UNIVERSIDADE DE LISBOA FACULDADE DE LETRAS Departamento de Estudos Anglísticos Theatrical Joyce David Michael Greer DOUTORAMENTO EM ESTUDOS ARTÍSTICOS ESTUDOS DE TEATRO 2011 1 2 UNIVERSIDADE DE LISBOA FACULDADE DE LETRAS Departamento de Estudos Anglísticos Theatrical Joyce David Michael Greer Tese orientada por Prof. Doutora Maria Helena Serôdio e Dr. Sam Slote DOUTORAMENTO EM ESTUDOS ARTÍSTICOS ESTUDOS DE TEATRO 2011 3 4 Abstract As a young man, Joyce’s artistic future as a writer of prose fiction was far from decided. Although his earliest attempts at literary composition were through lyrical verse and prose sketches, his major literary ambitions as a student were focused on the theatre; and his dramatic writing and writing on drama had essentially been done before he wrote his first Dubliners’ story. The subsequent appearance of Exiles and the form of the “Circe” episode most obviously show that this early fascination never completely left him. Through his use of dramatic techniques and ‘’hidden’ texts, Joyce reconciled his desire to create drama with the realisation that his most natural medium was narrative prose. As the dramatic came to fully inform his prose fiction, however, Joyce was able to combine and explore the full possibilities of dialogue ranging from the most artificially high-flown rhetoric to the coarsest spoken informalities. A major feature of Joyce’s method was his readiness to adapt and parody the works of earlier authors, including dramatists. Such adaptation provided a channel for his works to flow into forms ungoverned by the demands of producing a realistic, exterior world. “Spectacular” linguistic and narrative “theatrical” effects (OCPW: 25) were generated through characters’ inner lives which, when combined with the incorporated dramatic texts, created ironies and alternative perspectives through juxtaposition and parodic subversion. In Theatrical Joyce, I explore this influence on Joyce’s writing and the protean line of creative tension born out of his attempt to achieve a formal balance, in which boundaries are often blurred through the embedding of drama in narrative. Keywords: Joyce, drama, narrative, irony, parody, Shakespeare 5 6 Resumo Na sua juventude, o futuro artístico de Joyce enquanto escritor estava longe de estar decidido. Apesar das primeiras tentativas de composição literária serem obras de natureza lírica e textos curtos em prosa, as suas ambições literárias enquanto estudante voltavam-se para o teatro. A escrita dramática e sobre o teatro de Joyce foi maioritariamente feita antes de escrever o primeiro conto de Dubliners. A escrita posterior de Exiles e a forma do episódio “Circe” reflectem um fascínio de juventude nunca esmoreceu completamente. Através da utilização de técnicas dramáticas e de textos ‘escondidos’, Joyce reconciliou o desejo de criar um drama com a consciência de que o seu medium mais natural era a prosa narrativa. Contudo, à medida que o dramático informou completamente a sua ficção em prosa, Joyce conseguiu combinar e explorar as possibilidades de diálogo entre eles, indo da retórica mais artificiosa até às informalidades orais mais rudes. Um elemento fundamental no método de Joyce foi a capacidade de adaptar e parodiar as obras de autores anteriores, incluindo dramaturgos. Esse tipo de adaptação disponibilizava um canal para a obra fluir para formas não governadas pelas exigências de produção de um mundo exterior realista. Efeitos linguísticos “espectaculares” e efeitos narrativos “teatrais” (OCPW: 25) eram gerados através das vidas interiores das personagens que, combinadas com os textos dramáticos incorporados, criaram ironias e perspectivas alternativas através da justaposição e subversão paródica. 7 Em Theatrical Joyce, é explorada esta influência na escrita de Joyce e a tensão criativa que resulta da tentativa de chegar a um equilíbrio formal, em que as fronteiras são muitas vezes dissolvidas através da incorporação do drama na narrativa. Palavras chave: Joyce, drama, narrativa, ironia, paródia, Shakespeare 8 To Paulo Eduardo Carvalho much missed friend and encourager 9 10 Table of Contents Acknowledgements ……………………………………………………………..……… 13 Abbreviations…………………………………………………………………………… 15 Introduction……………………………………………………………………………... 17 1. The Play’s the Thing………………………………………………………………….. 27 2. Coming to Theatrical Terms with Giacomo Joyce …………………………………... 79 3. Exiles: A Sense of Theatre-ship ……………………………………………………… 135 4. Ulysses: Preparatory to anything else…………………………………………………. 203 4.1 “Telemachus”: Staged Irishmen ………………………………………………... 209 4.2 “Cyclops”: Tall Talk at Barney Kiernan’s …………………………………….. 231 4.3 “The Oxen of the Sun”: Shouts in the Street…………………………………… 273 4.4 “Circe”: Five Acts at Bella’s Playhouse ……………………………………….. 