Titles in Dubliners fail on occasion to satisfy the onomastic role they are called to fulfill. A discreet strategy of misdirection forces the reader to seek clues outside narrative space, ad majorem gloriam of Joyce's thriving reputation for literary enigmas. Among stories in Dubliners bearing titles meant to lure readers into devious paths of associations, «Grace» is one of the most intriguing. Theological and literary allusions swell the narrative with confluences so varied and elusive that they often defy identification and lead instead to unsuspected developments.

      Circumstances surrounding the inception of «Grace» are too well known to warrant repetition; a few reminders, however, may be useful to give perspective to the discussion. In a letter to his brother Stanislaus from Trieste, 18 October 1905, Joyce explains that «Grace» was meant to be Dubliners' climactic story (Letters II 124). Elsewhere he specifies that Ned Thornton, a tea-taster by profession (Tom Kernan in the story), was a neighbor of the Joyce family in North Richmond Street where the Joyces lived from 1894 to 1898. Stanislaus' comments in My Brother's Keeper, however, still are the best reminder of the various elements at work in the story:

«Grace» is, so far as I am aware, the first instance of the use of pattern in my brother's work. It is a simple pattern not new and not requiring any great hermeneutical acumen to discover ^__ inferno, purgatorio, paradiso. Mr. Kernan's fall down the steps of the lavatory is his descent into hell, the sickroom is purgatory, and the church, in which he and his friends listen to the sermon, is paradise at last. In «Grace» the pattern is ironical with a touch of suppressed anger but my brother used patterns in his later work because he found a pattern even in the disorder of his own life; being an artist and not a philosopher, in spite of his interest in philosophy, he made his personal experience the informing spirit of his later work. That notion was the actual grace conferred on its author.¹

      Stanislaus also mentions Joyce's fascination with «the strange doctrine of actual and sanctifying grace and its relation to original sin». Even after rescinding his ties with the Catholic Church, Joyce never lost interest in the doctrine of grace (MBK 227).

      Although the title «Grace» is an ironical jab at the divine favor Dubliners seek but cannot obtain in either «actual» or «sanctifying» form, Joyce relies on grace's semantic tribulations to work out a complex network of meaning that relies on the dualistic, often multiple nature of the word. Actually he enlists such ambiguity to exploit the story's satirical intent on several narrative levels. Needless to say, when used to convey theological truth words must perforce be accepted as limited expressions of implications too complex to be fully understood. The equivocal nature of human speech irrevocably damaged by original sin moves St. Thomas Aquinas to caution: «univocal predication is impossible between God and creatures».² Equi-vocare, as intended by the Schoolmen, indicates words of equal sound, but not necessarily of equal meaning; the communication achieved in such cases is in direct contrast with Adam's ability to name all things through univocal signs free from possible misunderstandings.

      St. Thomas' argument is used by Dante in «Dedicatory Letter to Cangrande della Scala» (attributed to Dante by some scholars) to justify the failure of words in describing the vision of God. While lamenting the failure of human speech, however, Dante proceeds in his Comedy to forge new words to express the inexpressible: trasumanar (Par. 1:70), imparadisa (Par. 28:3), a practice that complements his flair for positioning words into equivocal alliances stressing either difference, e.g. «più volte vòlto» (Inf. 1:36), or euphonic repetition of sound, «Cred'ïo ch'ei credette ch'io credesse» (Inf. 13:25) ^__ a technique Joyce will adopt in Finnegans Wake and will embrace with even greater determination in the Italian version of Anna Livia Plurabelle.³ Dante uses equivocare in its literal sense when Beatrice reprimands theologians who insist on endowing angels with human memory, «equivocando in sì falsa lettura» (Par. 29:75, ^__ that is, ascribing a meaning to their reading that does not coincide with the traditional view of angelic intelligence).⁴ By rejecting what he considers St. Gregory's misinterpretation of the celestial hierarchies, Dante sides with Dionysus the Aeropagite and arranges the angels according to his system. Joyce, who had a significant interest in Dionysus, while writing the story must have paid close attention to the fact that Dante chose the cantos of the angels (Par. 28-29), to develop the most complete discussion of grace in the Comedy.⁵

      Theologically speaking, then, the completion of grace's regenerative power is largely dependent on the ability of the individual to gain and keep the favor of God lost through original sin; thus repentance and purgation become essential to the retention of «Lux in tenebris». The theological complexities of grace, however, are multiplied by the word's vicissitudes through the centuries; therefore grace's ability to adapt to various levels of meaning creates an interesting if equivocal scenario.

