounter, she, like Gerty and Martha, express a feeling that there is something special about him. Of course, Molly has more experience with the man and knows that he isn’t perfect. For example, she admits that he “never knew how to embrace well like Gardner” (747; 18.331-32). Compared to other men, Bloom may fall short in some categories, but Molly is fair in her assessment that as a young man he was not only thoughtful but handsome as well: “he was very handsome at that time trying to look like lord Byron I said I liked” (743; 18.208-09). But more than his kindness, charm, or physical appearance Molly identifies something much more important and difficult to explain that made her say yes to

Bloom’s marriage proposal all those years ago: “that was why I liked him because I saw he understood or felt what a woman is” (782; 18.1578-79). Bloom’s ability to understand a woman is what draws Gerty, Martha, and Molly to him. It also seems to be the thing that persuades

Molly to continue to care for Bloom despite the issues with their marriage. However odd or unusual it may seem, the Blooms have found what works for their marriage at this time. While the ability to compromise and the ease with which Bloom displays compassion and

191 understanding attracts women, his relationships with women are not what make him a good Irish culture hero. Rather, it is the source of this charm that is most important to understanding the kind of nationalism that the culture hero promotes.

Returning to Joyce’s source material provides an important clue to understanding why

Bloom’s charm is important to his role as an Irish culture hero. Like Bloom, Odysseus is not simply a charming man who can seduce women. Odysseus’s secret, as Stanford sees it, stems from the fact that he shared qualities with Homeric women that his male associates did not.

Specifically, Stanford calls attention to Odysseus’s “civilized gentleness, his intuitive intelligence, and his firm self-possession” (65). In Ulysses, Molly attributes similar qualities to her husband, complimenting his kindness—“I like that in him polite to old women like that and waiters and beggars too” (738; 18.16-17)—his cleanliness—“Poldy anyway whatever he does always wipes his feet on the mat when he comes in wet or shine and always blacks his own boots too and he always takes off his hat when he comes up in the street like that” (744; 18.225-28) and his intelligence—“he knows a lot of mixed up things especially about the body and the insides” (743; 18.179-80). To put it simply, it is Bloom and Odysseus’s sensitivity and care that women find attractive. The Greek hero’s sensitive side is evidenced throughout the original myth, but in Greek and Hellenic Culture in Joyce (1998) R. J. Schork points to one example as particularly powerful. Schork writes, “In the Odyssey, after the Phaeacian bard has sung about the hero’s exploits at Troy, Odysseus weeps, just as a woman cries when her husband has been slain defending his home” (107). Butcher and Lang translate the moment that Schork refers to in the following way:

This was the song that the famous minstrel sang. But the heart of Odysseus

melted, and the tear wet his cheeks beneath the eyelids. And as a woman throws

192 herself wailing about her dead lord, who hath fallen before his city and the host,

warding from his town and his children the pitiless day; and she beholds him

dying and drawing difficult breath, and embracing his body wails aloud, while the

foemen behind smite her with spears on back and shoulders and lead her up into

bondage to bear labour and trouble, and with the most pitiful grief her cheeks are

wasted; even so pitifully fell the tears beneath the brows of Odysseus. (112-13)

I quote this passage in full because of the way that Homer insists that Odysseus’s crying is akin to a woman having an extremely traumatic experience. While this may certainly feel like a rather exaggerated comparison, the point is that the Greek hero shares qualities with women, and this allows him to charm them when needed. Likewise, Bloom’s femininity is explored throughout

Joyce’s revisionist myth to emphasize the fact that the culture hero has a softer side to him than the other Dubliners. Bloom’s apparently feminine qualities are what attract women to him, but more importantly they are essential values that Joyce wanted Ireland’s nationalism to promote.

Along with embracing hybridity and non-violent resistance, Joyce’s vision for Ireland’s future valued the sensitivity and compassion that Bloom inherits from Odysseus. While these qualities are displayed through his relationship with women, Bloom’s unwavering dedication as a father is perhaps the most compelling example of his compassionate heroism.

