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James Joyce, Mastersinger: Echoes and Resonances of Richard Wagner's "Die Meistersingervon Nrnberg" in "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man"Author(s): Bernfried NugelSource: James Joyce Quarterly, Vol. 38, No. 1/2, Joyce and Opera (Fall, 2000 - Winter, 2001),pp. 45-61Published by: University of TulsaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25477778Accessed: 27/07/2010 18:07

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James Joyce, Mastersinger: Echoes and Resonances of Richard Wagner's

Die Meistersinger von N?rnberg in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Bernfried Nugel University of M?nster

[E]in Meistersinger m?cht ich sein. (Sehr innig.) Schlie?t, Meister, in die Zunft mich ein! A Mastersinger I would be! (Ardently.) Pray, of your guild now make me free!

Die Meistersinger von N?rnberg 1.31

The word "Mastersinger" must have greatly appealed to Joyce

both literally as well as figuratively. He certainly considered himself a masterly singer, and was confident enough, in 1909,

to sing in a Trieste concert performance of the famous quintet from Die Meistersinger;2 and he must have appreciated the implication of

being a masterly poet that the word additionally carried. After all,

Joyce was reported saying in 1919 about the "Sirens" episode that a

"quintet occurs in it, too, as in the Meistersinger, my favorite Wagner opera."3 As Timothy Martin has convincingly shown in his ground breaking studies of Joyce's relationship with Richard Wagner, Joyce's preference for Meistersinger is borne out by all his explicit comments

except one and appears to have been constant throughout his career.4 Still, allusions to Meistersinger in Joyce's works, such as the alleged quintet structure in "Sirens," tend to be "elusive," as Martin notes, and direct references are

"relatively infrequent" ("Wagnerism" 108). This is all the more surprising since, given Joyce's interest in

Wagner's Siegfried as a model for his "artist-hero" Stephen Dedalus

("Wagnerism" 113-16), one would assume that Walther von Stolzing, the young artist character in Meistersinger, would have served Joyce's

purposes at least as well, if not better, particularly in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

In several important respects, Walther's position in sixteenth-cen

tury Nuremberg is comparable to Stephen's in early twentieth-centu

ry Dublin. As an artist, Walther represents the type of the young poet ic genius who challenges the rigid conventions of established art and

45

thus becomes an outsider in a society of free citizens that professes to cultivate good art.5 As a social being, on the other hand, he longs to be united with Eva, the woman he loves, but he is debarred from pri vate happiness by an arbitrary condition imposed by Eva's father: if he wants to be allowed to marry her, he must conform to institution alized art, become a Mastersinger, and win a singing contest in which Eva is the prize. Similarly, Stephen tries to define his artistic identity in contrast to accepted standards of art and at the same time struggles to solve the private problem of his love relationship, which is aggra vated by social conventions. So far, this parallel seems to be no more than just a variation on the central theme of most nineteenth-century artist novels, as Martin notes: the basic conflict between artistic aspi rations and a life in society (Wagner 33). What makes Meistersinger so special, however, is the detailed representation and analysis of the act of artistic composition, which reaches a degree rarely to be found in the mainstream of the artist-novel tradition. For Wagner, this elabo rate representation of the creative process was a self-imposed test of the artistic abilities through which he strove to define and demon strate the superiority of his new conception of art and thus to promote it as the art of the future. For Joyce, once he had decided to devote a

great deal of space to Stephen's literary theory, it became both logical and necessary to render a precise account of Stephen's literary prac tice. Like Wagner, Joyce had to commit himself to giving a concrete example of his fictitious artist's art. This he unmistakably did in the section of chapter 5 of A Portrait that represents Stephen in the process of composing a villanelle.

But before one starts reading the villanelle section against the back

drop of Meistersinger, some theoretical orientation seems indispens able. Any comparison between literary and musical works rests on the assumption that musical characteristics can be translated into lit

erary features and vice versa, or that musical and literary phenomena may at least be analogous to each other. This field of investigation has

traditionally been covered by interart studies, or, more precisely, by musico-poetics, which can be understood as a subcategory of what has recently come to be called intermediality.6 Thus, from a literature oriented perspective, one might look for literary equivalents of musi cal phenomena or at least for musical analogies in Joyce's texts, in short, for anything that can be subsumed under the heading "musi calization of fiction."7 However, parallels between Joyce and Wagner

may also fall into the domain of intertextuality and perhaps even more than that of intermediality, since opera as a genre is constituted

by a combination of music and text. Considering Joyce's usual man ner of alluding to operas, there may well be a greater affinity between libretto and literary text than between music and literary text in his

46

works.8 Still, in the reception of an opera, music and libretto cannot be separated, and so every parallel between libretto and literary text also carries a musical association. Accordingly, any pertinent investi

gation must allow for this type of double textual-musical reference when applying intertextual or intermedial procedures of analysis.

In the present context, two basic yet rewarding approaches appear to complement and reinforce each other: traditional source study and the more general perspective of musico-poetics. While source study attempts to prove a definite dependence between artists by way of so called echoes,\musico-poetics is interested in the affinity between lit erature and music, which one might call resonance, to use another

musical analogy. Resonance, in this sense, may be found to exist between two works of art?particularly on the scale of larger struc tures?without necessarily presupposing a direct dependence.

