‘Bloom, nodding, said he perfectly understood’: James Joyce and the Meanings of Translation

Abstract

This chapter examines Joyce’s uses of several languages, especially in Stephen Hero, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and Ulysses, and puts forward a taxonomy of foreign language use in Ulysses. The four types identified are: Latin terms associated with the Catholic mass; Italian musical terms; phrases that are deployed in a political context; and untranslated clichés that signify cultural aspiration or pretension. Drawing on examples across the range of Joyce’s writing, the chapter argues that translation can operate in part as a means to overcome forms of social division, as instanced by Stephen and Bloom, while suggesting that all language is already translated, and that translation can never be fully achieved.