A Devoted Father

One of the things that Cuchulain and Bloom have in common is the fact that they are both fathers. Yeats used Cuchulain’s role as a failed father to explore Ireland’s relationship to its people, suggesting that the nation had continually let down the Irish like a father who fails to care for his children. In A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) Joyce expressed a similar belief that Ireland as a destructive parent, claiming that “Ireland is the old sow that eats her

193 farrow,” but Bloom represents an alternative to this (198). While Ulysses certainly contains some less than perfect fathers, Joyce’s culture hero is not one of them. Rather than shaping Bloom as a symbol for Ireland’s inability to care for its people, the culture hero emerges as a strong example of what the nation could be if it nurtured the next generation. By making Bloom a dedicated father to his daughter, his deceased son Ruby, and Stephen, Joyce celebrates and promotes an

Irish nationalism that prioritizes nurturing and compassion. It is clear that being a devoted father was an important quality for Joyce’s understanding of heroism because he goes to great lengths to establish Bloom’s extraordinary fathering skills. In fact, while Bloom inherits his sensitivity and concern for his children from Odysseus, he actually surpasses the Greek hero in terms of fatherhood.

While Odysseus’s extended absence is not entirely his fault, the fact is that Telemachus grows up without a father. In direct contrast to this, Joyce revises the original myth to make

Bloom a very involved and present father. Although Milly Bloom is not in Dublin during the course of the novel, Joyce provides evidence that Bloom is a devoted father and that he has cultivated a good relationship with his daughter over the years. For example, Milly’s letter to her father expresses fondness and affection for him. She addresses the letter to “Dearest Papli” and concludes with more terms of endearment: “Must now close with fondest love” (66; 4.397-

4.410). After Bloom finishes reading his daughter’s letter his mind wanders as he fondly recalls her birth and expresses some sadness at her growing up and being away from the house: “Her first birthday away from home. Separation. Remember the summer morning she was born, running to knock up Mrs. Thornton in Denzille street” (66; 4.415-17). Unlike Odysseus, Bloom was around to witness these small, but important, moments in his child’s life. In many ways,

Joyce’s revisionist myth is much more focused on domestic concerns than Homer’s Odyssey. For

194 example, diverging from his source material, Joyce first introduces his culture hero in the domestic setting of his home. In the Odyssey the hero is first seen as Calypso’s captive, longing to return to the home that he has been away from for so long. Bloom, in direct opposition to this, begins his journey in the comforts of his home, and even though his daughter is not physically there he is still connected to her through letters and the many fond memories he has of their life together thus far. Odysseus has missed out on the simple, everyday experiences of parenting that

Bloom recalls while he eats his breakfast. Bloom has watched his daughter grow up, and while he worries for her future he trusts that he and Molly raised her properly. However, while

Odysseus has missed out on Telemachus’s childhood, he does seem to regret this fact. After all, one of the reasons that Odysseus weeps so passionately during his stay with the Phaeacians is because he longs to return home to his family. This despair is something that Joyce borrows from the original myth to further emphasize Bloom’s role as a caring father.

While Bloom is satisfied with the way Milly has grown, there is a persistent feeling of parental regret and loss throughout Ulysses. In the midst of Bloom’s recollection of Milly’s birth his mind wanders, very briefly, to the death of another child. This moment marks the first time that Bloom’s thoughts turn to his dead son, Rudy, but this will be a subject that he often returns to throughout the day. Bloom frequently laments the loss of his son and wonders what his life would have been like if he had lived. He imagines Rudy going to school and walking happily with Molly, and he is heartbroken that he wasn’t given the chance to raise a son in his image.

More than once in the novel Bloom expresses a belief that he has failed by not having a son to carry on the family name: “No son of thy loins is by thee. There is none now to be for Leopold, what Leopold was for Rudolph” (413-14; 14.1076-77). However, just as Bloom’s other heroic

195 qualities are not always appreciated by all, his commitment to fatherhood is ridiculed as an overly feminine characteristic that makes him weak.

