In the seventh chapter “Aeolus” of James Joyce’s Ulysess, we find the words “Gone with the wind. Hosts at Mullaghmast and Tara of the kings.”
Ivan Visioli
Obviously, the name “Tara” associated with the words “Gone with the wind” bring to mind the title of Margaret Mitchell’s novel, so much so that the Italian translators, from Giulio de Angelis to Enrico Terrinoni, translated “Gone with the Wind” as “Via col Vento,” using the Italian version of the novel’s title, although, in Joyce, the explicit subject of the phrase, “Hosts,” would authorize a more literal translation.
One can wonder whether it is a casual association, due to a simple coincidence, or whether it is instead possible to hypothesize an actual influence of Ulysess on Mitchell’s book. At first glance, there would not seem to be many elements to support this thesis: despite my research at the Atlanta Library and the precious advice of Mitchell’s scholar John Wiley, it has not been possible so far to find definitive proof that Mitchell ever read Ulysses.
As we know from a letter dated October 30, 1935, written by Mitchell to Harold Latham, “Gone With The Wind” was chosen as title only shortly before the novel went to press to replace the previous “Tomorrow Is Another Day” because the author remembered that a novel with the same title had already been published recently although she was unable to find it in the catalog of books published in 1935. Mitchell was not wrong: in all likelihood it was Tomorrow is another day, by Henrietta Buckmaster, published in 1934.
In the letter to Latham, Mitchell says “the more I think of it, the more I inclined to “Gone With The Wind.” Taken completely away from its context, it has movement, it could either refer to times that are gone like the snows of yesteryear, to the things that passed with the wind of the war or to a person who went with the wind rather than standing against it.
It was only after the publication of the novel that, in two letters to Dorothy Brown (September 5th, 1936) and to Gilbert Govan (October, 15th 1937), the author indicates the poem Cynara by Ernest Dowson as a source of inspiration for the title of the novel (I have forgotten much, Cynara! Gone with the wind/Flung roses, roses riotously with the throng /Dancing, to put thy pale, lost lilies out of mind), but Mitchell herself explicitly states in the letter to Dorothy Brown that: “the title, of course, has no connection with the poem.”
As a matter of fact, none of the three interpretations suggested by Mitchell in the letter to Latham presents any affinity with Cynara (where it is the memories to have “gone with the wind,” not the times, things, or persons).
When Mitchell referred to “the snows of yesteryear,” she most likely knew it was the classic English translation of the “neiges d’antan” of Villon’s Ballade des dames du temps jadis; while it is precisely to “the wind of the war” that Joyce refers in the aforementioned passage from Ulysses as evident from the reference to the Mullaghmast massacre, an episode of the Irish wars, which occurred in 1577.
The question about a possible derivation of the title from Joyce had been asked directly to Mitchell by a reader, Constance B. Lydgate. Unfortunately, however, it was only possible to find the answer from her secretary, Margaret Baugh, which reported what already expressed by the author in the previously cited letters. The reader’s letter, dated December 21, 1940, and the secretary’s reply, dated December 27, 1940, were kindly supplied to me by Mitchell’s scholar, John Wiley.
But, if Joyce had truly been a source of inspiration for Mitchell, why would she have failed to mention him in her letters to Govan and Brown?
First of all, if Mitchell actually read Ulysess, it is possible that she recognized Dowson’s quotation in it; Phillip Tompkins, in an essay published on “James Joyce Quarterly” in 1968, claimed that Joyce had probably in mind Cynara while writing the seventh chapter of Ulysses. It should also be remembered that Ulysses originally appeared in the United States on “The Little Review,” but the publication was interrupted following an accusation of obscenity and it was necessary to wait until 1934 for the first complete American edition by Random House, after a ruling by Judge John M. Woolsey established that the book was not obscene. Mitchell could therefore have been reluctant to explicitly mention a title that could still appear controversial having been, shortly before, the subject of such a trial.
Furthermore, it is reasonable to suppose that the trial must not have failed to make the news and may as well have risen the curiosity of a journalist and avid reader as Mitchell who appreciated the novels of John Cleland and Pierre Louÿs or Branch Cabell’s Jurgen. It is also probable that, after the acquittal sentence, parts of Joyce’s book were reported by the press and that must have occurred precisely in the period in which Mitchell was completing the book and choosing the title.
“Gone with the wind” is not only the title but also appears in the novel, pronounced by Scarlett fleeing from Atlanta in flames and trying to regain her way home: “Is Tara still standing? Or has it gone with the wind that swept through Georgia?” The phrase shows clear analogies with Joyce’s: in both the words “Gone with the wind” are in connection with Tara and in both the wind to which they refer is precisely the wind of the war which Mitchell mentioned in her letter to Latham. Moreover, this is not the only element that seems to link the seventh chapter of Ulysses to Gone with the Wind; in fact, the words of professor MacHugh in Joyce: “We were always loyal to lost causes” echo in Rhett Butler’s when he decides to join the Confederate cause only once it appears definitively lost: “Take a good look at them,” came Rhett’s gibing voice, “so you can tell your grandchildren you saw the rear guard of the Glorious Cause in retreat.” (In the movie, Rhett’s phrase: “it’s because I’ve always had a weakness for lost causes, once they’re really lost” sounds even more similar to the one present in Ulysses). It should be noted that the two passages from Mitchell’s novel for which a Joycean inspiration can be hypothesized appear only a few pages from each other and within the same scene; in fact, it is during the flee from Atlanta that Rhett decides to be loyal to the lost cause leaving Scarlett on the way to Tara.
In any case, if Mitchell had really read that chapter of Ulysses, she must obviously have noticed a term like “lost cause” which, since the publication of the essays of historian Edward Alfred Pollard, indicates par excellence the cause of the Confederacy.
These are obviously only clues which, if, at the moment, do not allow us to say a definitive word on the possible Joycean influence on Mitchell’s novel, nevertheless show how it is at least plausible if not even probable.
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