      In Gratia et sa famille, Claude Moussy argues that the Greek root charis with its connotation of joyous free giving is largely responsible for the word's subsequent ambiguity. «The extension of the values implicit in the family of gratia from the realm of religious practice to moral, social, political domains can be argued the following way: at first this family of words has served to express relationships between men and their God, afterward relationships of men among themselves. In both cases, it can be asserted ... that they [the relationships] are founded essentially on the twosome from which spring both good deeds and gratitude».⁶ The dichotomy implicit in grace would eventually help Castiglione convert the word into a term of social acceptance and propose it as an essential part of sprezzatura, the art of skillful concealment indispensable to gain mediocrità difficile,⁷ a quality that must have intrigued Joyce since mediocrity was one of Dublin's outstanding virtues. This cohabitation of religious and laical elements present in grace enabled Joyce to weave a pattern of sterility and abuse where church and state are trapped in reciprocal bondage.

      The term's flexibility is evident from the way Joyce inserts it strategically in the narrative and evinces various results from its elusive reputation. The first time grace is mentioned, it functions as an expression of social acceptance. Mr. Kernan muses that «by grace of these two articles [the silk hat and the pair of gathers] ... a man could always pass muster» (D 13). The second time it introduces Mr. Fogarty «the modest grocer who had opened a small shop on Glasnevin Square, where, he flattered himself, his manners would ingratiate him with the housewives of the district. He bore himself with a certain grace, complimented little children and spoke with a neat enunciation. He was not without culture» (D 166). The third time Father Purdon extends God's message to the «children of light» by encouraging an examination of conscience that will reveal with calculated exactness the number of debts they need to square: «Well I have looked into my accounts. I find this wrong and this wrong. But with God's grace, I will rectify this and this. I will set right my accounts» (D 174).

      In the first reference, then, Mr. Kernan's reliance on clothes to make a favorable impression highlights the importance of appearance in a society where judgment is based on looks. Although Mr. Kernan's sprezzatura will collapse under the influence of too many libations, his wife's able iron will restore enough impeccability to his wardrobe to pass public scrutiny. It is Mr. Fogarty, however, who comes closest to the social specifications of sprezzatura. Not only does he «ingratiate himself with housewives», but he satisfies Castiglione's recommended display of una certa grazia, the charm directly derived from culture and from propriety of language.⁸ Mr. Fogarty qualifies for grace's social and theological implications as well, since he bestows actual grace on Mr. Kernan by bringing him «a half pint of special whisky», a free gift indeed, considering that Mr. Kernan «was aware that there was a small account for groceries unsettled between him and Mr. Fogarty» (D 166). Such unmerited generosity must have been at least partly responsible for Mr. Kernan's decision to join Dublin's privileged elite in its devoted pilgrimage to the Jesuits' shrine of grace. After all, if a grocer can be magnanimous enough to forgo a debt, God cannot be far behind.

      In spite of the promising prelude, however, Mr. Kernan's access to sanctifying grace is denied long before he reaches d e church by his stubborn refusal to carry the candle. Although, as Stanislaus relates, the incident is based on John Joyce's unwillingness to go through with the symbolic ordeal, the comicity of the situation is heightened through associations with the Comedy. In preparation for the fiery vision of the Divine Essence, Dante must undergo a metamorphosis and become the living candle of his own desire. Beatrice explains (Par. 30:53-54):

By refusing to burn with desire for God, Mr. Kernan places himself among the excommunicates and heretics who, in medieval times, were buried «with tapers spent», as Dante indicates in Purgatorio («a lume spento», 3:132) to symbolize eternal perdition. Needless to say, Tom Kernan's denial of brightness finds its equivocal counterpart in «the distant speck of red light» that illuminates Father Purdon's bulky presence in the Jesuit church (D 172).

