Erwin R. Steinberg (Professor of English and Rhetoric, Carnegie Mellon University 1946-2007) was a Visiting Scholar at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences for 1970-71. He used the year to develop his Ph.D. dissertation into a book, The Stream of Consciousness and beyond in Ulysses. Portions of the dissertation had previously been published in professional literary journals and collected Joyce studies. He cites the Center for the “ideal conditions for completing this book”. Steinberg spent his academic career, spanning over sixty years, at Carnegie-Mellon University in quite a remarkable fashion. At that reknowned institution of technological learning and research, Prof. Steinberg developed the first program in Technological Writing and Editing (B.S.) in the United States, both at the undergraduate and graduate levels. He also revised and developed undergraduate education to be as excellent as the graduate programs at Carnegie Mellon, becoming CMU’s first Dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. Later he also became CMU’s first vice provost for education. In the midst of those endeavors, which must have been difficult, he produced this book, a gem of intellectual scholarship and literary analysis.
Steinberg employs word analysis in a number of ways in this book about James Joyce’s Ulysses that are illustrative of Joyce’s mastery. In a time before machines could count anything almost instantly , Steinberg developed tables of such literary categories as comparing lengths of words, derivations from other languages, content of words, references to self and others, types of slang (including slang from the 17th century) and other comparisons among the primary characters of Stephen Daedelus, Leopold Bloom and Molly Bloom. These tables and his analyses of them, dramatically demonstrate Joyce’s powers with literary expression. He then applies these analyses to Joyce’s use of the technique called “stream of consciousness”. Steinberg discusses the ways in which Joyce introduces the reader to stream of consciousness in the characters of Stephen and Bloom. Joyce does not thrust the reader directly into this technique, but leads us with direct author’s statements, a type of “stage direction” as Steinberg says. Then Steinberg looks more carefully at the content of the streams of consciousness. For example, he notes that “images of decay and the grotesque in Stephen’s stream of consciousness communicates to [the reader] Stephen’s own uneasiness and fears” (p.195) thereby helping to delineate his character.
Steinberg uses wide-ranging psychological and psychiatric research to look at aspects of Joyce’s character development from William James’ coinage of the term stream of consciousnes s to Helene Deutsch’s work on women in discussing Molly’s long and unspoken stream of consciousness . He also refers to Joyce’s knowledge of both Freud and Jung and their impact on his understanding of the human mind, although he does not explicitly say what that influence was. Steinberg discusses many of the controversial critiques of Joyce’s work, which range from dictionaries of the neologisms and their meanings (not necessarily correct) to broad theories about the influence of Aristotle on Joyce in the character of Stephen and the debates over Joyce’s relationship to religion. He refers to Joyce’s constant awareness and use of irony, which can call into question the often-concrete explanations of his neologisms by various scholars. Steinberg emphasizes the necessity of working directly with Joyce’s text. Discussing the many interpretations of the character of Molly and the intentions of the author, Steinberg says: “To suggest that a particular interpretation is inadequate because Joyce intended something else, therefore…is simply wrong. What Joyce said about her is interesting and potentially helpful; what the other characters in the novel say and think about her is more directly relevant ; but her own thoughts, given to us at some length, are the primary evidence by which we must judge her. Then, if we wish, we can judge how well Joyce accomplished what he tried to do” (Steinberg, p.220-221). Steinberg demonstrates this staying close to the text throughout his work.
The final chapters of the book are a useful and delightful summary of aesthetics of the time, both in the arts and science. Steinberg gives us references to literary theorists, such as Leon Edel, who have written about the development of stream of consciousness techniques, simultaneity of words and images and other foci on the uses of point of view in the novels of the time. Likewise, artists and writers such as Gauguin, Seurat, Appolinaire , Clive Bell and Sergei Eisenstein debated such ideas as montage as greater than a combination, images and sounds occurring together, as Joyce does often while using words to portray the simultaneity. Steinberg points out the development of Joyce’s use of language for simultaneity in Ulysses, saying that early in the novel, Joyce uses onomatopoeia : “the incoming sea makes a ‘forwarded wave speech – seesoo, hrss, rsseeiss ooos.(50/20)..’” . As the novel develops, his experiments become more complicated than onomatopoeia, as in “croak of vast manless moonless womoonless marsh” (238/22). Joyce’s work also abounds in puns and sound correspondences as in his parody of the Apostles Creed: “They believe in rod, the scourger almighty, creator of hell upon earth, and in Jacky Tar, the son of a gun, who was conceived of unholy boast (323/32)”.
Joyce’s work was enthusiastically received by the Dadaist movement, begun in Zurich in 1916, especially by artists such as Marcel Duchamps , a master punner with his nom de plume of Rrose Selavy (eros c’est la vie). Steinberg makes the point that Joyce “put into practice many of the ideas and principles that were exciting artists and other writers of the same Period, especially in Paris.” (p. 294) Finally, in his last paragraph, Steinberg ends by saying: “ Ultimately, therefore, the literary scholar and critic can only describe Joyce’s aesthetic odyssey; he cannot explain it.” (p. 298)
It is a fitting end to a fine and respectful work.
References
Steinberg, Erwin R. The Stream of Consciousness and Beyond in Ulysses. 1958, 1973. U. of Pittsburgh Press. London. Media Directions Incorporated.
References in this essay are to Steinberg’s book, and to the Ulysses page and line numbers that Steinberg acknowledges to Random House Inc. and The Bodley Head.
Julia Johnson Rothenberg Ph.D.
Visiting Scholar 2013-14
Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences
Stanford University
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