i READING THE MODERN CITY, READING JOYCE AND ELIOT： A STUDY OF FLANERIE IN LITERARY REPRESENTATION LAU Kin-wai A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Philosophy in English (Literary Studies) © The Chinese University of Hong Kong August 2004 •J The Chinese University of Hong Kong holds the copyright of this thesis. Any person(s) intending to use a part or whole of the materials in the thesis in a proposed publication must seek copyright release from the Dean of the Graduate School. If ii ABSTRACT The image of the city in literary representation has been a defining feature of an epoch that is essentially modem. Using the modem cities represented in the works of James Joyce (1882-1941) and T. S. Eliot (1888-1965) as the basis of analysis, "READING THE MODERN CITY, READING JOYCE AND ELIOT" discusses a key element in the presentation of most city literature, an element widely known in recent studies of urban culture as fldnerie. Studying the flaneur as an image within the urban culture in the time of Charles Baudelaire (1821-67) where it originated offers a common perspective from which we may devise a comparative reading of Joyce and Eliot, two canonical writers who, mainly known as a novelist and a poet respectively, have notably exemplified two modes of representations of the western imagination of the city in the early twentieth century. This study treats fldnerie as an approach to re-reading modem classics. Intensely urban in their appropriation of themes and images, the works of Joyce and Eliot draw attention to themselves as potential sites of fldnerie. The motifs of mobility and spectatorship, discernible in the allusive formulation of their characters or personae, reinforce the modem tradition of Baudelairean fldnerie furthered in Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) and Ulysses (1922)，and Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" (1917) and The Waste Land (1922). In these works, the flaneur figures' tendency to personalize urban space and realize the existence of the dead gives rise to two contextualizing elements in the representation of the cities they are in. The locality of the city has a direct bearing on the flaneur figures' way of interaction with the community and their mode of communication with its inhabitants. Against the backdrop of a living community, the flaneur figures are shielded in an anonymity bordering on complete asociality. Through this study offldnerie in the works of Joyce and Eliot, we occasion from a celebrated part of modem literary history a re-emergence of certain timeless imaginary figures, now read together as a newly-arranged whole within the scope of this study. •V iii 論文摘要 在文學表述裏，現代都市的形像曾標誌一個新紀元的誕生。《解讀現代都 市、解讀喬伊斯與艾略特》以喬伊斯（1882-1941)和艾略特(1888-1965)作品 中對現代都市的描述爲分析基礎，探討一個都市文學裏常見的表意要素，即硏 究都市文化時常說的「都市漫游」。在硏究這個源於波特萊爾(1821-67)身處 的都市文化裏「都市漫游者」的形像，我們可以帶出一個能夠同時解讀兩個後起 的典範作家的共同觀點。廣爲人知的小說家喬伊斯和詩人艾略特正好爲二十世 紀西方對都市的想像分別提供了小說和詩歌兩個表述方式。 這篇論文視「都市漫游」爲重讀現代經典的一個處理方法。由於在主題和 意象運用上喬伊斯和艾略特的作品都表現出濃厚的都市特質，所以「都市漫游」 在他們的作品裏確有顯然可見的活動空間。在構思人物或角色時，他們常引用 典故：其中有關走動和旁觀的母題均體現了他們的作品裏那種波特萊爾式「漫 游」的現代傳統。喬伊斯的《青年藝術家的畫像》（1916)和《尤力西斯》 (1922)，及艾略特的「普魯弗洛克的情歌」（1917)和《荒原》（1922)均屬佳 例。在這些作品中，帶有「漫游者」形像的人把都市的空間個人化，又把死人 看成有實體的存在。凡此種種’皆可視爲他們在該處遺下的足跡。置個社 群來看，這些「漫游者」有如將自己封閉在一種近乎完全非社交的生活模式裏。 由此可見’都市的環境和這些「漫游者」面對社群的習慣有直接關係。透過探 討喬伊斯和艾略特筆下的「漫游者」’我們得見兩人的作品以薪新的面貌在現代 文學史上再現。 V iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The completion of this thesis is the result of a six-year study in literature and linguistics, mainly at the Chinese University of Hong Kong as a full-time student, and briefly at York University, Canada, as an exchange student, and even more briefly at the University of Hong Kong, as an uninvited but a very welcome visiting student. I never took my ability for granted. Circumstances of schooling have allowed me to acquire what I thought I needed to know, though often with great effort and difficulty. When I made progress I knew who to thank, literally speaking. Professor Yuet-may Ching, my thesis supervisor, understood me as a student and a person. From her I found encouragement, respect, and belief in my ability to read and write. Professor Ching always kept a critical eye on my work, and a friendly eye on my intellectual progress. In my discussion of Joyce and Eliot, the nicest touch about literary reincarnation, among other things, was initiated by her. The many TA and RA duties that I performed for her over the past two years in the English Department have allowed me to share her interests and prepare for my own future career. Under her guidance, I arrived where I am now. She was, and still is, my teacher, mentor, and friend. I want her to accept my warmest thanks, just as she accepted me under her supervision two years ago. Dr. Peter Crisp and Professor Benzi Zhang kindly served as members of