Ruby’s death is depicted as a tragic moment in the Blooms’ life, and the cause of their complicated marriage, but the men in Barney Kiernan’s pub use it as a way to mock the still grieving father. When Bloom leaves the pub to look for Cunningham, the Citizen and the other men immediately begin talking badly about him. The focus of their vitriol on this occasion is

Bloom’s manhood, or the lack thereof. They laugh at Bloom’s desire for a world built on love rather than hate, they question his ability to have children, and, holding nothing back, they make fun of the excitement he displayed before his son was born. The men have a good laugh thinking about Bloom’s heartbreak and loss:

—O, by God, says Ned, you should have seen Bloom before that son of his that

died was born. I met him one day in the south city markets buying a tin of

Neave’s food six weeks before the wife was delivered.

—En ventre sa mère, says J. J.52

—Do you call that a man? says the citizen. (338; 12.1650-54)

The men in the pub cannot understand Bloom’s enthusiasm as a parent, identifying it as a feminine quality. As Cheng puts it, “Bloom doesn’t fit into the static categories of maleness and masculinity which they can understand” (208). They can only see his kindness and love for his son as a sign that he is lacking the masculinity that they believe is necessary to be a real man.

However, Joyce has established throughout the novel that Bloom’s ability to embrace femininity is a heroic quality that allows him show compassion for others and to grieve for those he has lost.

The fact is, although Bloom has been a good father to Milly, he desperately longs to nurture and care for a son as well. Joyce gives his culture hero a chance to fulfill this need by borrowing an

52 French for “In the belly of his mother.”

196 important element from the original myth: the reunion of Odysseus and Telemachus. Homer’s myth begins with Telemachus searching for his father and Odysseus journeying home to be with his family, and it ends with the father and son reuniting. Bloom has no living son, and so Joyce recreates this father-son reunion through Stephen. This meeting brings the novel’s two major characters together and puts Bloom’s heroism to the test, revealing why Joyce believed that being a devoted father was an important quality for his culture hero to possess.

Bloom and Stephen cross paths more than once throughout the day, but they don’t speak to one another until late in the novel. Bloom’s first impression of Stephen in the novel is during the “Hades” episode when he is in the carriage on his way to Dignam’s funeral. He spots Stephen as the carriage rolls by, and he points this out to the boy’s father, Simon Dedalus, while silently noting that he looks rather scrawny. As Simon goes on about his belief that Buck Mulligan is a bad influence on his son, Bloom feels that he would react in a similarly protective way if he had a son like Stephen. Bloom longs to care for a son like that, and a few hours later he begins to wonder if it might not be too late for him to have a son—“No son. Rudy. Too late now. Or if not? If not? If still? He bore no hate. Hate. Love. Those are names. Rudy. Soon I am old” (285;

11.1066-69)—but this is only a fleeting idea, as he quickly turns his thoughts elsewhere. Yet this desire and hope for a son continues to creep into his mind as the day turns into night, so that when he visits the maternity ward in the “Oxen of the Sun” episode it is no surprise that his thoughts turn to Rudy once again. There to check on Mrs. Purefoy—who is currently experiencing a particularly long and difficult childbirth—Bloom is surprised to run into Stephen and a group of his rowdy friends. As Bloom listens to the cries of childbirth and observes the drunk and vulnerable Stephen he cannot help but think of the son he lost:

197 he was minded of his good lady Marion that had borne him an only manchild

which on his eleventh day on live had died and no man of art could save so dark is

destiny. And she was wondrous stricken of heart for that evil hap and for his

burial did him on a fair corselet of lamb’s wool, the flower of the flock, lest he

might perish utterly and lie akeled (for it was then about the midst of the winter)

and now sir Leopold that had of his body no manchild for an heir looked up on

him his friend’s son and was shut up in sorrow for his forepassed happiness and

as sad as he was that him failed a son of such gentle courage (for all accounted

him of real parts) so grieved he also in no less measure for young Stephen for that

he lived riotously with those wastrels and murdered his goods with whores. (390-

391; 14.264-76)

This passage traces the way the Bloom’s memories of Rudy lead to his belief that Stephen needs guidance. In this moment, the two seem drawn to one another by fate, and Bloom decides to act on his parental impulses. Bloom spends the remainder of the novel trying to fill the role of a father for Stephen, showcasing his solid parenting skills. Joyce manipulates the estranged relationship between Odysseus and Telemachus just as Yeats’s Cuchulain cycle explores the theme of the failed father through the death of the hero’s only son. However, Joyce transforms his culture hero into a reliable father figure rather than a failed or estranged father as in the case of Cuchulain and Odysseus. Unlike the latter two, Bloom is in no need of redemption as he effortlessly fills the role of father and protector to not only Milly but also Stephen.

