We review the 2025 Chloe Zhao film, Hamnet.

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Ora pro nobis! Pogue mahone! Acushla machree!

Topics in this episode include Thomas Aquinas (but less than you might expect), Aquinas’ views on incest, the meaning on “new Viennese school,” whether or not Joyce had any interest in psychoanalysis (and whether it matters), how Joyce may have encountered psychoanalysis in Zurich, Professor Edward Dowden, the work of psychoanalyst Otto Rank and his view on Hamlet specifically, Hamlet as an Oedipal text or an “incest drama”, the notion of Shakespeare writing Hamlet to process the death of his father, the theme of paternity in Ulysses, Stephen’s recognition of the historic resilience of Jewish communities, Nobodaddy, whether or not Reddit atheists have embraced the poetry of William Blake, and what John Eglinton and the Unabomber have in common.

Decoding Dedalus: Saint Thomas' New Viennese School — Blooms & Barnacles

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Isn’t Carrotty Bess great?

Topics in this episode include why Stephen compares Shakespeare to Shylock, Shakespeare’s father John Shakespeare and his many business ventures, his legal troubles caused by some of those business ventures, Shakespeare’s corn-hoarding during a famine, the irony of Irish Nationalists being devoted to Shakespeare, Shakespeare’s role in providing propaganda for Britain’s colonial project, Mr. Deasy’s thoughts on Shakespeare, Chettle Falstaff, the time Shakespeare sued a guy over some malt, how The Merchant of Venice stoked Elizabethan antisemitism, plays that Shakespeare wrote to please various monarchs, James I and Macbeth, political propaganda found in Shakespeare’s comedies, and why Stephen’s point-of-view as an Irish person alters his interpretation of Shakespeare.

Decoding Dedalus: He drew Shylock out of his own long pocket.

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Sometimes the secondbest bed is the better bed.

Topics in this episode include Griselsa, Antisthenes and Helen, art of surfeit, the Dark Lady of the sonnets, the erotic adventures of Shakespeare and Richard Burbage, how the Dark Lady connects the works of Shakespeare to the world of Ulysses, misogyny in the interpretation of Shakespeare, the binary of Stratford and London, William Davenant, Fetter Lane of Gerard, giglot wantons, Anne Hathaway’s supposed infidelity, Anne’s debt to a shepherd, Shakespeare’s will and the secondbest bed, and why it isn’t as damning as one might assume.

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We discuss Shakespeare's sonnets, the identities of the Fair Youth and Dark Lady, and the Oscar Wilde short story "The Portrait of Mr. W.H."

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Why do we always fight most with the people we have the most in common with?

Topics in this episode include James Joyce’s fraught relationship with playwright John Millington Synge, the way Synge shows up in Ulysses, in-jokes about Yeats that made it into Ulysses, Synge’s artistic work and why Joyce took issue with it, Synge’s connection to the Aran Islands, Synge’s eccentricities, pampooties, Joyce and Synge in Paris, Oisín and Patrick, Joyce and Synge as the personification of the duality found in “Scylla and Charybdis,” why Synge is not like Aristotle, why Joyce is bourgeois, Joyce’s Italian translation of Riders to the Sea, riots in response to The Playboy of the Western World, and Joyce’s ultimate appreciation of Synge’s work.

The Chap that Writes like Synge

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“—Do you think it is only a paradox? the quaker librarian was asking. The mocker is never taken seriously when he is most serious.”

Topics in this episode include Oscar Wilde’s “The Portrait of Mr. W.H.,” Shakespeare’s sonnets, the identity of the Fair Youth, the dedication on the folio of Shakespeare’s sonnets, the identity of Mr. W.H., Willie Hughes, homoeroticism in Sonnet 20, camp, the meaning of “ephebe,” Wilde’s connection of same-sex relationships in ancient Greece and the work of Shakespeare, gay coding in “Scylla and Charybdis,” the chilling effect of Oscar Wilde’s trial, Oscar Wilde as a model for Buck Mulligan, Lyster and Eglinton as foils for Mulligan, homophobia in “Scylla and Charybdis,” and Joyce’s thoughts on Oscar Wilde and homosexuality.

An Intimate Portrait of Mr. W. H.

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We interview author Eric Wagner about his new book, Straight Outta Dublin: James Joyce and Robert Anton Wilson

To listen to the full interview, visit patreon.com/barnaclecast

You will serve that which you laugh at.

Topics in this episode include how to pronounce “Szombathely,” Buck Mulligan’s incredible entrance into “Scylla and Charybdis,” Nicolas Cage, the heresies of Photius and Sebellius, Gloria in Excelsis Deo, why the other men must be relieved to see Buck Mulligan, whether we agree with Joyce’s claim that Mulligan wears on the reader throughout the course of Ulysses, Buck Mulligan playing the role of a Shakespearean fool in Ulysses, Will Kempe, why Mulligan’s tomfoolery must be directed at Stephen, why Mulligan’s clowning is ultimately hollow, Buck Mulligan as God’s messenger, why Stephen doesn’t accomplish anything on Bloomsday, Mulligan’s shifting identity, and joking for joking’s sake.

Puck Mulligan: A Joycean-Shakespearean Fool

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Bitches love sonnets.

Topics in this episode include putting Beurla on it, basilisks and 13th century bestiaries, Pericles and purported Shakespeare apocrypha, the Baconian theory of Shakespeare authorship, Bacon ciphers, George Brandes, Sidney, Frank Harris, the power of a granddaughter’s love, Hans Walter Gabler and the most controversial line in Ulysses, Thomas Aquinas, George Bernard Shaw’s take on Shakespeare, we finally get to the sonnets, Mary Fitton, William Herbet, Shakespeare’s trauma, consubstantiality, and one of the best entrances in all of literature.

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