Though resonance will generally be understood as an intermedial cat

egory, much in the same way as echoes are traditionally classed as

intertextual, it should be remembered that, in principle, intertextual resonances and intermedial echoes are also conceivable. Moreover, in the case of opera, with its fundamental coordination of music and text, any intermedial affinity may be accompanied and reinforced by

an intertextual equivalence or vice versa. The following comparison between A Portrait and Meistersinger will begin by tentatively point ing out structural resonances and then try to clarify how far echoes

may lead one in the direction of indubitable dependence. The villanelle section in A Portrait opens with the description of

Stephen waking up in the morning, hearing "sweet music" and re

experiencing the "enchantment" of a "dream or vision" that he has had during the night (P 217). The effect of this dream is explicitly styled "a morning inspiration" and functions as the starting point for

Stephen's composition of a poem (P 217). The remaining paragraphs expound on the process of composing the six stanzas of a villanelle. The reader is admitted to the poet's workshop, as it were, and invit ed to accompany Stephen in his transformation of poetic thought into

poetic text. Most conspicuously, because in contrast to Joyce's gener al manner of representation,9 the narrator analyzes and defines

Stephen's poetic process in terms of a theory of artistic creation, using literary-critical categories such as inspiration, imagination, rhyme, and rhythm. The course of composition proper falls into three parts, since it is interrupted twice by Stephen's extended reminiscences and

meditations. In the first phase, Stephen manages to compose three stanzas and in the second only two, while in the last phase he creates the concluding quatrain of the villanelle. This tripartite sequence

exhibits a distinct undulating rhythm, with the three phases of com

position being represented as climaxes of creativity and the two inter

47

vening passages functioning as anticlimaxes of relaxation and recol lection. Thus, the whole process of composition receives more

emphasis than any uninterrupted presentation could have provided. In addition, the last climax clearly marks the culmination of Stephen's artistic achievement, since the finished poem is presented in its entire

ty at the end of the section, and at the same time this moment com

prises a state of great personal contentment as Stephen imagines him self being united in love with his mistress.

Joyce's emphatic reference to music and the layout of the villanelle section may lead one to compare the passage with the only detailed artistic workshop scene that, to my knowledge, occurs in a musical

work before Joyce: the second scene of the third act of Meistersinger. Here the young poet and singer Walther von Stolzing is instructed by Hans Sachs, a leading member of the Guild of Mastersingers in

Nuremberg and himself both a poet and cobbler,10 in how to interpret the rules of the Mastersingers in a more liberal fashion for the pur pose of his artistic composition. Walther tells Sachs of "a wonderful

ly beautiful" morning dream (Mastersingers 195)11 and, under Sachs's guidance, composes and sings two long stanzas of a new song. Significantly enough, Sachs not only comments repeatedly on specif ic features of the song but also theorizes on the art of poetry, stressing the close relationship between poetry and dream. Accordingly,

Walther transforms his morning dream into the close-knit verse struc ture of a Mastersong, which Sachs writes down for him. After the sec ond stanza, Walther breaks off, although Sachs encourages him to devise a third.

At this point, Wagner effectively interposes a comic interlude

(Meistersinger 3.3). The town clerk Beckmesser, another prominent Mastersinger and Walther's rival for Eva's love, discovers the script of Walther's song on Sachs's desk, believes it to be a song by Sachs, and is permitted by him to use it in the imminent singing contest of the Mastersingers. (Sachs is sure that Beckmesser will be unable to

perform it well and will thus lose the contest.) In the next scene (Meistersinger 3.4), Walther, in the presence of Sachs and his beloved

Eva, continues the composition and sings the concluding stanza of his

song, which Sachs christens "die selige Morgentraumdeut-Weise"? "the blissful rnorning-dream-interpretation-melody" (Meistersinger 93; Mastersingers 233). This celebration of a new Mastersong leads all the characters involved (including the journeyman David and his

beloved Magdalene) to a moment of pure bliss aptly expressed in a quintet, which is arguably Wagner's most tender and intimate com

position in the whole opera. Eva begins solo, expressing her exalta tion and her love for Walther:

48

Selig, wie die Sonne As blissfully as the sun meines Gl?ckes lacht, of my happiness laughs, Morgen voller Wonne a morning full of joy Selig mir erwacht! blessedly awakens for me!

(Meistersinger 93; Mastersingers 233)

Then Sachs joins in, reflecting on his affection for Eva, followed by Walther, David, and Magdalene, who all rejoice over their particular

love for their partners. While each of the characters has a different

personal concern, Wagner emphasizes their union in happiness by having the five voices repeat and vary musical phrases derived from

Walther's song and by giving all of them the nearly identical line, "Ob es nur ein Morgentraum?"?"Is it only a morning dream?"

(Meistersinger 94-95; Mastersingers 233-35). Thus, whether Joyce took Walther's or David's part in the Trieste performance of the quintet in

1909, he must have sung this line about the morning dream, which

represents the gist of the whole situation. All in all, fundamental structural affinities between the composi

tion scenes in A Portrait and Meistersinger seem undeniable: in both works, a morning dream functions as the starting point for artistic

composition, and in both the representation of the artistic process is

accompanied, or rather controlled, by theoretical and practical criti cism. There is also an overall resemblance in the tripartite structure of the composition sequence, even if in Meistersinger the caesura after the first phase, that is, the composition of the first stanza, is not near

ly so marked as in A Portrait and the anticlimax after the second phase is much more drastic. But basically Walther's composition of his three stanzas corresponds to the three phases of Stephen's poetic process, a

similarity that is underlined by the fact that in both works the first

phase receives much more preparatory and explanatory comment than the last two phases. Finally, the third phase is presented in both

works as a climax of extraordinary artistic and personal fulfillment, which, in Meistersinger, is heightened beyond the protagonist's hap piness by the participation of four other people in the moment of bliss.