      In «Grace», then, Joyce effectively employs Scholastic equivocation to build corresponding parodic structures linked through a system of recalls shaped on characters and incidents in The Divine Comedy. While Stanislaus is right in claiming that a «great hermeneutical acumen is not necessary to discover... inferno, purgatorio, paradiso» in the tripartite subdivision of «Grace», it seems appropriate to look for relationships far more extensive than suggested to date; an increase in knowledge can only deepen the effect of gratia. At any rate, it should be noted that the structure of the story parallels the structure of The Divine Comedy, a sign that even on the literal level Joyce was interested in making time and place a point of departure for the story's satirical intent.

      According to one calculation (possibly known to Joyce), Dante's journey starts on Friday, 8 April 1300, and ends with his ascent to Paradise, on Thursday, 14 April 1300. The Pilgrim emerges from Hell proper and sees the stars again on Easter Sunday, 10 April 1300; he spends Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday climbing to the summit of Purgatory where he meets Beatrice; together they ascend through Paradise on Thursday. One day is sufficient to cover the heavenly excursion since here Dante shares in the timeless simultaneity of Jehovah. Joyce manages to map Mr. Kernan's journey in much the same fashion, even though Mr. Kernan seems to have «wished the details of the incident to remain vague» (D 160).

      Mrs. Kernan informs Mr. Powers that her husband «has been drinking since Friday» (D 154), thus it must be assumed that Mr. Kernan has spent some time drinking with the unidentified «little chap with sandy hair» and with «bona fide traveller» Hartford, who, readers are informed, has a penchant for forming «a little detachment» leaving «the city shortly after noon on Sunday» to drink «at some public house on the outskirts of the city» (D 159). The information would indicate that Mr. Kernan's fall in the lavatory is the cumulative result of several days of debauchery. Escorted home by Mr. Powers he climbs the stairs of Dublin's Purgatorio helped by his «middle age» wife (Beatrice?). The two days' interval between the fall and the visit by his friends enable Mr. Kernan to undergo physical therapy and to summon enough strength to endure the spiritual therapy he needs to face «the distant speck of light» on the following Thursday. The time sequel of the story ^__ Friday through Thursday ^__ follows the calendar, assumed by Joyce, of Dante's Journey.

      As appropriate in a parody, «Grace» starts where The Divine Comedy ends. Mr. Kernan is rescued from the floor of the lavatory only to be stretched on the floor of the bar. His drunken shape «smeared with filth and ooze» is «surrounded by a ring of men» (D 150). An inverted tribute to the human effigy Dante sees (Par. 33:127ff) at the center of the circle encompassing the trinitarian mystery of the Divine Essence? Through a far reaching metonymic process of structured recalls, the elasticity of the circle surrounding Mr. Kernan stretches out to enclose the elastic conscience of Father Purdon eager to adjust the Gospel to the flexible standards of the congregation. Joyce's equivocal handling of the story sets up a series of reverberations that succeeds in expanding Mr. Kernan's drunken stupor into a kind of infernal palimpsest.

      Carl Niemeyer in «'Grace' and Joyce's Method of Parody» has already associated Mr. Kernan's debut in the story with Dante's description of the Flatterers (Inf. 18:112-16);⁹ another candidate for Tom Kernan's supine position, however, is Ciacco (Florentine for pig), a well respected citizen of Florence described by Boccaccio as «a man of gluttony without comparison» (Decameron, 9:8), condemned in Dante's Hell to wallow in the mud. In Ciacco's own words (Inf. 6:52-54):

Mr. Kernan, like Ciacco, is a citizen in good standing, «a commercial traveler of the old school which believed in the dignity of its calling» (D 154); even if down on his luck he has high-located friends who care enough to be concerned for his welfare.

