Acting the Prince : Giacomo Joyce and Hamlet

Between November 1912 and February 1913, Joyce gave a series of 12 lectures on Hamletat the Università del Popolo, Trieste. Although these lectures are now lost, his extensive surviving notes suggest that the play was very much in his mind when he came to write Giacomo Joyce in 1914. Giacomo Joycesketches the obsession of an English teacher (who may or may not be entirely Joyce) for an unnamed female student in Trieste. Full of literary and, especially, theatrical allusions, Joyce’s last published work draws us into a search for the theatrical within the narrative as the nature of the protagonist’s relationship with his girl student is explored through juxtaposition with a range of allusions from the world stage. No textual “ghosts in the mirror”, however, are reflected more significantly in Giacomo Joyce than Hamlet. This article argues that Shakespeare not only provides Joyce with distorted verbal echoes and parallel events, but actually furnishes an underlying structure for Giacomo Joyce as a whole, through the Elizabethan 5 act structure. This structural adoption of a classic text to examine contemporary experience can be seen as paving the way for Ulysses, which had been in preparation for some time and on which Joyce was about to embark.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

“The Talk Became Theatrical”: Dubliners on Tour in Portugal

Balloonatics Theatre Company, celebrating their 30th anniversary in2014, have specialised in adaptations of literary texts, especially those by Joyce, for the theatre since 1984. In the summer of 2014, Culture Ireland offered them the opportunity of performing two stories from Dubliners to help commemorate the 100th anniversary of the publication of Joyce’s work. Balloonatics, took “The Boarding House” and “Counterparts”, written in Trieste during the “torrid” summer in 1905, to three university cities in Portugal: Lisbon, Oporto and Braga. It seemed appropriate to stage these stories in Portugal, with the approaching summer heat at the end of June possibly reflecting something of the atmosphere in which they were first conceived. This article frames theprocess of Balloonatics’ approach to and dramatisation of the texts within a discussion of the theatrical line in Joyce’s life and career, locating the roots of Dubliners’ use of the theatrical in Joyce’s earlier writings

“Telemachising” the Poor Old Woman: Cathleen ni Houlihan “Restaged” at the Martello Tower

In 1904, Joyce launched his satirical broadside, “The Holy Office”, attacking the members of the Abbey Theatre. For the young Joyce, it appeared “that mumming company”, run by Yeats and Lady Gregory, had “surrendered to the popular will”. He craved to show how he had broken away from what he considered the folksy, pseudo Irishness of “gold-embroidered Celtic fringes” and those who in their “foolishness .  .  . sigh back for the good old times” (Occasional, Critical, and Political Writings 28) – times encapsulated, for him, in Cathleen ni Houlihan. Despite telling us that “Cathleen was received with rapturous applause”, Stanislaus Joyce stresses the fact that his brother “was scornful and indignant that Yeats should write such political and dramatic claptrap” (My Brother’s Keeper 187). In “Telemachus”, the more mature Joyce took the opportunity to put his art at the service of his taste for personal and literary revenge through incorporating a brief, parodic take on Yeats and Gregory’ play through the scene with the milk woman. By setting “Cathleen” before his “cracked lookingglass” (Ulysses 6), he was able not only to explore an ironic echo of various tensions between the colonised Irish and the colonising Englishman, but also to ridicule the romanticised view of Ireland presented by much Celtic Revival writing – including drama – at the time Ulysses was set, and that would extend well beyond the time in which it was written and published.Em 1904, Joyce publicou “The Holy Office”, em que atacava os membros do Abbey Theatre. Para o jovem Joyce, parecia que “aquela companhia de saltimbancos”, administrada por Yeats e Lady Gregory, tinha “se rendido à vontade do populacho”. Seu desejo era mostrar que tinha se libertado daquilo que considerava ser a identidade pseudo-irlandesa, popularesca, das “franjas celtas bordadas a ouro” e daqueles que em sua “tolice . . . suspiram de saudade dos velhos tempos” (Occasional, Critical and Political Writings 28) — tempos que, para ele, ficavam perfeitamente representados em Cathleen ni Houlihan. Apesar de nos informar que “Cathleen . . . foi recebida por uma verdadeira ovação”, Stanislaus Joyce deixa bem claro que seu irmão “achou ridículo e revoltante Yeats ter escrito uma bobagem política e dramática como aquela” (My Brother’s Keeper 187). Em “Telêmaco”, um Joyce já mais maduro aproveitou para colocar seu gosto por vinganças pessoais e literárias a serviço de sua arte ao incorporar uma breve paródia da peça de Yeats e Gregory em sua cena com a leiteira. Ao colocar “Cathleen” diante de seu “espelho rachado” (Ulysses 6), ele conseguiu explorar um eco irônico de várias tensões entre os irlandeses colonizados e os colonizadores ingleses, mas também rir da visão romantizada da Irlanda que era apresentada por boa parte dos textos do Renascimento Celta – também no teatro – no momento em que se passava a ação do Ulysses, e que acabaria por se estender muito além da época em que o livro foi escrito e publicado

Between Antagonism and Eros: The Feud as Couple Form and Netflix’s GLOW

A feud is an antagonism that is continuous and extended; “a state of prolonged mutual hostility” (OED). Historically, feuds take place between families or communities, or result from failed couples. Considered as a couple form in its own right, however, the feud is associated with aesthetic forms often coded as camp, queer, or feminized. In such popular, serialized forms, the feud must be open ended and of unforeseen futurity, for resolution brings an end to the feud as such and dissolves the couple. Thus, feuds reject normative modes of coupling (such as the nuclear family) that center harmonious or happy feelings. The article begins with the political economy of the feud through an examination of the pre-modern form of the blood feud and continues with its late-modern presence in popular culture. We rehearse the idea of the feud as it emerges from anthropology and philosophy, especially as it impacts notions of debt and alternative economies, before thinking through the contemporary “coupling” of the feud in popular culture, fandom, and, via the performance form of professional wrestling and Netflix’s GLOW