With these structural affinities in mind, one may profitably contin ue the comparison on the thematic level. In Meistersinger, the general theme

"morning dream" is introduced at the beginning of the com

position scene and is immediately divided into two strands: the con tent of the dream versus its artistic form and purpose. Strikingly, form and purpose are discussed at length before the content of the dream is described, for when Sachs begs Walther to tell him his "wonderful

ly beautiful dream," Walther replies, "I scarcely dare even to think of it: I fear to see it vanish from me" (Mastersingers 197). This causes

49

Sachs to profess his theory of poetry:

My friend, it is precisely the poet's task to interpret and record his dreamings.

Believe me, man's truest madness12

is disclosed to him in dreams: all poetry and versification is nothing but true dream interpretation. (Mastersingers 197)

"Interpretation" here seems to imply a general shaping of content with regard to an aim or purpose, while "record" and "versification"

apparently cover specific devices used to transform "interpretation" into a poetic text. These central categories are then applied by Sachs to the case in hand. Sachs suggests two possible meanings or rather

purposes of the morning dream: it may have shown Walther how he could become a Master or how he could win Eva. When Walther

rejects both interpretations, Sachs resorts to the category of form by stressing the importance of an artistic pattern like the Mastersong: "follow my advice; in short: take courage and make a Master-song!" (Mastersingers 199). According to Sachs, the great merit of a

Mastersong is the fact that, as an aesthetic product, it is not merely beautiful but the joint result of the pursuit of beauty and experience of life. So he advises Walther to "learn the rules in good time" and

explains their function (Mastersingers 199). To Walther's question?"If they now stand in such high repute, who was it who made the rules?"?he replies,

It was sorely-troubled Masters,

spirits oppressed by the cares of life: in the desert of their troubles

they formed for themselves an image, so that to them might remain of youthful love a

memory, clear and firm, in which spring can be recognised. (Mastersingers 199-201)

Here the quintessence of Wagner's late romanticism can be seen in the notion that the artist gives a "clear and firm" form to sublime aes thetic images, thus preserving romantic ideas in the midst of every day reality. Significantly, Walther takes up this notion by asking, "But he from whom spring has long since fled, how can he capture it in an

image?" (Mastersingers 201). In his reply, Sachs suggests a compro mise between the position of the young, enthusiastic poet like Walther and that of the mature, experienced artist like himself?each

should learn from the other: "He refreshes it as well as he can: so, as

50

a troubled man, I should like, if I am to teach you the rules, you to

explain them to me anew" (Mastersingers 201). Only at this point, after having expressly reinforced the necessity of

artistic form and purpose, does Wagner proceed to the second the matic strand, the content of the morning dream. Following Sachs's

light-hearted, undogmatic artistic advice, Walther tells Sachs that in his dream he met an ideally beautiful woman in a paradisiacal gar den, immediately fell in love with her, and wished her to become his wife. In three long stanzas, he spells out the details of his longing, while Sachs notes and recommends features of a Mastersong. Thus, it

is clearly the form that counts: the content of the dream is no more than a romantic variation on the topos Eva im Paradies?"Eve in

Paradise," as Walther later calls it when he performs his song in a

slightly altered form as a Preislied ("prize song") at the Mastersingers' singing contest in i order to win Eva (Meistersinger 3.5.105). In the happy ending, Eva becomes both beloved wife and poet's muse,13 rec

onciling social being and artist in Walther.

Turning to Joyce's villanelle section, one encounters a thematic development that is basically the same. Here, too, the form and func tion of Stephen's dream and the resulting "morning inspiration" are characterized before the content is described in detail. The narrator

begins by depicting a sequence of imagined sense perceptions, obvi

ously conveyed by what was called Stephen's "senses of his soul" in

chapter 3 (P 137). While Stephen re-experiences his dream, he hears "sweet music," sees "cool waves of light," feels "sweet... dew" and "cool waters," and senses a breath like that of angels (P 217). All these sensations are presented as concomitant circumstances of the "morn

ing inspiration," as the sensible form of a "spirit... pure as the purest water, sweet as dew, moving as music" (P 217). In addition, this spir

it is connected with the superhuman?"how faintly it was inbreathed, how passionlessly, as if the seraphim themselves were breathing upon him!"?and with mystery?"that windless hour of dawn when

madness wakes and strange plants open to the light and the moth flies forth silently" (P 217). Taken together, all these details serve to stress the extraordinary quality of Stephen's state of consciousness as

well as the importance of the ensuing poetic process. Thus, the intro

ductory passage of the section gives the reader an idea of the form and function of Stephen's inspiration but tells very little about its con tent.

