＂Poor Mamma's Panacea＂ -The Potato in Ulysses

「可憐的媽媽的靈丹妙藥」：《尤利西斯》中的馬鈴薯

10.7015/JEAS.201903_49(1).0001

周幸君(Hsing-Chun Chou)

potato ； Ulysses ； Ireland ； talisman ； food culture ； 馬鈴薯 ； 《尤利西斯》 ； 愛爾蘭 ； 護身符 ； 飲食文化

歐美研究

49卷1期（2019 / 03 / 01）

1 - 43

英文

Wandering the streets of Dublin on 16 June 1904, it was not the latchkey which kept Leopold Bloom company, but a more indispensable talisman: the potato inherited from his mother. This potato is usually referred to at critical moments in the text. In the course of his wanderings, Bloom feels strongly reliant on this heirloom. For a long time, this shriveled potato is regarded as a talisman, corresponding with the moly Hermes gives Odysseus to protect him from Circe's magic. But where does the ＂magic＂ of this talismanic moly come from? Why does Joyce depict a reminder of the Great Irish Famine, and thus a symbol of betrayal, as a talisman for his modern-day Odysseus? The shriveled potato in Bloom's pocket, a talisman replete with significances carried by anIrish Jew, seems more mysterious than previously thought. This paper aims to investigate the significances of the potato in Ulysses by tracing the cultural heritages that have endowed it with various implications, including the Andean, the Spanish, the Irish, and the Jewish. The potato in Joyce's text is not only a complex symbol, but an icon of histories and heritages, and of the reality of daily life; thus its significations are multicultural and plural, rather than parochial and singular.

1904年6月16日這天，當布盧姆在都柏林街頭漫遊，伴隨著他的不是重要的大門鑰匙，而是對他而言更加不可或缺的護身符：繼承自母親的馬鈴薯。文本中這顆馬鈴薯往往在關鍵時刻被提及。在布盧姆漫步街頭的過程中，他對這項母親的遺物始終有著強烈的心理依賴。長久以來，這顆乾癟的馬鈴薯被視為護身符，等同於赫米斯贈與奧德修斯免於瑟喜魔法的靈草。但是這株護身靈草的「魔力」來自何處？為何喬伊斯在《尤利西斯》中把愛爾蘭大饑荒的提醒物／背叛的象徵描寫為其筆下現代奧德修斯的護身靈物？布盧姆口袋中乾癟的馬鈴薯，一枚由猶太裔愛爾蘭人隨身攜帶、布滿意涵的護身符，似乎遠比想像中更加神秘。本論文企圖追蹤賦予馬鈴薯種種意涵的文化來源，包含安地斯、西班牙、愛爾蘭與猶太傳統，藉以探究《尤利西斯》中馬鈴薯的重要含意。喬伊斯文本中的馬鈴薯不僅僅是個複合象徵，更是一段歷史、一項傳承、一件日常生活現實，其含意廣泛多元而非狹隘單一。

