FIVE POINTS ON AEOLUS

[1] TOP STORY.  By my count, there are 63 "headlines" (or "linear intrusions") in ÆOLUS. (Please double check.)   They offer a kind of survey of the steady decline into "vulgarity" (or sensationalism) that was a hallmark of the Hearst press at the time (1904).  I think it is fair to say that the closing "headlines" of Æolus show Joyce to have gone well beyond the Hearst standard.  Uttering the "headlines" emphasizes their intrusiveness; #28: ??? baffles pronunciation.

[2] MARRY, HOW TROPICALLY!  There are a lot of rhetorical figures or tropes to be found in the episode - more than can be conveniently handled here.  The Art of Æolus is Rhetoric (the arts of argument and persuasion); Joyce was determined to employ as many tricks of the trade as possible.  Stuart Gilbert's guide to ULYSSES, or Gifford & Seidman's annotations thereof provide lists; under the circumstances, you will have to be content with knowing that there are precise names and definitions for many of the turns of phrase encountered here. 

[3] WINDBAGS.  More rapidly grasped than tropes are the rhetorical styles we find displayed in the readings and recitations of the episode, beginning with Dan Dawson's speech printed in the morning paper and concluding with Stephen's "Parable of the Plums." Joyce recorded the passage that includes John Taylor's impromptu speech on the Pharaoh; let me stress that the original speech had no recording of any kind, not a cassette, not an MP3, not even a shorthand transcription:  its life was entirely in the memory of those who heard it;  as Yeats observed, it was still being recited years after the event.  There's an underlying competition between "the ancients and the moderns"; the first speech quoted (Dawson's of the night before) is recent but old-fashioned, and subject to the mocking gibes of those who listen; the last speech heard in the episode is Stephen's "parable", and if nothing else, it is an example of modernism, presented in the "language of everyday men" and held together with the gritty mortar of realism.  If not a defining example of parables, Stephen's performance is very much in keeping with Joyce's Dubliners. 

[4] READ ALL ABOUT IT!  Pretty much at the centre of this episode set in a newspaper office is a great tale of journalism, Ignatius Gallaher's report on the Phoenix park murders through a clever subterfuge.  Myles Crawford is a bit confused (the event took place in 1882, not 1881) but still it is a "news scoop" (a phrase Joyce would've enjoyed).  The New York World in 1882 was run by Jay Gould, and was far from the news-paper it would become after J Pulitzer assumed control a few years later.  (Pulitzer, by the way, was born in Hungary.) The rivalry between Hearst and Pulitzer led to "headline wars"  and if "headline" has connotations beyond the simple typographical sense of a line at the top of the page, it dates from this era of "yellow journalism."  Mr Bloom, earlier in the episode, notes that it is the "ads and side features that sell".  The term "yellow journalism" refers to one of the earliest comic strips, THE YELLOW KID, though "yellow journalism" is also quite fevered.  

[5] THE PEOPLE WE MEET.  Compounded with a variety of styles, ULYSSES also consists of a variety of voices; Bloom is not entirely by himself alone until the conclusion of Episode 13, and then, under extraordinary circumstances.  Stephen's monologue on the beach is filled with recollections of other people speaking, and despite his profound loneliness (at least in part a kind of exile) he spends his day seeking the company of others.  Here in Æolus, Joyce maintains social decorum by the narrator's polite distinctions:  it is Mr Bloom and Professor MacHugh, Myles Crawford, J.J. O'Molloy.  Stephen, son of Simon, is the youngest present.  Lenehan, the leech, is tolerated, but nevertheless operates apart from this crew. J.J. O'Molloy is engaged upon a personal odyssey of downward mobility, wandering Dublin in search of a loan. Æolus has imposed upon it "headlines" evoking the daily press; the content of the episode includes lengthy quotations from a variety of orators, and the spontaneous presentation of a parable; there's everyday talk: the ponies, gossip, a riddle, cigarette etiquette; the interior monologues of Mr Bloom and Stephen.  All this is stitched together by a Narrator who keeps track of speech and movement and offers occasional luminous detail.