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Gilbert schema for Ulysses

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This schema for the novel Ulysses was produced by its author, James Joyce, in November 1921 in order to help his friend, Valery Larbaud, prepare a public lecture on the novel, which Joyce was still writing at the time. The lecture took place on 7 December 1921 at the Maison des Amis des Livres bookshop and lending library, owned and run by Adrienne Monnier. The schema was shown to intimates of Joyce during the 1920s and was eventually published by Stuart Gilbert in 1930 in his book, James Joyce’s “Ulysses”: A Study.[1] Gilbert’s typed copy of the schema is housed in the Harley K. Croessmann Collection of James Joyce at Southern Illinois University Carbondale.

Title Scene Hour Organ Colour Symbol Art Technic
Telemachus The Tower 8am - White / gold Heir Theology Narrative (young)
Nestor The School 10am - Brown Horse History Catechism (personal)
Proteus The Strand 11am - Green Tide Philology Monologue (male)
Calypso The House 8am Kidney Orange Nymph Economics Narrative (mature)
Lotus Eaters The Bath 10am Genitals - Eucharist Botany / chemistry Narcissism
Hades The Graveyard 11am Heart White / black Caretaker Religion Incubism
Aeolus The Newspaper 12 noon Lungs Red Editor Rhetoric Enthymemic
Lestrygonians The Lunch 1pm Oesophagus - Constables Architecture Peristaltic
Scylla and Charybdis The Library 2pm Brain - Stratford / London Literature Dialectic
Wandering Rocks The Streets 3pm Blood - Citizens Mechanics Labyrinth
Sirens The Concert Room 4pm Ear - Barmaids Music Fuga per canonem[a]
Cyclops The Tavern 5pm Muscle - Fenian Politics Gigantism
Nausicaa The Rocks 8pm Eye, nose Grey / blue Virgin Painting Tumescence / detumescence
Oxen of the Sun The Hospital 10pm Womb White Mothers Medicine Embryonic development
Circe The Brothel 12am Locomotor apparatus - Whore Magic Hallucination
Eumaeus The Shelter 1am Nerves - Sailors Navigation Narrative (old)
Ithaca The House 2am Skeleton - Comets Science Catechism (impersonal)
Penelope The Bed - Flesh - Earth - Monologue (female)

See also

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Notes

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a. ^ Fuga per canonem: Latin for "fugue according to rule", a musical term for a round.

References

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  1. ^ Gilbert, Stuart (1952). James Joyce's Ulysses: A Study (2 ed.). Knopf. p. 30.