James Joyce – cearta.ie

Palles and Joyce (images via Wikipedia, edited) I was reminded (plug alert) of my piece “The Aeolus Episode in Ulysses and the Freeman’s Journal: Chief Baron Palles and the law of defamation”, chapter 12 in Oonagh B Breen & Noel McGrath (eds) Palles. The Legal Legacy of the last Lord Chief Baron (Four Courts Press, 2022) (noted here), when I had the pleasure of reading the recent re-publication of Brian McMahon’s article (first published: Law Society Gazette, October 2004, 12), focusing on Dublin’s legal fraternity in Ulysses by James Joyce (pictured left, on the right).

To celebrate the 100th anniversary this year of the publication of Ulysses by Syliva Beach in Paris, this month’s Law Society Gazette (October 2022 (pdf), 41) has reproduced McMahon’s excellent and entertaining article.

Here are some extracts from it about three minor elements of the book that raise interesting issues of a legal nature:

James Joyce’s Ulysses is set in Dublin on 16 June 1904, and its two principal characters are Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus. Bloom is the novel’s hero, and his journey around Dublin echoes Odysseus’ journey in Homer’s Odyssey. …

… Martin Cunningham tells … Bloom, how Reuben J’s son tried to commit suicide by jumping into the Liffey, but was saved by a workman who was rewarded with a florin.

…

The Aeolus Episode in Ulysses and the Freeman’s Journal: Chief Baron Palles and the law of defamation

16 June, 202226 July, 2022

| 1 Comment

| Christopher Palles, Defamation, Defamation, James Joyce

Bloomsday 2022 is a good day to note the imminent publication the following (from the introduction and conclusion; footnotes mostly omitted):

The Aeolus Episode in Ulysses and the Freeman’s Journal: Chief Baron Palles and the law of defamation

Christopher Palles is one of the many real Dubliners in Joyce’s Ulysses. The title refers to the Roman name of a Greek hero, Odysseus; and the novel roughly corresponds to various episodes in Homer’s Odyssey, telling the story of Dublin through the wanderings of Leopold Bloom (Homer’s Odysseus) on 16 June 1904. In the Odyssey, Aeolus, the warden of the winds, seeks to help Odysseus. In the Aeolus episode in Ulysses, Bloom visits his workplace, the Freeman’s Journal, and almost crosses paths with Stephen Dedalus (Homer’s Telemachus, the other great protagonist in Ulysses).

In the Aeolus episode, many of the novel’s characters discuss the issues of the day in the Journal’s offices. J.J. O’Molloy (a once-promising lawyer now fallen on hard times) interrupts Professor MacHugh’s discourse on the grandeur that was Rome, to ask ‘Do you know that story about chief baron Palles? … It was at the royal university dinner. Everything was going swimmingly …’.

…

Public domain and copyright terms

3 January, 201314 January, 2013

| No Comments

| Copyright, James Joyce

A little late for Public Domain Day (blogged here last year – and the issues there are updated here), here’s a list of written, artistic, and musical works which have now entered the public domain; and here’s a map of countries’ standard copyright terms, (created by Balfour Smith, Program Coordinator of the Center for the Study of the Public Domain, Duke University School of Law):

…

Happy public domain day! – Updated

1 January, 20127 November, 2012

| 5 Comments

| Copyright, James Joyce

The combination of sections 24 and 35 of the Copyright and Related Rights Act, 2000 (also here; implementing EU Directives) means that copyright in a literary work expires from the first of January, 70 years after the death of the author (and it is the same for artistic works). For this reason, 1 January is Public Domain Day in the EU (and other life-plus-70-years jurisdictions), if not in the US (see: Communia | CSPD | Dag Blog | Everybody’s Libraries | ex Africa semper aliquid novi Africa | Excess Copyright | Fair Duty | Michael Geist | Mike Linksvayer | Public Domain Day | Public Domain Manifesto | Public Domain Review | Techdirt here and here | The Atlantic Wire | Wikipedia).

I visited the National Wax Museum today, and, among the many photographs I took were the image of Joyce above left (click on the image for a larger size), and this sentence (presumably a facsimile of Joyce’s handwriting, quoting from a letter he wrote to one of the early French translators of Ulysses):

Note by James Joyce at National Wax Museum

The note says:

I’ve put in so many enigmas and puzzles, that it will keep the professors arguing for centuries over what I meant, and that’s the only way of ensuring one’s immortality.

…

Should galleries and museums display offensive art?

