I haven’t decided if I will attend this event, but if you are interested details are here. June 2nd through 6th. There will be a staging of George Fitzmaurice’s The Magic Glasses I’d like to see.
I will be presenting a paper at the 2010 Joyce Symposium in Prague. It should be a fun time. If you would like to attend the link to the conference home page is here. Here’s a brief synopsis of my paper:
Milk is a particularly useful topic to consider when examining Edwardian culture and cultural change in Ireland. As a common food item undergoing a transformation from local production to mass-production milk carries with it implications of class. As the staple of infants, milk is intimately related to cultural norms and societal attitudes regarding poverty, child rearing, motherhood, and the lot of women in society. Milk, as an agrarian product long associated with Ireland, carries with it implications of nationalism and historical symbolism that are exposed in the thoughts of Joyce’s characters.
Through milk imagery Joyce further indicates fine intra-class distinctions within the colonial Dublin middle class of Ulysses. Dublin was slow to benefit from the scientific advancements spearheaded in Europe at this time and Joyce exploits this fact. In subsequent decades many of these class markers disappeared from the developed world. A close study of Ulysses in light of milk imagery reveals these telling indicators of class that are now nearly forgotten.
I’m quite fond of the play “The Old Lady Says No!” by Denis Johnston, in which the main character, Robert Emmet, gets into an argument with the statue of Henry Grattan on College Green (amongst other odd things). This is not that statue; the statue in the play can be seen at this excellent post.
Anyway, this is the image of Grattan I have in my mind when reading the play. Located in Merrion Square, Dublin.
I absolutely love the site at the link below. It features period artwork and photography organized around the text of James Joyce’s Ulysses. Hours of fun. I only wish the images were bigger.
Not a statue, but W.B Yeats grave marker. In Drumcliff, County Sligo.
Another poet. I don’t know how well James Mangan (later James Clarence Mangan) is known outside of Ireland. This statue is on St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin.
It’s not every writer who gets a statue. Here’s a picture of one. Located in Merrion Square, Dublin, Ireland.
And here’s another statue of a writer, and one of my favorites (writer and statue). I’ve logged some seat time on that bench. It’s located on the bank of the Grand Canal in Dublin, Ireland.