1. (1987).Ulysses.Baltimore:Johns Hopkins University Press.
2. Black, W. G. (1883). Folk-medicine: A chapter in the history of culture. London: Folk-lore Society.
3. Budgen, F.(1960).James Joyce and the making of Ulysses.Bloomington, IN:Indiana University Press.
4. Carver, C.(1975).Moly: Bloom's preservative; correspondence and function in Ulysses.James Joyce Quarterly,12(4),414-422.
5. Connell, K. H.(1962).The potato in Ireland.Past & Present,23,57-71.
6. Cooper, J.(1993).Eat and be satisfied: A social history of Jewish food.Northvale, NJ:Jason Aronson.
7. Cullen, L. M.(1968).Irish history without the potato.Past & Present,40,72-83.
8. Cusack, G.(Ed.),Goss, S.(Ed.)(2006).Hungry words: Images of famine in the Irish canon.Dublin, Ireland:Irish Academic Press.
9. Davison, N. R.(1996).James Joyce, Ulysses, and the construction of Jewish identity: Culture, biography, and "the Jew" in modernist Europe.Cambridge, UK:Cambridge University Press.
10. Eagleton, T.(1996).Heathcliff and the Great Hunger: Studies in Irish culture.London:Verso.
11. Edwards, R. D.(Ed.),Williams, T. D.(Ed.)(1994).The Great Famine: Studies in Irish history 1845-52.Dublin, Ireland:Lilliput Press.
12. Ellmann, R.(1983).James Joyce.Oxford, UK:Oxford University Press.
13. Flandrin, J.-L.(Ed.),Montanari, M.(Ed.)(1999).Food: A culinary history from antiquity to the present.New York:Columbia University Press.
14. Gibbons, L.(2015).Joyce's ghosts: Ireland, modernism, and memory.Chicago:University of Chicago Press.
15. Gifford, D.,Seidman, R. J.(1988).Ulysses annotated: Notes for James Joyce's Ulysses.Berkeley, CA:University of California Press.
16. Gribben, A.(Ed.)(1999).The Great Famine and the Irish diaspora in America.Amherst, MA:University of Massachusetts Press.
17. Grieve, M.(1971).A modern herbal: The medicinal, culinary, cosmetic and economic properties, cultivation and folk-lore of herbs, grasses, fungi shrubs and trees with all their modern scientific uses (Vol. 2).New York:Dover.
18. Hatfield, G.(2003).Encyclopedia of folk medicine: Old world and new world traditions.Santa Barbara, CA:ABC-CLIO.
19. Hunt, J. (2017). Potato. Retrieved from http://m.joyceproject.com/notes/040047potato.html
20. Joyce, J.(1964).A portrait of the artist as a young man.New York:Vintage Books.
21. Joyce, J.,Ellmann, R.(Ed.)(1992).Selected letters of James Joyce.London:Faber and Faber.
22. Joyce, J.,Gabler, H. W.(Ed.),Steppe, W.(Ed.),Melchior, C.(Ed.)(1986).Ulysses: The corrected text.New York:Vintage Books.
23. Kelleher, M.(1997).The feminization of famine: Expressions of the inexpressible?.Durham, NC:Duke University Press.
24. Kinealy, C.(2002).The Great Irish Famine: Impact, ideology and rebellion.Basingstoke, UK:Palgrave.
25. Kinealy, C.(1997).A death-dealing famine: The Great Hunger in Ireland.London:Pluto Press.
26. Lowe-Evans, M.(1989).Crimes against fecundity: Joyce and population control.Syracuse, NY:Syracuse University Press.
27. Marks, G.(2010).Encyclopedia of Jewish food.Hoboken, NJ:John Wiley & Sons.
28. McNeill, W. H.(1999).How the potato changed the world's history.Social Research,66(1),67-83.
29. Merritt, R.(1990).Faith and betrayal: The potato in Ulysses.James Joyce Quarterly,28(1),269-276.
30. Milton, C.(Ed.)(2012).James Joyce: Critical assessments of major writers.London:Routledge.
31. Nadel, I. B.(1989).Joyce and the Jews: Culture and texts.Basingstoke, UK:Macmillan.
32. Ó Gráda, C.(2000).Black ’47 and beyond: The Great Irish Famine in history, economy, and memory.Princeton, NJ:Princeton University Press.
33. Reader, J.(2009).Potato: A history of the propitious esculent.New Haven, CT:Yale University Press.
34. Salaman, R. N.(1985).The history and social influence of the potato.Cambridge, UK:Cambridge University Press.
35. Sims, P.(1989).A pocket guide to Ulysses.James Joyce Quarterly,26(2),239-258.
36. Smith, A. F.(2011).Potato: A global history.London:Reaktion Books.
37. Stuart, W. (1923). The potato: Its culture, uses, history and classification. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott.
38. Ulin, J.(2011)."Famished ghosts": Famine memory in James Joyce's Ulysses.Joyce Studies Annual,2011,20-63.
39. Umadevi, M.,Kumar, P. K. S.,Bhowmik, D.,Duraivel, S.(2013).Health benefits and cons of solanum tuberosum.Journal of Medicinal Plants Studies,1(1),16-25.
40. Wall, A.(2015).A latkes tale: How the spud became a Hanukkah favorite.The Jewish News of Northern California
41. Watts, D.(2007).Dictionary of plant lore.London:Elsevier.
42. Woodham-Smith, C.(1991).The Great Hunger: Ireland 1845-1849.London:Penguin Books.
43. Zuckerman, L.(1998).The potato: How the humble spud rescued the western world.New York:North Point Press.