to ask you about 'Ulysses'?

[willisurvive2under2]

If I say 'Ulysses', does it ring a bell? Have you heard of James Joyce's novel? Did you learn about it at school?

Today the name 'Ulysses' came up in conversation (it was someone's username on eBay!) and DH said it was a girl's name. I said 'surely not' and made reference to Joyce's work. He looked at me like I had two heads. Never heard of it. I didn't think of prodding him about the other Ulysses (the one in Homer's Odyssey).

Is it normal that a 30 something, educated man with 2 degrees (and he went to private school!!) hasn't heard of it? I grew up abroad so I'm clinging to the possibility that it's not taught in this country very unlikely I know.

He's not the bookish/academic type (clearly!), but he's smart in other ways. I consider this to be common knowledge though! What do you think?

Ulysses always bugs me I'm afraid - his name was Odysseus FGS - but then I'm a weirdo who's read the Odyssey in Greek....

Ah the Ulysses cartoon!! We used to call him Useless Knees in our house due to his strange stiff legged run!

Yes
You should give him the "WTAF are you a dunce look"

How depressing that someone would consider Ulysses to be a girl's name or be unaware of the origin.

We really are uneducated now in this country aren't we?

Odysseus
James Joyce
American president who died of throat cancer.

I'm 40, Scottish and have a degree. I read a lot and I suspect a lot of my similarly educated friends wouldn't think of Joyce.

@WildIrishRose1 I didn't know that! I was taught Homer's work in another language and it was Ulysses in both the Iliad and the Odyssey.

Might he be confusing it with Ursula? (Wild stab in the dark...)

Had to read "The portrait of the artist as a young man" for A level Eng Lit. it was suggested that we went on to read Ulysses after, both books I found hard work aged 17!

I was hoping this thread would be about the cartoon too!

I'm another one who would have expected this to be common knowledge amongst anyone who'd had a privileged education. I'd heard of James Joyce by the time I was 16.

I used to know this line by heart londonmummy

μῆνιν ἄειδε θεὰ Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος

οὐλομένην

Scared to re read the Iliad now in case it doesn't live up to my teenage experience!

Odysseus is the Greek name but Ulysses (or Ulixes) is the correct Latin version of it.

Seymour Bushe was my great great grandfather.

I thought you were going to talk about the awesome but freaky cartoon!

There's much less classical information sort of hanging around other subjects than there used to be. So people are less familiar with references. A lot of this in my opinion is because things like English Literature has opened up to colonial literature or stuff in translation from different cultures, which is great, but leaves less time for Tennyson or Joyce and therefore these little snippets of info. I suppose you could have heard of Ulysses by Joyce as a seminal work of fiction etc but not know it was a male name. I have to admit I've never read it.

Hmmm

1)Ulysses/Odysseus Homer
2)Vague recollection it's a novel by Joyce
3)Computerised incident reporting system

I read Dubliners by James Joyce for my OU degree :)

'Phew. When I saw the title, I thought it was a another bloody baby name thread.

Yes to Ulysseeee-eee-eeee-eees, no one else can do the things you do... and also to James Joyce, but I"m pretty bookish. We didn't study it at school.

Is he confused with Ursula?

TBH I wouldn’t know the ‘real’ origin of the name, I would just know the cartoon

“Ulyseeeeeeeees”

Well done Elvira I'm not sure I can remember much these days beyond the alphabet and some of the choice insults Medea hurled at Jason which work well when Londondaddy is being especially annoying...

As an Irish person i would instinctively associate Ulysses with James Joyce.

Oh yes francis I've never actually read Ulysses. I'm just aware that there's a book. In fact that pretty much summed up my English degree - I've written whole essays on books I've never bothered to actually wade through.

I was introduced to The Iliad/Oddyssy (sp?) in late primary school; think there must have been a children's version in our school library; or else I picked it up from my older brother.
I have read JJ's Ulysses twice & think it is great, especially the last chapter, & I still have a little box with the final lines in calligraphy decoupaged on it. It did help that I had a uni class devoted entirely to studying it, taught by a Joyce expert.

Kate Bush used Molly Bloom's soliloquy at the end of JJ Ulysses in her song The Sensual World, but had to change parts of it due Joyce's estate withholding permission to use it. However, by the time Bush did another version of the song, in the Director's Cut album, the estate have allowed her to use it.