When John Eglinton says of Shakespeare that "I admire him, as
old Ben did, on this side idolatry," he is quoting words
published four years after the Bard's death by fellow poet and
playwright Ben Jonson. For Jonson, and for Joyce too, the
words convey very precise significance. By locating himself on
"this side idolatry" Jonson expresses high esteem while
reserving the right to judge. His air of respectful rivalry
suits the context in the library chapter, where Eglinton says
that Irish writers have not yet produced anything as estimable
as Shakespeare's Hamlet even as Stephen Dedalus is
using the play to envision how he might do exactly that.
Two of Jonson's
works make clear that "bardolatry," the Victorian enthusiasm
that George Bernard Shaw gave a name in 1901, grew from roots
reaching back as far as Shakespeare's own times. Although Jonson
had a titanic ego, vast classical learning, and enough artistic
genius not to be cowed by Shakespeare's accomplishments, he also
understood the awe that many people of the theater felt toward
his rival. In the remarkable lines he wrote as a preface to the
First Folio (1623) he poured forth extravagant praises: "neither
man nor Muse can praise too much"; "Soul of the age! / The
applause, delight, the wonder of our stage"; "He was not of an
age, but for all time!" Tellingly, though, just one phrase from
that poem had enough tough-minded bite to become engraved in
popular memory: "thou hadst small Latin and less Greek." In
Timber: or, Discoveries; Made upon Men and Matter (1620),
Jonson showed the same insistence on leavening praise with
criticism:
I remember the players have often mentioned it as
an honor to Shakespeare, that in his writing, whatsoever he
penned, he never blotted out a line. My answer hath been,
“Would he had blotted a thousand,” which they thought a
malevolent speech. I had not told posterity this but for their
ignorance, who chose that circumstance to commend their friend
by wherein he most faulted; and to justify mine own candor, for
I loved the man, and do honor his memory on this side
idolatry as much as any. He was, indeed, honest, and of
an open and free nature; had an excellent fancy, brave
notions, and gentle expressions, wherein he flowed with that
facility that sometime it was necessary he should be stopped.
§ Early in
Scylla and Charybdis Joyce alludes to Shakespeare's
cultural status as the Great English Writer: "— Our young
Irish bards, John Eglinton censured, have yet to create a figure
which the world will set beside Saxon Shakespeare's Hamlet
though I admire him, as old Ben did, on this side idolatry." The
"
censure" is evidently directed at Stephen, who as the
chapter opens has already begun contesting received notions
about the significance and the greatness of
Hamlet. No
Irish writer, Eglinton points out (Stephen presumably least of
all), has yet risen to this level of literary accomplishment.
But the Irishman is no bardolator. His qualifying word "
though"
emphasizes that he is placing himself on "
this side" of
the line separating judicious appreciation from uncritical
adulation.
The same could be said of Stephen. He has devoted vast time
and energy to developing a "theory" of Shakespeare as the
model of great literary art, but he sees the Bard as less than
infallible
and harbors a racial animus against the "Saxon." Like
Jonson, this "young Irish bard" gazes on greatness
through the lens of his own artistic aspirations.
