NATHAN HALPER
443
too loose!") Maundy is alms.
To maunder
is beg. He begs for others.
He is a fund-raiser-an impersonal philanthropic worker. The word
"pounderin" tells us that it deals with Pound: that he is abrasive. To
pound is to bruise and batter. In addition to this usual sense, there is an
increment-a sort of surplus value. Where Joyce is dancing-"on
account of his joyicity"-a
pound
is a standard of specific gravity: a
pound
is a standard of money. To
pound
is to prison, to confine.
To
pound
is to weigh coins-to ascertain that they meet a standard. A
pounder
tries
to
put-as Pound did with Joyce-a stamp, an imprint,
on a crude ore.
Poposterous
Pound had said, "I am a bit more phallic, but less interested in
excrement and feces." "I have a gallic preference for the Phallus ...
mittel europa humour runs to the other orifice." But we have noticed
that, in his battle of Waterloo, Joyce is Napoleon. In the confrontation
between the writer and his critic, he is identified with
le mot de
Cambronne.
It is Shaun who does the German "brumming. " All
through the
Wake,
this "other orifice" in action is used as a symbol of
the creative process. The anus and environs-the expanse of fat, the
part used for sitting-is an aspect of Shaun.
There is a similar distinction between the phallus (tissue) and its
activity. The dreamer is frequently represented by either of the organs.
But, if we consider the two in conjunction, they are the opposing
aspects of a Shaun-and-Shem polarity. Of these, the phallus is the
appropriate symbol of vitality, the expressive symbol of regeneration.
It
is the .more essentially involved with life, with love.
It
reflects the
joy-"joyicity" -of creation. The phallus is a Shem: the anus is a
Shaun.
One can think of an immediate objection. In the world of Shaun–
the world as we know it-Shaun is to the fore. He is the fac;:ade.
If
we
say that he is the posterior, there is a contradiction. The rear is in front.
That is the literal meaning of the word "preposterous." The "pro"
is where the "post" should be.
On p. 153, the Mookse is sitting. He is the Church. And, by
extension, the State, the Academy, any orthodoxy, any establishment.
He is the letter: he administers the rules that fence in the spirit. In this
passage, he is the one who sits. He is the stone, he is the bottom on
which he sits. He is the act-the nonact-of sitting. Here Joyce uses a