      The Dantesque odyssey, however, only begins here. Did the «thin stream of blood» trickling from Tom Kernan's mouth remind Joyce of the sanguinosa bava (Inf. 34:54: «bloody drool», of Lucifer? (Inf. 34:53-54). In Paradiso St. Peter will reinforce Lucifer's cloacal connection by condemning the depravity of his present successor, Boniface VIII, in terms similar to those used by Joyce in describing Mr. Kernan's disheveled appearance (Par. 27:22-27):

      The debilitating fall from the stairs that lands Mr. Kernan in the lavatory and renders him «quite helpless» has already been linked to Adam's fall from grace. Father Boyle, who rolls the adaptable tea-taster into «Man, Adam, Doubting Thomas», writes: «Tom Kernan clearly represents fallen man in need of 'grace.' In the first paragraph he falls, lies in the fetal position, and grunts like a beast ... He is wounded in the tongue, the source of the word».¹⁰ Tom Kernan is unquestionably handicapped by the loss of the small piece of tongue which «seemed to be bitten off» (D 153), causing an unpleasant stream of blood. The bizarre wound is discovered by Mr. Power who investigates the damage by the light of a match while escorting Mr. Kernan to the safety of his home. As the car with the two gentlemen passes the Ballast Office, the clock «showed half-past nine» (D 153). Why the precise notation of 9.30 p.m.? Is Joyce hinting at the fact, exactly recorded by Dante, that Adam, the father of all tongues, was nine hundred and thirty years old (Gen. 5:5) at the time he died? The time allotted Mr. Kernan is considerably shorter since the span of life on earth has undergone dramatic alterations from the time the First Father established a record of longevity. To make the matter worse, semantic equivocations have affected the language, as Adam himself informs Dante (Par. 26, 121-132): he saw the Sun

In other words, language was univocal while man kept his amicable relation with God («s'appellava in terra il sommo bene», Par. 26:134); but once man lost his original innocence, language followed suit and lost its unity.¹¹ Unity of tongue, however, can still be preserved at least for what concerns Mr. Kernan's physical counterpart.

      As Mr. Cunningham points out in his visit to the mutilated tea-taster, there are precedents to be heeded. A seventy-year-old man bit off his tongue during «an epileptic fit»; fortunately, however «the tongue had filled in again so that no one could see a trace of the bite». Mr. Kernan is upset by the comparison: « ^__ Well, I am not seventy, said the invalid. ^__ God forbid, said Mr. Cunningham. ^__ It does not pain you now? asked Mr. M'Coy» (D 158). This concerned trio invites further speculation. «Seventy» may be linked to the number of capital sins Tom Kernan must expiate if he is to regain the grace of God; being «peloothered» almost cost him «seven days without the option of a fine» (D 160). As for the pain in his mouth, Tom admits to the «sickening» effect of his venture. It was not drunkenness, however, that caused mucus to form, he insists, but cold caught in the cab from a «keen east wind ... blowing from the mouth of the river» (D 153). A hint of Cocytus? (The infernal lake where Count Ugolino lifts his mouth from the skull of Archbishop Ruggieri to tell Dante his story; Inf. 33).

      The stairs to the lavatory offer an instance where the richness of the parody allows the cyclic pattern of civic and moral failure to find its completion through an insinuation placed on the «tessellated floor» of the narrative. Scala, either ladder or stairs in Italian, clearly is chosen by Dante to function as a central serious calembour in the poem. While in a literal sense scala means staircase (e.g., in «lo scender e salir per l'altrui scale», Par. 17:60), in an allegorical-symbolical sense it indicates the stairs to the summit of the Purgatorio and to redemption: «Intrate quinci / ad un scaleo vie men che li altri eretto» (Purg. 15, 35-36). Analogically, however, scala symbolizes the luminous ladder that spans from the Sky of Saturn to the Empyrean allowing the souls of the contemplatives to ascend and descend glorifying God: «vid'io uno scaleo eretto in suso / tanto che nol seguiva la mia luce» (Par. 21:28-30).

