All Day I Hear- James Joyce

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Mayanka
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All Day I Hear- James Joyce

Post by Mayanka »

I'm looking to analyse it in a unique way.


All Day I Hear- James Joyce


All day I hear the noise of waters

Making moan,

Sad as the sea-bird is when, going

Forth alone,

He hears the winds cry to the water's

Monotone.


The grey winds, the cold winds are blowing

Where I go.

I hear the noise of many waters Far below.

All day, all night, I hear them flowing To and fro.
Dolphin42
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Re: All Day I Hear- James Joyce

Post by Dolphin42 »

Like a lot of people, I suspect, I have several works of James Joyce on my bookshelf and one day I'm definitely going to read one of them past the first page.

I've never heard this poem before and the first thing that strikes me is the contrast between black-and-white and full-colour. The winds are monotone and grey. But the sound of waves is white noise - i.e. full colour.

But that's probably too physicsy an interpretation. And even if it was the intention of the author, I can't see why.
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Dawson
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Re: All Day I Hear- James Joyce

Post by Dawson »

All Day I Hear- James Joyce


All day I hear the noise of waters

Making moan,

Sad as the sea-bird is when, going

Forth alone,

He hears the winds cry to the water's

Monotone.


The grey winds, the cold winds are blowing

Where I go.

I hear the noise of many waters Far below.

All day, all night, I hear them flowing To and fro.
The first stanza of the poem evokes the loneliness and desolate beauty of the sea environment, the melancholy solitude of the sea-bird in the blind and ancient trinity of bird, water and wind. This is the macrocosm of waking life, pregnant with hidden danger.

The second stanza speaks of the journey down into the microcosm, falling in to the chasm of sleep, where the poet is followed by the echoes of the distant sea and hears the voice of the Unconscious "many waters Far below". The "flowing to and fro" is the underlying tapestry of both sleep and waking.
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Mawileonhihe
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Re: All Day I Hear- James Joyce

Post by Mawileonhihe »

It was the curry I tell you! :D
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Hereandnow
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Re: All Day I Hear- James Joyce

Post by Hereandnow »

Hmmmmm: First the word choice. this is obvoiusly not a celebration of the sea or any possible metaphorical interpretation. It is solitary and plaintive testament of one who is afficted and bears the suffering privately. the poem gives the reader a brief glimpse into the world of a abiding suffering and isolation. The poem is written in the third person and uses a variety of imagery, especially auditory imagery, to convey a sense of isolation and misery. The title's first words 'All day' suggests a condition that is continues without pause and is thus, in its constancy, uninterrupted in its effect on the poet. The poet imagines himself a seagull, a bird noted especially for its long excursions out to sea with the threat of not having enough strength to return. The sea itself is, of course, a standard symbol of the unknown, the abyssal, suggesting a lostness or an estrangement from the "shore" of engaging events. (The sea was for Melville's Ahab and dangerous place where the familiar, moral, structured world is abandoned for, if you will, evil possibilities beyond the grace of God.) For the seagull, the 'wind cries', the noise of the water 'moans' and the cold wind blows. Imagery here is clear: ........................Sorry, no time to finish. A little help?

-- Updated January 15th, 2014, 3:52 pm to add the following --
Hereandnow wrote:Hmmmmm: First this is a solitary and plaintive testament of one who is afficted and bears the suffering privately. the poem gives the reader a brief glimpse into the world of a abiding suffering and isolation. The poem is written in the third person and uses a variety of imagery, especially auditory imagery, to convey a sense of isolation and misery. The title's first words 'All day' suggests a condition that is continues without pause and is thus, in its constancy, uninterrupted in its effect on the poet. The poet imagines himself a seagull, a bird noted especially for its long excursions out to sea with the threat of not having enough strength to return. The sea itself is, of course, a standard symbol of the unknown, the abyssal, suggesting a lostness or an estrangement from the "shore" of engaging events. (The sea was for Melville's Ahab and dangerous place where the familiar, moral, structured world is abandoned for, if you will, evil possibilities beyond the grace of God.) For the seagull, the 'wind cries', the noise of the water 'moans' and the cold wind blows. Imagery here is clear: ........................Sorry, no time to finish. A little help?

-- Updated January 15th, 2014, 3:52 pm to add the following --
Hereandnow wrote:Hmmmmm: First this is a solitary and plaintive testament of one who is afficted and bears the suffering privately. the poem gives the reader a brief glimpse into the world of a abiding suffering and isolation. The poem is written in the third person and uses a variety of imagery, especially auditory imagery, to convey a sense of isolation and misery. The title's first words 'All day' suggests a condition that is continues without pause and is thus, in its constancy, uninterrupted in its effect on the poet. The poet imagines himself a seagull, a bird noted especially for its long excursions out to sea with the threat of not having enough strength to return. The sea itself is, of course, a standard symbol of the unknown, the abyssal, suggesting a lostness or an estrangement from the "shore" of engaging events. (The sea was for Melville's Ahab and dangerous place where the familiar, moral, structured world is abandoned for, if you will, evil possibilities beyond the grace of God.) For the seagull, the 'wind cries', the noise of the water 'moans' and the cold wind blows. Imagery here is clear: ........................Sorry, no time to finish. A little help?

