4 English Seaside Towns | The Sandy Cove Atlas

4 English Seaside Towns

The Marks

As James Joyce was casting round for what to do with his life, one idea was to become a singer. On 3 June 1904 he wrote to his friend Oliver St John Gogarty saying: ‘My idea for July and August is this – to get Dolmetsch to make me a lute and to coast the south of England, from Falmouth to Margate singing old English songs.’ (Letters of James Joyce2 ) Plate 8, England and Wales, could be a witness to this project. It is one of the most heavily marked in the Atlas, with over [50] marks, mainly underlining seaside resorts in blue crayon. It suggests a rather bored young man trying to prove to himself what a big opportunity there could be.

2 Vol 1, p54

The Texts

The touring idea came to nothing in real life but it is referred to in at least four passages in Ulysses, with Margate mentioned in three of them. Joyce inserts the scheme into Bloom’s stream of consciousness as he tries to distract himself from what Molly and Blazes Boylan are up to. In the fourth passage, from Penelope, Molly mentions only Margate.

8 Lestrygonians
Line 8394 etc: Could buy one of those silk petticoats for Molly, colour of her new garters.

Today. Today. Not think.

Tour the south then. What about English wateringplaces? Brighton, Margate. Piers by moonlight. Her voice floating out. Those lovely seaside girls.

16 Eumaeus
Line 25896 etc: Another thing just struck him as a by no means bad notion was he might have a gaze around on the spot to see about trying to make arrangements about a concert tour of summer music embracing the most prominent pleasure resorts, Margate with mixed bathing and firstrate hydros and spas, Eastbourne, Scarborough, Margate and so on, beautiful Bournemouth, the Channel islands and similar bijou spots, which might prove highly remunerative.

17 Ithaca
Line 30387 etc:

Abnegation?

In virtue of a) acquaintance initiated in September 1903 in the establishment of George Mesias, merchant tailor and outfitter, 5 Eden Quay, b) hospitality extended and received in kind, reciprocated and reappropriated in person, c) comparative youth subject to impulses of ambition and magnanimity, colleagual altruism and amorous egoism, d) extraracial attraction, intraracial inhibition, supraracial prerogative, e) an imminent provincial musical tour, common current expenses, net proceeds divided.

18 Penelope Line 32020 etc: Im sure hes very distinguished Id like to meet a man like that God not those other ruck besides hes young those fine young men I could see down in Margate strand bathingplace from the side of the rock standing up in the sun naked like a God or something and then plunging into the sea with them why arent all men like that thered be some consolation for a woman like that lovely little statue he bought I could look at him all day long curly head and his shoulders his finger up for you to listen theres real beauty and poetry for you. Places marked in the Sandycove Atlas, Plate 8: (Laestrygonians) Brighton, Margate (Eumaeus) Brighton, Margate, English watering places (many), Margate (repeated), Eastbourne, Scarborough, Bournemouth, Channel islands (not specifically marked, but a clear presence in that area of Plate 8). (Penelope) Margate

Discussion

Joyce’s letter of 3 June to Gogerty provides an approximate date for when Joyce borrowed the Atlas and started making marks in it, if the scenario is correct. Perhaps he got carried away with the sheer number of marks he made on the map of England and Wales (there are a lot on Plate 9 Scotland as well) and realised he would be in trouble if he returned the Atlas. Given the number of places marked, the number actually named in Ulysses is quite small: Brighton twice, Margate four times, Eastbourne, Scarborough, Bournemouth. In Wandering Rocks Father Conmee will probably go to Buxton ‘for the waters’ and Lord Mayor Hutchinson is absent in Llandudno for a chaotic council meeting. Margate seems to have particular sexual connotations. The mention in Penelope leads on to one of the most explicitly erotic passages in Ulysses.