Abstract:

Joyce’s treatment of animals in Ulysses goes from anthropomorphism to human animality and debasement. The characters’ earlier encounters with animals are characterized by the projection of human thoughts and feelings onto them or the attribution of human qualities, which culminate in the actual/visionary metamorphosis of a beagle into the body of the deceased Paddy Dignam in “Circe.” Moreover, it is precisely in the Nighttown episode that we witness the degrading animalization of Lipoti and Rudolph Virag, while Bloom, whose body features various animal appendages that often turn him into a hybrid creature, undergoes several beastlike transformations. The presence of talking or anthropomorphic animals, mainly linked to an oneiric dimension, looks back to a medieval and humanistic tradition exploring the paradigm of separation of species. This essay suggests that the blurred boundaries between human and nonhuman animals in Ulysses may have been inspired by Miguel de Cervantes, whose novella The Dialogue of the Dogs is listed as part (actually in an Italian translation titled Il dialogo dei cani) of Joyce’s Trieste library. In this tale, beasts are attributed distinctive human qualities, speech first and foremost, thus subverting traditional hierarchies. Exactly as in Ulysses, moreover, animals are “elevated” to the level of humans in the same way as humans are “degraded” to the level of animals. In other words, different orders of bodies may fuse together in the absence of any ontological standard by which to enforce their hierarchical separation.

摘要：

乔伊斯在《尤利西斯》中对待动物从拟人化到人类的动物性和堕落性 角色较早与动物相遇的特征是人类思想和感情在动物上的投射或人类素质的归因，最终导致小猎犬在“ Circe”中实际/视觉上变形了小猎犬到已故的帕迪·迪格纳姆的体内。此外，正是在Nighttown情节中，我们见证了Lipoti和Rudolph Virag的退化动物化，而Bloom的身体具有各种动物附肢，这些动物附肢常常使他成为杂种，并经历了几次野兽般的转变。会说话的或拟人化的动物的存在，主要与一个荒诞的维度有关，可追溯到中世纪和人文主义的传统，探讨了物种分离的范式。尤利西斯（Ulysses）可能受到塞万提斯（Miguel de Cervantes）的启发，他的中篇小说《狗的对话》被列为乔伊斯的里雅斯特图书馆的一部分（实际上是在意大利语翻译中名为Il dialogo dei cani的一部分）。在这个故事中，野兽被赋予独特的人类特质，首先是言语，从而颠覆了传统的等级制度。就像在《尤利西斯》中一样，动物被“提升”到人类的水平，就像人类被“退化”到动物的水平一样。换句话说，在没有任何本体标准来强制其层次分离的情况下，不同顺序的实体可能会融合在一起。