6.16.2024

Yes--I know it's really the 18th, but . . .

Hello everyone, and a special welcome to new readers!

I started this post on 6.16, but am just now getting to finish it. And I’ve kept the date as-was because June 16 is “Bloomsday”—a point on the calendar when literary folk celebrate the life and work of James Joyce. It’s like May 4 (“May the Fourth be with you!”) for Star Wars enthusiasts, and March 14 (“Pi Day,” 3.14) for math lovers.

The symbolism in this case: Irish writer James Joyce is best known for his sprawling (700+ pages) modernist novel Ulysses, which takes place on a single day: June 16, 1904. The narrative is loosely structured around the model of Homer’s Odyssey, and the novel’s protagonist is named Leopold Bloom.

To speed things along, I’ve borrowed this paragraph from the indispensable Wikipedia:

Since its publication, [Ulysses] has attracted controversy and scrutiny, ranging from an obscenity trial in the United States in 1921 to protracted textual "Joyce Wars". The novel's stream of consciousness technique, careful structuring, and experimental prose—replete with puns, parodies, epiphanies, and allusions—as well as its rich characterisation and broad humour have led it to be regarded as one of the greatest literary works.

I’ve never read Ulysses, in the sense of starting at the beginning (wherever that might be) and continuing page-by-page to the end (ditto). It’s famously challenging, as the multilayered text has both linear and spatial structures—not unlike the Tarot.

EP readers will already suspect where this is going! But before I get to the big reveal, let’s trace a few paths of historical and/or numerical relevance.

• Ulysses was first published in its entirety on February 2, 1922. Which can also be written as 2.2.22, in both U.S. and U.K. date format. The work had already been serialized over several years, but it was on this date (Joyce’s 40th birthday) that it became a single volume.

• The year 1904, in which Joyce set his novel, was also the year that A.E. Waite resigned from the Order of the Golden Dawn, setting off a chain of consequences in the esoteric world. That same year, Aleister Crowley claimed to have received The Book of the Law from a discarnate entity named Aiwass. In short—a turning point year for the creators of our two most influential modern Tarot decks.

• But wait—there’s more! Poet W. B. Yeats was also deeply involved in the events affecting the Golden Dawn in 1904, and in that year joined an offshoot group, Stella Matutina. By 1922, the year Ulysses was published, Yeats was about to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature—and he has been regarded ever since as one of the two genuinely “serious” people associated with Tarot.

• The other, of course, is T. S. Eliot, whose epic poem The Wasteland famously contains references to Tarot. And to round things out, The Wasteland was indeed published in 1922.

From a big picture perspective, Joyce’s work is woven into a period of time during which Tarot enjoyed a significant creative breakthrough, and literary modernism became a vital part of our cultural narrative. But of course that’s not breaking news—and if you want a deeper dive, here’s an EP option:

Makers of Modern Tarot: Part 2

So let’s reset to this past Sunday, when I started a new EP post, and noticed the word “Bloomsday” on my calendar. Here’s the synchronicity journey that ensued.

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“Tarot Everywhere” Continues

I’m genuinely amazed, every time this happens. A word, event, email, song, television show, advertisement—whatever it may be—gets my attention. I Google some format of “whatever + Tarot,” and think to myself, “okay, this time can’t possibly work.”

And I’m always wrong.

I guarantee you there is a deck, book, or blog post related to even the most unlikely search term. And not just as a matter of superficial or accidental co-incidence. Though some are playful, others deeply serious, every discovery I make this way is in some sense substantive and interesting.

Which, of course, brings us to Bloomsday, 2024—and . . .

Let’s start with a summary from the book jacket:

In Joycean Arcana: Ulysses and the Tarot de Marseille, Matthew Schultz proposes a new framework for exploring the complex characters and relationships in James Joyce’s Ulysses. By situating Joyce within the wider circles of occult modernism, Schultz builds upon the widely-accepted Homeric framework of Ulysses to show how the Odyssey as both a divinatory tool and an allegory for the journey of the soul may further illuminate Joyce’s 20th-century masterwork. Pairing each of the 22 Major Arcana of the Tarot de Marseille with a character from Ulysses, Schultz charts a new constellation of experiences within the novel that open up innovative readings and deepen our appreciation for well-established interpretations.

Next, let’s check out the author:

Matthew Schultz is the Director of the Writing Center and Adjunct Associate Professor of English. He earned both his B.A. and M.A. in English Literature at John Carroll University and his Ph.D. in English Literature from Saint Louis University where he specialized in Irish Studies, Literary Modernism, and Postcolonial Theory. Schultz is both a literary scholar and creative writer whose work engages questions of aesthetics and metaphysics. His recent projects focus specifically on oracular poetics and animist thought in {pre[post]} Modernist literature.

I’d love to know more about “oracular poetics”! And I plan to explore Joycean Arcana further.

But for now, there are still a couple of things to note about Tarot and Ulysses. First—scholars debate whether the cartomancy mentioned in Joyce’s novel was meant to be associated with playing cards or with a Tarot deck. But he never used the word “Tarot” in manuscripts or correspondence.

And second—there’s no Ulysses Tarot. There is, however, a rather captivating James Joyce card deck, which you can read about in this essay.

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That’s it for this (belated) Bloomsday. Back soon, though—and as always, thanks for reading! C