It is not until the next short paragraph that the narrator touches on the content of the dream, yet he still offers no more than a very gen

eral description, which at first glance roughly corresponds to Walther's opaque phrase "I had a wonderfully beautiful dream": "An enchantment of the heart! The night had been enchanted. In a dream

51

or vision he had known the ecstasy of seraphic life. Was it an instant of enchantment only or long hours and days and years and ages?" (P 217). While the repetition of "enchantment" (twice) and "enchanted" summarizes and foregrounds Stephen's sublime mode of feeling, it is

only the notion of "the ecstasy of seraphic life" that refers, vaguely, to content. Stephen's dream, the reader concludes, must have been con cerned with an ideally perfect world full of angelic bliss. This is cer

tainly not very different in kind from Walther's ideally beautiful woman in a paradisiacal garden or even from the moment of almost

heavenly bliss expressed in the Meistersinger quintet. However, this thematic strand is not pursued any further; on the contrary, as in

Meistersinger, the theory of art?and thereby artistic form?receives

predominant attention. In fact, the phrase "enchantment of the heart"

clearly refers back to an earlier argument in Stephen's literary theory in which he has tried to define the instant in the artist's creative

process "when the esthetic image is first conceived in his imagina tion," an instant he eventually associates with the "enchantment of the heart" (P 213). Through this explicit link, Stephen's inspiration and the subsequent process of composition are endorsed as the man ifestation and proof of Stephen's literary theory Accordingly, all the

following paragraphs that deal with composition proper are charac terized by a constant interplay between critical comment and artistic

production, their scope extending from the first diffuse workings of

inspiration via the rhythmic features of the growing poem to concrete

examples of versification.14 After having established this framework of form, the narrator takes

up the thematic strand of content again but in a way that is substan

tially different from Wagner's conception in Meistersinger. While Walther delights indefatigably in his romantic notion of a paradisia

cal world, Stephen moves away from the heavenly bliss of his dream to the attraction of earthly desire, which unfolds through the inspira

tion after his dream. This difference is reflected unmistakably in the

change of color that the flash of light indicating the instant of inspira tion undergoes during the poetic process: the "afterglow" of the orig inal "white flame" is described as

"deepening to a rose and ardent

light" (P 217). The narrator then conspicuously equates this "rose and ardent light" with "her strange wilful heart" (P 217), thus introducing the problem of Stephen's sexual desire as the new content of his inspi ration. For whatever else the pronoun "her" may point to?whether to the Virgin Mary, to Eve, or to the female principle in general15?it doubtless refers also to Stephen's girlfriend, whose heart was called "wilful" only a few paragraphs before (P 216).16 Throughout the com position scene, Stephen transforms his dilemma about love into the

complicated verse structure of a villanelle. Torn between desire and

52

weariness, Stephen eventually stylizes his female counterpart as "the

temptress of his villanelle" (P 223) and, in so doing, satisfies his desire vicariously. A union in real life being most unlikely, he at least feels able to enjoy the thought of being united with her in the poem.

Measured against the differences in form and content, the themat ic affinities between the two composition scenes in A Portrait and

Meistersinger stand out all the more distinctly. In both works, the gen eral theme of the

"morning dream" or "morning inspiration" is divid ed into two thematic strands, of which the subtheme of form and function is given clear priority at the beginning of the artistic process. In addition, a theory of art is introduced to substantiate the criteria of form that serve as a framework for critical appraisal during the whole

process of composition. Only after the framework of form is estab lished does the thematic strand of content receive greater weight. On the other hand, the categories of form and content are filled out in a

markedly different way in the two works. Wagner only postulates a close relationship between dream and poetry but does not specify the

psychological aspects of the process of inspiration as does the narra tor in A Portrait. The same goes for the theoretical categories applied to the critical comments, which are more detailed in A Portrait inas

much as the terms inspiration, imagination, rhythm, and rhyme func tion as guidelines for the representation of the poetic process. As to content, though Joyce starts, as Wagner did, with a dream of heaven

ly bliss, he soon concentrates on Stephen's ambivalent fascination with earthly bliss, leaving behind Wagner's romantic notion of a per fect world and representing the success of Stephen's attempt to join life and art as questionable.

Having examined Joyce's and Wagner's representation of the artis tic process, one can now turn to their description of the artistic prod uct and compare the generic and individual characteristics of

Walther's Mastersong and Stephen's villanelle. The most obvious

generic parallel is the fact that both poems have a complicated verse structure demanding a high degree of technical skill. In the case of

Meistersinger, critics and theatergoers tend to overlook Wagner's efforts to come to terms with the Mastersingers' rules by adopting viable concepts while avoiding pedantry. Thus, even when creating new forms, Walther remains comparatively regular, using intricate

rhyme schemes, strict metrical patterns, and elaborate stanza types. As early as his first appearance before the Mastersingers in a routine

singing trial (act 1.3), Walther shows his respect for controlled artistic form by answering the chairperson's introductory ad personara ques tions in three stanzas of a finished song that is both clearly structured and well rhymed.17 He even conforms intuitively to the basic struc tural rule for a Mastersong, which requires two Stollen (short stanzas)

53

of equal pattern to be followed by an Abgesang (aftersong). This accomplishment is overlooked by all Mastersingers but one, who comments, "Zwei art'ge Stollen fa?t' er da ein!"?"He has already formed two nice stanzas there" (Meistersinger 29; Mastersingers 89).18