Bloom’s nurturing nature seems to have no bounds during the course of the novel. While the men in the pub ridicule him for this quality during the “Cyclops” episode the way that he cares for Stephen is a heroic act according to Joyce. Just as Telemachus is in search of his father

198 in the Odyssey Stephen is in desperate need of a father figure to guide him as he struggles to find his place in the world. However, it is not simply that Bloom is a good father or a kind man that makes his decision to care for Stephen significant, because, metaphorically speaking, Stephen acts as a symbol for young Ireland and the future of the nation. Just as Yeats believed that the

Irish needed a guide to help them achieve independence and flourish as a new nation, Joyce wanted his culture hero to possess the qualities that the people should aspire to. Bloom is not only a father to Stephen but also a gentle guide for Ireland, a nation that needed nurturing and revitalization to prosper. The way that Bloom and Stephen interact after their meeting in the maternity hospital reveals what Joyce hoped his culture hero could do for Ireland, and how the nation could thrive if provided a way out of the paralysis that seemed to have an unbreakable grip on it. Consider, for example, the touching yet rather simple way that Bloom tries to calm

Stephen when he is startled by the thunder in the “Oxen of the Sun” episode. Stephen is convinced that the sound is a sign of divine punishment directed at him for his blasphemous words, and it paralyzes the young man with fear. Seeing Stephen’s distress, Bloom tries to calm him with a logical explanation of thunder: “Master Bloom, at the braggart’s side spoke to him calming words to slumber his great fear, advertising how it was no other thing but a hubbub noise that he heard, the discharge of fluid from the thunderhead, look you, having taken place, and all of the order of a natural phenomenon” (395; 14.424-28). It is not difficult to see the role of religion in this exchange. Stephen is momentarily manipulated and hamstrung by a belief in a divine power that would punish him for speaking against it. Bloom tries to assuage this fear with a scientific explanation of thunder, but Stephen is so afraid that he cannot be calmed. In other words, although the culture hero tries to use his intelligence to help, his assistance is rejected because the subject is not yet capable of listening to reason. Perhaps this is how Joyce felt when

199 dealing with the Irish. However, unlike Joyce, Bloom doesn’t become frustrated when he fails to get through to Stephen.

As the rowdy young men leave the maternity hospital after Mrs. Purefoy successfully gives birth Bloom decides to go with them to keep an eye on Stephen. While the group hasn’t explicitly mistreated him—certainly nothing like the “Cyclops” episode—it is clear that he doesn’t belong, but Bloom cannot help but follow them because he is concerned for Stephen’s wellbeing. Once again, the culture hero is an outsider, but his distance is what allows him to perceive Stephen’s need. When Stephen and Lynch separate from the rest of the group to seek out a brothel, Bloom questions his decision to follow them but ultimately maintains his pursuit:

“What am I following him for? Still, he’s the best of that lot. . . . He’ll lose that cash (452;

15.639-42). Bloom is partly motivated to follow Stephen to fulfill his own desire to care for a son, but this does not take away from the heroic nature of his decision to protect Stephen. After all, Joyce’s hero is risking his reputation by venturing into the brothels of the Nighttown district.