309 4.5 “Penelope”: The Star Turn ……………………………………………………… 349 Conclusion. ……………………………………………………………………………… 387 Appendices……………………………………………………………………………… 397 Appendix I: Giacomo Joyce, Hamlet and the Elizabethan-Jacobean 5 Act Scheme... 399 Appendix II: “The Oxen of the Sun” coda: a drama in dialogue…………………… 403 Appendix III: “Circe”, Hamlet and the Elizabethan-Jacobean 5 Act Scheme……… 413 Resumo Alargado (Extended abstract in Portuguese)…………………………………… 417 Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………….. 427 11 12 Acknowledgements My first expression of gratitude must go to Professor Maria Helena Serôdio of the Faculty of Letters, Lisbon University and Dr. Sam Slote of Trinity College, Dublin. Without their patience, wisdom and generosity, there would simply have been no Theatrical Joyce. I would also like to thank the Faculty of Letters, Lisbon University for granting me two invaluable years of leave to work on this thesis. I must also express my heartfelt appreciation to Eduardo and Marília Carvalho for their wonderful generosity in allowing me to use Paulo’s extensive library; Teresa Casal for her unfailing support and friendship; and to the various members of Balloonatics Theatre Company, particularly Chris Bilton, Paul Doran and Paul O’Hanrahan, whose own Joycean odyssey inspired so much of my work. I have been privileged to have met and learned from many wonderful teachers over the years. My special thanks, however, must go to Elizabeth Capstick, John Barber and Roger Harcourt who, long ago and quite far away, encouraged me to begin this journey. My family has been no less important and I would like to thank my parents, Bill and Cathy Greer, and children, Bob, Willy and Maria, who have all supported and encouraged me in their own very special ways. Finally, my thanks to Graça, “Gea-Tellus” and “wonderworker”, without whom this poor man’s Ulysses would have remained lost at sea. “Methanks (...) Tranquille thanks. Adew” (FW: 239, 244) 13 14 Abbreviations Reference to the editions of works used is contained in the Bibliography. The following abbreviations of the titles are used in the text: D Dubliners DD The Dublin Diary of Stanislaus Joyce FW Finnegans Wake GJ Giacomo Joyce JJ James Joyce by Richard Ellmann LI Letters of James Joyce vol. I. LII Letters of James Joyce vol. II and III. LIII Letters of James Joyce vol. II and III. MBK My Brother’s Keeper by Stanislaus Joyce OCPW Occasional, Critical and Political Writing P A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man PSW Poems and Shorter Writings SH Stephen Hero SL Selected Letters U Ulysses 15 16 Introduction 17 18 “in the act of perhaps getting an intro, (…) say, (…) engaged in performing” (FW: 109) For the artist as a young man, in the beginning was the theatre. Throughout his life, in fact, Joyce showed more interest in the theatre, in its many variations, than in the genre he was to revolutionise. His major enthusiasms were stirred by performance in all its forms: from literary theatre, to the pantomimes, musical hall, light opera and popular plays to be seen in the Dublin of the late 19th and early 20th century; as well as the various types of performance he experienced on the continent in his later years. His early writing ambitions were a reflex of this enthusiasm. Joyce’s first published pieces were critical essays dealing exclusively with the theatre, with drama proclaimed the highest form of art. Even when writing about another artistic form in an 1899 student essay, the success of Munkacsy’s painting, Ecce Homo, was judged according to its dramatic quality. In 1900, he began to write his ‘epiphanies’: moments of “sudden spiritual manifestation” that might appear “in the vulgarity of speech or of gesture or in a memorable phase of the mind itself” (SH: 188). Significantly, epiphanies were manifested through the spoken as well as the written word, with “the vulgarity of speech or of gesture” suggesting a clear dramatic quality balancing the often more lyrical “memorable phase of the mind”. Of the 40 that have survived – it seems there were at least 71 (PSW: 272) –, 16 are in the form of short dramatic dialogues; with the others being either monologues or prose poems. His brother Stanislaus also tells us of the early and now lost play, A Brilliant Career (the only piece Joyce ever dedicated to anyone – his own soul) which, it seems, owed much to Ibsen (MBK (1958) 1982: 126-31). Although, as Ellmann suggests (JJ: 79), it might well have been “Ibcenest nansence!” (FW: 535) more than anything else, it 19 was a sign of how the “old master” (OCPW: 52) was more important to Joyce in these early years than any other artist; despite some clear Wagnerian influence and the ever- present shadow of Shakespeare. In addition to A Brilliant Career, and the two translations of Hauptmann intended