The Crozier and the Pen: "Aeolus" and the University Question

Early Joyceans focused largely on the technical aspects of the "Aeolus" episode in Ulysses, especially Joyce's use (or abuse) of rhetorical forms of language. Stuart Gilbert, for one, called "Aeolus" a "veritable thesaurus of rhetorical devices"¹ and went on to list examples for each type. Similarly, Hugh Kenner wrote that "Joyce's newspaper office is in fact the scene of genuine connoisseurship of eloquence."² The critical pendulum started to swing in the opposite direction when Stanley Sultan drew the readers' attention to the significance of Nelson's Pillar that bookends the episode, which symbolically marks the future battleground of the Easter Rising, and argued that Joyce's main concern in "Aeolus" was not rhetoric but "the political character of the Irish nation."³ In attempting to synthesize these two different traditions of reading "Aeolus," I will argue that the episode is, above all, Joyce's response to one of the most polemic-ridden political issues within the Catholic-Nationalist community during his time in Dublin, namely the University Question. In the first section, I will outline the historical context of the University Question and discuss how contemporary debates over the issue inform "Aeolus" as a whole. I will then show how Joyce revisits these debates and intervenes in them through Stephen Dedalus, who partially represents the views the novelist held as a young university graduate. Finally, I will argue that against the various positions taken up on the University Question by the different Catholic-Nationalist interest groups, Joyce counterposes an alternative, Fenian solution, thereby providing a sophisticated commentary on the state of Irish colonial politics around the turn of twentieth century.

The university question in "aeolus"

The University Question in Ireland is a complex political issue with a long and turbulent history. According to Senia Pašeta, the University Question was "the problem of establishing a higher educational system acceptable to Irish Church leaders, the laity, and successive British governments in late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century Ireland."⁴ In Joyce's time, Catholics in Ireland had the choice of attending one of three groups of colleges or institutions of higher learning affiliated with different universities: Trinity College, which was (and still is) the sole constituent college of the University of Dublin; former Queen's University Colleges in Belfast, Cork, and Galway; and colleges affiliated with the Royal University including University College, the present-day University College Dublin. However, none of these options were seen as satisfactory for Catholics by the Church hierarchy for one reason or another. Despite repeated requests from the hierarchy to grant Catholics a properly endowed and accredited college or university of their own, the British government continued to turn a deaf ear. However, the situation changed when the Conservative government came to power in 1900. Unlike the Liberals, who were reluctant to grant the hierarchy's wish lest it alienate their non-conformist supporters opposed to denominational education, the new Unionist government endeavored to do just that. To this end, the government convened in 1901 a Royal Commission on University Education chaired by Lord Robertson, a Scottish lord of appeal, to sound out clerical and lay Catholic opinions. Two years later, in February 1903, the Robertson Commission published a final report, which recommended reconstructing the Royal University as a teaching university and setting up a fully endowed Catholic college within it. Although the majority of the hierarchy was ready to accept the Royal Commission's recommendation, a few of its prominent members remained dissatisfied, and vigorously campaigned to promote an alternative scheme. Significantly, the dissenting clerics formed two separate factions, which feuded against each other. Although the government's attempt to settle the University Question miscarried yet again, the clash between the two clerical factions continued to stir up heated debates on the University Question, raising crucial questions about higher education in Ireland.

There is no doubt that Joyce followed these debates with great interest, for "Aeolus" distinctly echoes them. In fact, in the episode, we see allusions to several figures who played a prominent role in these debates. The most important personage...