Only a few moments later, this selfsame rule is read out to Walther from the Mastersingers' Table of Rules (Meistersinger 31; Mastersingers 93), but in his official trial song he deliberately deviates from it by improvising a poem with a five-stanza structure (ABABA) in which the first (and second) two stanzas follow a different pattern. Inasmuch as he invents a new form, he demonstrates his poetic genius, but at the same time he strictly observes the patterns of meter and rhyme throughout the song once he has fixed them in the first two stanzas. He further shows his masterly superiority by taking up the Marker's command

"Fanget an!"?"Begin!" (Meistersinger 32; Mastersingers 95)19 and making it the theme of his song,20 a gambit

that confuses the Mastersingers and eventually leads to their vote of

rejection at the end of the singing trial. It is only against this background that one can adequately appreci

ate Walther's artistic achievement in the composition scene of act 3. Here he devises three long stanzas, each exhibiting exactly the same

tripartite pattern required for a Mastersong. After the first long stan za, Sachs, having explicitly acknowledged its basic structure of two short stanzas and an aftersong, introduces the term "Bar"?"section"

(Meistersinger 80; Mastersingers 205) for such a stanza and also uses it for the second long stanza (Meistersinger 81; Mastersingers 207). Yet in the final singing contest, Walther is able to improve even upon this

impressive pattern of three Bare and to compress the long stanzas into two shorter stanzas of equal pattern and one shorter stanza that is an

expanded version of the aftersong of the earlier long stanzas. Thus, in his Preislied, he transforms the three earlier Bare into two long Stollen and one long aftersong, endorsing and at the same time extending the basic structure of a Mastersong.21 The melody of the song is accord

ingly compressed as well as expanded, thus adding to Walther's

unique success.

Confronted with such a spectacle of artistic inventiveness, Joyce may well have felt challenged to produce an example of equal poetic craftsmanship. Indeed, the verse structure of a villanelle, with its fixed stanza pattern of five tercets plus a quatrain, its refrains, and its elaborate rhyme scheme, is comparable to a Mastersong in technical

difficulty. In addition, like the Mastersong, it is a traditional verse

form whose structure was fixed in the sixteenth century.22 It was

revived, it is true, in the late nineteenth century by Henry Austin

Dobson, Ernest Dowson, and others,23 but besides this contemporary attraction it may also have had a historical fascination for Joyce, since

54

it belonged to the same sixteenth century that produced the lutenists and lyric poets who had laid the foundations for English poetry. This

predilection is reflected in the villanelle section itself, in which

Stephen recalls once having sung "a dainty song of the Elizabethans" (P 219) to his girlfriend. Thus the choice of villanelle and Mastersong as test pieces for Stephen's and Walther's artistic abilities appears to be based on the conviction that a young poet must know and master the traditional patterns of his art from the roots before he can suc

cessfully create new forms.

Beyond these general affinities, however, one would not expect more specific parallels since, as poetic structures, Mastersong and vil

lanelle seem utterly incomparable. All the greater is the surprise, then, when one scans and compares the first lines of both poems:

? xx ? x x ? xx ?

M?r/gen/lich/l?uch/tend/in/r?/si/gem/Sch?in (Meistersinger 79, 105)24

- X X - XX ? x ?

Are I you I not I w?a/ry I ofl?r?dent I ways (P 217)

Almost incredibly, the first line of Stephen's villanelle, which gains weight in the poem by reappearing as the refrain in stanzas 2, 4, and

6, is nearly identical metrically with the opening line of Walther's

song and could easily be sung to Walther's melody. Whether this is coincidence or conscious imitation cannot ultimately be decided, since the purely dactylic meter as used by Wagner is not so rare in

English poetry that it could prove a direct dependence. Still, it stands out from its context in both poems?and even more so in the vil lanelle than in Walther's song since the former has dactyls only in the two refrains and in parts of lines 2,11, and 17. Regardless of how the

metrical similarity of the first lines in both poems may be explained, such similitude represents a striking case of what was called reso nance above, in effect, a marked affinity between a musical and a lit

erary work that need not, but may, result from direct dependence. Encouraged by the occurrence of such a close parallel as in the pre

ceding example, one may look for specific echoes of Meistersinger in the whole villanelle section. The opening line of Walther's song offers

one possibility: "Shining in the rosy light of morning" refers to the

roselight of dawn (Mastersingers 203), which also functions as a dis tinctive color in the description of Stephen's inspiration as rendered in the phrases "rose and ardent light" twice (P 217), "roselike glow" twice (P 217,218), and "roselight" once (P 218). In A Portrait, this color is associated with the notion of glowing, as in "afterglow" (P 217) and "roselike glow." Similarly, one can find "Abendlich gl?hend in himm

55

lischer Pracht"?"Glowing in the heavenly splendour of the evening" (Meistersinger 81; Mastersingers 205)?in Walther's second long stanza and "himmlisches Morgengl?hn"?"heavenly morning glow" (Meistersinger 94; Mastersingers 233)?in Eva's lines in the quintet. It should be noted, however, that there is a marked difference in mean

ing: while in Meistersinger glowing roselight suggests heavenly bliss, "roselike glow" in A Portrait symbolizes female attraction and

Stephen's growing desire. '

Stephen's dream is referred to as a "dream or vision," a double

expression that comes very close to Walther's word "Traumbild"

