William Blake's Influence on Joyce's Ulysses Stephen Dedalus is a poor teacher. Poor in the sense that he lives in a one-room tower and eats nothing all day, sure, but poor above all in the sense that he is a lousy instructor. You, Cochrane, what city sent for him? Tarentum, sir. Very good . Well? There was a battle, sir. Very good. Where? The boy's blank face asked the empty window. [1]He trains his students in much the same way his first teachers trained him; stands before them inspiring fear and boredom. He understands the classroom and its little miseries. The form is tested: the catechism, call and response. Cochrane responds automatically to Stephen's barked questions, but his mind is elsewhere. The window, the unknown. Our hero Stephen's sympathies are also like this: legendary by the daughters of memory. Yet somehow it was like this, if not as memory told it. A phrase, then, of impatience, the thump of Blake's wings of excess, I feel the ruin of all space, shattered glass and collapsing masonry, and a final livid flame. What are we left with then? (Joyce 20). These are not the well-measured words of a history teacher. In fact, they are largely the words of William Blake. The "daughters of memory" figure in "A Vision of the Last Judgment", "The fable or allegory is formed by the daughters of memory". [2] Stephen reflects on the figure of Pyrrhus, the Tarentenian general who won a foolish victory and died a foolish death (Gifford 30). Write faster. I mean it. Fast! The Tarentines eventually had to succumb to the Romans, overwhelmed by their greater numbers. The Battle of Asculum drained them financially. Far from romantic stuff. But Stephen imagines... halfway through the paper... thetically (and with great enthusiasm).[2] This connection was made by Frank Gifford in Ulysses Annotated. Perhaps it will be appropriate to cite it later (30).[3] I'll deal with this later.[4] This information is basically gleaned from the editor's brief introduction to the piece on Blake in The Critical Writings of James Joyce. There's no credit, though. I'll deal with this too later. This is the kind of thing it's okay to wait until Friday to do.[5] James Joyce. "[William Blake]". The Critical Writings of James Joyce, ed. Ellsworth Mason, Richard Ellmann. New York: Viking Press, 1959 (221). Cited below in parentheses.[6] Perhaps this had something to do with the fact that Joyce taught the lesson in Italian. Just one possibility.[7] Joyce draws most of her information about Blake's life from The Real Blake by Edwin Ellis (London, 1907).