Chapter 9, line 412 (Gabler edition): "Mummed in names: A.E., eon..." A curiosity to show? Coincidence?

-- Lee (red_halcyon@hotmail.com), February 27, 2002

Answers

This is interesting, but I am not that well versed in Ulysses, especially Gabler's edition. Would it be borrowed, what was the reference relating to?

-- Barb e. (Suesuesbeo9@cs.com), April 09, 2002.

The "speaker" (thinker is more accurate a term) here is Stephen Dedalus, who is in the midst of entertaining a few of Dublin's literati, one of whom is George Russell who wrote poetry under the pseudonym AE. Mind you, George Russell was an actual poet. Now, how Russell chose AE involves some boring coincidences involving the word "aeon," not worth typing out, but Russell was an occultist, and so "aeon" had significance to him. A definition of it: "Aeon: (1) In Gnosticism, an emanation from Deity, and the medium of expression" (Don Gifford, "Ulysses Annotated" revised and expanded edition, p. 199). Now, if I can find the word "flux" in the book, I might actually have something.

-- Lee (red_halcyon@hotmail.com), April 10, 2002.

Hmmm. That's a really interesting definition of Aeon. It lends a whole new interpretation to the Demiurge episode. I also like the idea of Aeon as some kind of eternal cosmic force rather than a mere human. (That would explain why she keeps dying and coming back).

-- Logo (Vosepherus@aol.com), April 10, 2002.

(That would explain why she keeps dying and coming back).

Ulysses offers another word for this phenomenon: metempsychosis. I say, you can find just about everything in these pages.

-- Lee (red_halcyon@hotmail.com), April 12, 2002.

Well, normal human souls would undergo metempscyhosis, but an "emanation from Deity" would never have a real body to begin with. Whenever Aeon dies she comes back as Aeon not as someone or something else.

-- Logo (Vosepherus@aol.com), April 12, 2002.