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Coloured Signs

Submitted by Kurt Lindblom on Mon, 08/24/2009 - 21:43

On page 37 of Ulysses, James Joyce has his character, Stephen Dedalus remark in his stream of consciousness:

"Signatures of all things I am here to read, seaspawn and seawrack, the nearing tide, that rusty boot. Snotgreen, bluesilver, rust: coloured signs."

The phrase "signature of all things" has already been identified as coming from Jakob Böhme of the same name.

And the lists are just Stephen matching random images (the ineluctable modality of the visible) with their colors:

seaspawn and seawrack = snotgreen
the nearing tide = bluesliver
that rusty boot = rust

For the phrase "coloured signs" and the theory of sight/colors that it represents, Giffords (on page 44) claims this is a reference a 1709 treatise by George Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne, called An Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision.

Berkeley's ideas aren't too far removed from those of Aristotle, or at least they are close enough that he thinks of Aristotle's work immediately after thinking of Berkeley's work.

Gifford references (and quotes part of) Section 46. Here is the full section:

46. From what we have shown it is a manifest consequence
that the ideas of space, outness, and things placed at a
distance are not, strictly speaking, the object of sight;
they are not otherwise perceived by the eye than by the
ear. Sitting in my study I hear a coach drive along the
street; I look through the casement and see it; I walk out
and enter into it; thus, common speech would incline one
to think I heard, saw, and touched the same thing, to wit,
the coach. It is nevertheless certain, the ideas intromitted
by each sense are widely different and distinct from each
other; but having been observed constantly to go together,
they are spoken of as one and the same thing. By the
variation of the noise I perceive the different distances of
the coach, and know that it approaches before I look out.
Thus by the ear I perceive distance, just after the same
manner as I do by the eye.

An expanded selection can be found here.

The full text of this piece can be found here on Project Guttenberg.
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