-- Updated January 15th, 2014, 3:52 pm to add the following --
Hereandnow wrote:Hmmmmm: First this is a solitary and plaintive testament of one who is afficted and bears the suffering privately. the poem gives the reader a brief glimpse into the world of a abiding suffering and isolation. The poem is written in the third person and uses a variety of imagery, especially auditory imagery, to convey a sense of isolation and misery. The title's first words 'All day' suggests a condition that is continues without pause and is thus, in its constancy, uninterrupted in its effect on the poet. The poet imagines himself a seagull, a bird noted especially for its long excursions out to sea with the threat of not having enough strength to return. The sea itself is, of course, a standard symbol of the unknown, the abyssal, suggesting a lostness or an estrangement from the "shore" of engaging events. (The sea was for Melville's Ahab and dangerous place where the familiar, moral, structured world is abandoned for, if you will, evil possibilities beyond the grace of God.) For the seagull, the 'wind cries', the noise of the water 'moans' and the cold wind blows. Imagery here is clear: ........................Sorry, no time to finish. A little help?

-- Updated January 15th, 2014, 3:52 pm to add the following --
Hereandnow wrote:Hmmmmm: First this is a solitary and plaintive testament of one who is afficted and bears the suffering privately. the poem gives the reader a brief glimpse into the world of a abiding suffering and isolation. The poem is written in the third person and uses a variety of imagery, especially auditory imagery, to convey a sense of isolation and misery. The title's first words 'All day' suggests a condition that is continues without pause and is thus, in its constancy, uninterrupted in its effect on the poet. The poet imagines himself a seagull, a bird noted especially for its long excursions out to sea with the threat of not having enough strength to return. The sea itself is, of course, a standard symbol of the unknown, the abyssal, suggesting a lostness or an estrangement from the "shore" of engaging events. (The sea was for Melville's Ahab and dangerous place where the familiar, moral, structured world is abandoned for, if you will, evil possibilities beyond the grace of God.) For the seagull, the 'wind cries', the noise of the water 'moans' and the cold wind blows. Imagery here is clear: ........................Sorry, no time to finish. A little help?
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Edison Maxwell
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Re: All Day I Hear- James Joyce

Post by Edison Maxwell »

There's was a nice musical interpretation of this poem (Joyce was consciously writing lyrics during that time) by Jan Steele in 1976:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8SpYnYe77s

My interpretation is that the "seagull" flying above the "waters far below" is a metaphor for an individuated consciousness maneuvering, buffeted by "grey winds", while recognizing a deep ocean of subconsciousness - the "monotone" of "many waters" - far below.
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cavacava
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Re: All Day I Hear- James Joyce

Post by cavacava »

Mayanka wrote: October 1st, 2013, 11:59 pm I'm looking to analyse it in a unique way.


All Day I Hear- James Joyce


All day I hear the noise of waters

Making moan,

Sad as the sea-bird is when, going

Forth alone,

He hears the winds cry to the water's

Monotone.


The grey winds, the cold winds are blowing

Where I go.

I hear the noise of many waters Far below.

All day, all night, I hear them flowing To and fro.
A few thoughts:

Well the poem is not typically organized as presented at least the way I'm seeing it. The second stanza is where I see a difference. The copies I found run it as follows:
The grey winds, the cold winds are blowing
Where I go.
I hear the noise of many waters
Far below.
All day, all night, I hear them flowing
To and fro.
The overall structure of the poem mirrors wave sets, one long line over a following shorter line (so perhaps in a sense one line crashes into the next). The rhyme scheme changes from 1st stanza to second. The echoing "moan", "alone" and "monotone", give way to "go", "below" and "fro...these round sounds. The poem's rhyme:
a,b,c,b,a,b
c,d,a,d,c,d

I wonder about Joyce's use of the word "noise" in the first line "All day I hear the noise of waters", 'Noise' suggests the sound is not appreciated by the lyrical narrator.
Oxford dictionary says "Middle English (also in the sense ‘quarrelling’): from Old French, from Latin nausea ‘seasickness’ (see nausea)."
Seasick nausea perhaps.