Despite his concern at being seen, Bloom finds himself inside a brothel looking for Stephen after briefly losing sight of him. Once inside he continues his previous focus on making sure the

Stephen keeps his money. He takes charge of paying the women in the brothel with Stephen’s money to ensure that he is not taken advantage of and then decides to hold on to the money to keep it safe. Of course, his care extends far beyond keeping Stephen’s money safe. Sounding a lot like a father, Bloom tells Stephen, “Don’t smoke. You ought to eat” (560; 15.4364). And rather than allow Stephen to be upset by a palm reading, Bloom steps in to have his own read:

“More harm than good. Here. Read mine” (562; 15.3695-96). This may seem like a small gesture, but it ends up embarrassing Bloom quite a bit as he is mocked and teased by the women in the brothel as he is accused of being a cuckold. Despite this humiliation Bloom is able to get

200 Stephen out of the brothel in one piece, albeit after a bit of a struggle when the young man breaks a lamp. Once outside their troubles only escalate as Stephen ends up in a fight, but once again

Bloom is there to save the day and get Stephen to safety. As the episode comes to an end Joyce leaves his readers with a touching scene as Bloom stands by Stephen as he catches his breath after being knocked unconscious:

BLOOM

. . . . (He bends again and undoes the buttons of Stephen’s waistcoat.) To breathe.

(He brushes the wood shavings from Stephen’s clothes with light hands and

fingers.) One pound seven. Not hurt anyhow. (He listens.) What!

STEPHEN

(Murmurs.)

. . . shadows . . . the woods.

. . . white breast . . . dim . . .

(He stretches out his arms, sighs again and curls his body. Bloom holding his hat

and ashplant stands erect. A dog barks in the distance. Bloom tightens and

loosens his grip on the ashplant. He looks down on Stephen’s face and form.)

(608-09; 15.4936-47)

While Bloom looks at Stephen’s face he sees a vision of Rudy in a school uniform reading a book, and although he calls out to his dead son he receives no response. This heartbreaking glimpse into what his life might have been like if Rudy had lived is made all the more poignant because it occurs while he is caring for the vulnerable Stephen. Bloom will never have the chance to care for Rudy, but he can nurture Stephen tonight and fill the important role as his father because he is the hero of the novel.

201 Telemachus’s father is the unrivaled hero of the Odyssey, but things are a little more complicated in Joyce’s revisionist myth. The original myth is a straightforward story of a man beating impossible odds to return home while Telemachus embarks on a futile search for his father. Odysseus’s journey is, in part, a quest to reestablish his domestic life after being away from home for so many years. In the end the hero successfully returns home, reunites with his son, slays the suitors, and restores his place in Ithaca while also securing his son’s future as his heir. Part of Odysseus’s heroism comes from his triumphant return to Ithaca as Telemachus’s father, and yet Joyce did not chose Stephen’s father to be the hero of Ulysses. Stephen’s father,

Simon, is not the hero even though he needs the guidance of a father figure just like Telemachus.

Revising the original premise of the myth, Joyce chose to give Stephen a surrogate father to do what Odysseus does for Telemachus. Joyce believed that Ireland needed real change, and that would impossible without a guide, but sidelining Simon suggests that Joyce believed an outsider was better suited to this role. This could be read as an attempt to avoid the insularity of the nationalist movement that Joyce critiques through the character of the Citizen in the “Cyclops” episode. By having Bloom become Stephen’s surrogate father for the evening the culture hero is capable of influencing and guiding the younger man to help him discover his path in life without being forced to bear the paralyzing weight of Ireland’s past. And unlike Stephen’s real father,

Bloom has already proven that he is more than capable of nurturing Stephen because of his experience with his own children.

Bloom, the devoted and heroic father, is the guide that Stephen and Ireland needed.

Because of his hybridity, his view from the outside, and his compassionate dedication to nurturing others, Bloom becomes the hero of the novel and Stephen’s savior. As Joseph Matthew

Meyer argues in “Redefining the Epic Hero in Joyce’s ‘Eumaeus’” (2009), “With this gesture of

202 fatherly affection, Joyce conveys Bloom as being elevated to even greater heights than that of

Odysseus” (147). “Eumaeus” provides perhaps the strongest example of Bloom’s fatherly affection because the seemingly boring events in the diner allow the culture hero’s kindness and compassion to shine without the distractions of the previous chaos in the brothel scene. Just as

Stephen recovers from his wild adventures, the novel itself takes a moment to breathe, allowing

Bloom’s heroism to become the sole focus. For this reason, Meyer argues that ‘“Eumaeus” is

