Before daybreak : "After the Race" and the origins of Joyce's art

346 Pages·2012·3.798 MB·English

by  Joyce, James, Knowles, Sebastian David Guy, Joyce, James, Owens, Cóilín

Before Daybreak
Th e Florida James Joyce Series
University Press of Florida
Florida A&M University, Tallahassee
Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton
Florida Gulf Coast University, Ft. Myers
Florida International University, Miami
Florida State University, Tallahassee
New College of Florida, Sarasota
University of Central Florida, Orlando
University of Florida, Gainesville
University of North Florida, Jacksonville
University of South Florida, Tampa
University of West Florida, Pensacola

Cóilín Owens
Before Daybreak
“Aft er the Race” and the Origins of Joyce’s Art
Foreword by Sebastian D. G. Knowles, Series Editor
University Press of Florida
Gainesville · Tallahassee · Tampa · Boca Raton
Pensacola · Orlando · Miami · Jacksonville · Ft. Myers · Sarasota
Frontispiece: “Sandycove at Dawn with Joyce Tower.” Photograph by Patrick Naughton,
June 15, 2010.
Copyright 2013 by Cóilín Owens
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America. Th is book is printed on Glatfelter Natures Book,
a paper certifi ed under the standards of the Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC). It is a
recycled stock that contains 30 percent post-consumer waste and is acid-free.
18 17 16 15 14 13 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Owens, Cóilín.
Before daybreak : “Aft er the Race” and the origins of Joyce’s art / Coilin Owens ; foreword
by Sebastian D. G. Knowles.
p. cm. — (Th e Florida James Joyce series)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8130-4247-3 (alk. paper)
1. Joyce, James, 1882–1941—Criticism and interpretation. 2. Joyce, James, 1882–1941.
Dubliners. I. Knowles, Sebastian D. G. (Sebastian David Guy) II. Title. III. Title: Aft er
the race. IV. Series: Florida James Joyce series.
PR6019.O9Z7474 2012
823’.912—dc23 2012031975
Th e University Press of Florida is the scholarly publishing agency for the State University
System of Florida, comprising Florida A&M University, Florida Atlantic University,
Florida Gulf Coast University, Florida International University, Florida State University,
New College of Florida, University of Central Florida, University of Florida, University
of North Florida, University of South Florida, and University of West Florida.
University Press of Florida
15 Northwest 15th Street
Gainesville, FL 32611-2079
http://www.upf.com
I ndíl-chuimhne ar m’athair, Séamus Mac Eoghain (1913–1981):
“In iothlainn Dé go dtugtar sinn.”
[T]he modern mind . . . is interested above all in subtleties, equivocations
and the subterranean complexities which dominate the average man and
compose his life.
—to Arthur Power, Conversations with James Joyce
Contents
List of Figures xi
Foreword xiii
Preface and Acknowledgments xv
List of Abbreviations xxiii
1. Introduction 1
2. Th e Automobile Age 12
3. Th e Biographical Crisis 50
4. Arthur Griffi th and the Great Game 94
5. Robert Emmet Centennial 142
6. Rhetoric—Modern and Classical 178
7. Th e Infernal 226
8. Conclusion 267
Appendix: Schema for “Aft er the Race” 273
Notes 277
Bibliography 299
Index 307
Figures
1.1. Joyce in an automobile 4
1.2. Our Weekly Story: “Aft er the Race,” by Stephen Daedalus 5
2.1. King Edward VII, a royal automobilist 27
2.2. Camille Jenatzy as the Red Devil 32
3.1. Kingstown Harbour, ca. 1900 76
3.2. Arnold Dolmetsch concert program 86
5.1. M. O’Healy cartoon 148
5.2. Map of route taken by Jimmy Doyle and guests 154
5.3. Th e 1798 centennial poster 163
5.4. Freeman’s Journal masthead: “Ireland a Nation” 167
5.5. Fenian sunburst device 175
Foreword
“Aft er the Race” is, aft er “Eveline,” the second shortest story in Dublin-
ers, and generally taken to be the slightest. What Cóilín Owens has done
is more than rehabilitate this minor story: he has revived the far more
important question of Joyce’s origins as an artist. A Portrait of the Artist
as a Young Man never really told us anything about how Joyce learned to
become the genius that he was. In Before Daybreak, Owens shows us how
Joyce took the clay of his material life, whether biographical, philosophi-
cal, religious, literary, cultural, technological, or political, and learned to
sculpt. Th rough gloriously close readings of the world of Dublin at the
time of the Gordon Bennett Cup Race in 1903, we are given a window into
Joyce’s creative process, and into Ireland’s promise of a new dawn. It is not
for nothing that the last line of “Aft er the Race” is “Daybreak, gentlemen!”
“Aft er the Race” is an ur-story, a bronze spearhead in the sand, and
Cóilín Owens is our Schliemann, an archaeologist carefully brushing off
the dust to reveal a work of telling signifi cance, of proto-Joycean capabili-
ties. With the bravura of Monsieur Dupin in “Th e Purloined Letter,” he
shows us that this nexus of Joycean eff ects has been hiding in plain sight,
skipped by generations of critics as a subpar eff ort on the way to “Two
Gallants.” He shows us the crucial intersection of the racecourse with the
sites with the life and death of Robert Emmet; he tracks the automobil-
ists’ wild career over the historical scenes of Irish paralysis; he shows us
the implications of the Pauline close to Emmet’s famous speech (“I have
done”); he displays how the text’s obsessive doubling makes it truly a work
of “Doublends Jined” (FW 20.16); he hears a theosophist hum in the silent
ministrations of Villona; and he leads Jimmy Doyle through a Dantean
inferno, bringing us out of darkness to admire the stars.
Th rough this “toptypsical reading” (FW 20.15) of “Aft er the Race” and
its aft erlife in Ulysses and Finnegans Wake, we are shown the rest of the