      By becoming one of the most effective equivocal terms in the Comedy, scala (also scaleo in archaic Italian) lends itself to one of the cleverest parodies in the poem: the inverted human ladder of the simoniacs (Inf. 19), where the popes are constantly pushed further into the ground by new arrivals. Paradoxically, on a literal level scala is also the name of Dante's celebrated patron, Cangrande della Scala lord of Verona (1291-1329), who has been suggested repeatedly as the most likely candidate for the Veltro, (Inf. 1:101), meant by Dante to be the champion of Italian freedom. If Cangrande della Scala (literally: «Greatdog of the Ladder») is accepted as the mythical leader chosen by Dante to bring back the glory of the Roman Empire, it follows that Cangrande is also the mysterious liberator foretold by Beatrice and identified with the number 515, the «cinquecento dieci e cinque, / messo di Dio» (Purg. 33:43-44). Let's first consider the ladder as a symbol of ascent and descent in «Grace», as it becomes entwined with other parodic elements from the Inferno, and then proceed to examine the prophetic function of Cangrande della Scala as 515, during the Joycean retreat in the Jesuit church.

      Although Mr. Kernan falls down the stairs and briefly assumes the position of the simoniac popes (Inf. 19), he clearly cannot be charged with simony, a sin strictly reserved for the clergy. Father Purdon, however, has all his ecclesiastical papers in order, thus the image of the ladder rapidly switches from Mr. Kernan to Father Purdon who is introduced in the story as «a powerful-looking figure ... struggling up into the pulpit» (D 173). The situation is poignantly ironic since no greater simonist than Father Purdon lives in Dublin¹² with the exception perhaps of Father Flynn, whose simony is implied rather than specified by the young narrator in «The Sisters», who associates «simony» with «paralysis».¹³ Father Purdon's damning associations, however, may include the bold physical presence of Farinata degli Uberti (ca 1200-64), the proud Ghibelline leader immortalized by Dante in the Inferno where he is placed among the heretics in an open tomb that will be sealed on Judgment Day. Since the heretics denied the immortality of the soul and the resurrection of the body while alive (Farinata was Epicurean), their punishment merely duplicates the nihilist choice they made on earth. Virgil is pleased by the attention Farinata bestows on his fearful charge and urges Dante's attention (Inf. 10:31-36):

Dante's sight of Farinata standing in the tomb from the waist up is similar to Mr. Kernan's and his friends' view of Father Purdon standing «upright in the pulpit, two-thirds of its bulk, crowned by a massive red face» (D 173), the lower part of his body severed by the balustrade. The possible echo, however, finds its equivocal counterpart at the beginning of the story in the constable, «a young man with thick immobile features», who manages to produce «a small book from the waist». (D 151). Tracing Mr. Kernan's lively odyssey, the constable inquires: «Who is the man? What's his name and address?» (D 151). Farinata's patrician arrogance may be deflated and transformed here into plebeian awkwardness. Joyce has the constable voice the sentiments of the Ghibelline leader at his meeting with Dante. As Dante timidly approaches the open tomb, the Florentine heretic proudly asks him: «Chi fu li maggior tui?» (Inf. 10:43). The peremptory tone of the question suggests the intention to drop the conversation had Dante proved to be a country bumpkin with «a suspicious provincial accent» (D 151). By suggesting a link among Dante's simoniacs and the proud heretic Farinata degli Uberti, on one hand, and religious and civic leaders in Dublin on the other, does Joyce mean to condemn the self-deceit brought on by complacency? Parody can only emphasize the mediocrity of the Irish: damned they are, but without the greatness of Dante's damned. Thus Joyce, it seems to the attentive intertextual reader, in a sweeping, apocalyptic gesture makes Ireland a land of living sepulchers.

      Let's now return to Cangrande della Scala and see what role he plays in the puzzle, and let's consider what alternatives his name can add to the speculations already surrounding the arrangement of the quincunx in «Grace».

In one of the benches near the pulpit sat Mr. Cunningham and Mr. Kernan. In the bench behind sat Mr. M'Coy alone: and in the bench behind him sat Mr. Power and Mr. Fogarty. Mr. M'Coy had tried unsuccessfully to find a place in the bench with the others and, when the party had settled down in the form of a quincunx, he had tried unsuccessfully to make comic remarks (D 172).