(Meistersinger 77), a compound formed from Traum (dream) and Bild (picture, image, vision). The term is used by Sachs on two later occa sions in the composition scene (Meistersinger 81) and denotes the essential visual content of the dream. Its two components exactly cor

respond to the two nouns in Joyce's phrase and thus may have sug gested its bipartite structure to him. In addition, looking at Walther's first reaction after being asked to tell the dream, one finds a clear sim

ilarity in Stephen's behavior after the first phase of composition. While Walther confesses, "I fear to see it vanish from me"

(Mastersingers 197), Stephen is described as "[fjearing to lose all" (P 218), and whereas Sachs later offers to record Walther's song, "See, here is ink, pen, paper: I'll write it down for you if you will dictate to

me" (Mastersingers 201), Stephen starts "to look for paper and pencil," reaches for a cigarette packet, and begins "to write out the stanzas of the villanelle in small neat letters on the rough cardboard surface" (P 218,218-19).25

Finally, another set of possible echoes can be found in the depiction of Stephen's enchantment at the beginning of the villanelle section. The idea of madness ("when madness wakes") may be related to Sachs's concept of "Wahn," and, significantly, the images conveyed by "wet," "waves," and "pure . . . water" (P 217) also occur in

Walther's vision of the "Muse of Parnassus" in his Preislied. There he recounts how "in a poet's waking dream" he "had approached a

spring of pure water" (literally, "pure wave") and "beheld, holy and fair of countenance, and sprinkling [him] with the precious water [lit erally, wetting him with the precious wet element], the most wonder ful woman, the Muse of Parnassus" (Meistersinger 106; Mastersingers 257). Thus Stephen's wet dream may take on a further dimension, possibly suggesting that he has been blessed by his Muse and grant ed his subsequent inspiration. But that this inspiration is first and above all connected with enchanting music is made clear by the three fold emphasis on musical impressions: "O what sweet music! ... He

lay still... conscious of faint sweet music.... A spirit filled him ...

moving as music" (P 217). "Sweet" and "moving" music, if sought in

56

Meistersinger (even more than in Walther's dream song), can only mean the famous quintet "Selig, wie die Sonne"?"As blissfully as the sun" (Meistersinger 93-95; Mastersingers 233-35), which expresses the culmination of bliss that all characters present experience at the

moment of celebrating Walther's composition of a Mastersong. And does not Stephen feel like Eva when she sings about "the blessedly sweet task" of interpreting her bliss and her "heart's sweet burden"?

Surely when words fail, the effect of music comes in happily to

heighten the literary representation of enchantment. Thus, the fol

lowing lines should be both heard as music and read as text:

As blissfully as the sun of my happiness laughs, a morning full of joy blessedly awakens for me; dream of highest favours, heavenly morning glow: interpretation to owe you,

blessedly sweet task! A melody, tender and noble, ought to succeed propitiously in interpreting and subduing

my heart's sweet burden.

Is it only a morning dream? In my bliss, I can scarcely interpret it myself. (Mastersingers 233)

Many readers will understandably remain skeptical when advised that they should hear Meistersinger along with reading A Portrait, and

no direct biographical evidence, it is true, has yet turned up which confirms the speculation that Joyce had Meistersinger on his mind

when he wrote the villanelle section. But considering the close struc tural and thematic affinities of the two works, as well as the parallels of poetic form and specific echoes, even those who are not convinced of Joyce's direct dependence can be expected to use Meistersinger as a foil to A Portrait and read Joyce on the level of resonance in order to see what he had in common with Wagner and where he moved in dif ferent directions. If, on the other hand, one accepts the affinities and

parallels as conclusive and assumes Joyce to have at least partly mod eled the villanelle section on Meistersinger/16 one will have to under stand the narrator's overall attitude (though an irony directed at Stephen's proud belief that he has reached the final stage of poetic excellence is not totally absent) as a predominantly serious, if quali fied, approval of Stephen's artistic achievement.

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NOTES

1 Richard Wagner, Die Meistersinger von N?rnberg, ed. Wilhelm Zentner

(Stuttgart: Reclam, 1972), p. 21. Further references will be cited parenthetical ly in the text as Meistersinger. An English translation by Frederick Jameson, revised by Norman Feasey and Gordon Kember, was published as The

Mastersingers of Nuremberg/Die Meistersinger von N?rnberg, English National Opera Guide 19, ed. Nicholas John (London: John Calder; New York: Riverrun Press, 1983); for the quoted passage, see p. 54 of this translation. Hereafter, however, I wish to refer to Die Meistersinger von N?rnberg/The Mastersingers of Nuremberg, trans. Peter Branscombe (Essen: Kaiser, 1974). This latter unrhymed translation is much closer to the original text than Jameson's and will be cited parenthetically in the text as Mastersingers. 2 See Letters! 67. In his article

"Joyce, Wagner, and Literary Wagnerism," in Picking Up Airs: Hearing the Music in Joyce's Text, ed. Ruth Bauerle (Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press, 1993), pp. 105-06, Timothy Martin supposes that, of the two tenor parts, Joyce took "that of the apprentice Meistersinger David, since the part of Walther, the lead, would have demanded a higher range and stronger voice than Joyce apparently had." Though this is probably true as far as Walther's full part in the opera is concerned, one cannot be sure that Joyce did not attempt Walther's part in the quintet, considering that it is relatively brief and not extremely difficult as to range or volume. And if Joyce was free to choose between the two parts, there can be little doubt that he would have

preferred the part of the born Mastersinger Walther to that of the apprentice Mastersinger David. Further references will be cited parenthetically in the

text as "Wagnerism." 3

Georges Borach, "Conversations with James Joyce," trans. Joseph Pres cott, College English, 15 (March 1954), 327. 4 See Martin, Joyce and Wagner: A Study of Influence (Cambridge: Cambridge

Univ. Press, 1991), pp. 17-18,173, and "Wagnerism" (pp. 105-08). Further ref erences will be cited parenthetically in the text as Wagner. 5 For the history and information on the art of the Mastersingers, see The

New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, ed. Alex Prerninger and T. V. F. Brogan (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1993), s.v. "Meistersinger." 6 For a survey of principles and a select bibliography, see Werner Wolf, "Intermedialit?t als neues Paradigma der Literaturwissenschaft?"?