7 January, 20111 January, 2012

| 4 Comments

| Blasphemy, Censorship, Cinema, television and theatre, James Joyce

I have on this blog regularly discussed the extent to which offensive speech can be restricted. For example, there are many (many) posts on this blog on censorship and blasphemy. Furthermore, I have referred to the censorship of Guillaume Apollinaire (here and here), Carolina Gustavsson, Aldous Huxley, DH Lawrence (here, here and here), James Joyce, John Latham, Robert Mapplethorpe and Vladimir Nabokov. Moreover, I have analysed the kinds of reasons why this kind of speech should not be censored: free speech means freedom for the thought we hate, even that of David Irving (eg, here, here, here, and here), Jean-Marie le Pen, or Kevin Myers, and even – especially! – in multi-cultural societies, especially – especially!! – online.

I was reminded of all of this by two recent blogposts. …

Is Apollinaire obscene? The ECHR says: no!

7 July, 201028 April, 2020

| 5 Comments

| Censorship, ECHR, Freedom of Expression, James Joyce, Obscenity

When I was growing up, I read a children’s book called The Arabian Nights, an innocent version of the Islamic classic One Thousand and One Nights. Perhaps surprisingly, a group of Egyptian lawyers has recently called for a ban of a newly-released version of the Nights, on the grounds that it is “obscene” and could lead people to “vice and sin”. At the same time, another Egyptian group has called for a ban on the controversial novel Azazeel (Beelzebub) by Youssef Ziedan, which won the 2009 International Prize for Arabic Fiction. And, irony of ironies, just in time for Bloomsday, a manga comic book version of James Joyce’s novel Ulysses had almost been banned from the Apple App Store for obscene images, but Apple then relented, and reversed its earlier decision to remove panels containing nude images, though it still continues to reject less famous apps.

These examples of censorship of literature on the grounds of obscenity are simply the latest instances of a long and dishonourable tradition. In an earlier post, I considered whether Lady Chatterley’s Lover is obscene. In Akdas v Turkey 41056/04 (15 February 2010) (judgment in French; press release in English), the European Court of Human Rights was faced with a similar question earlier this year, when it had to consider whether a Turkish ban on Guillaume Apollinaire‘s Les Onze Mille Verges (or, The Eleven Thousand Rods) was consistent with Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights.…

Updates: Joyce, hecklers and broadcasting

2 October, 20091 January, 2012

| 1 Comment

| Academic Freedom, Blogging, Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, Censorship, Copyright, Cyberlaw, Digital Rights, Freedom of Expression, James Joyce, journalism, Media and Communications, Regulation, Universities

I suppose if I spent ages thinking about it, I could find a spurious thread linking three stories that caught my eye over the last few days, but in truth there is none, except that they update matters which I have already discussed on this blog. (Oh, all right then, they’re all about different aspects of freedom of expression: the first shows that copyright should not prevent academic discussion; the second shows that hecklers should not have a veto; and the third is about broadcasting regulation).

First, I had noted the proclivity of the estate of James Joyce to be vigorous in defence of its copyrights; but it lost a recent case and now has agreed to pay quite substantial costs as a consequence:

Joyce estate settles copyright dispute with US academic

The James Joyce Estate has agreed to pay $240,000 (€164,000) in legal costs incurred by an American academic following a long-running copyright dispute between the two sides. The settlement brings to an end a legal saga that pre-dates the publication in 2003 of a controversial biography of Joyce’s daughter, Lucia, written by Stanford University academic Carol Shloss. …

Blawg Review #164

16 June, 200811 June, 2018

| 16 Comments

| Blogging, data retention, Irish Society, James Joyce, Law

0. Prolegomenon, or Why me?
Today is Bloomsday, the centrepiece of a weeklong festival in Dublin celebrating the day in 1904 on which the events of James Joyce’s novel Ulysses unfold, which is the day Joyce first formally went out with Nora Barnacle (the story is told in the enthralling movie Nora; other movies with 16 June references include The Producers and Before Sunrise). In the novel, all human life is there; and Eamon Fitzgerald’s Rainy Day is currently by far the best guide to the important things in life: democracy, football, and technology. Expect a Bloomsday post today (this is last year’s; update: this is this year’s). Just like Oh Brother, Where art Thou?, the novel loosely parallels Homer’s Odyssey, and this blogpost will very very loosely parallel Joyce’s Ulysses (or at least his chapter headings).…

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Category: James Joyce

Blooming Lawyers: from Sadgrove v Hole, via Palles CB and Ulysses, to Facebook

The Aeolus Episode in Ulysses and the Freeman’s Journal: Chief Baron Palles and the law of defamation

The Aeolus Episode in Ulysses and the Freeman’s Journal: Chief Baron Palles and the law of defamation

Public domain and copyright terms

Happy public domain day! – Updated

Should galleries and museums display offensive art?

Is Apollinaire obscene? The ECHR says: no!

Updates: Joyce, hecklers and broadcasting

Joyce estate settles copyright dispute with US academic

Blawg Review #164