W. E. A.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19801, 17 May 1934, Page 10

W. E. A.

LITERATURE CLASS ADDRESS BY MR W. J. SCOTT On Monday night Mr W. J. Scott lectured to the W.E.A. Literature and Drama Class on “James Joyce.” Now more than 50. this author, said the lecturer, had been writing for 30 I years, and had published four prose works, “Dubliners.” a collection of short stories, “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young JMan.” an account of the mental growth of Stephen Dedalus. largely autobiographical. “Ulysses.” and “Work in Progress.” which was still in | process of composition, and was being j published in fragments in the periodical "Transition.” These books showed a remarkable change in range and technique, from realistic stories told in the usual direct method to a kind of supersubtlized myth of the future, told in language that only faintly resembled modem English. Joyce had great difficulty in finding a publisher for •Dubliners,” apparently because of some references to King Edward’s character made by some Irish speakers in one of the stories called “Ivy Dayl in Committee Room.” Mr Scott read “Counterparts.” one of the stories in this volume, to illustrate the method of detailed impartial narration chiefly used by the author. “A Portrait,” which consisted of a series of episodes at progressive stages in the life of Stephen Dadalus from very early boyhood till he left the university in search of wider experience, marked a great advance on the previous work in subtlety and completeness of analysis, in the description of feelings and crises in the mental life, and generally in striking control of language. Memorable episodes in it were the painful argument between Mrs Roirdan and Mr Casey about the priests and Parnell, the unjust punishment of Stephen at school by the prefect of studies, his temptations and sins during and after adolescence, and, most remarkable of all, the sermons of the priests at the college retreat. An Epic of City Life. Stephen Dedalus, proceeded Mr Scott, was also one of the three main characters in the great work “Ulysses.’ 1 The other two were Leopold Bloom and his wife Molly, better known in Dublin as the singer, Madame Marion Tweedy. The book was enormously long. and written in a medley of manners, of which the interior monologue, giving the stream of thoughts of a character was the chief. The period of time covered by the story was from 8 a.m on June 16. 1904. to dawn the next day The "hero” of this modern “Odyssey.’ the Ulysses of this twentieth centurj epic of modern city life, was Mr Bloom a middle-aged advertisement canvassei of Jewish birth. Mr Scott then brieflj outlined the chief event of each of th< 18 episodes, the most striking of whicl were Bloom’s attendance at the funera of Paddy Dignan. his political and re ligious quarrel with the citizen in th< bar of Barney Kiernan’s hotel, and M Bloom’s internal monologue of 43 page without punctuation mark of any kind The lecturer mentioned briefly tin treatment “Ulysses” had met with a the hands of customs officials, statins that it was interesting to note th rapid change in attitude which nulli fied such censorship. By a recent de cision of the United States Suprem Court, when the presiding judge de dared that nowhere in Ulysses did h detect the leer of the sensualist, th ban against it had been lifted. Alsc not long ago, a copy of the book, bear ing the title on the outside of th packet, had passed through the Eng lish Customs without any action bein' taken. After a detailed explanation of th reason for Joyce’s use of short, vulga words of great emotive power, and short consideration of the question o intelligibility raised by such works a “Ulysses” and Eliot’s “ Waste Land, the lecturer concluded by referrin briefly to “Work in Progress,” of whic one critic had said: “He deliberatel immerses himself in the fairyland o subconscious chaos and lets his ni mind run amok on paper with th license of a nightmare.”