In these and other ways, Stephen Dedalus fits into their lineage. Both Hamlet and Telemachus begin their respective stories in a state of angst and dispossession, and both are sons without fathers.
Shakespeare’s Hamlet begins with Prince Hamlet mourning the death of his father and seething over his mother’s hasty remarriage to his uncle Claudius, who has usurped the Prince’s rightful throne. Telemachus has grown up without a father’s guidance because Odysseus/Ulysses has been away for roughly 17 years fighting the Trojan War (as depicted in The Iliad) and then wandering around the Mediterranean on a troubled journey home (as depicted in The Odyssey).
The Odyssey begins with Telemachus, Odysseus’s adolescent son, depressed and surrounded by suitors vying to marry his mother and aiming to usurp his rightful kingdom on the Greek island of Ithaca. Plus, he’s living with Buck, a frenemy who mercilessly needles him, as well as Haines, a well-meaning but naïve Oxford-educated Englishman who treats him as a curiosity.īefore we get into the events of the episode, let’s situate “Telemachus” in the context of its two principle correspondences: Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey and Shakespeare’s Hamlet. At this point, Stephen is more Icarus than Daedalus. Nearly a year after her death, Stephen remains in Dublin, paralyzed by guilt, poverty, and frustration over his failure to realize his lofty ambitions. His self-imposed exile was cut short about a year later when he was called home to say goodbye to his dying mother before her passing on June 26th, 1903. Called to a life of creative freedom beyond the encumbering “nets” of his family, his religion, and his nation, Stephen left Dublin in April 1902 and moved to Paris. Those who have read A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, however, have followed Stephen from infancy through school to his young adulthood’s grand aspiration to “forge in the smithy of soul the uncreated conscience of race” ( P 235). Telemachus Press enjoys being mentored by our writers throughout our journey.Anyone unfamiliar with Joyce’s first novel might mistake Buck for the protagonist of Ulysses his wit and charisma dominate the book’s first few pages. In James Joyce’s Ulysses, Episode One is named for Telemachus. The teacher-student relationship between Mentor and Telemachus was the subject of the famed 1699 book about the French monarchy, The Adventures of Telemachus by François Fénelon. The significance of Telemachus as a figure has remained strong through the ages. Eventually, after a long search with several memorable stops, father and son were reunited, and together, Odysseus and Telemachus hatched a plan and evicted the suitors. (After all, his father had been gone for a long time.) Determined to stop them, Telemachus left to find news of his father’s fate. At the same time, the ransacking of his father’s possessions began, as his mother was faced with other suitors. However, at 17, Telemachus felt he’d grown up. In his father’s absence, Telemachus was brought up in the court of Ithaca under the tutelage of Mentor, his father’s old friend. The name Telemachus means “far from battle.” When, as an infant Telemachus fell into the ocean, dolphins saved him in tribute, Odysseus wore the emblem of the dolphins as a symbol on his shield. His father had to leave for combat in Troy soon after his birth. The only son of Penelope and Odysseus, Telemachus was born before the Trojan War. He is featured in the first four books of Homer’s The Odyssey, known as The Telemachia. In Greek mythology, Telemachus is the son of Odysseus.
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