my thesis committee. Professor Lee Oser of the College of the Holy Cross did a most serious job as External Examiner. I thank them for their genuine interest in my work, and for their most insightful comments on it. I also want to thank a few respectable people who have no direct involvement in the supervision or assessment of this thesis: I have greatly benefited from Professor Jason Gleckman's teaching in the past six years. If I write with any clarity of expression and sense of organization today, a big credit goes to Professor Gleckman. Under the instruction of Professor Lai-ming Wong, I wrote my first research paper, and started to cultivate a more disciplined habit of reading and writing. Professor Roger Kuin of York University introduced me to the pleasure of criticism. Professor David Parker introduced me to the art of autobiography, and my knowledge of it has served me in a few important occasions. I always remember Professor Louise Ho as a phenomenal speaker. Professor Kwok-kan Tarn is a teacher I knew in my fourth year, a master I knew in my last. Dr. Esther Cheung of the University of Hong Kong introduced me to the image of the flaneur, and convinced me of the importance of urban culture represented in modem literature. Mr. Kwok-keung Lau's teaching inspired me in my formative years. The writing of this academic paper has assumed a non-academic input little known to others. I want to move on to thank the following people: Mom and dad give me a positive image of a mother and a father, an image indispensable to anyone in search of the meaning of success. My brother has had on his shoulders the financial burden of our family for years: I feel as though I were forever in his debt. I want to congratulate him on his recent marriage. As a child, my sister drew comic books, and in her own way told me stories that were fun, imaginative, and nasty一all in precise anticipation of most of the serious literature I am reading as a mature student. My friendship with Mr. Ken Choi and Mr. James Lee has always been a source of intellectual stimulation. Mrs. Bou's wisdom enlightens me and her kindness moves me. Mrs. Lam's motherly love is exemplary, and her selflessness commands all my respect. Waiyee has a sense of humor that dissolves the rigidity of my character, and a strong personality that conquers my usual nervousness and inarticulateness. And she is intelligent and hardworking: her academic achievement is at once my envy, admiration and despair. I am glad that she likes this thesis, and that she likes me. V CONTENTS ABSTRACT ii 論文摘要 iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iv INTRODUCTION: Reading Joyce and Eliot with Baudelaire in View 1 CHAPTER ONE: The City in Literary Representation 1. The City and its Streets in a Literary and Cultural Context 8 2. Writing (about) the Modem City: "Joycity" and Eliot's Cities 15 CHAPTER TWO： The City and the Flaneur 1. Origins and Characteristics of the Baudelairean Flaneur 21 2. From Baudelaire to Joyce and Eliot 25 CHAPTER THREE： In Search of the Joycean/ Eliotian Flaneur 1. Voices in the City: Personae and Their Perspectives 31 2. Literary Reincarnation and the Tradition of Fldnerie 33 a. Stephen and Daedalus 35 b. Prufrock and Dante 39 c. Bloom and Odysseus 43 d. Tiresias as Ancient and Modem 46 CHAPTER FOUR： Fldnerie and Two Faces of Unreality of the City 1. Cities as States of Mind 49 a. Eliot's Unreal City 1 50 b. Joyce's Unreal Dublin 1 56 2. Wandering in the City with the Dead 61 a. Eliot's Unreal City II 63 b. Joyce's Unreal Dublin II 68 CHAPTER FIVE: Fldnerie in a Wider Context of the Society 1. Fldnerie as an Asocial Act 72 2. The Flaneur and the Familiar Stranger 82 3. The Erotic as Sociality 85 ‘ CONCLUSION： Fldnerie and the Emergence of a Critical Vision 95 WORKS CITED 101 vi "the necessity for thoughtful rereading, the opportunities for self-cultivation and renewed understanding of the existent classics" —HARRY LEVIN "WHAT WAS MODERNISM?” (1960) Lau 1 INTRODUCTION: Reading Joyce and Eliot with Baudelaire in View In the history of the English-language literary Modernism with its great diversity of creative output, the names of James Joyce (1882-1941) and T. S. Eliot (1888-1965) always stand out and demand attention. The presence of these names taken together seems to have reached a mythical proportion in the global context of literary appreciation. The writerly developments of Joyce and Eliot have delighted many readers of twentieth-century literature. The considerable amount of careful documentation in those respects may testify to more than merely a prevalent intellectual interest, but really to a necessity—a necessity to approach an understanding of a significant part of modem literary history through these two writers, or in the case of this study, through these two together.