Dante, always fascinated by numerical coincidences, uses the quincunx ^__ a conventional symbol of the wounds of Christ (2+1+2) ^__ to explain the kinetic role of the Primum Mobile which measures heavenly motions as five and two measure ten (Par. 27:112-17):

It's quite evident that kinetic responses to «light and love» are missing in Joyce's replica of the «celestial» arrangement (even Mr. M'Coy's feeble attempts to jest are quickly stifled by his somber companions).

      In «The Seating Arrangement in 'Grace'», Charles Duffy argues that the X at the end of the quincunx alters the shape of the Greek cross formed by the martyrs of the faith in the Heaven of Mars, and in so doing conveys the precise message Joyce wants to deliver: «the men somehow alter the shape of their religion».¹⁴ Along similar lines, Howard Lachtman in «The Magic Lantern Business: James Joyce's Ecclesiastical Satire in Dubliners», sees the X as a pattern that negates the value of the preacher, of the congregation, and chances for moral redemption.¹⁵ Cangrande della Scala seems to add an extra Joycean twist to these speculations on the emblematic arrangement of the X.

      As we have seen already, Cangrande is one of the more serious pretenders to being identified with the Veltro, the Hound who will become Italy's saviour by practising «wisdom, love and virtue» (Inf. 1:104). The Hound will hail from between «Feltro and Feltro» (Inf. 1:105), a reference usually taken to indicate Feltre and Montefeltro: a topographical definition of Cangrande's domain. Beatrice strengthens the prophecy in Purgatorio 33, with the promise of a «Five Hundred and Ten and Five», who will slay «the Whore» (the Church), and «the Giant» (possibly the French) living with her in sin. Although no one is quite sure why Dante chose the number 515 to formulate Beatrice's prophecy, it is generally assumed that he is taking his cue from Apocalypse 13:18, where 666 is commonly taken to indicate Satan. Surely Joyce must have read with interest the charges of moral and political corruption implied by Dante in the passage, and may have found the number 515 an excellent symbol for Irish moral paralysis, particularly because 515, if rearranged into Roman numbers, DXV, and consequently transposed into the Latin anagram DUX, leader symbolizes the liberator Dante had in mind. Did Joyce have in mind Dante's crux of DUX, when he formed with his five gentlemen the quincunx («spelling» an X)? It may well be that through the implied pun on scala and its equivocal association with Cangrande (i.e., the «515»), the story glances backward at the very beginning where Mr. Kernan, a respectable citizen of Dublin, drunk and disheveled, stumbles down a ladder and falls into the lavatory.

      Should Joyce's interpreter try and find a reason for the empty spaces Joyce left in the seating arrangement of the quincunx? One hypothesis may be suggested by the Rose of Paradise where Dante reserves several seats for saints of the Christian era still alive or yet unborn. St. Bernard describes the heavenly amphitheater as follows (Par. 32:22-27):

One side of the Rose, seating the blessed of the Old Testament, is filled to capacity; the other half, containing those who lived after Jesus and accepted his Gospel, is filled only intermittently to leave room for future followers of Christ. Joyce's «Grace» parody seems to distantly echo Dante's arrangement.

      Mr. Cunningham's draws «Mr. Kernan's attention to Mr. Hartford, the money lender, who sat some distance off, and to Mr. Fanning, the registration agent and mayor-maker of the city, who was sitting immediately under the pulpit beside one of the newly elected councillors in the ward. To the right sat old Michael Grimes and Dan Hogan's nephew. ... Farther in front sat Mr. Hendrick ... and poor O'Carrol» (D 172). Mr. Hartford, Mr. Kernan's bona fide companion, «had begun life as an obscure financier by lending small sums of money to workmen at usurious interest», and although «he had never embraced more of the Jewish ethical code, his fellow Catholics, whenever they smarted in person or by proxy under his elections, called him "an Irish Jew"» (D 159). He is placed in the half of the Rose reserved for worshippers of the Old Law, at «some distance off» from the «Christian saints». The vacancies in the quincunx point, ironically perhaps, to future Dubliners destined to fill the empty seats in Ireland's Heavenly Rose.

