Ulysses from Homer to Derek Walcott Keen
A sort of summary/key/skeleton/scheme (for home use only)
Why do we name the chapters of Ulysses
after episodes in Homer? In 1920, Joyce sent an outline of
parallels with Homer's Odyssey to his Italian translator.
Joyce wrote:
I think that in view of the enormous bulk and the more than
enormous complexity of my damned monster-novel it would be better
to send him a sort of summary/key/skeleton/scheme (for home use
only) . . . . It is the epic of two races (Israel-Ireland) and at
the same time the cycle of the human body as well as a little
story of a day (life). The character of Ulysses has fascinated me
ever since boyhood. . .My intention is not only to render the
myth sub specie temporis nostri [according to its
appearance in our time] but also to allow each adventure (that
is, every hour, every organ, every art being interconnected and
interrelated in the somatic scheme of the whole) to condition and
even to create its own technique (Joyce Selected Letters
271).
I. Telemachiad
1. Telemachus
2. Nestor
3. Proteus
II. The Wanderings of Odysseus
4.Calypso
5. Lotus-Eaters
6. Hades
7. Aeolus
8. Lestrygonians
9. Scylla and Charybdis
10. Wandering Rocks
11. Sirens
12. Cyclops
13. Nausicaa
14. Oxen of the Sun
15. Circe
III. Nostos
16. Eumaeus
17. Ithaca
18. Penelope