Retrospective arrangement

The men in Bloom's carriage in Hades mock their friend Tom Kernan for using pretentious words like "trenchant." But the other expression that invites their ridicule, "retrospective arrangement," recurs half a dozen times more in the novel, only two of them connected to Kernan, and thus acquires significance beyond anything that he might intend. Mnemonic ordering operates in activities as diverse as history and music, and it is essential to the formation of personal and national identity. It is also a central principle of Joyce's artistic representation of human lives.

John Hunt 2019

Source: www.mindfulschools.org.

Source: www.azquotes.com.

Source: madisoncommons.org.

Hand with Reflecting Sphere, 1935 lithograph by M. C. Escher. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Cover of John Rickard's Joyce's Book of Memory (Duke University Press, 1999). Source: www.amazon.com.