“Some of my puns are trivial, and some are quadrivial”
McLuhan, “James Joyce : Trivial and Quadrivial” Thought, Summer, 1953
Don Theall’s review is also insightful …
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Bonus Beats :
“Joyce’s notebooks reflect his interest in comedy as ‘the perfect manner of art’, for even tragedy participates in the nature of comic art so far as it leads to joy - the end of desire : ‘All art which excites in us feelings of joy is so far comic and according as the feeling of joy is excited by whatever is substantial or acciedental in human fortunes that art is to be judged more or less excellent.’
Comedy in the Joycean world is concerned solely with a glory in existence itself. The epiphany, which gives a metaphysical dimension to cloacal occurrences of everyday life, is the foundation stone - those sudden spiritual manifestations, whether in vulgarity of speech or gesture or in a memorable phase of mind itself’. The term ‘epiphany’ is relevant at many levels suggesting primarily a manifestation of the intellectual word begetting joy rather than desire. It is a literary technique that provides a means of seeing things with ‘new eyes’, permitting the artist to communicate the verity of objects by manifesting their peculiar whatness or quidditas - their mode of existence. Juxtaposition or dislocation and over layering - oral, visual, and verbal - are the technical means of handling the epiphany, sharpening the focus of an object and placing it in a new setting. By juxtaposition of the seemingly incogruous Joyce arrests the movement of the mind through the cloacal labyrinth of daily existence, forcing it to focus on the ordinary and commonplace world as seen with ‘eyes’…
from Don Theall’s “Here Comes Everybody”
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