READINGS OF THE WORK BY PHILIP HARVEY

  A paper written by Philip Harvey for Bloomsday in Melbourne, 16 th of June 2023 and read at the annual seminar upstairs at the Imperial Hotel, corner Bourke and Spring Streets in Melbourne, on Sunday the 18 th of June.   Foreword   Who killed James Joyce? I, said the commentator, I killed James Joyce For my graduation. What weapon was used To slay mighty Ulysses? The weapon that was used Was a Harvard thesis. How did you bury Joyce? In a broadcast Symposium. That's how we buried Joyce To a tuneful encomium. Who carried the coffin out? Six Dublin codgers Led into Langham Place By W.R. Rodgers. Who said the burial prayers? — Please do not hurt me — Joyce was no Protestant, Surely not Bertie? Who killed Finnegan? I, said a Yale-man, I was the man who made The corpse for the wake man. And did you get high marks, The Ph.D.? I got the B.Litt. And my master's degree. Did you get money For your Joycean knowledge? I got a scholarship ...

Here is an email, unchanged, from Max Richards (1937-2016) received in March 2014. His preliminaries include [perhaps only Hugh Underhill, who crops up in the dream needs to read this] which is odd seeing how he sends it to me as well after a conversation about Seamus Heaney. Or is it a memo to himself? I am starting to find that Max’s emailing habits had an element of disclosure of things his correspondents had not necessarily thought would be forwarded on, reported back, &c. Now, all of that is fairly immaterial, though tread carefully. Hugh Underhill was a colleague at La Trobe University, author of ‘The Problem of Consciousness in Modern Poetry’ (Cambridge University Press, 1992). Do we sleep or wake? I think the dream has a paradisal, peaceful feel. as mentioned today in chat with Philip -  best wishes from Max  [my only face to face time with SH was in the signing queue years ago at the melb writers' festival, when I had a pile of his books in my sa...