Joyce's commentary on the differences between the classical epic, based on actions and brought about through exaggerated tales of oral tradition, and his own modern-day epic, based on discourse and brought about through mundane yet realistic events. In doing so, Joyce reconstructs the epic hero from the man of action to the man of discourse” (138). Because Joyce omitted the slaying of the suitors from his revisionist myth he needed to come up with another way for Bloom and Stephen to bond, and Meyer argues that this is done through discourse rather than action. In the Odyssey Telemachus and Odysseus come together and fight as one against the suitors. In Ulysses Stephen and Bloom have a conversation and drink cocoa. After having a short rest at the cabman’s shelter—a coffeehouse of sorts—Bloom realizes that Stephen is in need of further nourishment and a change of location in order to have a proper conversation. Joyce makes it perfectly clear in this moment that Bloom’s fatherly affection is a large part of what makes him a hero: “I propose, our hero eventually suggested, after mature reflection . . . as its rather stuffy here, you just come with me and talk things over. My diggings are quite close in the vicinity” (658; 16.1642-44). By giving Stephen fatherly affection, for just a few hours, Bloom does what Simon fails to do. The implication is that if Stephen follows Bloom’s model and learns from the older man he will find happiness, just as Joyce hoped Ireland would learn from the culture hero.

203 Perhaps the most important thing that Bloom models for Stephen is an optimistic and genuine belief in love and kindness that he displays throughout the day. When Bloom tries to calm Stephen’s fear of thunder in “Oxen of the Sun” the narrator tells us that he remains afraid because “he had in his bosom a spike named Bitterness” (396; 14.430). This bitterness has paralyzed Stephen, and while Bloom’s scientific explanation cannot provide an immediate cure for this condition it is possible that the hero has some kind of positive influence over the younger man by the end of the night. As Kiberd argues in Ulysses and Us (2010), “Bloom shows optimism in the midst of paralysis” (82). Although Stephen sees that Ireland is drowning, and that it will take him with it if he cannot escape, he is incapable of seeing a solution to resolve this problem. The compassionate, cosmopolitan nationalism that Bloom’s heroism promotes is a potential solution. Unlike Yeats’s Cuchulain, who only realizes his full potential as a hero at the end of his life when he no longer has a son to care for, Joyce’s culture hero is able to pass on his knowledge to the next generation by nurturing both Milly and, for a short time, Stephen. More concerned with Ireland’s future than its past, Joyce shaped his culture hero in order to inspire an

Irish nationalism that didn’t rely on ancient institutions and outdated versions of heroism.

While Yeats’s Cuchulain gave Ireland a warrior hero to rally around, Joyce shaped a culture hero for the everyday Irishman to emulate in the service of maintaining peace and unity in Ireland before and after independence was won. As Meyer notes, Bloom is “the modern-day epic hero, struggling with the everyday struggles that plague the everyday human being. The problems that he faces are problems that are common to all humanity. Joyce recognizes that though we are no longer slaying dragons, we are in many ways riddled with more complex problems than those of Homer's heroes” (147). Bloom, although not a brave warrior or an entirely faithful husband, was a deliberate and carefully considered choice to fill Odysseus’s

204 shoes. Bloom’s Jewish heritage and his family’s recent immigration to Ireland serve as ideal characteristics to grant him the ability to criticize not only the colonial oppression of the nation but also resistance groups like the Gaelic League that the Citizen promotes. But there is more to

Bloom’s heroism than that. As Daniel R. Schwartz argues in Reading Joyce’s Ulysses (1987),

“[h]eroism for Joyce is a set of personal values that makes it possible to improve the quality of life ever so slightly for others” (38). Bloom’s concern and care for others—his hungry cat, the grieving Dignam family, the perfect stranger Stephen, his unsatisfied wife Molly, his maturing daughter Milly, and, perhaps most touching of all, his tragically doomed son Rudy—endear him to casual readers and scholars alike. Keeping mindful of Bloom as the “allroundman” underscores Ulysses’s function as the national Irish epic of the twentieth century and offers one more reason why this culture hero holds such an importance place in literary history.

