A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Dubliners - James Joyce [220]
13 (p. 123) confessionals: In the Roman Catholic Church, booths called confessionals are set apart for the hearing of confessions by the priest. Commonly, the booth is divided into three sections, with the priest sitting in the middle compartment, and penitents kneeling in either of the outside compartments; the priest listens to the confession of one penitent by sliding open a wooden divider, exposing a screen between himself and the penitent. The priest respects the anonymity of the penitent by focusing his eyes straight ahead, rather than looking through the screen.
14 (p. 134) the Dominican and Franciscan orders:The Dominicans, or Order of Friars Preachers, was founded by Saint Dominic, around 1215, for the salvation of souls. The Franciscans, or Order of Friars Minor, was founded by Saint Francis of Assisi in 1209; its members take a vow of poverty.
15 (p. 141) fall: To “fall” is to move from a state of grace, in which salvation is secured, to one of damnation, through sin. The story of the Garden of Eden in Genesis 3 is the story of the archetypal Fall of humankind, “man’s first disobedience,” as Milton puts it at the start of Paradise Lost.
16 (p. 148) his strange name seemed to him a prophecy: Both Stephen’s given and family names are rich with allusion. Stephen is the name of the first martyr of the Christian church, who was stoned to death for his adherence to the teachings of Christ. Dædalus was the legendary Greek labyrinth-maker, who crafted wax wings for himself and his son, Icarus, to escape from their imprisonment on Crete; Icarus flew too close to the sun, where his wings melted, and he plummeted to his death in the sea.
17 (p. 166) with the same eyes as the elder brother in the parable may have turned on the prodigal: Luke 15:11-32 gives the story of the prodigal son. In the parable, told by Jesus, the older brother who has remained faithful to his father is infuriated when the dissolute, or “prodigal,” younger brother is welcomed back to the home with open arms, all his misbehavior forgiven.
18 (p. 187) Goethe and Lessing: Donovan is referring to German poet and dramatist Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) and German critic and dramatist Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729-1781). Together, the two represent the Romantic and classical poles in art and criticism. Laocoon (1766) is Lessing’s influential tract on aesthetics.
19 (p. 204)—The Forster family ... the Blake Forsters: This is a hodgepodge of information and misinformation about royal European lineages. Between Baldwin I (c.1058-1118) and Baldwin IX (Baldwin the Forester), an impostor who was executed by the French in the thirteenth century, many of those named were involved in ruling the area now known as Belgium.
20 (p. 215)—Jesus, too, seems to have treated his mother with scant courtesy in public but Suarez ... has apologised for him: Jesus sometimes treated his mother in a seemingly somewhat discourteous fashion, as in Mark 3:31-35 and John 2:1-4. Francisco Suarez (1548-1617), a Spanish Jesuit theologian, attempted to explain away these passages.
22 (p. 217)—Et tu cum Jesu Galilæo eras: Thou also wast with Jesus the Galilean (Latin). This charge is made against Peter by a bystander in Matthew 26:69 (Douay version).
23 (p. 221) Puzzled for the moment by saint John at the Latin gate: In his musing, Stephen brings together an image of the beheaded John the Baptist and of another John, Saint John the Evangelist, who escaped persecution by miraculously passing through the locked Latin Gate in Rome. The Feast of St. John at the Latin Gate is celebrated on May 6; it also celebrates the dedication of the Basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome, which