‘Irish Melodies’ (Thomas Moore)
Item
Title
‘Irish Melodies’ (Thomas Moore)
Description
Moore's published collection of songs were immensely popular in late 19th century Ireland and during the early 20th century period during in which 'The Dead' is set. Music and singing are central narrative and thematic elements within ‘The Dead’. Joyce makes passing reference to the Irish Melodies both in the story and elsewhere in Dubliners. Indeed, Richard Ellman notes that a reference to Moore’s ‘O Ye Dead’ in one of Stanislaus Joyce’s regular letters to his brother became, as he describes it, one of Joyce’s “impulsions” toward the writing of ‘The Dead’. In the letter, sent to Joyce in 1905 while he and his wife Nora lived in Trieste, Stanislaus commends a recent performance of the song in Dublin by the Irish baritone Plunket Greene. Joyce asked Stanislaus to send him the words of the song. (See Ellman, James Joyce, p.244.)
While no explicit reference to ‘O Ye Dead’ occurs in Joyce’s short story, a number of commentators, Kevin Whelan among them, identify the way in which certain elements of Moore’s lyric are evoked enigmatically in ‘The Dead’. For instance, the ghost of Michael Furey – who, among other things, is associated with the cold snow that falls outside on the night of the party – can be taken as a reference to the fate of the dead Irish soldiers in Moore’s song who, having died on foreign soil, are fated to haunt their loved ones and former dwelling-places in Ireland or else to retreat to the Arctic surroundings of Mount Hecla. As Whelan puts it, “Moore’s master image is of the dead condemned to glacial cold, ‘to freeze ‘mid Hecla’s snow.’” That Moore’s song invokes the fate of ‘the Wild Geese’ is significant in that it epitomises the way in which Joyce weaves the ghosts of Irish colonial history into ‘The Dead’. The Battle of Aughrim, for instance, is evoked indirectly via the narrative significance of the traditional song ‘The Lass of Aughrim’.
The Abbey Theatre’s 2012 adaptation of the short story was notable for opening with a remarkable rendition of Moore's song.
While no explicit reference to ‘O Ye Dead’ occurs in Joyce’s short story, a number of commentators, Kevin Whelan among them, identify the way in which certain elements of Moore’s lyric are evoked enigmatically in ‘The Dead’. For instance, the ghost of Michael Furey – who, among other things, is associated with the cold snow that falls outside on the night of the party – can be taken as a reference to the fate of the dead Irish soldiers in Moore’s song who, having died on foreign soil, are fated to haunt their loved ones and former dwelling-places in Ireland or else to retreat to the Arctic surroundings of Mount Hecla. As Whelan puts it, “Moore’s master image is of the dead condemned to glacial cold, ‘to freeze ‘mid Hecla’s snow.’” That Moore’s song invokes the fate of ‘the Wild Geese’ is significant in that it epitomises the way in which Joyce weaves the ghosts of Irish colonial history into ‘The Dead’. The Battle of Aughrim, for instance, is evoked indirectly via the narrative significance of the traditional song ‘The Lass of Aughrim’.
The Abbey Theatre’s 2012 adaptation of the short story was notable for opening with a remarkable rendition of Moore's song.
Subject
Intertextual Reference in 'The Dead'
Date
1808-1834