Class Notes 1/29

We talked about what is on Adam's blog! Go read Adam's blog.
- Joyce started with epocleti then moved to epiphany
- Irish paralysis......in 'Sisters' the paralized man dies. Joyce putting his characters in a position of paralysis to reveal the true charater........to evoke epiphany. Dubliners afflicted by paralysis.
-Karen Armstrong

Then we talked about Hericlitus, presocratic, an ancient Greek philosopher:
'It is the thunderbolt that steers the course of all things.'
and another one I think works:
'The sun is new everyday.'
For Hericlitus the Universe is in motion, changing.
Hericlitus to Vico to Joyce.
divinities dissapear as the ordinary and industrial encroached. Now we have a secular epiphany.
In the beginning pages of Joseph Campbell's Mythic Worlds, Modern Words he says of James Joyce's Ulysses: "Ulysses takes place mainly on Thurday--Thor's day, Jeudi, Jove's day; the Day of Thunder--and in the exact middle of the book, a thunderclap wakes Stephen's heart. In Sanskrit, the work for "thunderbolt" (vajra), also signifies "diamond" and connotes transcendent illumination. As the lightning shatters phenomenal forms, so too does transcendent illumination; and as the diamond can be neither cut nor marred, so neither can Illumination by any cut of phenomenal experience."

Dr. Sexson talked about Ulysses, where the book starts on an ordinary day. Buck Mulligan (Stately plump) an atheist is shaving in the morning. Makes fun of communion.
Common, ordinary words are arranged in a certain way to where there is still an epiphany. Also see Ulysses ch. 3.

Dr. Sexson began speaking about Dubliners:
Dubliners - Joyce is showing not telling
phanos is a showing, epiphany
Joyce is finding the divine in the secular/ordinary world.
triviality & trivial conversations are important to Joyce, Joyce Teaches us to listen to what people say.
And with Joyce every single word counts. He spent 16 hours on 6 words.
Joyce is not a naturalist, more a symbolist, and understands that every word operates on the reader.

HW: Find diamonds(small epiphanies) in 'The Dead'...