205 Chapter 6

Conclusion

W. B. Yeats and James Joyce are often considered incompatible in terms of their involvement with Ireland’s anti-colonial movement, but their shared use of revisionist myth and culture heroes suggests something different. In this dissertation I have attempted to show that these two authors, despite their opposing beliefs, both worked on a cultural project to promote

Irish nationalism in the service of Ireland’s fight for independence. Yeats’s nationalism was concerned with reclaiming and revitalizing Ireland’s pre-colonial culture and beliefs in an attempt to encourage the Irish to assert their independence from both English rule and culture.

Distrusting traditions that supported religious and economic institutions that left the Irish paralyzed and ambivalent, Joyce promoted an alternative to Yeats’s nationalism by celebrating hybridity and focusing on a cosmopolitan future for Ireland. While their culture heroes represented their individual hopes for Irish nationalism, the works examined in this dissertation also show that both authors wanted the Irish to unite and build a nation that would prosper without England’s oppressive rule. By focusing on the figure of the culture hero I have tried to make a case for not only the importance of nationalism in the process of decolonization but also the essential role that myths often play in the project of establishing a cultural identity in colonized nations. While I readily admit that culture heroes, myths, plays, or novels do not guarantee a revolution, I believe that these kinds of cultural interventions can inspire action by allowing the oppressed to write their own history and to define their own identity independent of colonial rule. Yeats and Joyce shaped their individual culture heroes with the deliberate goal of

206 representing the Irish experience from the Irish perspective with the hope of inspiring and uniting the Irish to reclaim their right to rule their own nation. Works like the Cuchulain plays and

Ulysses challenged the colonial narrative that the Irish had no culture to speak of, while also confronting and correcting colonial stereotypes perpetuated and spread by the English. The significance of these literary works and the culture heroes they promoted cannot be underestimated. That being said, rather than simply rehashing my arguments I would like to use this conclusion to briefly discuss what I believe are some of the useful benefits of examining these culture heroes using the method I have employed in this dissertation.

Complicating Postcolonial Authors

First and foremost, looking at the use of culture heroes in the works of these major Irish authors reveals a more complicated understanding of what it means to be a postcolonial author.

When writing about postcolonial authors it can be tempting to put them into strict categories: they are either writing with or against the anti-colonial movement. More often than not, we focus on the authors that fit neatly into the latter category. These authors help us understand the fight against the oppression of colonial rule in their nations, and this is invaluable. But, like all things, colonial oppression is more complicated than colonized against colonizer. Concepts like hybridity encourage us to think of the sharing and blending of cultures that occurs during colonization, but we also need to remember that this is often a violent and traumatizing experience. For Yeats and Joyce, simply figuring out what it meant to be Irish was half the battle.

The Irish Literary Revival wasn’t just about defining the Irish experience for others, it was a way for these authors to discover for themselves what Irish culture should look like, and they didn’t always agree. In the case of Yeats and Joyce, their culture heroes reveal the version of Irish national identity that they eventually came to believe in. Yeats’s journey is mapped out in

207 Cuchulain’s evolution over the course of five plays, and Joyce’s vision is laid out for readers in a single novel. While it is easier to see Yeats’s struggle in the characterization of Cuchulain,

Leopold Bloom reveals just as much of Joyce’s struggle with his nation and the weighty role of the postcolonial author. I have tried to emphasize throughout my dissertation the difficulty that each author faced in their attempts to define the Irish experience and to speak for a nation that they struggled to understand. Although they often disagreed with Irish politics, neither author could abandon their nation. As Yeats so eloquently argued in a letter written at the end of his life,

“I have not been silent; I have used the only vehicle I possess—verse” (Letters 850-51).

I also want to reiterate that this nuanced reading of Yeats’s and Joyce’s contributions to the Irish cause is greatly aided by a Marxist postcolonial analysis. These two theories, too often positioned at odds with another, provide a more complicated yet accurate understanding of the role of both culture and nationalism in resistance movements like decolonization. Without this, we cannot fully understand the complicated and sometimes contradictory nature of each author’s engagement with the anti-colonial movement in Ireland, and more work needs to be done to put postcolonial and Marxist scholarship in conversation. I have already discussed the reasons why these two theories need not be thought of as incompatible in Chapter 1, and so I will not repeat these arguments here. But I do believe it is worth repeating Karl Marx’s important observation about Irish emancipation and capitalism once more: “If England is the bulwark of landlordism and European capitalism, the only point where one can hit official England really hard is Ireland.