CORINNA DEL GRECO LOBNER

University of Tulsa

NOTES

Quotations from Dante follow G. Petrocchi's critical text. Quotations from James Joyce's Dubliners (Viking Compass, 1968), are indicated in the text by a D followed by the page number.

¹ Stanislaus Joyce, My Brother's Keeper (London: Faber and Faber, 1958), p. 228. Further quotations from this edition will be indicated in the text by MBK followed by the page number.

² Thomas Aquinas, Summa, vol. I, question 13, article 5.

³ The Italian version of ALP constantly plays on equivocation: «uccellino», «usciolino», «cupo capo cade», «senia e savia va», and so on. For further examples, see Scritti italiani, ed. G. Corsini & G. Melchiori (Milano: Mondadori, 1979), pp. 216-33.

⁴ A definition of equivocare often quoted by Italian scholars is the one given by Francesco Buti in his Commentario sopra la Divina Commedia di Dante Alighieri (Pisa: Giannini, 1858-1862): «Equivocation occurs when the word is one but the meanings are multiple».

⁵ In his essay on William Blake (1912), in The Critical Writings, eds. E. Mason & R. Ellmann (New York: Viking Press, 1964), p. 222, Joyce writes: «Dionysus the Aeropagite [A. D. 500 ?] in his book De Divinis Nominibus, arrives at the throne of God by denying and overcoming every moral and metaphysical attribute, and falling into ecstasy, and prostrating before the divine obscurity, before the unutterable immensity which precedes and encompasses the supreme knowledge in the eternal order».

⁶ Claude Moussy, «Gratia et sa famille», as quoted in Thesaurus Linguae Latinae, vol. VI (Leipzig, 1934), p. 2205.

⁷ Baldesar Castiglione, The Book of the Courtier, tr. C. Singleton (New York: Anchor, 1959), p. 43. Constantine Curran in James Joyce Remembered (New York: Oxford University Press, 1968) includes Castiglione among the authors Joyce read at University College. According to Stanislaus, reading Castiglione made his brother more polite but less sincere.

⁸ Although Castiglione emphasized the importance of appearance to achieve the wanted impression, Elaine M. Kanvar, in «Swift's Clothing Philosophy in 'A Tale of the Tub' and Joyce's 'Grace'», James Joyce Quarterly, V (1968), pp. 162-165, points out with some reason that in Joyce's parody «Grace is a quality to be deduced only by its outward manifestation on ... clothing in much the same way as sheer wit is detected by the learned as embroidery in The Tale of the Tub».

⁹ Carl Niemeyer, «'Grace' and Joyce's Method of Parody», College English, V (1965), pp. 196-201.

¹⁰ Robert Boyle, «Swiftian Allegory and Dantean Parody in Joyce's 'Grace'», James Joyce Quarterly, VII (1969), pp. 11-21.

¹¹ Nicolò Tommaseo in Commento di Dante Alighieri (Milano: Pagnoni 1865): «[Adam] used few words God had revealed to him. These words contained the completeness of truth; he did the rest ... through analogies he gave a name to all things».

¹² Father Purdon who, as Stanislaus Joyce relates, Joyce named after «the street of the brothels in Dublin» (MBK 228), has also been associated by Virginia Moseley to pardon in French. Moseley also refers to Father Purdon's «calculated simony», in «The 'Coincidence' of 'Contraries' in 'Grace'», James Joyce Quarterly, VI (1968), pp. 3-21.

¹³ The association with the simoniacs is reinforced by the narrator's dream. Father Flynn «began to confess to me» (D 11): a reference to Dante listening to Nicholas III: «I stood like the friar who confesses» (Inf. 19:49)?

¹⁴ Charles Duffy, «The Seating Arrangement in 'Grace'», James Joyce Quarterly, IX (1972), pp. 487-89.

¹⁵ Howard Lachtman, «The Magic Lantern Business: James Joyce's Ecclesiastical Satire in Dubliners», James Joyce Quarterly, VII (1970), p. 89.