The irreparable and the imprevidible: fathers and failures at Joyce's family circus

Abstract

This paper reconsiders ideas of the father in Joyce's writing. It does so by examining in detail those ideas as they are elucidated through circus anecdote and imagery. The focus rests decisively on Ulysses (1922), but references to Joyce's earlier writing and to Finnegans Wake (1939) demonstrate the enduring popularity of the circus as image or metaphor for the author. The paper works broadly to contextualise hitherto overlooked circus references within the history of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century popular culture – Joyce is here connected to circus clown Johnny Patterson, music hall star Henry Clifton, and artist Jack B. Yeats. Through this history, it appears that Joyce imitates others in placing male authorities within both actual and invented circus rings to question legitimate influence in local domestic and wider social settings. It moves between these two locations to assess disquieting consequences of imagining political authority within this particular performance space in the fraught period of Irish history from 1904 to 1922.

Keywords::

• James Joyce
• popular entertainment
• paternity
• politics
• Jack B. Yeats

Acknowledgements

My thanks go to Marilynn Richtarik and Lynne Parker for sharing their knowledge of Heavenly Bodies' production history with me in correspondence.

Notes

^1.Joyce, Ulysses, 649.

^2. Ibid., 431.

^3.Joyce, Finnegans Wake, 307.

^4. Ibid., 380–1.

^5.Frost, Circus Life and Circus Celebrity, 119.

^6.Johnny Patterson's Great London Circus Songster, 3.

^7.Bradshaw, “Johnny Patterson,” 75.

^8.Johnny Patterson's Great London Circus Songster, 10.

^9. The Oxford English Dictionary isolates the first recorded use of the usually pejorative term “Oirish” in an article published in March 1862 by the Caledonian Mercury. The dictionary also cites Punch magazine and a phrase (possibly captioning a cartoon) published on 25 November 1865 with: “Besides, Sorr, so many of us poor Oirish have been Emma gratin' lately, that there's sorra a one left” (Oxford English Dictionary, “Oirish,” www.oed.com [accessed July 11, 2014]).

^10.Johnny Patterson's Great London Circus Songster, 49.

^11.Joyce, Stephen Hero, 101.

^12. Ibid.

^13. Ibid., 102.

^14. Ibid., 121.

^15.Joyce, Ulysses, 479.

^16.Davis, Circus Age, 52.

^17.Johnny Patterson's Great London Circus Songster, 20.

^18.Richtarik, Stewart Parker, 292–3.

^19.Parker, Plays 2, 91.

^20.Richtarik, Stewart Parker, 291.

^21. Email correspondence with Marilynn Richtarik, February 10, 2014.

^22.Joyce, Ulysses, 31.

^23.Felstead, Stars Who Made the Halls, 15.

^24.Clifton, “Pulling Hard Against the Stream.”

^25.Bouissac, Semiotics at the Circus, 121.

^26.Deane, Strange Country, 95.

^27.Fairhill, James Joyce, 56.

^28. “John Bull's Famous Circus” is reproduced by John Killen in John Bull's Famous Circus.

^29.Mathews, Revival, 3.

^30.Joyce, Ulysses, 97.

^31.Pearse, “O'Donovan Rossa: Character,” 127.

^32.Pearse, “O'Donovan Rossa: Graveside Panegyric,” 135.

^33. Ibid., 137.

^34.Joyce, Ulysses, 62.

^35.Turner, Historical Hengler's Circus, 5.

^36.Ellmann, Consciousness of Joyce, 76.

^37.Joyce, Ulysses, 62.

^38. Ibid., 95.

^39. Ibid., 86.

^40.Davis, Circus Age, 150.

^41.Joyce, Ulysses, 462, 455.

^42. Ibid., 459.

^43.Ellmann, Consciousness of Joyce, 80.

^44.Joyce, Ulysses, 464.

^45. Ibid., 466.

^46. Ibid., 542.

^47.Ellmann, Consciousness of Joyce, 85.

^48.Davis, Circus Age, 237.

^49.Joyce, Ulysses, 565.

^50.Eagleton, Heathcliff, 317.

^51.Read, “Manual Labour of Performance.”