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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
The importance of music in James Joyce's life and art has always been evident. A volume of his poems he called Chamber Music; the title of his last book is that of an Irish-American ballad. Almost the first recollections of young Stephen Dedalus were musical; and one of the most moving passages of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man describes Stephen's hungry young brothers and sisters singing “Oft in the Stilly Night,” in which Stephen joins. Music plays an essential part in several stories in Dubliners, notably in “The Dead.” Ulysses and Finnegans Wake are full of references to music and musicians.
1 L. A. G. Strong, “James Joyce and Vocal Music,” in Essays and Studies by Members of the English Association, xxxi (1945), collected by V. de S. Pinto (Oxford, 1946), p. 95. See also Stanislaus Joyce, Recollections of James Joyce (New York, 1950), p. 15.
2 See Vernon Hall, Jr., “Joyce's Use of Da Ponte and Mozart's Don Giovanni,” PMLA, LXVI (Mar. 1951), 78–84.
3 The Sacred River (New York, 1951), Ch. iii.
4 “James Joyce and Vocal Music,” p. 104.
5 “Notes on Joyce's Ulysses,” MLQ, xni (June 1952), 149–162; “Local Allusions in Joyce's Ulysses,” PMLA, lxviii (Dec. 1953), 1223–28; “A Song in Joyce's Ulysses,” N&Q, clxxxxvii (5 Jan. 1952), 15–16.
6 All references to Ulysses are to the Modern Library edition.
7 The Popular Songs of Ireland (London: Colburn, 1839), pp. 175–179.
8 Washington Irving's essay “The Broken Heart,” in The Sketch Book, is about Sara.
9 “Joyce's Ulysses, xvi,” Explicator, xii, 25 (Feb. 1954); “Joyce's Ulysses, xvi,” Explicates, xiii, 20 (Dec. 1954).
