“I have not the Chancellor’s encyclopedic mind. He is indeed a kind of semi-Solomon. He half knows everything, from the cedar to the hyssop.”

Letter to Macvey Napier (17 December 1830)

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Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay photo
Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay 101
British historian and Whig politician 1800–1859

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Context: I regard the two major male archetypes in 20th Century literature as Leopold Bloom and Hannibal Lecter. M. D. Bloom, the perpetual victim, the kind and gentle fellow who finishes last, represented an astonishing breakthrough to new levels of realism in the novel, and also symbolized the view of humanity that hardly anybody could deny c. 1900-1950. History, sociology, economics, psychology et al. confirmed Joyce’s view of Everyman as victim. Bloom, exploited and downtrodden by the Brits for being Irish and rejected by many of the Irish for being Jewish, does indeed epiphanize humanity in the first half of the 20th Century. And he remains a nice guy despite everything that happens...
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