"The grey winds", suggests fog to me, where we can easily become lost, and we are only orientated by the sounds we recognize.
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Hereandnow
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Re: All Day I Hear- James Joyce

Post by Hereandnow »

Perhaps the poet, the narrator is dead: time has no place, nor does space, for it is day and night that the wretched experience continues--he doesn't sleep, and therefore, time is suspended; and space is without definition as the winds blow cold, that is, without distinction (wind of any description is not spatially defined) save the discomfort of the cold. The grey, cold winds blow where he goes, implying he is going up and away, as a spirit might exiting the body, leaving the noise of the water far below. Of course, heaven is nowhere in sight. His is a kind of aerial purgatory??
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Re: All Day I Hear- James Joyce

Post by Gertie »

That's a really beautiful poem.
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h_k_s
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Re: All Day I Hear- James Joyce

Post by h_k_s »

I read Ulysses by Joyce and concluded that it needed serious editing.

One day in the life of an Irishman in Ireland culminating in you-know-what to a leggy babe in a dress with her legs spread.

Not my idea of literature. Maybe a vain attempt at writing a graphic novel.

Certainly no comparison to the author of the Odyssey, who was probably originally Penelope, but who became cast as "Homer" in ancient Greek literature.

If you think about it, only Penelope could have written/told the story of Odysseus.

Just as only Helen could have written/told the story of Troy.

Homer was like a pseudonym.

Now … back to Joyce.
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cavacava
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Re: All Day I Hear- James Joyce

Post by cavacava »

The following poem is thought to have inspired Joyce's "All Day I Hear".

“Autumn Song” by Paul Verlaine (1866)

When a sighing begins
In the violins
Of the autumn-song,
My heart is drowned
In the slow sound
Languorous and long

Pale as with pain,
Breath fails me when
The hours toll deep.
My thoughts recover
The days that are over,
And I weep.

And I go
Where the winds know,
Broken and brief,
To and fro,
As the winds blow
A dead leaf.

Some of the wording is strikingly similar to Joyce's, it too projects feelings into nature, and it too concentrates on sound. Verlaine's poem appears to be about getting old, and reminiscing about life, perhaps Joyce's poem also has some of this in it.
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Hereandnow
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Re: All Day I Hear- James Joyce

Post by Hereandnow »

The last verse of the Verlaine poem could stand alone. This poem is clearer than Joyce's, with its direct references to nostalgia of autumn, thoughts recovered, sighing and so forth--it is clearly a poem of plaintive departure. Joyce's poet is more tortured and lost, but about departure, and more purgatorial departure.
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h_k_s
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Re: All Day I Hear- James Joyce

Post by h_k_s »

cavacava wrote: December 3rd, 2018, 11:53 am The following poem is thought to have inspired Joyce's "All Day I Hear".

“Autumn Song” by Paul Verlaine (1866)

When a sighing begins
In the violins
Of the autumn-song,
My heart is drowned
In the slow sound
Languorous and long

Pale as with pain,
Breath fails me when
The hours toll deep.
My thoughts recover
The days that are over,
And I weep.

And I go
Where the winds know,
Broken and brief,
To and fro,
As the winds blow
A dead leaf.

Some of the wording is strikingly similar to Joyce's, it too projects feelings into nature, and it too concentrates on sound. Verlaine's poem appears to be about getting old, and reminiscing about life, perhaps Joyce's poem also has some of this in it.
Well that's by Paul Verlaine not by James Joyce.
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h_k_s
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Re: All Day I Hear- James Joyce

Post by h_k_s »

Hereandnow wrote: December 3rd, 2018, 1:09 pm The last verse of the Verlaine poem could stand alone. This poem is clearer than Joyce's, with its direct references to nostalgia of autumn, thoughts recovered, sighing and so forth--it is clearly a poem of plaintive departure. Joyce's poet is more tortured and lost, but about departure, and more purgatorial departure.
"... purgatorial departure." -- Do you mean that I will need to pay in Purgatory for all those evil things I did?

Jes' I hope not. I hope the blood of Jesus will simply forgive me for being stupid when I was younger.
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Re: All Day I Hear- James Joyce

Post by h_k_s »

Joyce started his book Ulysses with a story about himself frying a calf's kidney and savoring the aroma and taste of urine in the meat for his breakfast.

Like everything else in the book there is a sexual double meaning to it.

I have tried calves' kidneys and they taste nasty. So does liver. Any liver.

Right now I am roasting half a chicken in my stove and it has a delightful aroma which fills the home. I'll have the dark meat parts and wing for dinner now and save the breast for homemade chicken noodle soup tomorrow. Out of my USD $6.00 chicken I therefore get four complete $1.50 meals -- better pricing than even McDonalds !! And certainly better than Chick-Fil-A.

I froze the other half for another time.

That beats James Joyce's calf's liver don't you think ?!
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