Chat
Text
Email
Phone
In Person
V.A.8
V.A.8:
Earlier Version of Scenes and Fragmentary Texts for the "Cyclops" (12) Episode (1919)1
Material Description and Collation: The manuscript is a copybook in Joyce's hand in black ink, with pencil additions and/or revisions on all the inscribed pages, except pp. [5v]–[7r], [11r], [11v], [12r], [14v] and [17v]. The text on the front cover verso and on pp. [1v], [8v], [19v] and [20v]–[24r] is all in pencil and that on pp. [3v], [18v], [20r] and [21v] is in pencil but revised in pencil and black ink.2 The manuscript consists of 24 leaves (48 pages) of graph paper, of which 38 pages are inscribed and 10 are blank: pp. [2v], [6v], [7v], [9v], [10v], [12v], [13v], [15v], [16v] and [24v].
As manufactured, the copybook was held together with 3 metal staples in the center vertical fold; they were removed for conservation purposes and the manuscript was disbound. The manuscript is similar to Buffalo MS V.A.5: it has a heavier stock blue paper cover and an identical white oval paper label with scalloped edges is also pasted on the front cover recto, though here the initials "J. J." in a circle are stamped in black ink on the right hand side of the label.
Measurements: Each leaf measures 21.6 x 17.5 cm.
Pagination: Joyce foliated the leaves toward the bottom of the left margin of the recto pages in pencil "1)"–"15)" and "17)"–"25)"; that is, he mis-numbered the pages, omitting page number 16.3
Contents: The manuscript is the first part of the earliest extant proto-draft of the "Cyclops" episode and contains 8 distinct scenes, which Joyce numbered in blue crayon in the left margins. See Herring, Buffalo for a complete annotated transcription of this manuscript.
Joyce compiled a partial chronology of Bloom's life from 1866 to 1904 on the front cover verso in pencil.4
Scene "1)" starts on p. [1r] and is continued and concluded on p. [2r]. Joyce wrote an inaccurate version of Paul Verlaine's poem "La Lune Blanche" (see La bonne chanson , poem VI) in the center of p. [1v] in pencil, which he marked off from what were probably intended as additional texts for the first scene.
Scene "2)" begins toward the top of p. [2r], is continued on pp. [3r] and [4r], with additional text on p. [3v] in pencil for p. [4r]. The scene continues directly on p. [5r] to p. [10r], with further additional text on p. [8v] again in pencil for p. [9r] and Joyce wrote another, longer additional text in black ink also for p. [4r] on p. [5v] that he continued on p. [4v]. Pages [2v], [6v], [7v] and [9v] are blank.
Scene "3)" begins toward the center of p. [10r] and is continued directly on p. [11r] to p. [13r], with an insertion on p. [11v] in black ink for p. [12r]. Pages [10v] and [12v] are blank.
Scene "4)" begins toward the bottom of p. [13r] and is continued directly on p. [14r] to p. [19r], with a relatively long insertion on p. [14v] for p. [15r] and another on p. [17v] for p. [18r], both in black ink. Pages [13v], [15v] and [16v] are blank.
Scene "5)" begins at the top of p. [20r] and is continued on p. [21r]. Joyce then wrote 3 additional fragmentary texts to continue this scene on the following pages in this order: p. [20v], tagged "5) | a)", p. [19v], tagged "5) | b)" and then p. [18v] tagged "5) | c)", all tagged in blue crayon. At some later stage, probably after most of the manuscript had been filled, Joyce also wrote "v. p. 25" (that is, p. [23v]) in the left margin of p. [20v] and wrote a further text for "5) | a)" in the lower half of the page there. Notably, all of the text on pp. [18v] and [19v] through [24r] is in pencil.
Scene "6)" begins toward the center of p. [21r] and is continued on p. [22r]. Joyce then wrote an additional text for this scene on p. [21v] that he tagged "6) | a)" and also wrote an addition for p. [21v] at the bottom of p. [22r].
Scene "7)" begins at the top of p. [23r] and Joyce also wrote an additional text for this scene on p. [22v] that he tagged "7) | a)".
Scene "8)" begins at the top of p. [24r] and ends mid-sentence there (even though p. [24v] is blank) but is continued directly on NLI MS 36,639/10, p. [1r], where the additional text is also tagged as scene "8)" in blue crayon. Joyce wrote a relatively long addition for p. [24r] at the top of p. [23v]. The text on MS 36,639/10, p. [1r] is also in pencil.
Finally, Joyce wrote two further additional texts on NLI MS 36,639/10 for scenes in Buffalo MS V.A.8. The first is in pencil at the top of MS 36,639/10, p. [1v] and is correspondingly tagged "7) | b" to follow the fragmentary scene on MS V.A.8, p. [22v]. The other additional scene is also in pencil on MS 36,639/10, p. [3v] and Joyce tagged it "6) | b)" to follow the scene on MS V.A.8, p. [22r], where he had noted "(v. p. 28)"; that is, NLI MS 36,639/10, p. [3v].
MS V.A.6 is a later partial draft of the episode (see MS V.A.6, Contents, for further information).
Other Markings: Joyce drew short horizontal lines in blue crayon separating scenes 1 through 6 on pp. [2r], [10r], [13r], [19r] and [21r]. Joyce crossed through the texts with diagonal lines or X s in red crayon on all the inscribed pages, except pp. [1v], [8v], [17v] and [18r], probably as he transcribed the texts to later drafts (including MS V.A.6). Similarly, Joyce also crossed through some of the additional texts with diagonal lines or X s in blue crayon on pp. [1v], [2r], [9r] and he crossed through all the text on p. [20r] with both red and blue crayon X s over one another. The only pages that have no crayon markings are pp. [8v], [17v] and [18r].
The staples left rust stains in the centerfold between pp. [12v] and [13r]. During conservation, therefore after the manuscript's publication in the JJA , the recto of each leaf was marked "V. A. 8. p 1"–"V. A. 8. p 24" in the lower right corner in pencil. The cover was not marked.
Dating: Joyce wrote the fragmentary scenes in this manuscript in June 1919 in Zurich.
Publication: The manuscript has been reproduced in black and white photo-facsimile on JJA 13.083–132. It has been transcribed and annotated in Phillip F. Herring (ed.), Joyce's Notes and Early Drafts for "Ulysses": Selections from the Buffalo Collection , (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1977), pp. 131–146 and 152–177. See also Michael Groden, "Cyclops in Progress, 1919," JJQ 12.1/2, (Fall 1974/Winter 1975), pp. 123–168, "Ulysses" in Progress , (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977), especially pp. 115–165 and "Joyce at Work on 'Cyclops': Toward a Biography of Ulysses ," JJQ 44.2 (Winter 2007), pp. 217–245. Also see, Myron Schwartzman, "The V.A.8 Copybook: An Early Draft of the 'Cyclops' Chapter of Ulysses with Notes on its Development," JJQ 12.1/2, (Fall 1974/Winter 1975), pp. 64–122, in which the text of MS V.A.8 is also transcribed and annotated.
- Beach, Catalogue, p. 3, item 3; Slocum and Cahoon , item E.5.c.
- In general, Joyce wrote scenes 1 through 4 in black ink, possibly copying them from earlier versions, and wrote scenes 5 through 8 in pencil, which may indicate that they are earlier draft states of the those scenes.
- Presumably unintentionally, Joyce similarly mis-numbered the pages of NLI MS 36,639/10.
- In the summer of 1921 Joyce compiled another partial listing of events in Bloom's life on the later Ulysses notebook NLI MS 36,639/05/B, p. [10v].
