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A
MERICA
sounds of words. We think of Rome, imperial, imperious,
imperative” (Joyce, 1986: 108). The grandeur of Rome, he
argues, lies in the sewers: “What was their civilisation? Vast, I
allow: but vile.
Cloacae
: sewers” (108). In his opinion, the
Romans focused on grossly materialistic values and disregarded
spiritualistic ones, and this rendered their civilization vile.
Despite what he says about words, nevertheless, MacHugh is
led
—
or obsessed
—
by the sounds of words, as evident in the
verbal dexterity shown above. Mikics states convincingly that
the professor surrenders to the lure of rhetoric when he
criticizes the Romans: “MacHugh, denouncing Rome, is
transformed into a parody of the Roman orator, a victim of the
very rhetoric he pretends to reject” (1990: 541). Indeed,
MacHugh acts as the supreme orator in the
Evening Telegraph
office in spite of his rejection of Roman oratory. Although he
teaches Latin, moreover, he prefers Greek to “the blatant Latin
language”: “The Greek! . . . The radiance of the intellect. I
ought to profess Greek, the language of the mind” (Joyce,
1986: 110). MacHugh is clearly trapped in the dichotomy
between the spiritual and the material, and therefore disdains
the “blatant” Latin. Mikics notes the irony in the professor’s
detestation of the language: “MacHugh styles himself a lover
of the Hellenic, but as a professor of Latin rather than Greek,
he helps perpetuate the culture he complains against” (1990:
541). What is even more ironic is the fact that he associates
Greece, “the empire of the spirit,” with “a lost cause,” and
denounces success in favor of failure: “We were always loyal to
lost causes. . . . Success for us is the death of the intellect and
of the imagination. We were never loyal to the successful. We
serve them” (Joyce, 1986: 110). At a time when the Irish were
striving for freedom, the scholar and educator announces that
he embraces failure rather than success. Comparing O’Molloy
and MacHugh, Herr has it that whereas the barrister “is simply
beaten down by failure,” the professor “perversely glories in it”
(74). Seen in light of Ireland’s subjection to the British Empire,