Dramatised recording of James Joyce's 'Ulysses' – Episode 1, Telemachus.
(Usage permission kindly granted by the copyright holder – RTÉ Radio.)

Episode 1 – Telemachus synopsis by Gerry O'Flaherty:

The action of 'Ulysses' opens at 8 am on 16 June 1904 in the Martello tower in Sandycove (now known as the Joyce Tower), which is about 14 kilometres south of Dublin's city centre.

Three young men are living there — Stephen Dedalus, a moody poet who returned some months previously from a stay in Paris; Buck Mulligan, a witty medical student and friend of Stephen; and Haines, an English friend of Mulligan at Oxford and an Irish language enthusiast.
Mailboat clearing the harbour.

Mulligan is shaving and is joined by Stephen whom he reproves for his failure to comply with his dying mother's wishes. Stephen already feels guilty about this. While they are at breakfast, which Mulligan has prepared, an old woman delivers milk. Mulligan then decides to go for a swim and all three leave the Tower.

On the way to the bathing place Haines and Stephen talk about Stephen's theory of Hamlet. Before Stephen leaves to teach at a nearby school Mulligan asks him for two pence for a pint and the key to the tower. Stephen wonders if he will be welcome to stay there much longer, even though it was he who paid the rent.

In the Homeric correspondence, Telemachus, in the absence of his father Odysseus, sees his wealth being usurped by others just as Mulligan and Haines are taking over the tower from Stephen.

Ulysses – Episode 1 Telemachus

Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here

The second song of my song cycle, Pomes Penyeach set to poetry by James Joyce. The recording is from the premiere performance at Limerick's Lime Tree Theatre, given by soprano Colette Delahunt, the RTÉ ConTempo Quartet and harpist Anne-Marie O'Farrell

Simples from Pomes Penyeach by Anne-Marie O'Farrell; RTÉ ConTempo Quartet & Soprano Colette Delahunt

Strangers

We start at 15 Usher’s Island, the house at the centre of the Misses Morkan’s Epiphany dinner party on January 6th 1904. Set in a Dublin of 300,000 souls, on a bitter cold night, we are looking out across the river to the west to the Phoenix Park and to the east towards the Four Courts. As the story begins, Lily, the over-worked housemaid, opens the door. What does the story tell us about Dublin in 1904? Professor Mary Daly helps us step back in time while Professor Kevin Whelan connects The Dead to Dublin’s history, geography and landscape. What do the archives hold and tell us about not just Joyce’s Dublin but also about his own life story? We visit the National Archives and the census records of 1901 with Catriona Crowe while Katherine McSharry opens the National Library collection. Architect Sean O’Laoire helps us imagine Joyce’s Dublin and shares the story of the house itself 15 Usher’s Island.

Joyce's Dublin - E1 - The Dead; 15 Usher’s Island, Joyce’s Dublin 1904

An extract from James Joyce's Dubliners, adapted for audio and available as a digital download as part of the Penguin English Library series. Read by Gerard McSorley.

About the book: 

'Every night as I gazed up at the window I said softly to myself the word paralysis. It had always sounded strangely in my ears ... But now it sounded to me like the name of some maleficent and sinful being. It filled me with fear, and yet I longed to be nearer to it and to look upon its deadly work'

From a child grappling with the death of a fallen priest, to a young woman's dilemma over whether to elope to Argentina with her lover, to the dance party at which a man discovers just how little he really knows about his wife, these fifteen stories bring the gritty realism of existence in Joyce's native Dublin to life. With Dubliners, James Joyce reinvented the art of fiction, using a scrupulous, deadpan realism to convey truths that were at once blasphemous and sacramental.

Part of a series of vintage recordings taken from the Penguin Archives. Affordable, collectable, quality productions - perfect for on-the-go listening.

James Joyce: Dubliners (Audiobook extract) read by Gerard McSorley

Moeurs Contemporaine (1918)

Mr. Styrax *

1

MR. HECATOMB STYRAX, the owner of a large estate

and of large muscles,

A "blue" and a climber of mountains, has married

at the age of 28,

He being at that age a virgin,

The term "virgo" being made male in mediaeval latinity;

His ineptitudes

Having driven his wife from one religious excess to

another.

She has abandoned the vicar

For he was lacking in vehemence;

She is now the high-priestess

Of a modern and ethical cult,

And even now, Mr. Styrax

Does not believe in aesthetics. -

2

His brother has taken to gipsies,

But the son-in-law of Mr. H. Styrax

Objects to perfumed cigarettes.

In the parlance of Niccolo Machiavelli:

"Thus things proceed in their circle";

And thus the empire is maintained. -

II -

Clara -

AT sixteen she was a potential celebrity

With a distaste for caresses.

She now writes to me from a convent;

Her life is obscure and troubled;

Her second husband will not divorce her;

Her mind is, as ever, uncultivated,

And no issue presents itself.

She does not desire her children,

Or any more children.

Her ambition is vague and indefinite,

She will neither stay in, nor come out. -

III -

Soiree -

UPON learning that the mother wrote verses,

And that the father wrote verses,

And that the youngest son was in a publisher’s

office,

And that the friend of the second daughter was

undergoing a novel,

The young American pilgrim

Exclaimed:

"This is a darn’d clever bunch!" -

IV -

Sketch 48 b. 11 -

AT the age of 27

Its home mail is still opened by its maternal

parent

And its office mail may be opened by

its parent of the opposite gender.

It is an officer,

and a gentleman,

and an architect. -

V -

"Nodier raconte..."

1

AT a friend of my wife’s there is a photograph,

A faded, pale brownish photograph,

Of the times when the sleeves were large,

Silk, stiff and large above the lacertus,

That is, the upper arm,

And decollete....

It is a lady,

She sits at a harp,

Playing, -

And by her left foot, in a basket,

Is an infant, aged about 14 months,

The infant beams at the parent,

The parent re-beams at its offspring.

The basket is lined with satin,

There is a satin-like bow on the harp. -

2

And in the home of the novelist

There is a satin-like bow on an harp.

You enter and pass hall after hall,

Conservatory follows conservatory,

Lilies lift their white symbolical cups,

Whence their symbolical pollen has been excerpted,

Near them I noticed an harp

And the blue satin ribbon,

And the copy of "Hatha Yoga"




http://www.larevuedesressources.org/moeurs-contemporaines-5-50,918.html

Caedmon Recordings Recorded in Washington, D.C., June 12, 13, 26, 1958

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