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Xerox Univarsity Microfiims 300 North Zseb Road Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 75- 21,513 EDMUNDSON, Louie Jones, 1938- THEME AND COUNTERTHEME: THE FUNCTION OF CHILD BALLAD 155, "SIR HUGH, OR THE JEW'S DAUGHTER," IN JAMES JOYCE'S ULYSSES. Middle Tennessee State University, D.A., 1975 Language and Literature, modern Xerox University Microfiims, Ann Arbor, Michigan 4sio6 0 1975 LOUIE JONES EDMUNDSON ALL RIGHTS RESERVED THIS DISSERTATION HAS BEEN MICROFILMED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. THEME AND COUNTERTHEME: THE FUNCTION OF CHILD BALLAD 155, "SIR HUGH, OR THE JEW’S DAUGHTER," IN JAMES JOYCE'S ULYSSES Louie J. Edmundson A dissertation presented to the Graduate Faculty of Middle Tennessee State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Arts May, 1975 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. THEME AND COUNTERTHEME: THE FUNCTION OF CHILD BALLAD 155, "SIR HUGH, OR THE JEW'S DAUGHTER," IN JAMES JOYCE'S ULYSSES APPROVED : Graduate Committee : Ia)Û. I Major P r o f e s s o r '' U mber Committee Member Committee Member fl/aMu Committee Member Lc — Vu. n of the yÇejjartment of English Dean of the Graduate School Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ABSTRACT THEME AND COUNTERTHEME: THE FUNCTION OF CHILD BALLAD 155, "SIR HUGH, OR THE JEW’S DAUGHTER," IN JAMES JOYCE'S ULYSSES by Louie J. Edmundson The purpose of this study is to explore and define in as precise a manner as possible Joyce's motives for the inclusion of the ballad "Little Harry Hughes" in the "Ithaca" episode of Ulysses. This ballad, accompanied in the text of "Ithaca" by its musical notation, is a variant of No. 155 in Francis J. Child's compilation of British traditional bal­ lads. It tells the story, frequently encountered in tradi­ tional lore and found in numerous literary analogues, of a Christian child murdered by Jews for ritual or other reasons. The point at which Joyce places "Little Harry Hughes" in Ulysses, the circumstances of its occurrence within the developing action, and the content of the ballad legend itself are such as to indicate that definite structural and thematic relationships exist between the ballad and Ulysses in its entirety. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Louie J. Edmundson Five aspects of this relationship are considered basic and necessary to the understanding of Joyce's use of the ballad. The initial problem to be examined is that of the peculiarly abbreviated form of Joyce's variant, which may have been the result of a characteristic Irish evolution or of a deliberate alteration on Joyce's part. In either case, but especially if the latter is true, the form of the ballad has definite and highly significant thematic implications. The nature of Joyce's awareness of the traditional back­ ground and of the historical realities of the Sir Hugh legend type, involving as they do centuries of Christian-Jew ani­ mosity, persecution, and reprisals, is the subject of a second portion of the study. Evidence is reviewed which shows that Joyce was not only interested in the periodic outbreaks of the so-called "blood accusation" against the Jews, but that he was actually researching the phenomenon during the period in which he was working on "Ithaca." The musical component of "Little Harry Hughes," largely overlooked by critics in spite of its being quite emphati­ cally inserted by Joyce into the text, presents a further subject for inquiry. The tonal structure of the ballad music is identified as "mixolydian," a designation which applies to specific modal structures in both the Greek and medieval ecclesiastical musical systems. Reference to the mixolydian is made prior to "Ithaca" in a scene of "Circe" concerned Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Louie J. Edmundson thematically with the problem of completing the metaphorical circle of the octave. Modality in its musical sense is suggested as a factor in the complex concept of Stephen's "ineluctable modality" as it appears in the "Proteus" episode and elsewhere. The modality theme is taken a step further in the fourth part of the analysis, which deals in part with the cyclical or "modal" pattern of historical recurrence inherent in Giambattista Vico's "ideal universal" history. It is main­ tained that Vico, a dominant philosophical influence in Finnegans Wake, is, in a possibly more abstract but no less real manner, present in Ulysses. Vico's ideas regarding the origins of poetry and the special qualities of the creations of the first poets are also analyzed as elements contribut­ ing to Joyce's interest in the ballad genre. Finally, "Little Harry Hughes" is considered as part of a "Hugh Motif," general throughout Ulysses, in which is con­ tained most of the thematic substance of the book— the themes of sacrifice and resurrection, of the modes of the individual personality and of historical circularity, and of artistic creation as a function of a static, as opposted to a kinetic, perception of beauty. It is concluded that Joyce's version of "Sir Hugh, or The Jew's Daughter" has an identifiable function in Ulysses. This function derives from related aspects of the organization Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Louie J. Edmundson and thematic content of the book for which the ballad serves as a point of focus. Bloom and Stephen, if they are ever in any sense united as father and son in Ulysses, are so in the "Ithaca" episode and precisely at the place where Stephen sings the ballad. Equally as significant is the fact that fundamental constituents of Ulysses such as cyclic movement and the reconciliation of antithetical identities are restated in various ways in both text and music of the ballad. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page LIST OF APPENDICES ............................................ iii Chapter I. ANALOGUES AND SOURCES OF "LITTLE HARRY HUGHES"............................................ 1 II. "SIR HUGH" AND THE TRADITIONAL BACKGROUND . 47 III. INELUCTABLE MODALITY: "LITTLE HARRY HUGHES" AND THE MUSICAL COMPONENT ........... 84 IV. HISTORY, MYTH, AND THE VICHIAN CONNECTION: AN EXAMINATION OF THE THEMATIC SIGNIFICANCE OF THE "LITTLE HARRY HUGHES" BALLAD IN "ITHACA" ..................... 151 VICO AND THE CYCLE OF H I S T O R Y .................153 VICO AND M Y T H ................................... 185 V. THE HUGH MOTIF AND RELATED THEMES IN ULYSSES ............................................ 207 VI. CONCLUSION ............................................. 299 APPENDICES ..................................................... 312 REFERENCES CITED ............................................ 317 11 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. LIST OF APPENDICES APPENDIX Page A. "Sir Hugh, or The Jew's Daughter" (Child No. 155, Variant A ) ..................... 312 B. "Little Harry Hughes" (Joyce, Ulysses, p. 6 7 5 ) ....................... 314 C. Comparative Analysis of Child A and Irish-Type Analogues ............................ 315 D. Statistical Summary of Occurrences of Variant Motifs ..................................