"Intermediality as a New Paradigm for Literary Scholarship?" Arbeiten aus

Anglistik und Amerikanistik, 2 (1996), 85-116 (with an English summary). For a brief statement of basic problems, see Jean-Louis Cupers, "Huxley's Variations on a Musical Theme: From the Mendelssohnian Chord in 'Farcical History of Richard Greenow' to the (Syn)Aesthetic Experience of Music in Island" "Now More Than Ever": Proceedings of the Aidons Huxley Centenary Symposium M?nster 1994, ed. Bernfried Nugel (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1995), pp. 83-86.

7 This well-known phrase was suggested by Aldous Huxley in his novel Point Counter Point (London: Chatto and Windus, 1928), p. 408. See also Wolf, "Can Stories Be Read as Music? Possibilities and Limitations of Applying

Musical Metaphors to Fiction," Telling Stories: Studies in Honour of Ulrich

58

Broich on the Occasion of His 60th Birthday, ed. Elmar Lehmann and Bernd Lenz (Amsterdam: Gr?ner, 1992), pp. 205-31.

8 See also Martin's general remarks on the "musicality" of Joyce's works in Joyce and Wagner (pp. 163-64). 9 See John Paul Riquelme, Teller and Tale in Joyce's Fiction: Oscillating Perspectives (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1983), pp. 75-80, particu larly p. 75: "Most surprising is the narrator's attempt to present the process

by which Stephen writes the poem. Here is the extreme application of the nar rated monologue and related techniques in fiction: to reveal the process of

mind that is aesthetic creation itself in the ambiguous relationship between the speaker's act of mind and what he speaks." See also Robert Scholes, "Stephen Dedalus: Poet or Esthete?" PMLA, 79 (September 1964), 485: "It is ironic that in this one instance, in which Joyce himself has provided a com

mentary on his own work, such problems in understanding should have arisen; for the poem comes to us, in A Portrait, imbedded not only in the cir cumstances of its creation but in an elaborate

explication as well." 10 In act 2.6, Wagner quotes the humorous self-characterization of the his

torical Hans Sachs, who called himself "ein Schuh-/macher und Poet dazu"?"a shoe-/Maker and a poet too" (Meistersinger 57; Mastersingers, ed.

Jameson, 86). 11 The

original reads, "Ich hart' einen wundersch?nen Traum" (Meister singer 77).

12 The term "madness," as a translation of the German "Wahn"

(Meistersinger 77), represents a more narrow version of the original meaning of "illusion," which is a central concept of Sachs's philosophy of life as well as an important musical motif in the opera. See, for instance, the famous "Wahn" monologue in act 3.1. Of course, illusion may turn into idiosyncrasy and even folly or madness, as the chaotic street-brawl at the end of act 2 demonstrates.

13 See Meistersinger 106?"das hehrste Weib, die Muse des Parna?"?"the most wonderful woman, the Muse of Parnassus" (Mastersingers, ed. Jameson, 257), and see also "she, born there, my heart's elect, earth's most lovely pic ture, destined to be my Muse" (Mastersingers, ed. Jameson, 257). 14 Here, too, the category of form and the shaping power of imagination

are emphasized:

The instant of inspiration seemed now to be reflected from all sides at once from a multitude of cloudy circumstance of what had happened or of what might have happened. The instant flashed forth like a point of light and now from cloud on cloud of vague circumstance confused form was veiling softly its afterglow. O! In the virgin womb of the imag ination the word was made flesh. (P 217) 15 On these personifications, see Scholes (pp. 486-88). 16 See Charles Rossman, "Stephen Dedalus' Villanelle," JJQ, 12 (Spring

1975), 287-88. 17 The song begins with "Am stillen Herd in Winterszeit"?"At the quiet

hearth in winter time" (Meistersinger 29-30; Mastersingers 87-91). The first two

rhyming aabbbcac, with the second stanza using the same rhymes except to substitute d for c. The third stanza is an extended variation of this pattern,

with thirteen lines of iambs?lines 1,3,5,6,8,10, and 12 four-stressed (eight syllables) and lines 2, 4, 7, 9, 11, 13 three-stressed?rhyming b (medial rhyme), e b e f (medial rhyme), g (medial rhyme), h i h i e i e. 18 Walther's intuitive knowledge of the structure of a Mastersong must stem from his study of Minnesang, the German tradition of courtly song that flourished from the twelfth to the fourteenth centuries, for in his song he claims to have learned his art from his namesake (as far as first names are concerned) Walther von der Vogelweide, historically one of the most famous of the Minnesingers: "an old book, left to me by my ancestor,/often gave me this to read:/Herr Walther von der Vogelweide?he was my master"

(Mastersingers 87). Wagner's point here seems to be that Walther is a direct heir of the Minnesingers, whereas the Mastersingers, who also derive their art ultimately from twelve Masters of Minnesang (Walther von der

Vogelweide among them, too), have ended up with pedantic formalism. See the New Princeton Encyclopedia, s.v. "Minnesang" and "Meistersinger." 19 The Marker acts as professional critic, marking the applicant's mistakes.

