６月16日についての世界的名作は
Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A yellow dressinggown, ungirdled, was sustained gently behind him on the mild morning air. He held the bowl aloft and intoned:
―Introibo ad altare Dei.
Halted, he peered down the dark winding stairs and called out coarsely:
―Come up, Kinch! Come up, you fearful jesuit!
Solemnly he came forward and mounted the round gunrest. He faced about and blessed gravely thrice the tower, the surrounding land and the awaking mountains. Then, catching sight of Stephen Dedalus, he bent towards him and made rapid crosses in the air, gurgling in his throat and shaking his head. Stephen Dedalus, displeased and sleepy, leaned his arms on the top of the staircase and looked coldly at the shaking gurgling face that blessed him, equine in its length, and at the light untonsured hair, grained and hued like pale oak.
といった書き出しで始まります。
Ulysses is a novel by the Irish author James Joyce, first serialised in parts in the American journal The Little Review from March 1918 to December 1920, then published in its entirety by Sylvia Beach on 2 February 1922, in Paris. One of the most important works of Modernist literature, it has been called "a demonstration and summation of the entire movement".
Ulysses chronicles the passage of Leopold Bloom through Dublin during an ordinary day, 16 June 1904 (the day of Joyce's first date with his future wife, Nora Barnacle). The title alludes to Odysseus (Latinised into Ulysses), the hero of Homer's Odyssey, and establishes a series of parallels between characters and events in Homer's poem and Joyce's novel (e.g., the correspondences between Leopold Bloom and Odysseus, Molly Bloom and Penelope, and Stephen Dedalus and Telemachus). Joyce fans worldwide now celebrate 16 June as Bloomsday.
Ulysses contains approximately 265,000 words from a lexicon of 30,030 words (including proper names, plurals and various verb tenses), divided into eighteen episodes. Since publication, the book attracted controversy and scrutiny, ranging from early obscenity trials to protracted textual "Joyce Wars." Ulysses' stream-of-consciousness technique, careful structuring, and experimental prose―full of puns, parodies, and allusions, as well as its rich characterisations and broad humour, made the book a highly regarded novel in the Modernist pantheon. In 1999, the Modern Library ranked Ulysses first on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century.(日本でも「２０世紀の十大小説」[篠田一士]の１つと考えられています。)
本日ブルームの日に Gibraltar のポロ/襤褸《ぼろ》を着た Ernesto Mr. T の独白
Ulyssesのヒロイン Molly Bloom は(イベリア半島の南東端に位置し、18世紀初頭のスペイン継承戦争を機に英国の領地、英国軍の駐屯地となった) *Gibraltar 出身で、彼女の父親の Brian Tweedy はアイルランド人、母親の Lunita Laredo は現地のユダヤ人娼婦です。当時の Gibraltar を知る一般向けの手掛かりとしては旅行ガイドブック程度しかなく、Joyce は主に Field による Gibraltar (1893) から風土的知識を得たと言われています。また、Molly の両親のモデルとして考えられている作品として Vicente Blasco Ibañez の小説 Luna Benamor (1909) があります。上記の資料や小説を使って、Joyce は旅行したこともない Gibraltar を(そして駐屯地の組織の中で英国軍人の娘としての自意識を持ちながらも英国人になりきれない Molly の自己実現の限界を、Ulysses [ベッドでの]第18挿話の中で幾度となく)描くことで、何を表現したかったのでしょうか。
[ * <http://ernesto-mr-t.blogspot.jp/2012/05/gibraltar.html> 及び <http://ernesto-mr-t.blogspot.jp/2012/06/gibraltar-existe-para-los-espanoles-y.html> ]
[ * <http://ernesto-mr-t.blogspot.jp/2012/05/gibraltar.html> 及び <http://ernesto-mr-t.blogspot.jp/2012/06/gibraltar-existe-para-los-espanoles-y.html> ]
... and the poor donkeys slipping half asleep and the vague fellows in the cloaks asleep in the shade on the steps and the big wheels of the carts of the bulls and the old castle thousands of years old yes and those handsome Moors all in white and turbans like kings asking you to sit down in their little bit of a shop and and Ronda with the old windows of the posadas 2 glancing eyes a lattice hid for her lover to kiss the iron and the wineshops half open at night and the castanets and the night we missed the boat at Algeciras the watchman going about serene with his lamp and O that awful deepdown torrent O and the sea the sea crimson sometimes like fire and the glorious sunsets and the figtrees in the Alameda gardens yes and all the queer little streets and the pink and blue and yellow houses and the rosegardens and the jessamine and geraniums and cactuses and Gibraltar as a girl where I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.
El Bloomsday es un evento anual que se celebra en honor a Leopold Bloom, personaje principal de la novela Ulises de James Joyce. Se celebra todos los días 16 de junio desde 1954.
El 16 de junio es el día en el que transcurre la acción -ficticia- del Ulises. Este día los celebrantes procuran comer y cenar lo mismo que los protagonistas de la obra, o realizar distintos actos que tengan su paralelismo en la novela. Especialmente se realizan encuentros en Dublín para seguir el itinerario exacto de la acción.
A mi amiga vallisoletana Nieves le gusta mucho leer Ulysses.
