James Joyce: Ulysses

The Linati Schema

http://www.friederikebuchholtz.de/ulschemalin.html

This schema was drawn up by Joyce around 1920 and sent to Carlo Linati, a friend and translator into Italian of Joyce’s Exiles, for his personal use, though Joyce soon found himself being badgered by many others who had heard of the plan’s existence. In his letter of September 21, 1920 enclosing the plan, Joyce wrote to Linati:

As to Mr Dessy’s suggestion I think that in view of the enormous bulk and the more than enormous complexity of my damned monster-novel it would be better to send him a sort of summary - key - skeleton - scheme (for home use only)... I have given only «Schlagworte» [catchwords] in my scheme but I think you will understand it all the same. It is the epic of two races (Israel-Ireland) and at the same time the cycle of the human body as well as a little story of a day (life). The character of Ulysses has fascinated me ever since boyhood. I started writing a short story for Dubliners fifteen years ago but gave it up. For seven years I have been working at this book - blast it! It is also a kind of encyclopaedia. My intention is not only to render the myth sub specie temporis nostri [in the light of our own times] but also to allow each adventure (that is, every hour, every organ, every art being interconnected and interrelated in the somatic scheme of the whole) to condition and even to create its own technique. Each adventure is so to speak one person although it is composed of persons - as Aquinas relates of the heavenly hosts.

James Joyce, Selected Letters, ed. Richard Ellmann (London: Faber and Faber, 1975), p. 271.

 

Chapter

Title

Time

Colour

People

Science/Art

Meaning

Technic

Organ

Symbol

1

 

Telemachus

8am - 9am

Gold, White

Telemachus, The Mentor, Antinous, The Suitors, Penelope

Theology

Dispossessed son in contest

Dialogue for three and four, narration, soliloquy

Hamlet, Ireland, Stephen

2

 

Nestor

9am - 10am

Brown

Telemachus, Nestor, Pisistratus, Helen

History

The wisdom of the ancients

Dialogue for 2, narration, soliloquy

Ulster, woman, practical sense

3

 

Proteus

10am - 11am

Blue

Telemachus, Proteus, Menelaus, Helen, Megapenthes

Philology

Primal Matter

Soliloquy

World, tide, Moon, evolution, metamorphosis

4

 

Calypso

8 am - 9 am

Orange

Calypso, Penelope, Ulysses, Callidike

Mythology

The departing wayfarer

Dialogue for 2, soliloquy

Kidneys

Vagina, exile, nymph, Israel in captivity

5

 

Lotus-Eaters

9 am - 10 am

Dark brown

Euryloches, Polites, Ulysses, Nausicaa

Chemistry

The temptation of faith

Dialogue, prayer, soliloquy

Skin

Host, penis in the bath, froth, flower, drugs, castration, oats

6

 

Hades

11 am - 12 pm

Black, White

Ulysses, Elpenor, Ajax, Agamemnon, Hercules, Eriphyle, Sisyphus, Orion, Laertes etc. Prometheus, Cerberus, Tiresais, Hades, Proserpina, Telemachus, Antinous

The descent into nothingness

Dialogue, narration

Heart

Cemetry, sacred heart, the past, the unknown man, the unconscious, heart defect, relics, heartbreak

7

 

Aeolus

12 pm - 1 pm

Red

Aeolus, Sons, Telemachus, Mentor, Ulysses

Rhetoric

The Derision of victory

Simbouleutike, dikanike, epideictic, tropes

Lungs

Machines, wind, fame, kite, failed destinies, the press, mutability

8

 

Lestrygonians

1 pm - 2 pm

Blood red

Antiphates, The seductive daughter, Ulysses

Architecture

Depondency

Peristaltic prose

Oesophagus

Bloody sacrifice, food, shame

9

 

Scylla and Charybdis

2 pm - 3 pm

Scylla, Charbydis, Telemachus, Ulysses, Antinous

Literature

The double-edge sword

Whirlpools

Brain

Hamlet, Shakespeare, Christ, Socrates, London, Stratford, scholasticism, mysticism, Plato, Aristotle, youth, maturity

10

 

Wandering Rocks

3 pm - 4 pm

Rainbow

Objects, Places, Forces, Ulysses

Mechanics

The hostile milieu

Shifting labyrinth between two shores

Blood

Caesar, Christ, errors, homonyms, synchronisms, resemblances

11

 

Sirens

4 pm - 5 pm

Coral

Leucothea, Parthenope, Ulysses, Orpheus, Menelaus, Argonauts

Music

The sweet deceit

Fuga per canonem

Ear

Promises, female, sounds, embellishments

12

 

Cyclops

5 pm - 6 pm

Green

Prometheus, Noman, Galatea, Ulysses

Surgery

Egocidal terror/P>

Alternating asymmetry

Muscles, bones

Nation, state, religion, dynasty, idealism, exaggeration, fanaticism, collectivity

13

 

Nausicaa

8 pm - 9 pm

Grey

Nausicaa, Handmaidens, Alcinous, Arete, Ulysses

Painting

The projected mirage

Retrogressive progression

Eye, Nose

Onanism, feminine, hypocrisy

14

 

Oxen of the Sun

10 pm - 11 pm

White

Lampetie, Phaethusa, Helios Hyperion, Jove, Ulysses

Physics

The eternal herds

Prose, embryo, foetus, birth

Matrix, uterus

Fertilisation, frauds, parthenogenesis

15

 

Circe

11 pm - 12 am

Violet

Circe, The Swine, Telemachus, Ulysses, Hermes

Dance

The man-hating ogress

Exploding vision

Locomotor apparatus, skeleton

Zoology, personification, pantheism, magic, poison, antidote, reel

16

 

Eumaeus

12 am - 1 am

Eumaeus, Ulysses, Telemachus, The Bad Goatherd, Pseudangelos

The ambush on home ground

Relaxed prose

Nerves

17

 

Ithaca

1 am - 2 am

Ulysses, Telemachus, Eurycleia, The suitors

Armed hope

Dialogue, pacified style, fusion

Juices

18

 

Penelope

Ulysses, Laertes, Penelope

The past sleeps

Monologue, resigned style

Fat