may be called the
discipline of a man through experience of the world. The whole embraces
eight Books, fifth to twelfth inclusive, with a little of the
thirteenth. There is no doubt that this is the most subtly constructed
piece of writing in existence, transparent in the highest degree, and
yet profound as thought itself. We may therefore, look a little at the
structure in advance.

The first thing to be noticed is that there are two very distinct
movements in the present division. On the one hand the action moves
through three separate localities--Ogygia or Calypso's Island, Phaeacia,
Fableland. This external movement of the poem has its inner
counterpart, which the reader is to penetrate. On the other hand there
is the movement of the individual, the Hero Ulysses, who begins with
Fableland, passes through Ogygia and comes to Phaeacia. This movement
also has its corresponding internal significance. As the first movement
is that of the poem, or of the world, we may call it objective; as the
second movement is that of the individual man, we may call it
subjective. The two together, accordingly, spin the two strands of the
world and of man into the one thread of existence. Both we shall
consider.

I.

The objective sweep with its three localities is coupled with
geographical names which have given to the erudite guild a great deal
of trouble, with very small reward. In general these names of places
may be deemed to be mythical, yet with certain far-off gleams of actual
lands. Much more distinct and real is their spiritual significance. The
objective movement shadows forth the movement of society, the rise of
civilization, the becoming of the institutional world, which is here
unfolded through three stages in the following order:--

1. Ogygia.
2. Phaeacia.
3. Fableland.

1. Ogygia is the pure product of nature without cultivation or with
very little. It is the place where the natural man must conquer his
appetites, and long for, and finally seek for, a realm of order.
Calypso is the concealer, she who conceals spirit in the jungle of
nature. Here, then, occurs the primordial breach between the physical
and spiritual, out of which an institutional world can rise.

2. Phaeacia now appears, in which we behold the fundamental institutions
of man, Family and State, in their primitive idyllic condition, yet
transcendently pure and beautiful. The evolution of this new order from
the savage Cyclops is hin