Pointedly, it is Beckmesser, Walther's future rival, who functions as Marker here.

20 "fanget an!/So rief der Lenz in den Wald,/da? laut es ihn durchhallt"?

"'Begin!'-/Thus spring cried to the forest/so that it re-echoed loudly" (Meistersinger 32; Mastersingers 95). An echo of this conspicuous reinterpreta tion of the Marker's words can be found at the end of the overture of the "Sirens" episode in the imperative "Begin!" as Anthony Burgess already hints

without further comment in his Joysprick: An Introduction to the Language of James Joyce (London: Andre Deutsch, 1973), p. 83.

21 The song is "Morgenlich leuchtend in rosigem Schein"?"Shining in the rosy light of morning" (Meistersinger 105-06; Mastersingers 255-59). The first two stanzas have eleven lines of iambs occasionally alternating with

dactyls?lines 1-3,5,7 four-stressed (eight or nine syllables), lines 4,6,8,9,11 three-stressed (six or seven syllables), and line 10 two-stressed (four sylla bles)?the first stanza rhyming a b (medial rhyme), c (medial rhyme), a d e d e f g f, and the second stanza rhyming h i (medial rhyme), j (medial rhyme), hdkdklgl. The third stanza has fourteen lines of iambs occasionally alter

nating with dactyls?lines 1 and 5 two-stressed (four syllables), 2-4, 7 four stressed (eight or ten syllables), 6 six-stressed (eleven syllables), and 8-14 three-stressed (six or seven syllables)?rhyming m h f h m f n (medial rhyme), o p o p c c f.

22 See the New Princeton Encyclopedia, s.v. "villanelle." 23 See the villanelle entry in the New Princeton Encyclopedia, and Scholes and Richard M. Kain, eds., The Workshop of Stephen Dedalus (Evanston:

Northwestern Univ. Press, 1965), p. 261. 24 This line occurs twice in the opera, in the composition scene and in the

Preislied, and thus receives particular emphasis. 25 For this last detail, another possible source must be noted: Stanislaus Joyce recalls an occasion on which his brother wrote down a poem in similar fashion on a cigarette packet?see My Brother's Keeper (London: Faber and

60

Faber, 1958), p. 157. 26 Other possible influences, for instance, are discussed by Scholes and

Kain (pp. 255-63), and David Seed, "The Context of the Villanelle," James Joyce's "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" (New York: Wheatsheaf

Harvester, 1992), pp. 80-102.

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Article Contentsp. 45p. 46p. 47p. 48p. 49p. 50p. 51p. 52p. 53p. 54p. 55p. 56p. 57p. 58p. 59p. 60p. 61

Issue Table of ContentsJames Joyce Quarterly, Vol. 38, No. 1/2, Joyce and Opera (Fall, 2000 - Winter, 2001)Front MatterRaising the Wind [pp. 7-12]PerspectivesJames Joyce in Europe's Literatures 26-27 March 2001 [pp. 13-17]From Genetics to Revelations: Projects and Answers in Antwerp [pp. 17-21]"JJ" All the Way: The Seventeenth Annual James Joyce Birthday Conference University of Southern Florida Sarasota, Florida [pp. 21-23]

Operatic Joyce [pp. 25-43]James Joyce, Mastersinger: Echoes and Resonances of Richard Wagner's "Die Meistersinger von Nrnberg" in "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" [pp. 45-61]"Ulysses", Opera, Loss [pp. 63-84]Ulysses/Tell: Text and Nineteenth-Century Context [pp. 85-123]Caruso's Sin in the Fiendish Park: "The Possible Was the Improbable and the Improbable the Inevitable" (FW 110.11-12) [pp. 125-142]Richard Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde" in the Genesis of "Finnegans Wake" [pp. 143-156]James Joyce and Opera: A Bibliography [pp. 157-181]Current JJ Checklist (86) [pp. 183-195]Notes"Tutto Sciolto": An Operatic Crux in the "Sirens" Episode of James Joyce's "Ulysses" [pp. 197-205]Miss Dubedat and Giacomo Meyerbeer's "Les Huguenots" in "Ulysses" [pp. 205-214]"The Heaventree of Stars" (U 17.1039): An Echo of Richard Wagner's "Die Meistersinger"? [pp. 215-218]Mario: The Tenor of His Times [pp. 219-226]"Cyclops" as Opera [pp. 227-230]

Dazibao: Recorded Live! [p. 231-231]ReviewsReview: untitled [pp. 233-235]Review: untitled [pp. 235-237]Review: untitled [pp. 237-240]Review: untitled [pp. 240-243]Review: untitled [pp. 243-248]Review: untitled [pp. 248-254]Review: untitled [pp. 254-257]Review: untitled [pp. 257-261]Review: untitled [pp. 261-265]

Letters [pp. 267-268]Back Matter