ABSTRACT
The exiled James Joyce spent his adult life in a number of European cities at a time of considerable musical experimentation and innovation. Joyce’s understanding of contemporary musical experimentations and musicological theories, in particular in relation to transcription and tonality, was in fact augmented by his existing knowledge of an earlier and similar debate concerning Irish traditional music, which resides in a liminal mode and resisted textualization. Given that throughout his life Joyce entertained guests at his parties with traditional Irish melodies and the often-sentimental music of his Dublin childhood, it is assumed he was slow to embrace European contemporary music, at least at an emotional level. In his essay “‘Sirens’ after Schoenberg,” David Herman opens the issue of Joyce and modern music, situating the “Sirens” episode in the wider field of contemporary modernist movements.