. . . If it fell in Ireland it would fall in England” (Ireland and the Irish Question 161). If postcolonial and Marxist scholars are dedicated to examining how colonialism and capitalism oppress people then they must deal with the ways in which these two institutions work in tandem.

208 In the Classroom

Although my arguments are not about teaching literature, over the course of writing this dissertation I have discovered some useful pedagogical benefits to reading Yeats and Joyce’s works as postcolonial revisionist myths. Inspired by Fredric Jameson’s conclusion about third- world literature as being necessarily political, I have tried to keep in mind the fact that Yeats and

Joyce, and postcolonial authors in general, are faced with a nearly impossible task that they can’t ignore. They will be remembered in terms of the emerging nation whether they want to be or not.

Like all oppressed people fighting for power, they don’t have the luxury of ignoring the political climate of the nation they live and work in. As Irish authors, Yeats and Joyce were speaking for all of Ireland every time they produced a play or published a book. And they continue to speak for Ireland today.

In a British literature survey at many American universities students are likely to, very briefly in most cases, visit the literature of the past and present colonies of the British Empire.

This includes Ireland, which usually means spending a day or two reading and discussing Yeats and Joyce. These two authors have become canonical representations of Irish literature: two authors speaking for an entire nation. That’s a lot of pressure to put on two guys who could barely make up their mind about what it meant to be Irish. The legacy of these authors have put them in this position, which is partly thanks to the culture heroes that they created in their works.

While the Cuchulain plays are not as widely taught as Yeats’s poetry, the hero himself has remained a cultural and political icon in Ireland, just as Yeats has. Their names and faces appear on coins, statues, murals, and political propaganda across the nation. The same can be said for

Joyce and Bloom. Both author and hero have become larger than life cultural touchstones for

Irish identity. Their work has become the way of understanding Irish literature and culture.

209 Unfortunately, this often means ignoring the complicated and difficult struggle that these men went through in creating their work and building this legacy.

This leads me to the possible uses of my method in the classroom. By teaching students about these culture heroes, and the ways in which each author carefully and deliberately shaped them in their work, we can help them better understand the struggle of the postcolonial author and provide a more complete and nuanced view of Irish literature. Introducing students to

Cuchulain, Bloom, and the method of revisionist mythmaking can be a way of introducing them to the complicated and traumatic experience of colonialism. While my dissertation focuses on the

Irish experience in the twentieth century, revisionist mythmaking appears throughout the British

Empire and beyond as a means of colonial resistance, making my method a useful tool for examining the widespread impacts of colonialism. In turn, this can be a valuable means of attuning students to the social role of not only postcolonial literature but literature in general.

Contemporary Politics and Future Culture Heroes

Many scholars have attended to the lives and works of Yeats and Joyce, but we must continue to come back to their work from new and fresh angles. I hope that my dissertation will provide some new insight into each author’s role as a postcolonial author while also bringing much needed attention to the concept of the culture hero and revisionist mythmaking in the cultural aspect of decolonization. Moreover, fresh readings of Yeats and Joyce are illuminating amid shifting political milieus. As I put the finishing touches on this dissertation, a majority of

British voters opted to leave the European Union. But the votes in Scotland and Northern Ireland were overwhelmingly anti-Brexit, reigniting discussions in those places about separating from the United Kingdom. The Brexit has brought questions of national identity to the fore of the political discourse, and it will be interesting to see how cultural objects are used to promote various understandings of English, Irish, and Scottish nationalism as these nations undergo

210 radical change. Cuchulain, as an Ulster hero, may very well reemerge as a symbol for Northern

Ireland’s independence, but if this happens he will surely be revised and updated to fit contemporary politics. Just as Yeats and Joyce revised their source material in order to shape culture heroes appropriate for their individual concerns, future culture heroes will emerge to define the experiences of these changing nations.

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